3DS Max Friendly version of the Open Motion Capture Library!

[nbohr1more]

Not to nit-pick but the heat-haze on those torches seems to exaggerate the problem of "the fact that the flame

does not always remain perpendicular to the floor or (better) react to forward momentum by trailing back towards the

runner".

 

If the heathaze and smoke were reduced while the guards are running that would probably look fine though it

would be ideal to have the flame move more realistically. It would be cool if the search animations included more

extravagant flame reactions when guards swing the torches around violently searching in anger.

[Arcturus]

I fixed the smoke couple of minutes ago. It will always go upwards now.

[nbohr1more]

This is gonna rock...

 

 

Thanks!

[ungoliant]

has that concept already been applied to candle flame particle when they are knocked over? actually... why not the flame particle on the torch as well?

[ungoliant]

kinect mocap in blender: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC-fdgPJhQ8&feature=related

[Arcturus]

why not the flame particle on the torch as well?

Flame particle will also go upward.

Yes, Kinect looks interesting, but the effect is not perfect and you need to buy the device.

I'm seriously thinking about using Blender's object tracking. It would require making a costume with markers like in this video, but for the whole body:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUqU3k_skMk

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AvQiOf2IGA

[Sotha]

Yes, the possibility of building a cheap home motion capture studio might certainly hold a great benefit for tdm...

[i30817]

I'm worried about "transitions" for this technology

 

It's great to be able to do custom animations for whatever we want, but how is it going to correct for errors at the end and beginning when returning or departing from a neutral state or another animation?

[Arcturus]

Game engine blends animations when positions of bones (joints) are different on last frame of one animation and first of second animation. It looks good when for example run blends into idle. But sometimes it will look bad. Here you can see that even though there's a smooth transition it looks bad:

 

 

So it's important that idle animations begin and end with the same pose. So in case of motion capture there is usually lot of manual correcting of the animations.

[i30817]

It really opens up possibilities for FMs. Say a "military triumphal march" fm, or cleaners actually cleaning stuff.

[Arcturus]

One camera mocap is limited, especially at home, but basic idle animations should be doable.

[RPGista]

Do you foresee some kind of repository where people will post this stuff, their captures? Assuming some of it could be useful, of course.

 

Edited May 8, 2012 by RPGista

[Arcturus]

I don't know. I would like to replace our idle animations with mocap versions. CMU hasn't got all animations we need and those they have don't make a consistent set. Besides, custom motion capture is a fascinating subject. But I still don't know if I will be able to do it. Right now I'm making walk animation from one of the CMU animations.

[Springheel]

The potential of motion capture is definitely exciting. I'm personally rooting for new animations that will allow mappers to do things they can't currently do (like have AI sweeping, servants carrying things, AI sitting on the floor, etc) rather than taking existing, "B+" animations and replacing them with "A" ones.

 

Maybe this could also be used to help replace the 50+ zombie/werebeast animations we need for an untethered TDM.

[ungoliant]

any chance this would be helpful in cleaning up the CMU mocaps?

Motion Builder - MoCap Cleanup and Re-targeting

 

http://www.eat3d.com...e/mocap_cleanup

 

there's a good section in there about making mocaps anims loop, too. no idea if the formats would be compatible with motion builder.

Edited May 9, 2012 by ungoliant

[Arcturus]

Blender has retargeting tool too (see this post). Our rigs were made in Maya. I recall that someone in the past has worked in Motion Builder too (?). Blender can't open maya files so I had to import MD5 files (our destination format). Unfortunately, MD5 skeleton doesn't look at all like the original in Maya (see this post). So I can't use the retargeting tool. I had to make a workaround. Retargeting would probably give a cleaner result. I decided not to steal any programs and I don't plan to buy them. Someone esle should learn more about it. There's a tool for Maya too:

http://vimeo.com/10145191

I'm personally rooting for new animations that will allow mappers to do things they can't currently do (like have AI sweeping, servants carrying things, AI sitting on the floor, etc) rather than taking existing, "B+" animations and replacing them with "A" ones.

B+ is rather generous note. If we are going to use CMU idle animations we will have to spend some time trying to match them to our existing animations (position of legs). Since I don't like most of TDM idle animations and would like to replace them It will be easier to remake them all at one go. If I use CMU's sitting on the floor I will have to spend some time to match position of legs to existing animations. If later I would like to make my own mocap I would have to stand exactly like in the existing anims or adjust the sitting anim again. I'm pretty fixated on the idea of making custom motion capture and that's what I plan to do in the next months. Of course I can fail, but it should be fun.

[i30817]

If you succeed and only need a camera or two, doing a tutorial would be cool too.

[Sotha]

I'm pretty fixated on the idea of making custom motion capture and that's what I plan to do in the next months. Of course I can fail, but it should be fun.

 

Best of luck! I really hope you will succeed as this holds great promise. AI jumping startled when they hear a noise, Urinating guards, servants swiping floors, cleaning tables, better and more varied conversation animations... Since most of the game is sitting in the shadows watching and waiting for the AIs, it would really be great if the AIs had a lot of things to do.

[Springheel]

Since I don't like most of TDM idle animations and would like to replace them It will be easier to remake them all at one go

 

You realize we have somewhere around twenty or thirty different idle animations? That doesn't even count searches, sitting, combat, etc. Even if you replace two or three a month, that's a year before you're done just the idle ones.

 

But it's up to you how you spend your time, obviously. And if you succeed, that will be great.

 

Though in the meantime, there's certainly not much incentive for anyone else to make new animations, since the implication is that their work will just be replaced anyway.

[ungoliant]

Though in the meantime, there's certainly not much incentive for anyone else to make new animations, since the implication is that their work will just be replaced anyway.

 

Hey now, no need for that. If arcturus wants to play with mocap, and the end result is better or quality of a variable number of animations, or new and useful animations, thats his business, and is worthy of praise and support. Deriding people for working on tasks you deem 'unnecessary' is bad form.

 

So far, in my modelling posts in WIP, some random noob showed up and said something like "why are you guys working on something so unimportant", and was immediately shot down by a couple regulars. I can spend my time how i wish, and the same goes for any other contributor, and member response should always be positive unless critiquing the actual work, which is really the only time that criticism is warranted. imo this also applies to mappers choosing to spend their time working on map revisions.

Edited May 10, 2012 by ungoliant

[nbohr1more]

Well...

 

Considering that Springheel made most of those idle animations, I'd say his response was pretty

reasonable and even-tempered at what kinda amounts to a slight of his work...

 

Though, replacement is to be expected and I wouldn't consider it a detriment to submitting work. Even

place-holders are better than nothing... often MUCH BETTER. In fact, with high-quality place-holder animations

new mod features can be presented without putting-off players. So it all has it's worth but we should always look

forward to improvement if it is offered.

 

I too am puzzled a little by the "quest to replace" when there is so much room for "adding new stuff"...

Edited May 10, 2012 by nbohr1more

[Springheel]

Hey now, no need for that. If arcturus wants to play with mocap, and the end result is better or quality of a variable number of animations, or new and useful animations, thats his business, and is worthy of praise and support

 

I'm all in favour of new animations, as I've said a few times already. And obviously I can't tell anyone how to spend their free time (and I've said that as well). And if a year from now we suddenly can replace all our animations with ones that work as well and look better, fantastic!

 

But as a developer, it's part of my job to think of the mod as a whole. That means taking the rest of the team into consideration and thinking about what would be helpful for them, even if it's not particularly fun for me. It also means encouraging people to spend more time on places where new assets would really benefit us and less on places where they wouldn't. People are certainly free to ignore that encouragement, but I'll continue to offer it anyway.

 

I too am puzzled a little by the "quest to replace" when there is so much room for "adding new stuff"...

 

That's pretty much all I was trying to say.

[Arcturus]

I don't agree with the "the more the merrier" philosophy. I shouldn't have mentioned my plans when I still don't know if they are feasible. In the meantime, we have two walk animations. walk and walk1. The latter is an improved version of the former, so I would like to replace the first one:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl1DyitDJQQ

 

 

My version:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_De_UTdO34

 

There are issues with "idle" animations blending in.

[SiyahParsomen]

Current anim seems better to me. It has smooth flow and natural posture. New animation is a little bit robotic (for now).

[Tels]

While I won't mind if weget better animations, I think it would be much cooler if we could get animations/meshes etc to replace the D3 assets. I'd rather be able to play TDM fully, then to have a slightly better looking idle animation.

 

Of course, you are free to do what you want