We've been asking in beginners corner but can't seem to get sraight answers.

Our team will be doing a free RPG style game not unlike Morrowind wth hopes to make the game moddable in a simular style. We were unsure if A6 allowed meashes to be attached to models for the armor/clothes and most answers said yes- but people seem to run way in droves when you ask for any detail. "sure you can" may be an answer but it isn't a very helpful one.

Our second problem we cannot get answers on at all. We want to use high poly models, as this one :
http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/234884

My animators want bones animation but tell me the one bone per vertex limitation would create jagged effects on joints. Vertex animation seems unpracticle for such high poly models (or I am told. I am not a modeler nor animator)

Someone suggested CAL3d but a search on the forum failed to show any reference to it. Is it possible to use that with A6?

I'm familiar with a6 enough to know it's perfect with the teams technical skills. this team is mainly a group of Morrowind/Oblivion modders, not coders. A couple have animation experience. However everyone is leaning to an engine switch because I cannot get answers on this or a possible solution. Currently
the irrlicht engine is getting heavy concideration but using such a engines gives me concerns of us burying ourselves over our heads without competent coders.

You can see the debate going on in our project forums here on animation :
http://www.agmforums.com/forum/index.php?topic=2214.0

you can see the the engine thread here:
http://www.agmforums.com/forum/index.php?topic=2241.0

Since I am familiar with A6 naturally it's my favorite over ease of use. I know team members can pick it up. Other engines give me concerns because of technical skill requirements.

I don't need detailed step by step but a clear straight answer would help. I own commercial 6.40.5 but we've halted purchases because of this issue. Any help from someone more knowledgable would be appreciated.

one of our animator is skilled in MAX as well, and the Better bodies resources are available:
http://bb.psychodogstudios.net/downloads.php
as the creator is also on this project so these may be an option at about 3000 poly (though everyone leans heavily toward the high poly ones)

Can someone help solve the debate?

1. This can easy be done per script

2. Even Hl² don´t uses as half as much polys as this model has, the game will very slow (I think / 5000 Polys have the best perfomance if I remember correct)

3. The bone animation in A6 works well and you can make very good anims, but I´m a programmer, no artist

4. Never heard of CAL3d and I think there´s no native support, but you could write an exporter

5. The A6 is a good and solid engine. With some tweaks you can have very good graphics, you can use the easy c-script languale or C++ and you have a complete developing suite - what more? It depends on your skills

All in all: if you are good in c++ - use your skills (take a look at this: http://www.rakkarsoft.com/raknet/forum/index.php?topic=765.0) or use Irrlicht) if not (or you just haven´t time to build your own tools) use the A6 - it´s a great engine

here's a link to CAL3d http://home.gna.org/cal3d/

We are a poor team so why it's attractive, plus the built in animation blending is very nice.

As far as C++ we are trying to stay away from that as much as possible though we have one person skilled enough to write a .dll if need be but his time is limited.

This is a justified question. As you can see in the forecast page, multiple bones per vertex are planned, however it's not good to rely such a decision on future features.

I don't think that one bone per vertex gives such a bad result in a realtime game as your artist suggests. You could maybe do a test with one model.

The only other alternative at the moment is vertex animation. It is even faster than bones animation, but the drawback is memory requirement. You can calculate whether vertex animation is practical for your model: If you use a 10000 vertex model, every frame consumes 120 KB virtual memory. For 100 frames, this is 12 MB. If you don't use too many different models of this size, it is still practical. The virtual memory requirement of a huge level is in the 150..200 MB range.

I don't now much about Cal3D, but as far as I understand this would force the user to only use this proprietary format for importing. This does not seem like a good solution. The import format what we intend to implement next is FBX rather than Cal3D.

Thanks jcl. I've seen demos of high poly models and they've looked quite nice to me but wasn't sure if they were bones or Vertex animation. I've been suggsting a test for some time. Seems it would be wise also to stick with model formats the end user can easily use tools for, seeing Md4, MD5 and Md7 are already very widely popular and there's a ton of users already doing this in quake, doom and so forth. Having limited resources in programming it is likely the moddability will go this route.

Our other choice is the Torbo squid models (1700 poly) or the Better Bodies resources which come in around 3000 poly. Though those are now somewhat dated they can be improved as these screenshots show:

(warning nude model)
http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/4064/back11541551481629325344le0.jpg
http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/3772/front11541551301767035186rx8.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2504/hand11541551671420917446mj3.jpg

the high poly choices might work with LOD, model levels or a good culling system but again how many per scene would have to be tested. The BB are more practicle to work with and these examples would come in at around 5000 or 6000 in poly count.
or course they lost everything as far as rigging in the process lol.

as a side note this project is still open for members who might be interested in joining the team-

Thanks again.