3DS Max Friendly version of the Open Motion Capture Library!

[Arcturus]

Frame is missing, that's why it jumps in game. After all these years I realized that pose in the last frame needs to be the same as in the first one. It makes perfect sense now that I think of it.

 

How important it is that the run is the same speed? It's a bit faster than the old one so I need to work on that.

[Arcturus]

Ok, now it's the same speed. I shortened steps and put the missing frame in:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHLMzfhSGuQ&feature=youtu.be

[New Horizon]

Sweet!

[Arcturus]

Have you found any gems in the library yet?

I'd like to see that ballet animation applied to a noble woman

Yeah, some decent female animations would be awesome. Though I suspect the skirt joints would have to be animated separately?

 

Surprisingly there aren't many idle animations. I haven't seen any scratching for example.

What may be usfull for us:

- there's a lot of walking and running

- walking in place (waiting for a bus)

- turning in place

- cowering

- conversations, waving hands at somebody, laughing, crying

- swordplay, guy stands in place waving hand, looks more like tennis lessons but may be usefull

 

BTW, combat are the worst animations in TDM. If we want good looking fights a) legs need to be animated NPCs need to step sideways between hits

 

- throwing balls

- examining the ground

- getting up from the ground, it's broken with my set up, but can be manually corrected

 

There is also lots of scrobatics, ballet and modern dance, soccer, washing windows, pantomime (I'm a teapot, I'm a dog, a monkey etc.), karate and ninja stuff, zombie walk (with the outstretched hands). Most animations are repeating in different folders (different takes).

 

There are some basic female animations and animations that look like female, but not much. Mostly simple walk / run.

 

I would like to replace old run with the new one.

[Springheel]

- turning in place

conversations, waving hands at somebody

 

These could be useful. Not sure how valuable the other ones would be. Are there any "interact with object" type animations? Like sweeping, or reading a book, or something like that? What about bending over to pick up something on the floor?

 

BTW, combat are the worst animations in TDM. If we want good looking fights a) legs need to be animated

 

The legs have nothing to do with the animations (which I think are quite good now that Noisycricket added his versions). The leg channel is turned off during combat because the code has to control when the AI moves or turns to face the player.

 

I would like to replace old run with the new one.

 

I still don't think the new run looks any better than the old one...it looks like a trot or jog, not what you'd expect to see if an AI were running for his life (which is when you normally see the unarmed run). It's a nice variant, though.

[SiyahParsomen]

it looks like a trot or jog, not what you'd expect to see if an AI were running for his life (which is when you normally see the unarmed run). It's a nice variant, though.

 

same here. It doesn't fit for alerted AI, but It's definitely good to have non-alerted run.

[Arcturus]

These could be useful. Not sure how valuable the other ones would be. Are there any "interact with object" type animations? Like sweeping, or reading a book, or something like that? What about bending over to pick up something on the floor?

Picking up things, moving boxes, sweeping - yes. I haven't seen reading books.

The legs have nothing to do with the animations (which I think are quite good now that Noisycricket added his versions).

They are stiff, and robotic.

The leg channel is turned off during combat because the code has to control when the AI moves or turns to face the player.

I know. That's why it looks so horrible, far worse than Thief series.

I still don't think the new run looks any better than the old one...it looks like a trot or jog, not what you'd expect to see if an AI were running for his life (which is when you normally see the unarmed run). It's a nice variant, though.

Current animation doesn't even look like human motion, more like one of the Honda's robots. Besides it's too slow to be a sprint.

[RPGista]

I think the combat thing is a mix of the combat mechanics/method and the fact that the legs must be independent from the torso - the method of combat chosen (and very well chosen, in my opinion) is the frontal duel where you need to have the enemy in front of you in order to have any chance to block his varying attacks, so he conveniently stops in front of you for the exchange to happen. Thats how you see what is their weakest point - they will run to you, stop and begin to attack, but are sometimes quite slow to acknowledge your strafing and will look stiff there for a second, before pursuing you again, when they will run to you, stop, and begin attacking again. This is a needed convention, for a formal "mouse" duel where there are different angles to attack and defend, its just not the most dynamic looking mechanics (still, the most enjoyable for me, the worst being hack and slash diablo style). In comparison, the zombies are pretty problematic to fight in the beginning (I suspect most people dont ever try to fight them) specifically because they have fully animated charge attacks, that works across a distance. So they wont stop in front of you to attack, they will charge a blow soon as your in range (they have pretty good timing too), which makes them hard if your used to the human enemies (they are however, still easy to take down if you have space and a little energy to spare (by running in and out)). If you were to have the formal duel behaviour mixed in with certain animated actions like that (a certain animated charge attack, or a hit that makes the soldier fall and get up, or a dodge of some kind, if available in that archive), then it could get even more interesting, though I'm ignorant to the work involved, which should be considerable of course.

 

But awesome effort there Arcturus, you seem to have opened a very promising door for the mod!

Edited April 3, 2012 by RPGista

[Springheel]

I know. That's why it looks so horrible, far worse than Thief series.

 

I guess that's a matter of opinion. While the legs are certainly stiff, I prefer the movements of our AI to the wrist-based fencing animations of Thief (which are ridiculous with a heavy longsword).

 

Eventually I'd be in favour of having the code supporting special side-stepping or other full-body animations during combat, but it's certainly not a priority right now.

[Arcturus]

Yeah, you can almost take them for real actors:

 

 

[ungoliant]

I guess that's a matter of opinion.

an opinion I agree with. It's like our AI are all conjoined twins who refuse to work together. "I want to fight somebody!!!" "Fine, do whatever, but i'm just going to stand here"

[Springheel]

I feel like people aren't understanding the concept that the "standing here" issue is not related to the animations.

[nbohr1more]

I think there is a bit of catch 22 in place here:

 

If the code isn't setup correctly the AI cant be made to animate realistically so it must be fudged a bit.

If the animation isn't setup correctly the code cannot be implemented to move the AI into position as expected.

 

I think the tie-breaker that scenario would usually be the animation.

 

For example, if someone created a more natural door opening animation that didn't magically open doors from a distance then

Grayman could adjust the pathing code to fit that change.

 

I won't pretend that such a coordinated effort would be easy...

(nor will I presume that the above example is even possible without overcoming some problematic technical hurdle).

 

Erm... Thoughts Grayman?

[Arcturus]

I feel like people aren't understanding the concept that the "standing here" issue is not related to the animations.

Animations of the upper part of the body are stiff. Fact that NPCs don't move from the waist down only makes it worse.

[RPGista]

They are however clearly better than they were before. I for one would love some more combat animations, but I do agree with Springheel that some other animations are also very much needed. Natural things like weaving someone goodbye (you could use in a triggered scene), sleeping to your side in fetal position, woman brushing hair, AI weeping, random body expression movements for AI in conversation (moving your hands about, etc), wearing a shield, throwing a spear... Kneeling down (could use some work), tripping while running from the player, praying, taunting, hammering, sculpting, mixing potions, all those come to mind. Basicly any new animation that add richness, perhaps even rather than improvement at this point, would be welcomed IMHO.

Edited April 4, 2012 by RPGista

[Arcturus]

Animations seen by players most frequently should be at least good. Another run:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eOHKmS6Fv8&feature=youtu.be

[Springheel]

There's still something where they lean their head/shoulders to their right every time they put their right foot down. They don't lean the other way when putting their left down so it winds up looking a bit unbalanced.

[Serpentine]

The last one is much better, however I still think that the current one has more of an urgent look about it. The last one looks like someone running a race imho.

 

But it's nice to see the animation moving over so seemingly smoothly

[Arcturus]

Now it's more symmetrical:

 

[SiyahParsomen]

flawless victory

[Sotha]

(Firstly, I agree that the running looks really neat.)

 

 

flawless victory

 

Not necessarily. Howsabout running while weapons drawn? That is most likely scenario when AI are running in TDM...

[Springheel]

ot necessarily. Howsabout running while weapons drawn?

 

We have one of those already.

[Sotha]

We have one of those already.

 

flawless victory

[SiyahParsomen]

flawless victory

 

victory with demagoguery is not flawless

 

W/o carrying a sword this animation is better than the current one and I think only problem is speed of the animation that's why it looks like jogging etc imho. (Check out the legs, they are wide spread for fast run)

[Arcturus]

Both animations are on repository. As I said, our run is too slow to be a sprint, that's why my first animation looks better. Run_charge and run_torch are the same animation as basic run and they will be replaced:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnb9YHJdKHA&feature=youtu.be