Search animation

[Noisycricket]

Im doing another search animation for fun and for my own game, which i'll offer up to anyone when its done... My question is whether doing 2 different animations, one for the sword, and one for the heavier hammer can currently be utilized. If so, i'll give the one for the hammer a more weighty look for the right arm.

[Springheel]

Yes, it's very easy to swap in different animations for AI carrying hammers.

[Noisycricket]

I thought i'd inquire about this before i build it.... I was thinking about building a search animation where the guard would look around in place. It would look good going straight from the combat idle pose because there would be no jump in position (im assuming), like an idle animation. I'd add a couple different ones so it wouldn't look the same every time. This would require some coding support obviously, so i'll hold off on it until i get the ok from a willing programmer. It would be nice [in a perfect world...] if the vision of the guard followed his head movement so he could catch the player outside of his normal routine. But it would also just look nice, so if that doesn't pan out, i'd still be happy to make the animation for aesthetics.

 

Im about a 1/4 done with another walking search animation.

 

[greebo]

Something like this is definitely possible. I guess an animation without weapon would also be fine, for non-combattants.

 

The vision will always basing on the direction of the actual head joint, so wherever the AI head is looking that's where the FOV cone is pointing to.

[Noisycricket]

I finished a new search animation finally. This one looks great in Maya, but only ok in-game. Its exported to start at frame 13 26, which gives it a similar pose when it start to that of the combat idle. I'll be uploading a couple of versions to vary the speed of the walk and thus the difficulty of evading or getting around searching guards.

 

Heres a video of it.

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

[Springheel]

I like it! Looks pretty menacing.

[New Horizon]

That's fantastic.

[Arcturus]

It looks better than current one, but you should animate the cloth too so it doesn't look like glued to legs. Also I'm sure that clipping can be avoided?

[PinkDot]

I also think this one is better than the current one. The only thing that doesn't look OK to me is the pelvis staying on the same height for all the time - it should move up and down. And it's too fast as as for the search animation, but you've mentioned various speeds. (it's more walking to searching spot, rather than searching itself).

[Noisycricket]

Ah, i didn't even think of animating the cloth to get rid of the clipping, looks doable. Don't know how i would get good result animating the cloth though, the entire front half is linked to one joint.

 

PinkDot, good point about it looking like "walking to a search spot", I've got one that is slower than that.

 

I've probably got just about 25 hours into this already and im a little burnt out, so im going to take a little break [i think], but i'll look into the cloth animations later.

[Noisycricket]

Uploaded the initial version to my model_src folder....and just remembered the clipping....ugh.

[Springheel]

Do you want me to add them to the game? We can let the engine choose randomly between the two search animations.

[Springheel]

Btw, don't know if you saw my post a while back, but I've added the noblewoman to the game...she just needs some animation support (the lower skirt joints look particularly bad). I've added her to the idle_animations map.

[Noisycricket]

Your welcome to add it to the game. It would be nice to have two animations but the original is a feet sliding, unrealistically moving mess. I'm certain Domarius didn't have a ton of time to spend on it, but hopefully he, Squill or I will eventually have time to fix it up some. I'd consider using a walk cycle in its place instead, at least until someone can put some more time into it original search. At one point a few months back the walk cycle was used for the search animation and it looked so good i thought we wouldn't need a special search animation.

 

Yeah, i saw her, looks good. Is she using the female walk/run animations i made? I don't know how i'd fix anything without doing it in Maya, is there an .obj file i can at least try opening in Maya/Max?

[Springheel]

It would be nice to have two animations but the original is a feet sliding, unrealistically moving mess.

 

It's never bothered me, particularly (other than the hand not being closed around the weapon).

 

Yeah, i saw her, looks good. Is she using the female walk/run animations i made?

 

Not at the moment...I wasn't sure where it was.

 

is there an .obj file i can at least try opening in Maya/Max?

 

I can export one for you.

[Noisycricket]

The female_walk_cycle.md5anim is there in the proguard folder, but i don't see the run so i re-upload it and move them to the noblewomen folder unless you want all character animations in one place. I have no idea how it looks, it might look overly feminine or suggestive, but its only an guesstimate. It might help to see her running/walking in game, if someone has extra time and could add a walking/running version of her to the idle_animations map (preferably on the other side of the room to keep the framerate high) that would be helpful. Along with moving the overweight fellow...dude...guy over to that side of the room. I'm going to work on sound effects for fun for at least a couple days and i don't any of this done for a week or more.

 

Btw, the footsteps for the search occur at 21 and 1.

[Springheel]

Ok, I've added a noblewoman to the walk/run cycle. I'll wait until you upload the animations to the noblewoman folders before adding them to the def file.

 

I can export one for you.

 

I've added an .obj file to the lightwave character folder in models_src.

[Noisycricket]

That was quick.

[Noisycricket]

Thanks for changing the a.i. locations. For some reason, when i load the map, the a.i. start attacking the noblewomen and kill her.

 

Also, sorry for my unclear wording, could you move the unmoving, idling A.I. back to where they were and just move a few of the a.i. that are running and walking to the opposite side of the room ( to the left side of the 5 unmoving a.i.)? I have to load up that map sometimes 20 times in a row and it would be a pain to run all the way over to them every time, plus its not needed for them anyway.

 

I uploaded a new set of search anims to the NC folder to fix the clipping, also uploaded the run animation to the proguard folder.

[Noisycricket]

Hmm, neither Maya or Max would extract the skeleton from the .obj file, if there was one. I'm not sure what I could do with just the mesh. If i can bind it to the bind pose, i can try that, if the bind pose is what you used. By bind pose i mean the skeleton in the Davinci stance.

[Springheel]

Thanks for changing the a.i. locations. For some reason, when i load the map, the a.i. start attacking the noblewomen and kill her.

 

The first version I forgot to set her to team 0, but the second version should have fixed that.

[Noisycricket]

Hmm, neither Maya or Max would extract the skeleton from the .obj file, if there was one. I'm not sure what I could do with just the mesh. If i can bind it to the bind pose, i can try that, if the bind pose is what you used. By bind pose i mean the skeleton in the Davinci stance.

 

I meant the "mesh in the Davinci stance", not skeleton. I guess i could bind the skin to the skeleton, adjust the rotations/positions of the joints [then delete the mesh?], then export it and see what happens?

[Springheel]

I meant the "mesh in the Davinci stance", not skeleton. I guess i could bind the skin to the skeleton, adjust the rotations/positions of the joints [then delete the mesh?], then export it and see what happens?

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Squill is probably the person to ask.

[Noisycricket]

Getting some baaaaaaaaaaaaad vibes lately. Squill, its up to you.

[Springheel]

Btw, I added the female walk and run to the noblewoman, but she's just walking in place (didn't check run). Is there a problem with the animation or something else? You can check it out in idle_animations.