Needed for Standalone: Animated Werebeast

[Springheel]

The rough terrain will hopefully be taken care of by the in-game IK.

 

 

I don't think the arms have any ik settings by default.

 

The old wearbeast did have a crouched version, but it was always crouched, so there was no need for transition animations, which would need code support.

[Destined]

I am not sure, if I know the old version you are talking about. The walking animation I got from Diego is kind of hunched, but it is not nearly on all four, so reverting to this pose would look silly. Here is a comparison between the starting position in the walking cycle (left) and my running cycle (right).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/naagp68cqyefdys/Screenshot%202016-12-06%2019.35.59.png?dl=0

Maybe I should really just create a running animation without including the arms...

 

But just remembered, that my "searching" position is also more crouched than the walking cylce:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v8hky36c6mv3sko/Screenshot%202016-12-06%2019.43.21.png?dl=0

Do you think, this might also pose a problem?

[Springheel]

I am not sure, if I know the old version you are talking about.

 

 

I'm talking about the pre-standalone version that used the D3 imp skeleton. There was a set of animations for a standing imp, and also for an imp crawling on all 4s. But I don't think they mixed the two.

[Destined]

Due to Springheel's concerns (that unfortunately sound very reasonable), I have decided to create a new running animation with the beast only on its hind legs. I just have one other question: How fast should it go? Currently, it covers 120 units in 40 frames (3 u/f), what I think is pretty fast. As comparison: The walk animation covers 90 units in 60 frames (1.5 u/f). The guard walking cycle covers 70 units in 55 frames (1.2 u/f) and the running zombie has pretty exactly 2 u/f. However, I don't have a runing animation for the guard. I would say it makes sense that the beast is faster than the regular guard, but that way it might be faster than the player, which could make it overpowered.

[demagogue]

Could it run faster but it short spurts, so there are regular slow downs?

[Destined]

I am not sure. At least, from the top of my head I can't think of how to realise that without it looking strange. This would be more easily possible for the pounce-running, with the pounce being fast and a slower movement in between. But with a "standard" running, it is quite human-like and there I can't think of a sensible reason to slow down in between. Also, I am not sure if there are any problem, when the cycle gets too long, i.e. if it possible to cancel it at any point.

[Springheel]

I would keep it simple. The speed of a guard or slightly faster would be fine, I suspect.

[Destined]

I agree. Everything that is too complicated will most likely cause the need of coding support, which was one of the main reasons for me to switch to the two-legged running.

For now I will stick to the speed I have. it is 1.5 times the standard walking speed of guards (I do not have the running speed for comparison), so I think it is not too far away from the running speed. Small changes can be made via the animation speed without the animation looking too strange.

[demagogue]

Simple is good, I agree with that. Since that still sounds a bit fast, I'd playtest him in some actual FM situations to confirm that that speed works and doesn't just kill the gameplay before committing to it. Actually, if you can, I'd even tweak the speed in terms of which works best for gameplay according to the playtesting. It makes sense to have him a bit faster because that ramps up how terrifying he is, but there's a line there somewhere.

[Destined]

Hi everyone, sorry that it took so long 'til this update on the running animation, but here is the latest video of the werebeast running only on its hind legs:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tqf6hmgmkene48b/Werebeast_Run_TwoLegs.mp4?dl=0

 

What do you think?

[Springheel]

Seems like a long stride rather than a run, but that might be because of the speed. Can you speed it (or the video) up to about twice as fast to see what it looks like?

[Destined]

I agree. The problem I had was that if I want it to look more like actual running, I would have to increase the size of the steps it takes. This would speed it up and it would cover even more ground in a shorter time, which most likely will make it too fast and consequently too powerful in game. I am actually at a loss, what we could do to make it look more realsitic without increasing the actual speed

[Springheel]

They're supposed to be powerful, so I wouldn't worry about that.

[Destined]

Hi everyone, I finally found some time to implement the animations I made and to set up the in-game IK. However, the IK looks a bit wobbly some time (i.e. on slopes over around 20°, especailly when walking down). This is mostly due to the fact that I have an additional joint, that I have no idea how to include. For the beast the ankle joint is basically a second knee, which leads to some clipping I cannot prevent. Anyway, here is the updated data (including the blender file I used, animations and the new def file):

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t97u6lm914fen7o/werebeast.pk4?dl=0

[Springheel]

A little necromancy here, but I tested the things in the package and couldn't get any of them to work.  Although there were no errors, none of the animations would play (when the AI was supposed to run it just walked, no pain was played when damaged, etc) and the ik didn't appear to do anything (AI bounced up steps as before).  I don't know what to make of that, but I've uploaded them to SVN in case anyone else wants to have a look.

When opening up the animations that work vs the ones that don't, I see the two have different numerical values for each bone.  I suspect that's a problem, but don't know exactly what those values mean.

 

Working animation:

    "origin"    -1 0 0    //
    "Bone001"    0 5 0    //
    "Bone002"    1 32 2    //
    "Bone003"    2 56 3    //
    "Bone004"    3 56 6    //
    "HeadBone"    4 56 9    //

 

Non-working animation:

  "origin" -1 63 0 //
  "Bone001" 0 63 6 //
  "Bone002" 1 63 12 //
  "Bone003" 2 63 18 //
  "Bone004" 3 63 24 //
  "HeadBone" 4 63 30 //

[zergrush]

xyz coordinates perhaps?

[Destined]

Could be that something went wrong while exporting. The Blend file containing all the animations can be found in the file provided by the link. I used an earlier Blender version (not 100% sure which one; it is one of the things I lost in my hard dsic crash), so it might not work properly with the latest release (as is usual for Blender )

[kingsal]

@Diego Seems like your messages or email isn't working? I wanted to reach out to you about getting a hold of the original source files for the werebeast if possible - Im gonna be getting this guy polished up and working for 2.09.  Are you by any chance able to send PMs? Maybe your inbox is full?

[Diego]

Oh that is odd. I don't think my inbox is full, I never get messages. But I did get a notification for this mention! it only took me a few days to notice it because I'm not here as often as I did a few years ago.

Anyway, spring also asked me about the original source files a while ago too but they seem to be lost now, unfortunately. At this point I would just start over.

[Destined]

These are the files I have on  the werebeast:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t97u6lm914fen7o/werebeast.pk4?dl=0

Not sure if they are of any help, but maybe you can find something useful among them.

[nbohr1more]

9 hours ago, Destined said:

These are the files I have on  the werebeast:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t97u6lm914fen7o/werebeast.pk4?dl=0

Not sure if they are of any help, but maybe you can find something useful among them.

@kingsal

[kingsal]

Thanks guys, this will at least get me started. @Destined Does this rig have any animation controllers on it? 

[Destined]

I am not sure what you mean with animation controllers, but I think so. At least there are some joints that move more than one other joint. For example, the first joint on a finger will move the all following joints, so it curls the whole finger by just rotating the one joint. The same is true for the tail. Is that what you mean?

Edit: and just because I opened it right now: the file werebeast_md5_imported_two_rigs.blend contains a couple of animations I made, that actually seem to still work (in Blender v2.78). If I remember correctly the latest exported files were botched for some reason and thought that the blender file was too, but right now it looks fine (at least on the first glance). So, if they are up to your standard, you can use them. And if not, they may at least be a starting point, so you don't have to start from scratch.

Edit2: Ok, there are only a couple of animations working: idle_sniffing, Pain1, Run (this is running on all fours, but the idea was discarded, because the IK would be too complicated, IIRC), Run_two_legs, and Search1. But at least it is a start.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Destined
Correction

[Diego]

@kingsalBesides finding the original files, is there anything I can do to help? I've been away from 3d art for a while; mainly just the occasional sculpting. Let me know.

[kingsal]

@Destined Ah okay, thats exactly what Im looking for. Controllers are just dummy objects attached to the bone to help move the rig around, they just make it easier to grab and move around rather than selecting a bone. Thats good to know, thank you

 

@Diego I'm not sure yet, but I'll definitely let you know if something comes up.  It might be easier to just start it from the ground up, but let me look into it a bit more.