Builder Guard Completion List

[mrdes]

UPDATED:

August 10th - Sidestep v2 added

 

I'm not sure which models will share which animations but the only ones completed so far could pretty much be used for just about anyone. I'll edit this post as those things get decided and as I finish more animations. At the moment the upper chest/spine doesn't really have any rotations since I've been working with these animations on the builder guard and he's wearing a breastplate. It's not hard at all to add it in if the animations need to get used for a different model though. Oh and I haven't done work on the shoulder pads yet, but that's also easy to add in later.

 

I'll try to explain the action as best as possible so you guys can figure out which model you think the animation does or doesn't belong on.

 

(all 24 fps)

 

Casual standing - Average standing around. Head is looking mainly forward. Breathing is the most noticeable movement in this one.

 

Brush chest - Looking around, happens to notice something on his chest and looks down at it. Raises left hand and brushes it off with 2 fingers. About 6 seconds.

Brush Chest

 

Cough - Coughs twice. Tries to cover mouth with right hand (hand is in a fist). Just over 2 seconds.

Coughing

 

Itching cheek - Leans and tilts head to the left to itch cheek with right hand. 3 seconds.

Scratching Cheek

 

Hand on hip/shifts weight - Looking around, left foot steps forward as right hand goes on hip and he leans on to his right leg, looks around a bit more and left foot steps back into place. 5 seconds.

Shifting Weight

 

Stretch - Right hand (in a fist) goes on the back of his right hip as he stretches and arches back. 3 seconds.

Stretch

 

Glance back - Hears something behind him, quickly turns and looks behind him all startled.

Glance Back

 

Failed Blackjack KO - Hit on the back of the head and stumbles forward just barely keeping himself up, shakes head.

Failed blackjack KO

 

Calm Glance Back - Hears something behind him, slightly and calmly turns to look over shoulder, then returns to regular pose.

Calm Glance Back

 

Combat Stance - Short combat stance that would be played in loop i guess. Corny hammer is just a placeholder obviously

Combat Stance

 

Side Step - Side step to the right/left (avoiding an arrow possibly). Placeholder hammer equipped. Still not sure about how the weapons' animations are supposed to transfer over into the game exactly.

Side Step v1 (old)

Side Step v2 (new)

[oDDity]

Cool. You'll have fun doing some of the ambient anims we want. I'd like one for them having a piss against a wall. Not for the Builders maybe, but the rest of the guard classes.

[Springheel]

Sounds great MD. Any chance of getting a glimpse at these?

[mrdes]

I could e-mail quicktime .mov files of the animations to whoever.

[Springheel]

Sure, you could send them to me and I'll make them available here.

 

eric 'at' mindplaces.com

[mrdes]

Ok cool. Just rendering em out and I'll send them over to ya.

 

Still a bit of tweaking to do here and there and it'll definitely help if people can critique them and such.

 

I'll add in a bit of camera movement so everyone can get a better look at them.

[Springheel]

Here's the only one that's arrived so far (though it says 'last one')

 

Scratching Cheek

-looks great!

[mrdes]

Ok the rest should be on their way then. I had to send it all in two separate e-mails since hotmail has a 10 mb attachment limit.

[Springheel]

Hmmm, I've never tried getting email that large, so I don't know whether that 10mb one will get to me....hasn't yet.

[mrdes]

Hm ok it was 8.5 mb or something I think. I'll split them up and send them in 2 different E-mails I guess.

[Springheel]

I'm going to add the animations to your first post just to keep the thread organized.

 

edit: Just received Cough and Chest Brush.

 

Cough: Looks excellent.

 

Chest Brush. The looking down part is great. At first I thought he was scratching his breastplate, which looked weird, but then I saw he was actually 'flicking' something with his two fingers. The camera angle is poor at that moment, but I think it looks good.

 

 

Great to see these so quickly.

 

 

edit: I notice these are rather large (1-3mbs each). There's a limit to how many I can post at this rate.

[mrdes]

Ya I quickly threw the camera on them just before I sent the mail so it's a bit messy.

 

I guess it would have made more sense for me to put them in a .zip file I think hehe. I'll do that in the future.

[oDDity]

THe one I saw so far look so great. Just a note about the shoulder armor. THey should slant down when the arms are by his sides, rather than be sticking out horizontally. I had the colourmaps in that rar file as well, any rerason you didn't apply them?

[mrdes]

Yeah I didn't add any movement for the shoulder pads yet (Forgot to add that to my original post and I edited it afterwards).

 

And the color map was something I was going to ask about. I have never actually worked with a character that had 2 maps so I'm not too sure how to apply them properly in Max. I can only get one working at a time. Switching the map channel in the material editor just gives me a black model, and when rendered it says the object requires map coordinates.

[Springheel]

Got the remaining two. The handhip one looks great, and the stretch is nice and subtle. These are all very good. I was quite excited imagining watching these in action in a map.

 

I think what I'll do, rather than trying to link every one above (I can't host that much), is bundle them up and put them on the FTP site for others who want to check them out. If you send me the last two in your list above I'll put them all up.

[sparhawk]

Can you put them on FTP? Are these movies or actual gameanimations already?

[oDDity]

There should be three UV maps on the character to go with the two images. I converted it from a LWO using Deep Exploration so I haven't checked it in Max (don't have max installed)

[mrdes]

Sparhawk - They're quicktime .mov files of the animations rendered out from 3D Max, not in-game yet. The model is also untextured atm in the animations. And Springheel said he would make them available on the FTP for everyone I think.

 

edit - Oh wait I figured it out Oddity. Got it workin fine.

[oDDity]

I just installed max. When I render the model it gave me the dialogue about the missing texture images, so I simply added the directory where I have them and it rendered the model complete with textures. I dind't have to change anything.

To get it to show up in the viewport you have to grab the eyedropper tool from the materal dialoge and click on the model, then it shows you the multi/sub-object material, then click on each of the three child textures to go to it's properties and click on the 'show map in viewport' button.

[Springheel]

I just got the 'glanceback' one. It's great, although I think you should have two versions. One where the character just does the first stage--glancing back--and then one that does both like the current version. The first one could be used when the AI is glancing behind them randomly, or for a very small sound. The second could be used when the AI hears a sound behind them that sends them into alert status.

 

We're also going to want an animation (very similar to the first stage) where the AI can glance behind while continuing to walk. Perhaps something that only uses the head and body channel, but not the legs?

 

edit: I'm going to move the animations to the ftp site and link to there above.

 

edit: MD, I'm going to make you a full member, so you'll be able to log onto the ftp site yourself. You should also look into getting CVS working so you'll be able to access all the mod files.

[mrdes]

Oddity - All you really have to do is start a new multi/sub-object material and load the two color maps into the difuse slots as bitmaps. But the problem I was having was that I wasn't even using multi/sub-object material hehe. Woops. Looks great now though.

 

Springheel - Actually I was thinking the exact same thing about the glanceback one. I had the same thing in mind for the one that you saw - that it's for when he gets put into alert mode or whatever and then it would maybe blend into him walking with his weapon out. Then I have the other version where it's just the first part which will be a quick one for when he hears a little noise like you mentioned. I'll get to work on tweaking it as well as all the other ones. I'll look into figuring out CVS too.

[Springheel]

In the meantime you can put any new animations on the ftp site and link to them yourself. The login is stickied in the Info thread somewhere.

[mrdes]

Hmm I can't seem to connect to the FTP server. (Using IE) the login screen pops up and I put in all the info and then it just sits at "searching for items..." forever.

[oDDity]

Download flashFXP or something. Or go to sourceforge.net, I'm sure there are free FTP clients for download.

[Springheel]

Hmmm, IE works for me....not sure what to tell you. You can keep emailing them to me for now, but hopefully you'll be able to find something that works.