Horse animation : bridging a 3D modeler (Maya) and OpenGL

As a project in KTH, the goal was to find a realistic way to animate a horse in an OpenGL environment.

There are several reasons to use a 3D modeler instead of the OpenGL primitives (cubes, cylinders, etc.).

* The 3D modeler is made for designing complex objects in 3D, with creative and powerful tools ;
* There are plenty of public 3D objects available on the Internet, made by skillful artists ;
* The OpenGL primitives don't give a convincing visual aspect, because of there limited possibilities.

However, it is interesting to be able to use the objects designed in the 3D modeler outside of it, typically in a programming environment (here C++ with OpenGL). This enables some user inputs and experience, instead of a static animation (for instance, selection of the point of view).

Here the horse is structured as a skeleton, where each bone is drawn by itself, drawing a RTG object at its position. The RTG objects are exported directly from Maya. The menus are made with the GLUT routines. The whole program was made in an Unix environment.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• horse
• animation
• 3d
• modeler
• maya
• opengl
• c++
• unix
• rtg
• gallop

[ArnaudRamey]

@AmericaGirl91 Homebrew OpenGL coding :) The modelling of each limb of the horse was made with Maya.

[AmericaGirl91]

where did you get that!