NPCs tracking player with their heads and torso - procedural animation

[Arcturus]

Another procedural animation I've been playing with.

There is already predefined "look at" event in the game. When I set up NPC to look at the path node it was a little buggy. Anyone tried to set up NPCs looking at player? They do seem to look up when they throw stones.

tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script

[Arcturus]

 

[Arcturus]

This version was made using built in "look at" code.

,

tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script

[Arcturus]

Back to the previous version. Added checks for unconscious and asleep NPCs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B677bxy98cc

tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script

[Fiver]

The creepily twisted heads in "2026 04 25 00 11 47 02" could be used in a mission with undead.

[Arcturus]

Now tracking stops when NPCs play random idle animations. There is no tracking on head joint, just the neck, which doesn't look as good. Unfortunately head joint is already used by existing random head turns and mixing it with a new script creates a conflict resulting in sudden jumps.

I uploaded it to repository.

I added

"canHeadTrackPlayer"        "1"

into tdm_ai_humanoid.def

tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script

[Arcturus]

Unfortunately because of how characters are set up in Darkmod using neck joint for animation is problematic. In noblewoman's head model, the chest is assigned to neck joint and so it clips when tracking is on.

So tracking script will have to be off by default, or at least turned off for some NPCs.

[SeriousToni]

The real question is if you will recognise this during gameplay - I barely do by this screenshot. 

[Arcturus]

@SeriousToni It's definitely noticeable. NPCs with décolletage are affected the most, although you can see some clipping on a city watch. Ideally head joint should be used in stead, but that would require modifying the existing procedural animation system. I think for now I will just disable it on noblewoman, wench, female rouge, etc. Female characters in Dark Mod are weirdly contorted enough already.

[Arcturus]

This could potentially negatively affect existing missions. Characters turn their torso a little bit, and with them their arms.

[stgatilov]

I booted into Inn Business FM and got these warnings:

WARNING:script\tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script(245): Thread 'ai_darkmod_base::updateHeadTrackLoop': Tried to call function on non-existent entity (#805)
WARNING:script\tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script(246): Thread 'ai_darkmod_base::updateHeadTrackLoop': Tried to call function on non-existent entity (#805)
WARNING:script\tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script(245): Thread 'ai_darkmod_base::updateHeadTrackLoop': Tried to call function on non-existent entity (#805)
WARNING:script\tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script(246): Thread 'ai_darkmod_base::updateHeadTrackLoop': Tried to call function on non-existent entity (#805)

 

[Arcturus]

@stgatilov The same warning appears when you type in killmonsters which deletes all NPCs. I don't know why in this mission it can't find this particular NPC. When I load the map it prints a warning about entity #78, but when I list entities in the map, there is no one with that id.

[stgatilov]

23 hours ago, Arcturus said:

@stgatilov The same warning appears when you type in killmonsters which deletes all NPCs. I don't know why in this mission it can't find this particular NPC. When I load the map it prints a warning about entity #78, but when I list entities in the map, there is no one with that id.

The same happens if you execute "kill Streetwalker", and will probably happen on any map for any AI that is completely removed from the game. Your threads holds entity reference and uses it all the time, and when the entity dies we get this warning.

[Arcturus]

The warning appears once.

I'm disabling it by default, if somebody wants to enable tracking they can put

canHeadTrackPlayer
1

on an NPC.

[Arcturus]

tdm_ai_head_tracking_humanoid.script

I swapped idle anim with a t-pose to see what's going on. And it looks ok, head joint doesn't seem to cause too many issues. There is a small stutter when random idle starts, for example at 1:23 monk's head is a bit jerky.

Random head turn is disabled when tracking begins. But they also turn around when they talk to each other, that doesn't count as random head turning. Anyone knows how to disable those? Tracking pauses when random idle animations play.

Main idle animation has those stupid sways. Here you can see some stutters on the head joint. Perhaps swaying back and forth in the idle anim causes some issues?