animation Arcturus' animations

[Arcturus]

I wanted to see if you can have more then one idle animation for a head just like there are for the body. I quickly made several md5.anim files and added them to a list in tdm_ai_heads.def

anim idle    models/md5/chars/heads/npcs/head_idle.md5anim
anim idle1    models/md5/chars/heads/npcs/head_idle_1.md5anim
anim idle2    models/md5/chars/heads/npcs/head_idle_2.md5anim
anim idle3    models/md5/chars/heads/npcs/head_idle_3.md5anim
anim idle4    models/md5/chars/heads/npcs/head_idle_4.md5anim

They are all just 2 frames long, except the one with the open mouth which is 12. It takes a lot of time to cycle through them. Did you know that TDM head has two joints for the tongue alone?

It seems like a new animation is picked at random only after NPC says something?

[Arcturus]

Created an animation testing some expressions. Unfortunately some Darkmod NPCs had undergone botox injections and can't emote very well.

BTW, isn't that the guy from Doom 3?

[Arcturus]

NPCs play various idle animations on their torso channel while they are walking. They are listed in tdm_ai_humanoid_newskel.def

// Animations only playing on the torso channel. Applicable anytime.
"idle_animations_torso"
"idle_cough,idle_nosewipe_short,idle_cough02,idle_armwipe,idle_arm_scratch,idle_sneeze,idle_adjusting_belt,idle_eat,idle_spit,idle_stretch,idle_check_hand"

Perhaps there might be some animations that could be on that list but currently aren't. Some NPCs have animations swapped in their def files. For example builder priest plays "idle_shifting2" instead of "idle_nosewipe_short", and "idle_shifting1" in stead of "idle_spit", and hands don't move in those animations. This looks bad in game:

Edit: I thought "idle_spit" looks bad, but it's rather short. It's those "shifting" animations which serve as replacement for other anims that are causing problems.

[Arcturus]

I went through .def files for NPCs and changed wherever "shifting" animations were used as replacement. I also added sounds to be played on certain frames where appropriate, so NPCs will make a bit more noise. Also builder guard will now use both walk animations.

[datiswous]

Did all the animation changes you made make it into tdm 2.14?

In the release notes I only see reference to Guard transition animations and the new old man ai. I think there was a lot more.

[Arcturus]

@datiswous Things that shipped are: fixed turning 90 degrees animation, fixed elbows in one of the walk anims (and enabled it for builder guard), changed starting frames of the walk anims, small changes to what idle anims are played when NPCs patrol.

I would like to see animation blending rates increased at some point, but that requires larger discussion.

 

[Arcturus]

I noticed something wrong. Guard rotates before opening the door.

This is what it looks like with the old animation (pre 2.14):

Both look bad, but arguably new one is worse.

The guard is rotating maybe 20 degrees but is playing 90 degrees animation.

[datiswous]

Maybe it repositions itself to get the correct angle? Maybe this can be mitigated by different placement of the path_corner entities

I guess there's a lack of testing by players for new features, otherwise this would've been spotted during 2.14 beta testing.

Edited March 26 by datiswous

[Arcturus]

I can mitigate it by twisting the upper body more.

I think game should account for small angle turns. Maybe by making additional 45 or 30 degree animations. There are those idle_turn_180 animations that seem to be unused in the proguard folder. But below certain threshold playing dedicated animation doesn't make sense to me?

[Arcturus]

When the turn is 10 degrees or less, animation is not played. Which also doesn't look amazing, but is better than the alternative:

 

[Arcturus]

I uploaded updated idle_turn_90_lft.md5anim and idle_turn_90_rgt.md5anim to repository. There is a lot of jerkiness. I'm not sure any more how much of an improvement that is over 2.13.

This is hack upon hack upon hack.

 

[Arcturus]

I updated the same way 90 degree turn animations with torch:

 

 

[Arcturus]

I made some further tweaks to the 'turn 90' animations.

 

 

[Arcturus]

Ok, one last time improved turn 90 animations. New export script makes testing easier.

turn_90_anims.zip

[Arcturus]

I updated three animations:

sit_2_sleep_on_chair
sit_sleep_idle
sleep_2_sit_on_chair

There was some elbow twisting, but mostly I wanted to fix the neck:

Files are now 413 KB in stead of 1.02 MB (unpacked), thanks to the new export script. I made changes to Blender rig so had redo a big chunk of the animations.

By the way, it's funny how the guy immediately screams "raise the alarm" when getting hit with a water arrow to the face, before he even opens eyes. Only then he slowly wakes up. It should be "what was that" state first. Or there should be entirely new animation for that.

[Arcturus]

There's a run animation called run_jog that lays unused.

I think it could be used in nobles or the old man.

Made some small fixes:

I did both run animations before I had a proper rig in Blender. They are based on mocap files from Carnegie Mellon University. It was pure forward kinematics and pure nightmare. So they are a bit messy.

[Fiver]

On 4/10/2026 at 4:29 PM, Arcturus said:

There's a run animation called run_jog

I can't recall ever seeing a sprint animation (higher knees, higher frequency in footwork) in TDM. Is there one?

[Arcturus]

10 hours ago, Fiver said:

I can't recall ever seeing a sprint animation (higher knees, higher frequency in footwork) in TDM. Is there one?

There are two running animations, but they cover the same distance in the same number of frames. They are based on mocap from Carnegie Mellon University but they are modified to match a predefined speed. Before I made those there were older hand made animations and people wanted to keep the same speed. Otherwise player's speed would have to be adjusted too.

On top of that in tdm_ai_humanoid.def there's:

"anim_rate_run" "0.8" //slows down AI so they are slightly slower than player

[Fiver]

@Arcturus Thank you for posting your work progress here and on YouTube. I find your channel exciting and calming at the same time.

Good work!

[datiswous]

On 4/7/2026 at 9:04 PM, Arcturus said:

I updated three animations

Why is it that the 3 guards stand up imidiatelly while the old dude isn't? Is this guard ai related?

[Arcturus]

5 hours ago, datiswous said:

Why is it that the 3 guards stand up imidiatelly while the old dude isn't? Is this guard ai related?

I don't know. Old guy uses nobleman's AI.

[taffernicus]

On 4/14/2013 at 1:15 AM, Arcturus said:

 

There are two versions of sleep animation: left and right. Why? Also in sleep_idle_rgt model is sinking into the ground and on sleep_idle_lft it is not. I assume that's a mistake.

Can the wake-up animation be applied to Corbin and the wake up camera set to Corbin's first-person view?

 

 

[Arcturus]

4 hours ago, taffernicus said:

Can the wake-up animation be applied to Corbin and the wake up camera set to Corbin's first-person view?

I had to look up who Corbin is, lol. You probably could do it somehow. In the Christmas demo map I made a .md5camera animation file that plays at the beginning. So camera isn't attached to anything, it just floats. Was it Grayman who made a video from a perspective of a random guard patrolling a mansion? I can't find it.

[taffernicus]

7 hours ago, Arcturus said:

I had to look up who Corbin is, lol. You probably could do it somehow. In the Christmas demo map I made a .md5camera animation file that plays at the beginning. So camera isn't attached to anything, it just floats. Was it Grayman who made a video from a perspective of a random guard patrolling a mansion? I can't find it.

okay i like the cam movement from that Christmas demo link. I'm just curious how to set the camera to a first-person view when the main character (Corbin) gets out of bed, hahaha 

 

I guess that would involve a lot of scripting?

Edited May 28 by taffernicus

[Arcturus]

@taffernicus Do you want player to see the body? In such case indeed, you would need to attach camera to the head joint.