Needed for Standalone: Animated Werebeast

[Agent Jones]

I've tried spawning this unearthly abomination in my map. The unfathomable being appeared under the form of a blue and black cube. After witnessing this unspeakable horror, my game could not take it anymore and crashed.

 

Any chance for this to be released in the next update?

[Springheel]

Any chance for this to be released in the next update?

 

Not unless someone shows up with the time and know-how to do it.

[Obsttorte]

After looking at it it seems the crash happens once the player and the werebeast gets pretty close to each other. I thought it may have something to do with the collision model of the werebeast, but the crash also happens if I am in noclip mode, and the clipmodel is created using cylinder.

 

I've also noticed that it is inherited from atdm:ai_monster_base, while all other monsters are inherited from atdm:ai_base. Well, changing that doesn't seem to have any effect.

 

Another thing I've noticed is, that once the werebeast has noticed me (if in an enemy team), it comes to me and once it reaches me does not seem to do anything. This could be caused by the fact that there are no torso anims defined, though.

 

EDIT: Tested a bit more. When I throw a basket at the beast there are two things that can happen:

1. The basket flies through the beast
2. the basket collides with the beast and the game crashes

Btw., the werebeast has no shadowmesh.

 

The game also crashes if another ai tries to attack the werebeast. It appears that the crash happens once the weapon hits the beast.

[SeriousToni]

Leave it as it is: interesting gameplay idea! Don't get cought by the were beast or your game will crash!

[Obsttorte]

So, it really seems the collision model is causing the issues, as it is simple not there it seems.

As you can see here there are several things displayed. I used g_showcollisionmodels. The cyan box is the boundary box me thinks, the red thingies are the collision relevant things. The cylinders (or the cube in case of the horse) are created using the cylinder spawnarg. But there are also more detailed collision models, which get used if I for example shoot a moveable at an ai (which either causes a crash on the werebeast or it simple goes through it).

 

The problem is, I can't find the collision meshes in the md5 mesh files. Does the engine use the shadowmesh as colission mesh, too? In that case the issue might be, that as stated above the werebeast does not has a collision model. I try to add a rough one and see what happens.

 

EDIT: Just checked the wiki and it appears that the collision model is created from the visual one. But why doesn't this happen for the werebeast.

 

EDIT2: Just a remembrance. The skeleton of an ai can be displayed with r_showskel 1. This also shows the name of the bones, which might be useful for renaming them.

[Diego]

I can't be of much help at the moment because I don't currently have access to the original files. I was thinking about importing these md5 into Lightwave (or whatever software has the most reliable workflow with this engine) and tweak it from there, following Spring's workflow.

[Springheel]

Those red boxes look like they might be the AF collision boxes?

[HMart]

I can't be of much help at the moment because I don't currently have access to the original files. I was thinking about importing these md5 into Lightwave (or whatever software has the most reliable workflow with this engine) and tweak it from there, following Spring's workflow.

I was able to import your md5 mesh into 3dmax2014 with the skeleton and materials intact and export it to other file, the problem is that i don't know how to rig and animate that well, if i did i would try my self at this, because is a petty this model is being wasted.

 

Btw i did imported it to Modo and made a lowpoly shadow mesh for it, if theres some interesse i will post the .lwo here, no skeleton tho, but from the sound of things it needs to be remade tho.

[Springheel]

I could use the .lwo. Are you able to save the md5mesh in a format maya could read?

[HMart]

I could use the .lwo. Are you able to save the md5mesh in a format maya could read?

Ok here you are the .fbx was tested on Maya 2009 and Maya 2012 both imported with the skeleton intact.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9uzl27jev6890r6/WereBeast.rar?dl=0

 

 

[Obsttorte]

The shadowmesh would definetely be of use.

 

@Spring: I think the beast currently has no af. At least there is no ragdoll defined for it.

[Springheel]

Ok here you are the .fbx was tested on Maya 2009 and Maya 2012 both imported with the skeleton intact.

 

 

Thanks, that should be helpful...at the very least I can use it to come up with a basic suite of animations. A shadowmesh is no problem for me to add later, once everything else is working.

 

@Spring: I think the beast currently has no af. At least there is no ragdoll defined for it.

 

 

I'm not 100% sure that's the issue (I didn't think a ragdoll was needed until the AI died), but that's what those red diamonds look like in your screenshot.

[Obsttorte]

Woohoo \o/

 

It is the reason. I've created a ragdoll consisting out of a single box in the center of the beast, and now the game does not crash anymore. It seems, that in difference to what is written on the wiki, the collision model is not created out of the visual model, but the af is used instead.

 

I'll see that I get a good ragdoll done til tomorrow and post here again

[Obsttorte]

The basic ragdoll is done and moves with the beast as supposed to. There are two things left, though:

 

1. I need to setup mass and constraints so that the corpse will move in a suitable way
2. Although the beast does collide with its surroundings and kicks away small moveables, it does not get hurt by attacks yet. The blows just go through them. I'll have to check what's causing this behaviour.

[Springheel]

Although the beast does collide with its surroundings and kicks away small moveables, it does not get hurt by attacks yet. The blows just go through them.

 

 

That might be related to settings that establish damage zones--the code needs to know what counts as "head", "arms", etc, for the purpose of damage multipliers which has to be done using the existing skeleton. I haven't set that up yet, since I wasn't able to see the names of the bones. It will also be needed for the walking ik. Though I don't know if that would cause weapons to go right through....

 

These are the ones for our humanoid skeleton. It seems like you just list the first bone in the chain, and everything else in the chain is included. That should make it easier.

 

"damage_zone head" "*Neck"

"damage_zone chest" "*Spine_Dummy -*Neck"

"damage_zone torso_low" "Hips"

"damage_zone left_arm" "*LeftArm"

"damage_zone right_arm" "*RightArm"

"damage_zone legs" "*LeftHips_Dummy *RightHips_Dummy origin"

 

[Obsttorte]

 

It will also be needed for the walking ik

What's the walking ik?

 

Regarding damage, that's may be it, totally forgot that. Will take a look tomorrow.

[HMart]

What's the walking ik?

 

Regarding damage, that's may be it, totally forgot that. Will take a look tomorrow.

 

See here about IK

 

http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/walkik.php

[Springheel]

In a nutshell walk ik is what lets the legs bend when AI walk up or down stairs.

 

I've never done it before, but we should be able to follow the basic pattern of our humanoid AI skeleton:

 

"ik_numLegs" "2"
"ik_minWaistAnkleDist" "0"
"ik_footSize" "0"
"ik_waist" "Pelvis2"
"ik_hip1" "LeftUpLeg"
"ik_hip2" "RightUpLeg"
"ik_knee1" "LeftLeg"
"ik_knee2" "RightLeg"
"ik_ankle1" "LeftFoot"
"ik_ankle2" "RightFoot"
//normally a knee joint
//"ik_dir1" "LeftFoot"
//"ik_dir2" "RightFoot"
"ik_foot1" "LeftToeBase"
"ik_foot2" "RightToeBase"

 

[Diego]

I was able to import your md5 mesh into 3dmax2014 with the skeleton and materials intact and export it to other file, the problem is that i don't know how to rig and animate that well, if i did i would try my self at this, because is a petty this model is being wasted.

Btw i did imported it to Modo and made a lowpoly shadow mesh for it, if theres some interesse i will post the .lwo here, no skeleton tho, but from the sound of things it needs to be remade tho.

 

 

It has animation already, the problem is that the transition from 3ds max to the engine is not smooth. So if it comes down to remaking the animation I suggest avoiding 3ds max altogether.

 

edit: wrong quote

Edited February 24, 2015 by Diego

[demagogue]

Good work with this so far. I hope he gets into working condition. The FM I really want to make needs this guy.

[Obsttorte]

 

That might be related to settings that establish damage zones--the code needs to know what counts as "head", "arms", etc, for the purpose of damage multipliers which has to be done using the existing skeleton.

You were right. The problem now is, that once I kill the beast, all af parts except the chest (where I set the damage zone on) unbounds from the beasts af. Donno if this is due to that I didn't define the other damage zones yet. We'll see. But it looks definetely weird.

 

EDIT: It's caused by the missing constraints. This will definetely take a while, as the documentation is hard to understand, definetely lacking some images.

[HMart]

Maybe this can help?

 

http://idtechforums.fuzzylogicinc.com/index.php?topic=89.0

[Obsttorte]

Thanks.

[HMart]

No problem.

[Obsttorte]

OK. So I've setup the bodies but am running into a inor issue. Although all joints are distributed to their respective bodies, they do not move witht the body.

 

 

The upper red box is the collision model for the head. While it moves correctly so it lays on the floor, the head does not move with it, although all the bones of the head are part of said body. This results in the head falling through the floor.

 

In addition I always get the following warning message:

WARNING: Articulated figure has multiple seperate tree structures

I googled it but didn't find anything useful. Any idea what this could mean?

 

EDIT: It seems that the cvars starting with af_ as well as the view options in the AF editor (which are manipulating those) do not work anymore. I can't see the constraints for example, which makes this a trial and error thingy, with me having to choose between millions of possible settings. Any idea what happened on this front?