idle to walk transition tweak

[Noisycricket]

I just read you can tell the engine to start an animation at any frame using the -cycleStart option in the exportmodels command. Actually you can just use T-svn's diff function to add in "-cycleStart [frame to start animation]" after the dest directory line (or maybe before for all I know). (Maybe not) I've tested it with the walk cycle and it helps because the idle pose has the right foot ahead of the left foot, yet the walk cycle starts with the right foot back and the left foot fully ahead with the boot heal just starting to make contact with the floor. So there is a big jump. So setting it to start at frame 12 starts the walk cycle at the point where the right foot is just ahead of the where it is on the idle pose with the left foot being very close to its position it had in the idle pose too. Also the arms aren't at full stride, like the idle pose. It doesn't make the transition perfect, but it helps quite a bit, so unless theres any objections, i'll upload the tweaked file eventually. If there was some way to easily add in an acceleration down the road, that would go the majority of the way toward making the transitions look completely natural.

 

btw: All of the movement cycles (at least walk, run, search) start with the left foot forward, so theres quite a difference to be made for such a small change.

[greebo]

Sounds cool to me. I guess this is good to go into SVN, we'll know soon whether it breaks anything else, but I doubt.

 

I guess for most non-animators a comparison video would be perfect so they can check it out without having to rename anim files back and forth to see the effect.

[Noisycricket]

I forgot about this, ill get get some videos up here pretty soon.

[Noisycricket]

http://www.mediafire.com/?w4c42zw2cg3

 

Ok, heres a video of the difference with the transition between combat_idle and search. For this one in particular i have it set to start at frame 26. The reason is because the search code has the searching A.I. turning about right as they start to move and having it start at frame 26 gives the illusion of the A.I. planting his feet to make a turn...

 

So im not sure exactly what frames to start the cycle on for walking or running yet, but anyway, that gives you an idea.

[Springheel]

I've gone ahead and added a search animation that starts at cycle26, and a walk that starts at 12.

[Tels]

I've gone ahead and added a search animation that starts at cycle26, and a walk that starts at 12.

 

Cool, that small change (looking at the video) makes a huge difference. Do your versions replace the originals or did you add new files? In the latter case I would suggest replacing the old versions as they simply look wrong.

[Springheel]

I replaced the previous versions.