Question

I have a model that is rigged and skinned and I would like to be able to move the bones programmatically (as opposed to a preset animation stored int he fbx file)

I can load the model fine, and see that the bones have been loaded, but changing the bone transforms doesnt seem to affect the rendered model.

I am looking at the sample project here:

http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/skinned_model

It looks like it uses an extended ModelProcessor (aka SkinnedModelProcessor) to over the DefaultEffect and return a MaterialProcessorDefaultEffect.SkinnedEffect. I am guessing that somewhere along the lines this makes the renderer transform the mesh vertices using the model bones (with a vertex shader???)

I am having problems getting this SkinnedModelProcessor working in my own project. The sample uses the Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.Pipeline assembly. In my project I dont see the item in the regular list of .net references. So I added it manually from the filesystem.

The problem there is that as soon as I compile, visual studio says that it cant find that namespace, even though right up until I compile it shows everything working fine

How can I recreate the SkinnedModelProcessor from the sample in my own project

or

How can I get changes to bones reflect in my rendered model?

Answer 1

It appears the reason getting the reference to the pipeline assembly was such a problem is that you have to segregate that code into a separate special project using the XNA Content Pipeline Extension Library project template