New general animation wiki article for mappers

[Fidcal]

We've started a new general wiki article specifically for mappers about animating your characters, postures, go to etc, generally adding atmosphere and story. We've brought all the different features together in one article and linked to the related articles. So if you want your AI to sit, or kneel, or stir a pot or go somewhere, etc then you can start in one place..

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Animations%2C_Postures%2C_Controlling_AI_%28for_Mappers%29

 

Note that many of the anims listed may not work on all AI but more importantly, new animations will be added from time to time. This article and this list are at the time of writing still work in progress. All the developer animation articles are moved from the editing index to avoid clutter but easily found from the link in the above article.

[Fidcal]

Just to add to the above, I think if you put an anim directly onto an AI then it carried out once. The default is idle and I think that must be a repeating list of anims so it goes on forever. But if you just put say anim idle_stretch on an AI then he just does it once at map start and then no more and of course the idle animations are disabled. Perhaps Springheel can confirm this and I'll add it to the article.

 

If combo defs of animations like idle are possible then it might be useful to add that to the article too as an alternate or addition. So suppose a cook had a combo list of pot stirring, reaching out, drinking as default. That could be done with path_anims so I'm unsure for the mapper if it is worth knowing about combo lists. Anyways, worth mentioning.

[Fidcal]

Just did a test and it seems they don't work and only the idle anim plays and overrides any new spawnarg anim if directly on the AI

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Hey, For my course I'll need to make some animated/modelled objects for a level or in this case a fan mission. If I wanted to model and texture something from scratch, In my case a creepy voodoo guard brought to life through black magic, would much be involved to do with rigging? and if I wanted a couple of extra animations, would that be a difficult thing to accomplish in the space of a few weeks?

 

Just so you know, I'll need to do that some time in September or October.

Edited May 23, 2010 by Mr Lemony Fresh

[Fidcal]

Hey, For my course I'll need to make some animated/modelled objects for a level or in this case a fan mission. If I wanted to model and texture something from scratch, In my case a creepy voodoo guard brought to life through black magic, would much be involved to do with rigging? and if I wanted a couple of extra animations, would that be a difficult thing to accomplish in the space of a few weeks?

 

Just so you know, I'll need to do that some time in September or October.

Yes, quite some work. This article was written for general mappers to use existing assets. To create new stuff is a lot of work and an enormous amount for a beginner to learn. And the most difficult is creating new characters. I don't want to put you off; in fact I'd encourage you - but just so you know.

 

In your case I'd suggest you examine how skins work and modify an existing guard skin. Then see if you can improvise any of the existing animations to get close to what you want.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Yes, quite some work. This article was written for general mappers to use existing assets. To create new stuff is a lot of work and an enormous amount for a beginner to learn. And the most difficult is creating new characters. I don't want to put you off; in fact I'd encourage you - but just so you know.

 

In your case I'd suggest you examine how skins work and modify an existing guard skin. Then see if you can improvise any of the existing animations to get close to what you want.

 

Oh, Modeling and texturing is no problem, my skills in that area are intermediate, but the only thing that concerns me is rigging and animating, but I guess the animating part is covered in my course

 

Also, i don't suppose you know what the deal is with the heads, aren't the interchangeable? maybe i can save time by modeling the heads and re-skinning the rest. At least 20% of the assets are going to be my work. Most of that will be textures though, I can do them in my sleep, but there must be some animation to prove i learnt something in my course .

Edited May 23, 2010 by Mr Lemony Fresh

[Fidcal]

Yes heads are interchangeable but I don't know anything about the modelling, animating, rigging side of character creation. Good luck with that anyway.