Noblewoman rig update

[Domarius]

Sorry for the laughable amount of time I've been putting in.

 

I've worked out that if I import the md5mesh with its bones, it screws up the rotations, but it gets the translations right. And when I say "screws up", I mean they are physically at the right orientations, but the actual values for those do not match what is actually in the md5 mesh. Eg. after importing, the leg is in the correct position, but it has a rotationX value of 80, whereas the leg that exists in the md5mesh has a rotationX of 0, even though they both are in the exact same position.

 

Fortunatly, all the rotations need to be at zero, so I can freeze rotations (and not translation or scale) to set them all to zero.

 

This is good, because if the translations were also messed up, I'd be fucked, because they aren't all at zero. I wouldn't be able to get them back to what they should be, without somehow working out what their zero position is supposed to be, putting them in that position, freezing translations, and then offsetting them back to what they should be.

 

 

So basically what this means is, I'll be able to make a noblewoman rig to animate with in Maya, that is pretty much an exact copy of the mesh and bones that are in game. So it should be accurate, and work for old animations as well.

[Springheel]

So basically what this means is, I'll be able to make a noblewoman rig to animate with in Maya, that is pretty much an exact copy of the mesh and bones that are in game. So it should be accurate, and work for old animations as well.

 

Great!

[Domarius]

Update: to freeze the skeleton, I have to unbind it from the weighting - so I used the "export weights" feature of Maya to see if I could import the weights back after the freeze.

 

Unsurprisingly, it didn't work - although surprisingly it seemed to work for most of the mesh but parts of it were very screwed up.

 

I'll see if it's worth tweaking the result, or just resort to doing a quick re-weight. But in the worst case, at least the mesh and bones will be identical, if the weighting isn't - but I'll try and get it close enough.

[Noisycricket]

I've got a few things to do before i get to the noblewoman. I had an idea i wanted to jot down though in case anyone else gets to it. For a temp/perm solution to the noblewoman's dress going too far out, don't animate the feet to go so far out. In other words, since the dress is so long, the feet won't be seen by anyone (im not 100$ sure about that) you could use the feet joints as skirt joints and simple bring the feet only as far back to make it look like the feet are just behind the dress.

[Fidcal]

Is this put back to 1.04? It still shows on the wiki for 1.03 and I'd planned for this in my FM. I see the voice in 1.03 but no noblewoman and no head.

[Springheel]

The noblewoman has been there for ages. Where are you looking?

[Noisycricket]

I touched up 3 of the idle animations and committed them so you can take a look. For the walk, I take it the "demure" walk is going to be for the noblewoman? Which you've already done? If so, is that the finished version, it almost doesn't look the same as the in-game, but its hard to tell. Which means just the legs need work to account for the dress?

[Fidcal]

Under Nobles. But I also looked other places. Where is she then?

[Springheel]

For the walk, I take it the "demure" walk is going to be for the noblewoman? Which you've already done? If so, is that the finished version, it almost doesn't look the same as the in-game, but its hard to tell.

 

Yes, the noblewoman uses the "demure" set by default, though mappers could change that. The walk is as finished as I can get it by working on the proguard rig, but there's certainly room for improvement. Trying to get the hands to stay clasped was very difficult and I'm not sure they totally do.

[Springheel]

Under Nobles. But I also looked other places. Where is she then?

 

I'm perplexed, as the noblewoman character has been on SVN for at least six months. Only the vocals were missing and recently added.

 

I just reorganized the AI categories a few days ago, but if you've got an updated version of the trunk, you should see this:

[Noisycricket]

Yes, the noblewoman uses the "demure" set by default, though mappers could change that. The walk is as finished as I can get it by working on the proguard rig, but there's certainly room for improvement. Trying to get the hands to stay clasped was very difficult and I'm not sure they totally do.

 

Yeah, i bet that was tough without ik, looks pretty good to me. One think you can do to make it easier is blend fk into ik, then back to fk. I also have a version of the progaurd rig with arms that do not inherit rotation, although its not perfect and would likely need configuration as you used it. But i'll upload it to my folder.

[Fidcal]

I'm perplexed, as the noblewoman character has been on SVN for at least six months. Only the vocals were missing and recently added.

 

I just reorganized the AI categories a few days ago, but if you've got an updated version of the trunk, you should see this:

No, I do see it on the trunk but not those subfolders. I updated a few days ago. I'll update again tomorrow and check again. I've ran out of time tonight.

 

Either way, it's not on 1.03. Which is worrying because we have been testing old maps. How do we know the new stuff has all been passed through?

[Springheel]

That's why I uploaded a test map with the 1.03 assets and asked people to try it.

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/11962-tdm-103-pre-release-test/page__view__findpost__p__239222

 

I know that the map played fine for me with the SVN release branch, but perhaps the noblewomen got left out of the package somehow.

[Fidcal]

OK, I'll check out that test map. I see from the public thread that greebo is fixing the noblewoman as I write so a bit later I'll update again and check the test map.

[Fidcal]

Updated SVN but I don't see any test/test103.map. Is it a different name perhaps?

[greebo]

It's there, in darkmod/maps/test/test103.map.

[STiFU]

Hmn, that's weird. I am almost certain I tested this map with the release candidate and there was a noblewoman available. *confused*

 

Fidcal, the referenced map is on the release branch. I'll attach it to this post, so that you don't have to perform the switch.

test103.map.txt

 

You can also obtain it fairly easily through the repo-browser.

[Springheel]

I think the problem is that the noblewoman was on the release branch, but didn't get packaged because of an old "exclude" entry. I couldn't find the exclude file yesterday to check whether it was there.

[Fidcal]

Thanks StiFU. I'd been looking on the trunk.

[Noisycricket]

After updating the svn i get an error loading the idle animations map. Im not using any of the release stuff(I think). It says "Joint 'hips' not found for attachment position 'hip_sheath_l' on entity' atdm_ai_citywatch_2'. Worked 2 minutes before with the same setup.

[Springheel]

Should be fixed now.

[Fidcal]

Does 'rig' include animation? If so, feedback: Maybe you already know this:

 

The animation is pretty good. There is a flaw though where the hem of the dress flies up at the back. I can't define it other than maybe it is timing. One vertex in particular seems to hang for a split second. I don't know if it goes too high. Might be alright if it came down faster. It almost looks like it gets caught on something for a moment before falling. There are a couple other vertices next to it that are similar but not so bad. [edit] (all these vertices are right on the hem at the back kicked up by the heels.)

[Springheel]

That whole area needs work. It's just very difficult to animate without an actual noblewoman rig to see for reference. Noisycricket has created some improved versions, but I haven't had time to add them yet.

[grayman]

There is a flaw though where the hem of the dress flies up at the back. I can't define it other than maybe it is timing. One vertex in particular seems to hang for a split second. I don't know if it goes too high. Might be alright if it came down faster. It almost looks like it gets caught on something for a moment before falling. There are a couple other vertices next to it that are similar but not so bad. [edit] (all these vertices are right on the hem at the back kicked up by the heels.)

 

I just watched the noblewoman walk for the first time. The back hem of her dress should stay close to the ground. There's no reason I can see for it to flip up at all, unless her backmost heel sticks out. As it is now, it looks like she's got a tail wagging around in there. She is a very regal-looking lady. Nice job.

 

The commoner wench's dress looks good. There's a tiny flip, but it looks natural.

[Springheel]

I just watched the noblewoman walk for the first time. The back hem of her dress should stay close to the ground. There's no reason I can see for it to flip up at all

 

I could try weighting those verts to the origin bone, but that could result in weirdness with animations like sleeping or sitting. It's hard to know what's going to work...without a proper animation rig, weighting dresses and robes is all trial and error. I was hoping Domarius would come through with an animation rig for the noblewoman, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

 

Noisycricket has made some new animations that might also help a lot. Once I'm done rigging the female thief I'll go back and revisit the noblewoman.