Mastering C++ Game Animation Programming: Enhance your skills with advanced game animation techniques in C++, OpenGL, and Vulkan

Michael Dunsky

$49.99

Paperback Mar 2025 544 pages 1st Edition

Michael Dunsky

$49.99

Paperback Mar 2025 544 pages 1st Edition

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Mastering C++ Game Animation Programming

Working with Open Asset Import Library

Welcome to Mastering C++ Game Animations! Are you the kind of person who looks at the animated models in a computer or console game, or a 3D animation tool, and asks yourself questions like:

How does this work? How do they do this? Could I do this myself, too?

If so, this book will take you in the right direction to achieving this. In the next 14 chapters, you will learn how to create your own little game character model viewer.

The book starts with loading a file using Open Asset Import Library, converting the data structures from the importer library into more efficient data structures for rendering, and rendering the character model with a simple OpenGL or Vulkan renderer. You will also learn how to optimize data updates and rendering by relocating computational load to the GPU in the form of GPU-based lookup tables and compute shaders.

For the character animations, you will not only dive into normal animation blending...

Loading a model file

To load a model file with Open Asset Import Library, we must include the following three headers in the implementation file of the AssimpModel model loading class in the model folder:

#include <assimp/scene.h>
#include <assimp/Importer.hpp>
#include <assimp/postprocess.h>

Next, we create an Assimp::Importer instance in the loadModel() method, and use the importer to load a file from disk:

  Assimp::Importer importer;
  const aiScene *scene = importer.ReadFile(modelFilename,
   aiProcess_Triangulate | aiProcess_GenNormals);

We hand over the file name of the asset file we want to load, plus the two values aiProcess_Triangulate and aiProcess_GenNormals as optional postprocessing flags.

The first flag, aiProcess_Triangulate, instructs Assimp to triangulate all polygons with more than three vertices, if those polygons exist in the file. Since our basic renderer only understands triangles, a polygon with more than three vertices...

Extending the UI with an Open File dialog

ImGui can be used to create simple UIs like in our animation application, but the code can be also extended to build different kinds of tools. For our application, a dialog to choose a file on the system is helpful to load models at runtime, freeing us of hardcoding the model names in the code or using models as command-line parameters when starting the application.

Various ImGui-based file dialogs exist; a nice and easy-to-integrate file dialog can be found in the GitHub repository of Stephane Cuillerdier at https://github.com/aiekick/ImGuiFileDialog.

For a simple integration of the file dialog, we will use CMake’s FetchContent to download and build the code.

Integrating the file dialog into CMakeLists.txt

First, we add a new FetchContent block into the CMakeLists.txt file, right below the end of the ImGui fetching:

FetchContent_Declare(
  filedialog
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/aiekick/ImGuiFileDialog
 ...

Adding and removing model instances dynamically

Supporting multiple instances from multiple models was done by creating the class AssimpInstance in the model folder. Every AssimpInstance contains a smart pointer to access its base model, including the nodes and bones. Adding multiple instances of the same model requires one of two options to handle nodes and bones: using a copy of the node data structures in every instance or sharing the model’s nodes across all instances.

To avoid the duplication of all nodes in every instance, we will reuse the nodes of the model during the calculation of each final node position for the frame.

Reusing the bones for the sake of simplicity

To calculate the nodes during animation in the updateAnimation() method, we iterate the channels of the clip and use the model’s corresponding node:

  for (const auto& channel : animChannels) {
    std::string nodeNameToAnimate =
      channel->getTargetNodeName();
    std:...

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Key benefits

Learn how to build a game engine–like skeleton application using a modern graphics API
Explore compute shaders, visual selection, UI creation, visual programming, configuration file handling, collision detection, behavior controls, and more
Create your own virtual world with naturally acting inhabitants
Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Description

With two decades of programming experience across multiple languages and platforms, expert game developer and console porting programmer Michael Dunsky guides you through the intricacies of character animation programming. This book tackles the common challenges developers face in creating sophisticated, efficient, and visually appealing character animations. You’ll learn how to leverage the Open Asset Import Library for easy 3D model loading and optimize your 3D engine by offloading computations from the CPU to the GPU. The book covers visual selection, extended camera handling, and separating your application into edit and simulation modes. You’ll also master configuration storage to progressively build your virtual world piece by piece. As you develop your engine-like application, you’ll implement collision detection, inverse kinematics, and expert techniques to bring your characters to life with realistic visuals and fluid movement. For more advanced animation and character behavior controls, you’ll design truly immersive and responsive NPCs, load real game maps, and use navigation algorithms, enabling the instances to roam freely in complex environments. By the end of this book, you’ll be skilled at designing interactive virtual worlds inhabited by lifelike NPCs that exhibit natural, context-aware behaviors.

Who is this book for?

This book is for experienced C++ developers, game programmers, and character animators who already have basic knowledge of character animation but are curious to learn more. The book assumes advanced C++ knowledge and is ideal for those eager to delve into advanced animation techniques and create interactive virtual worlds.

What you will learn

Master the basics of the Open Asset Import Library
Animate thousands of game characters
Extend ImGui with more advanced control types
Implement simple configuration file handling
Explore collision detection between 3D models and world objects
Combine inverse kinematics and collision detection
Work with state machines, behavior trees, and interactive NPC behaviors
Implement navigation for NPC movement in unknown terrains

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Mastering C++ Game Animation Programming: Enhance your skills with advanced game animation techniques in C++, OpenGL, and Vulkan

What do you get with Print?

Mastering C++ Game Animation Programming

Working with Open Asset Import Library

Technical requirements

Getting the source code and the basic tools

Animating game characters – a primer

About nodes, bones, skeletal animation, and skinning

What is Open Asset Import Library?

Loading a model file

Extending the UI with an Open File dialog

Integrating the file dialog into CMakeLists.txt

Adding and removing model instances dynamically

Reusing the bones for the sake of simplicity

Summary

Practical sessions

Additional resources

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Mastering C++ Game Animation Programming: Enhance your skills with advanced game animation techniques in C++, OpenGL, and Vulkan

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