Need help! :( - Bone system that isn't a character.

[CreateNPlay]

Basically i need this mesh to "Breathe" like so,



Now, i can animate it, but i have not got a clue how to setup the bones, i have tried for abotu 2 hours, but all i ended up with was 4 seperate bones skinned to the mesh, which just ****ed it up in the UDK.

I think i need a cross shaped system with a root in the middle, i have looked around extensively but it's all about the biped generally...

You'd really be helping a commercial release game here fellas

Thanks in advance!

[Dodge]

Hey bud, If you have a root bone in the centre, and then a another bone for each arrow(object), connect all arrow bones to the root bone in the centre, then just animate the arrows.

Another way is to use dummys and label them with the prefix b_

hope this helps!

[CreateNPlay]

Sorry for being thick but, how do i make a "root bone" and a bone for each arrow?

When i drag a bone out it always makes 2 parts.. and when i hierarchied something earlier, when it came to animating, i couldnt move bones on their own in and out...

[CreateNPlay]

Ok i fixed the bones and they work in UDK now.. but the aniamtion didnt import with it..

I created it by moving the bones etc in max and made keyframes etc. Exported with animations like on the UDN and when importing that sequence it just sits there doing nothing on the aniamtion... (yes i hit play)

[Dodge]

Its a bit of a pain to set up at first.

Was everything skinned and weighted? Ill have a play later and post my findings on how to sort it.

[woodesh]

assuming you are using 3dsmax then the best way to animate a non-organic is with anything but bones. as Dodge has mentioned using dummy's works better because the hierarchy and movement of the joints don't have to be correctly weighted.
once you've imported the skeletal mesh into udk and created a animset with the animation inside then the animation when play is pressed should work. if it doesn't then this may be due to the settings of the animset, if you go the properties section in the bottom left hand corner of the Animset Editor and click the "animset" tab there should be a toggle option called "animate rotation only" unclicking this should cause the animation you imported to animate movement correctly. this usually comes with a warning about Raw data which can be fixed by reimporting the animation.

Hopefully this is your problem as i was also clueless in the past as to why it wasn't functioning correctly.

[CreateNPlay]

Thank you, you're a lifesaver. DAMN CHECKBOXES.

[IamDouglas]

Is this used as a pawn or is it a type of selection bracket? If its a selection bracket I would think using cascade would yield better results and performance, as opposed to bones and animsets.

[CreateNPlay]

It was the marker that comes up when you touch to move.

The way our game is coded means we had to use a SMesh, so the animations never worked anyway....