ascottk

My motherboard fried in December so I ended getting a new power supply, motherboard, CPU (Pentium D 3 gHz), PCIe video card (nvidia 8600 gt), and 2 gigs ram. It was a little over $500.

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=6840 The thief fov was off 270 degrees according to Spring so I switched skeletons on the thief so he'd use the city's rig (because the original mesh was facing the z-axis when it should be facing the x-axis). I added player specific animations like crouching (in third person he no longer gets stuck in crouching position because he now has crouch up/down anims) & creeping. The fov now looks fixed. Other issues I fixed were timing the footsteps so no player can tap the movement keys & stay silent. The footsteps are within 2-4 frames within the start of the animation, so if a player taps up/down/left/right, there will be footstep sounds instead of silence. His lower leather tunic thingies still clip into the legs so that's one issue with the mesh. Let me know what you think. As usual I might've forgot to commit something. EDIT: There are leaning animations but there's no support script-wise. Oh yeah, thanks to squill for the new citywatch animation rig. I used them for the player anims model_src on svn has the new source maya animations . . .

There's the animation rig, which is this one that has full body ik that makes it easier for animators, and there's the mesh (no full body ik) with textures applied & with the correct skin weighting that's for exporting to md5mesh.

Thanks Spring! The thief's fov looks like it should now. Now more tweaking! Just a note of the spider's sounds . . . they suck! It sounds like some dude breathing into a mic. "Bahhhh!" Another sound design opportunity using my new speakers and a new mic.

There are dummy bones but they need to be attached to the mesh. Quite a few ai already have some of them. Here's a list of the dummy bones: LeftHips_Dummy RightHips_Dummy Spine_Dummy LeftShoulder_Dummy LeftArm_Dummy Head_End RightShoulder_Dummy RightArm_Dummy leftpad/rightpad (can be used if the ai do not have pauldrons) The weighting on these don't need to be much but they have to be included in the rig so the exporter won't ignore them when exporting. It's a fairly easy thing to do, but time consuming because use have to add these joints to the def file when exporting.

Okay guys 'n' gals. I rerigged the thief & I'm applying the citywatch animations to him, as well as adding player specific anims, because of the 270 degree visual cone (and the model is facing the z-axis when he should be facing the x-axis) as seen here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=6840 The rig is still being tweaked because his legs are clipping through the lower tunic (or that fancy skirt thingy he's wearing). What's the cvar to see an ai's visual cone?

This rig is for the animators so it doesn't apply to the visual mesh. But your observations are duly noted

Here's the one we've been using. I put it on ftp: http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/fbx200611...a70_win_enu.exe

Hehe, I love ravens! It's looking great so far!

I rarely touch the hips since they move the whole mesh. I don't think they can rotate independently.

The model is facing the z-axis when it should be facing the x-axis. Apparently D3 properly applies the -rotate def file import option but it ignores the eye cone direction. Thus we'll need to reorient the model & its animations (there are other models that face the z-axis, we need to fix those too). Might as well start using the city's animations then add leaning & other player anims while we're at it.

This has mentioned a few times & I wondered how D3 handled animations transitions & I found out it's easy. The citywatch in TD is one example I found. When he stops/starts the transition is way too fast. ai_darkmod_base.script seems to handle all of the animations & their transition times & it looks like none of the values have been tweaked (most of the transitions are about 4 frames which may be too fast) so this is something to consider. The transition from patrolling to stationary searching, like in TD, is way too fast. Another thing I'm wondering if it's possible to add transitional animations (or having sequential animations) in the scripts?

The left foot has a tendency to turn to inside & the handles for the feet/legs were hard to find (that might be my setup) but otherwise I like it! I'm comfortable with animating with Maya too. The motion builder files were there for people who are more comfortable animating with . . . well . . . motion builder . . . Oh yeah, the pauldrons always gave me problems so that's normal.

The Pope needs a plugin:http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index...&id=6839916 & these settings work for that maya plugin: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...st&p=143138

I've been looking through your animations & I like! There's an issue, not your fault, when importing the fbx to maya. The left hand digits randomly distort but it's easily fixable in maya. I get these results too with fbik in maya & I think it's due to the translation curves maya imposes on animations. They'll randomly do 180 degree rotations.

The shoulders are strange. They sink down when you pull the hands down. The chainmail clips through the lower tunic. I often put the rig through several and unnatural poses to find rigging issues. You can always go back to the original t-pose by going to (F2 for animation menus) Skin>Go to Bind Pose. Anyway, it doesn't matter how the mesh fits the skeleton just as long as it's easier to work with as an animator. The mesh itself (just as long as there is a mesh) doesn't matter as far as animations go. Just whatever works best for you.

That's why! I thought it was just me. Those fbx files actually belong to the elite citywatch & they are z-axis oriented when they should be facing the x-axis. The constant reminders that the regular citywatch are the base are constantly ignored/overlooked by someone . . . and quite frankly that tests my patience which is part of the reason why I haven't worked on AI in a long time.

Those settings work, but not with the fbx files you have on svn. I found my old fbx files & they work fairly well. I'm looking into why your files are not importing correctly.

I don't know how many times this has been mentioned but we're using the regular citywatch for the animation base, not the elite. Another issue is that your animations face the z axis when they need to face the x axis. Thus your animations are rotated to the right 90 degrees.

7. I'm still using the same plugin and maya version except I forgot what settings I used in the plugin. The problem is the mesh separates from the skeleton. Remember I was the one helping out other people when they were having problems with the conversions. There are four things that are complicating my setup now: a new computer thus I had to reinstall software, I don't remember the settings I used, it's been a long while since I did this, and school is taking time from the mod work.

I don't know why this is often overlooked:http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php/...aracter_rigging Exported to their def file? You need def files in order to export maya binaries to d3. FBX is motion builder & d3 does not use that format. We import fbx files to maya for converting to md5. Baddcog successfully exported md5 files from max and max is where I started.

Since my upgrade I haven't been able to import fbx files to maya successfully & I was hoping I'd find how I did it in the animation forum. Also look here for the latest fbx importer/exporter for maya:http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index...&id=6839916 And Dom made a short tutorial for a general importing to maya: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php/...ation_to_an_.mb. I remember putting those values down in the forum somewhere but I can't find the info ATM. It's something to rig the sword joint to. It can't be on a visible mesh because if you animate the sword joint it'll deform the visible mesh. I did the same thing for the head.

Well, it is 2008 . . . and the Ti 4200 (had one for a long while) was a great card in its time, but it's time for a 6800 or above.

There's some clipping, the upper arm sleeve goes through the sleeve of the chainmail on the right shoulder, but it should work well for animation. The fingers seem to work well.

I was thinking about inertia in relation to AI animations. Currently there doesn't seem to be a transition from walking to a dead stop. I think part of the criticism about animations is the lack of transitions between animations. It looks unnatural when the city guard stops then starts walking again. The turning is something to look into too. Right now they just spin. I know D3 has support transitional animations but implementing them is a different manner. That's something I can look into when I have time.