oDDity
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Posts posted by oDDity
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What version of maya are you using?
You'd have to export this maya file to motionbuilder first and then apply the other animations to it there as actors or skeletons.
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I can't get the mayaexport dll working, so I can't extract any of these models into doom. I've tried it on xp and vista, both version 7 and greebo's 8.5 version. I think it might be because I am using 64 bit Windows.
Here's the maya file with the tweaked model and rig and the animation and the fbx file.
There's no point in me working on this any further if I can't extract my models and animations to doom, it's just going to be a big pain in the ass getting someone else to do it all the time.
Anyway, this can be used as a template if you guys ever do want to revise the other model setups.
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It's not really a new rig, it's the same one that's been adjusted, but I'll upload it and the tweaked mesh.
Here's the guard patrol animation as well.
http://www.pixelwerks.be/files/patrol.avi
Next I'll tweak the builder guard in the same way and attach him to this rig and walk for the release map.
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I didn't alter the rigs joints yet, since we hadn't agreed that and it might mean altering the def files and break some things, but it would be easy enough to build a new simpler rig and snap them to the joints of this rig, so there will be no problem transferring animations, also making sure the joint rotations are the same.
This current rig is ok now that I've adjusted it, and it does work well with motionbuilder, with all the correct joint names so you can do an auto IK/FK rig setup in motionbuilder.
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Well this is the way with big mods. They take so long the engine is already pretty much antiquated before it's ever released.
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Well of course this will work with other models, but I'm not going to put all the work in myself to adjust and weight all of the model variations to this rig.
People can use my new models as templates to adjust the other models so they can be used with this rig.
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I just mean as far as regular walks. There were plans for having different walks for different guards etc, but that's not going to happen. We're 4 years into the project and we haven't' even got ONE good walk yet.
The changes to the regular guard are obsolete, yes, but the other models can still be used.
TO be honest I don't like the idea of people fiddling with my models anyway. As far as I'm concerned those ones are entirely your models now, and I won't be touching them.
I'm not sure why you added a quiver to the city watch guard anyway. I'm going to model a separate archer.
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I've been revising the citywatch model. I kept it to adjust the proportions rather than remodeling anything, which would mean redoing textures. I also adjusted the rig which was in a shoddy state, it wasn't even symmetrical and the knees and elbows were misplaced, and it seems that no attempt at all was made to line the bones with with the claw hand, which I've also replaced and reverted to the old hands, because I think it's been established that it's not the poly count that's a factor now that shadow meshes have been introduced.
It's probably not worth while completely redoing the rig. I think this one can work pretty well with these adjustments.
This is the revised model, and I also threw a mo cap on it, and it works well with no tweaking at all.
I'm going to do a general guard patrol animation for it, one based closely on the speed and gait of the T2 guard walk.
The only walk anims really needed are a patrol walk for the guards, and a faster walk for regular NPCS, one male, one female.
http://www.pixelwerks.be/files/guard.avi
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Its a long time since I did it, but I don't remember that restriction.
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You don't need separate meshes for different materials, just separate surfaces. It's also easier just to have a separate base model without pauldrons that can be textured for various characters.
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I mean do the rigging in maya and then export it to motionbuilder, because it's a much easier package to work with as far as applying animations to different models, and there's no problem with exporting back to maya.
I'd say just build a new simple rig. Hips, upper leg, lower leg, foot, spine, spine 1, spine 2, neck, upperarm. forearm, hand bones. The basic joints you need to apply mocap files to. I don't we need a head joint, since the separate heads attach to the neck bone.
It should end up with a rig of about 30 joints instead of the 70 there currently is, and if I try to make the meshes more or less one piece, that avoids extra bones as well and make rigging and skinning quicker and simpler.
I'd do it myself but I'm not sure these days about any dark mod or doom specific things that need to be added to the rig.
Also, all this simplifying of meshes and rigs is going to help with framerates as well.
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Yeah, I just started it today.
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I would support this as well, if it can help make the work flow easier on our animators. If it benefits future animators, that's a bonus. What about all the altered characters that Spring has made based on the current models though, will they all be flushed down the drain if you remodel everything oDD? Spring has done a lot of work making alternate versions of a lot of the models. Obviously, we can't do anything for the TOSL map, but if we do decide to pursue this for our own future sanity...we have to make sure a solid line of communication is setup between animators and whoever is setting up the models. A lot has changed. A good majority of the models have been scaled down a bit in size to better match the scale of the world.
I'm not actually going to remodel everything, just make some changes to proportions and try to connect parts together so they're more like one-piece meshes which is the way game models are generally done. I also hate the low poly claws that were introduced as hands. It's an attempt to make things a lot easier when it comes to rigging and skinning. The same textures will still be used, though I do want to make a couple of extra guards more like the T2 ones. I can knock up these sorts of low poly models in about a day now anyway so its not a problem.
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I can help with it as well, and also remodel the characters in way that's better for animation, since some of the animation problems are stemming from the models themselves as well as the rigging and weighting.
Where are all the files relating to this anyway? All the fbx files and maya files etc.
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You'd just need to setup the base skeleton in motionbuilder and apply any animations to it there. Even if there are animaitons which only exist in maya they can be exported to motionbuilder and applied to the rigs there.
Yes ,the weightmaps would have to be redone, but there are a lot of problems with them anyway, and it's an easier task with a simpler skeleton and refined models, which it may be a good idea to do also. I'm not happy with a lot of these models now anyway so it would also be an opportunity to update them.
I guess this is all stuff that should have been done a long time ago, which ascotk was redoing things instead of sticking with the old system.
The question is do you just continue to stick with it forever or make a decision to clean things up now, because obviously the more stuff you do with this system the more work there will be in changing it.
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Not necessarily. Animations in FBX format can be applied to just about any base skeleton.
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Some of these have been tinkered with by different people so I can't even remember what the origina setup I did was exactly, but I'm pretty sure I had the standard motionbuilder-required rig on all of them, which is why they have extra joints like arm_roll, forearm_roll, and the _end jonts etc. They aren't necessary really, as a basic rig only needs about 17 joints apart from the hands.
If I'd known as much then as I did a few months later, I'd just have set up one fo those basic rigs at the start, since the complex motonbuilder rig isn't necessary and only complicates things.
It would be wise to do that now. Just set up a basic rig and use that for all the characters, because if other people are going to be using these as templates to make their own characters, it's best to make it as simple and clean as possible.
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Also, the pauldrons should not be sticking up like wings.
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@I may mix in Song of Fire and Ice if that appeals to me; I have no idea what it's even about.
Read back through the thread and you'll find out.
Mind you, I always think it's best until these book series are finished before reading them. The 5th book in this series was meant to have been released last year, and now it's looking more like the end of this year, plus another wait for a few years for the 6th and another few years for the 7th.
Annoying, because by that time you're not really into the story any more and have to go back and read it all again, and his books are MASSIVE with lots of characters, the first book alone is longer than LotR trilogy.
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This smoothing issue only occurs in areas with very sharp angles such as the huge bend from the outer sleeve to the inner sleeve.
When you unweld the verts around the rim you are not only disconnecting the outer sleeve polys from the inner ones, but all of the polys attached to those verts are being disconnected from each other.
You want all the inner polys connected and all the outer ones connected, so you basically have two solid tubes of polys, one on the inside and one on the outside, but not connected to each other.
It sounds like a long explanation, but as I said it 's only a matter of cut and paste on the inner ones.
WHat you could do now that you've unwelded all the rim verts is to select all the inner polys and hit 'm' to merge the verts back again and do the same for the outer polys.
Another way is to actually have a transition of polys from the outer to inner sleeve rather than just a sharp bend, so have extra loops of polys creating a rim, but that's really a waste of polys.
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To fix that without reducing smoothing or having it appear faceted, you'd just need to select the polys on the inner side of the sleeve and cut and paste them.
You'd have to be careful when weighting it to the skeleton to make sure the two pairs of verts that now exist at each point around the edge of the sleeve and getting exactly the same weight values.
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The periscope is one of the dozens of ideas that came up waaay back in october '04 when the mod started. There didn't seem to be much interest in it though, but it is as good as a mirror and easier to implement.
Periscopes are largely used in battle situations when there a risk of being shot at, and are a bit cumbersome for a thief, but can just be coded as a regular camera, so technically, the periscope makes most sense.
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Game development isn't a 9 to 5 job. It's typically a lot more than that, and I'm told (and I believe) that it's rather all-consuming. There's not a lot of time and energy left for pet projects.
I mean get another job that has nothing to do with game development. Anyone who actually cares for games cannot care about the current industry, so leave it to the wolves and the sharks, get out, do something else with better hours and better pay, and make games for pleasure.
The Dark Mod got extremely lucky with its members. I think most of us could get a game development job without too much trouble if we wanted one. Some of us already have, and some of us doubtless will, in future.It's been said before, and is worth repeating, that we're one of the most professional groups of gamedev amateurs around. The major difference between our collective output and that of a paid professional team is that they'd get it done faster, both because they'd work full time and because they'd have more practical experience. Once TDM is finished and polished, I genuinely believe that the quality will be reasonably comparable to that of a commercial game. I don't mean the 1.0 beta release planned for late this year; it won't be "completely done" by that stage. I'm talking in at least 2-3 years time, making a development time of around 6-7 years. Point is, this is longer than it would have taken a paid professional team to do, but the result will be in the ballpark of what they would have achieved.
I think having some experienced AI programmers for example would have been very useful here. Imagine someone like Tim Stellmach, who I believe coded the original AI in Thief, giving a hand here, even if only in an advisory capacity.
We're only taking longer because we have less people working on it than a professional studio making a comparable title, and we had to work a lot of concepts out, technicalities of the engine etc, which may well have been transparent to professional developers.
Point is, if there were more people with the attitude of this team, that is of making a game we wanted to make, and not being interested in money or popularity, we could have had a larger team with more experience, and got the job done a lot faster.
That's my point, there aren't enough people like this team around, happy and willing to devote time for nothing.
I don't believe this is true at all. It takes a lot of effort and dedication to make a game that's halfway decent by anyone's standard. Games that aren't halfway decent by any standards don't sell, and games that don't sell = developers that go under.Halfway decent yes, competent yes, but generic cookie-cutter genre titles and sequels - they are easy to make because experienced people have made them again and again, so they can just go through the motions with the least amount of effort. It's just a production line doling out the same product. Once you do the initial work of setting up the machinery, you can just continue pumping out the same product forever with a minimum of effort.
Making something new is what requires hard work, hard thought, and dedication.
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A few do. Most (though not all) successful indies have a background in commercial game development. Moonpod, for example, was founded by ex-industry people.
The majority don't do this because going indie is a big, risky step. If you're single and beholden to nobody then you can afford to live in someone's basement and eat only bread and cheese for 5 years until your games start earning enough cash to make a living; but if you have a wife and kids, you need a decent, constant income to survive. Independent game development does not give you a decent constant income (certainly not at first).
There are a decent amount of salary-paying studios created with the idea that they're going to make games primarily for the love of it. It usually doesn't take long before they succumb to the brutal economic realities of the business; whether that means going under, getting bought by a bigger and more profit-orientated company, or "selling out" and making games for the lowest common denominator because that's the only thing that sells.
You can do another 9 to 5 job as a living and make the game you want in your free time.
It is possible you know, we've done just that here.
It doesn't have to be a commercial venture.
We were just a bunch of noobs who'd never made a game before. Imagine what a group of ex-professional developers could do if they could be bothered and weren't just a bunch of greedy lazy bastards.
No, this romantic idea that it's all the fault of big bad greedy publishers who are forcing poor little game developers to make generic games, is nonsense. The truth is that almost everyone in game development is a lazy cunt who doesn't want to lift a finger unless they're getting paid for it, and even then they want to do the minimal amount of effort possible to make the product.
Model and rig revision
in Art Assets
Posted
Well I still kept the existing 3 fingered hand bone rig. It would probably be best to make it a real 5 fingered one, but I don't want to change too much in case it breaks all the other models.
IN any case all the other model variations will have to be reskinned to this skelington (love that word), so if changes are going to be made, now is the time to make them.
I finally got the maya export dll working for version 7 of maya, so I an do a bit more on this.