A new Skinned Model Extensions Tutorial has been added to the XNA Creators Club that shows you how to extend the original Skinned Model example. The new tutorial takes the C# source code to process and render a skinned 3d model and builds on those fundamentals. The new sample addresses the challenges of animating independent parts of your 3D character model, placing objects in your model's hand, and collision detection.

Imagine you want to have your character walking on the screen, but at the same time you want to have the character wave their hand whenever a player clicks a button. By using the technique in this tutorial, you could isolate the bones of the 3D character's arm and just animate that part separate from your walking sequence. Now you wouldn't have to setup a completely separate walking and hand waving animation and save yourself a lot of 3D animating effort.

The second challenge addressed is placing objects in the hand of your model. The sample source code shows you how to place the object relative to an animated bone. In this case your character is playing through the walking animation sequence, but you want to make sure it appears the hand is holding an object while it swings.

Lastly, this example shows how to attach bounding spheres to the animated character. This can be used for collision detection.

The Skinned Model Extensions Tutorial opens up the possibilities for those wondering about programming 3D model animation. It provides the basis for you to experiment with mixing together animations on your 3D model.

Martin