Horse

[Springheel]

Yeah, doesn't need to actually be the sound of a horse dying, just a whinny or something.

[Arcturus]

I uploaded pain animation. It's played only on head when horse is alerted.

 

Can we somehow fix that:

 

 

Hitting reins makes damadge to horse. I guess only way would be to make it nonsolid.

[Arcturus]

Added turn_90_left.md5anim. It's played when horse is in search mode. It seems that even when horse turn less than 90 degrees whole animation is being played. Then it just teleports to correct position. I'll make turn right later.

[Fidcal]

I see it. Would it be an easy thing to make it turns its head full left while it does that? In fact whenever it turns normally?

[Arcturus]

I can add head turn to animation but what do you mean by "normally"? Edit: It's my English. I'm not sure what you mean.

[HappyCheeze]

Looking good!

[Fidcal]

By 'normally' I meant that turn animation only works when the horse is in search mode but not when it just is walking along and does a normal turn. So a head turn would be good in both situations to offset the woodenness and I would guess a horse might turn its head to see where it's going. I suppose in RL a horse flexes its entire length when turning, probably slows down too.

[Arcturus]

I think it would look better if turning for horses was generally much slower. It looks ok when they run I think but for walk it's to fast imo. I don't know how to make them turn heads on turning while 'patroling'. There's an automatic random head turn when they're in idle mode (and walk too perhaps) but it's currently played for the wrong neck bone. It should be played on the lower neck bone. I don't know how to fix those issues yet.

[Springheel]

I can slow down the rate at which the horse turns, but it won't change the gliding. We support turning animations (90 degree and 180 degree) for our AI, but I don't know if they play while walking.

[Arcturus]

I uploaded turn_90_right animation.

 

 

 

By 'normally' I meant that turn animation only works when the horse is in search mode but not when it just is walking along and does a normal turn. So a head turn would be good in both situations to offset the woodenness and I would guess a horse might turn its head to see where it's going. I suppose in RL a horse flexes its entire length when turning, probably slows down too.

I've just found out that turn animation is disabled for the head on search hence the stiffness.

 

I can slow down the rate at which the horse turns, but it won't change the gliding.

It should minimalize it I think.

[Springheel]

I've added a few death and pain sounds, and tweaked the horse behaviour so it will run away when hurt. It also turns slower now, though that value can be adjusted.

 

Not necessarily. The max step height can be set for each AI type so maybe the horse could be set for a very low step? Just don't enter it for the Grand National.

 

Yeah, I wonder if this is a better idea? The walk really does look better with the ik off, and how often will horses need to go up stairs anyway? Might be better to just set it so they won't climb up any steps. It might still look a bit lame on slopes, though. I'm not sure which option is best here:

 

1. Leave IK on...normal walking looks ok but not great, walking on slopes looks ok but not great.

 

2. Turn IK off...normal walking looks great but walking on slopes looks bad.

[SneaksieDave]

Visual of it off:

 

Hard to say. Yes it looks quite bad, but as you say, how common will it be to climb stairs or slopes. I wonder how bad it might look in the sloped street of SL.

 

On the other hand, how much did it improve the regular walk to turn it off? I don't recall it looking too bad. Skating perhaps.

 

The turn anim looks fine to me; only problem is he sometimes does instant 180 resets back to original orientation without any transition (shoot a walker with a water arrow).

[OrbWeaver]

Hmm. My first thought is that the horse will be walking on level surfaces a lot more than it will be walking on stairs or slopes. But the sliding isn't terrible, so I don't know.

 

On the other hand, I think there is general agreement that encouraging more slopes and use of the Z axis in maps is a Good Thing, so it would be a pity if the horse could only navigate on flat ground.

 

I'm a total newbie when it comes to animation, but isn't sliding feet a common problem if the speed of forward motion doesn't match the speed that is assumed by the leg animations?

[Arcturus]

I've uploaded black texture:

 

 

2.  Turn IK off...normal walking looks great but walking on slopes looks bad.

Not only walking but standing too. 

 

I'm a total newbie when it comes to animation, but isn't sliding feet a common problem if the speed of forward motion doesn't match the speed that is assumed by the leg animations?

It's not that kind of sliding. The animation itself is good. Only when inverse kinematics are turned on there's unwanted movement added to the animation.

[Springheel]

so it would be a pity if the horse could only navigate on flat ground.

 

Well, changing the step height wouldn't stop it from navigating on slopes, but either the back or front legs would "float". Though frankly, the legs don't look great on slopes with the ik on either. Sure the feet are on the ground but the legs buckle unnaturally. So I'm torn.

 

It's not that kind of sliding. The animation itself is good. Only when inverse kinematics are turned on there's unwanted movement added to the animation.

 

Any idea why that's happening? I thought the ik would only kick in if the foot made contact with the ground and wanted to keep going down.

[Serpentine]

I've uploaded black texture:

 

Hnnnngg! that looks awesome

[Tels]

Any idea why that's happening? I thought the ik would only kick in if the foot made contact with the ground and wanted to keep going down.

 

That's what I know, too, but have no good knowledge of IK to answer this question. One more question,tho, can IK not only make the feet ground-contact, but also bent them? It looks bad when the flat foots only have contact at the heel and float at the start. (One way to mitigate the feature would be to make the feet-contact in the middle of the hoof instead the back, but it is not a real solution).

[Fidcal]

Is there no provision for tilting AI when doing an animation like step climbing? Like tilt the front of the horse upwards?

[Baddcog]

The ankle to waist distance might need tweaked. I think that's why he looked 'slumped' in that one pic awhile back I was saying his rear legs looked kindof weird.

Because in your model they look perfect. That would make him stretch out more.

 

I think the issue with 4 leggers might also be the position of the waist. If that is near the rear legs then the ankle distance to the front might be too short/vice versa. But that's a guess.

 

I think the issue with the angle is that the origin bone always stays vertical. You'd probably acutally need 'climb/descend' motions that angled the body in relation to the origin. But again, guessing.

[Arcturus]

'Body' bone which is more or less in the middle between the legs is set as ik_waist. Changing it to any other bone (chest, butt, head) didn't fix sliding.

I uploaded white texture:

 

[Springheel]

I've been trying different values, but this seems to do absolutely nothing until it gets up to 50, at which point the horse starts floating.

 

"ik_minWaistAnkleDist" "0"

[Arcturus]

That value sets how close ankle can be to waist when leg is bending. When set to 0 leg will bend too much when walking on high steps.

 

30 - back legs are floating a bit because front have reached the "limit" of bending

 

 

0 - back legs are on the ground because front are bent unnaturally

 

 

 

[Fidcal]

I've been thinking, although it won't work well with a cart generally it could still be simulated on a straight level section that the player can't reach in the middle and far distance. The horse could deaf and blind so it won't react but keep on trotting. There could be several horses and carts going opposite directions. They enter and disappear stage left and stage right and either run around out of sight or possibly are teleported. I assume path waits will work.

 

The carts would be bound to their respective horse plus there is a bind orientation spawnarg which might help. Otherwise, the carts are just movers sync'd with a horse. Their wheels would be permanently rotating at the correct speed but carefully scripted, a horse could pull up in sight and some trigger stop the wheel rotation.

 

In the cart I wonder if we could have a sitting AI.

[Springheel]

That value sets how close ankle can be to waist when leg is bending. When set to 0 leg will bend too much when walking on high steps.

 

Yeah, sorry, I meant it had no effect on the walking animation. I'm trying to track down why it's sliding in the first place with ik on.

[Arcturus]

I added turning 180 degrees animations.