Elite Guard Turn Left 90 Degrees

[god_is_my_goldfish]

THere's no probem making him turn in two steps with no clipping.

 

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/Files/turnclipless.avi

 

Yes, that looks much more natural.

[sparhawk]

(Not that I'm seriously considering re-animating this one over doing new animations - only 2 people have actually complained about the extra step so far.)

 

I didn't know that we should only accept criticism with a democratic vote.

[oDDity]

I did a finished version of this while I was at it.

Tweaked it some more for more natural followthrough.

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/Files/spin_right.avi

[god_is_my_goldfish]

That looks good odd.

 

There's no reason to not have all three different versions of turning, we can randomise animations played, right?

[oDDity]

Yes, the more the merrier.

To domarius - this is what I mean about secondary motion. THe top half of your animations seem to be motionless most of the time, the whole movement of the top half is ususally coming from the hips. Also, see the way I start the movment from the head, then the chest turns, then the hips, down to the legs. The animation flows from top to bottom like a wave. All movement begins with a thought in the head.

THe arms drag behind and then follow through, there is opposing anticipation before the initial movement. You can see the weight of the characters as he pushes off, the arms dangle when he 'stops' moving (of course no one ever stops moving, even someone who is apparently standing still, there is always wavering of the body eminating fomr the hips, and the arms dangle, or move in small circles, and the head also moves a little. etc.

This is not perfect, I can now see the timing of the steps are to regular, like clockwork, or he's moving to a beat, but it's just little extra tweaking like that which makes it seem like more natural motion. It's a pain in the ass and extra work to do all that stuff, it takes longer to put in the secondary movenents than to do the main action usually, but it's worth it.

[Domarius]

To acheive it in 2 steps without clipping and end up at the exact same position but 90 degrees different, you must have seperated the legs wider for his standing position. I was basing mine off your standing pose that you sent me, because I thought it looked good. If we change the standing pose, we have to change all the anims that use it - idle, draw sword, and any other transitory ones such as beginning to run, finishing run, etc. So it seems we are still in the process of nailing down a good standing pose.

 

If you did use a different standing pose than I did, then we cannot use both anims, because his feet will slide around on the ground as he changes from one standing pose to another, as they did in T2.

 

Thanks for the tips - I did do it that way though. He already does turn his head first, then his shoulders, swing his arms when he finishes... it's all there. If no one can see it then it just needs exagerating. When I animate from reference I constantly aim to animate exactly what I see. So to get good in-game results, what I end up with seems to need exagerating.

 

@GIMG - it doesn't look "good" as it is, obviously its very robotic and stiff, and not finished.

 

And regarding randomly choosing the anims...

Lol, if only we had enough animators to do a sufficient number of different variations of every anim to warrant having to randomly choose them.

[Domarius]

I didn't know that we should only accept criticism with a democratic vote.

Is there any problem with prioritising work in order of what is most needed?

I said I didn't see a need to re-create this entire animation over doing some new ones.

 

If it was so bad that it wasn't going to be used, then I would feel compelled to re-create it, since it would be as if it didn't exist.

 

But judging from the overall feedback from this thread, it doesn't seem that this is the case. Especially when compared to MrDes's thread, where we see people saying that his animations are great, and yet there isn't a lot of secondary movement, and one of them he takes an entire step to the side without shifting weight at all.

 

Your critisism is still welcome, because I will take it into consideration when I come to re-do the animation when it becomes worthwhile.

 

I'm trying to do this in between two jobs, and University will be starting again soon, so I would rather produce as much useful things as possible. I only asked for critisism on the quality of my work, I never promised you I would change the anims in response to each and every single critisim immediately.

[sparhawk]

Well, MrDes is not here, so there would be no point in doing criticism on his work. The problem is if you create crappy work because you don't have time and would like to create more instead of good ones, then it doesn't help at all. I rather prefer less, but with excellent quality, instead of mass production which looks shit. I'm not saying that you did this, because actually they look quite good IMO. I just want to mention the priorities. I would consider it pretty bad, if we deliver high class work in all areas and then spoil it because of claimed time constraints. Everybody has work to do, so this would be valid in all areas, but we shouldn't accept this as an excuse.

[oDDity]

You simply can't animate quickly and well at the same time. Even professional animators spend a week doing a few seconds of finsihed animation.

That's the problem with the whole graphics side of the mod, you have to put so many damn hours in if you want really good results.

[sparhawk]

I know. So the question is wether we would like to put out the mod with a lot of animations even if they are not well done, or we have lesser and they are first class? IMO bad animations can hurt the immersion much more than bad models, because humans are used to the timings and appearence of it. Thief worked so well, not because the models were so high-poly, but because the animations were quite well. On the contrary the TDS animations were so bad done, that it was immediately recognizable.

[oDDity]

The real question is, can we do animaitons that well?

Domarius is not really an animator, I'm not really an animatior, neither of us have much experience or time to do it, but it looks like no on else is going to do them, so a coder and a modeler will have to do them all.

I do strive for perfection in all I do, but I dont' think I'll have the time to spend a week tweaking each animation, when I have all the modeling and texturing to do was well, and building leet looking levels.

THe animatons currently in the game, I knocked them all up in a weekend, but I always thought they were just placeholders until a real animator did proper ones.

It's looking more and more likely that we'll never have a real professional animator, so Domarius and I will have to do our best.

I enjoy animating, but doing a proper finished animation, even one that is only a few seconds long, is a big time commitment.

[sparhawk]

It seems that he is doing quite fine with the animations, and I think with a bit more patience, they could become excellent. Of course if they are spoiled by hurry we can't much do about it, except trying to improve them later. Which will never happen though ...

 

You should be aware of this. Anything that we deliver will most likely stay that way for quite some time. Doing an arduous task like this will most likely not be reworked, and stick to the mod. It's similar with the models that are unskinned waiting on our server. Nobody is likely to get aorund skinning them, because it's boring and arduous to do. Unless the creator himself does it, there is a very high chance that nobody else will ever bother with it later, because most people will prefer to do their own stuff, instead of finishing off what was left uncompleted.

 

Actually I was quite surprised that SophisticatedZombie is reworking the AI scripts, because this is a similar task, and you better shouldn't count on it, that eventually somebody comes along and does it.

[Domarius]

Spar - I used MrDes as an example of what you guys were previously willing to accept as "really good" and "good enough for the mod" as a reason for moving onto some other anims - I'm thinking to do as much as will be really useful for a certain video release or something.

 

I just think guards chasing the player, looking over their shoulder, etc. will be better for a video than a guard that can turn 90 degress really well.

[sparhawk]

I would have to revisit MrDes animations to make sure, but Id on't remember such big issues with it, and of course he never actually put the ingame, so it might as well be the case we were overenthusiastic because we thought we had and animator. With your 90 degree turn, I also thought it ooked quite well in the beginning, and only after watching it several times I noticed some issues. That doesn't mean that it is worse, but it means that some things you only notice when you look more often at it.

And as I said above. If you accept an animation now as "it's good enough now, and we can improve it later", chances are that this will never happen.

[Ishtvan]

I wouldn't worry about getting "enough" animations for some hypothetical future video release. Just take your time and perfect each one, quality over quantity style.

[Domarius]

Fair enough.

 

@oDDity - did you use the standing pose as it is in your idle animation or not? If you didn't, then we better agree on it as a good standing pose because it will have to be applied to all the other anims that use it.

 

His feet might look too far apart in your new one, can't tell from the vid, I want to see it front on.

[oDDity]

THat's a good point actually, the feet in my turn left and clasoer together than the idle. I think the idle stance is too wide apart anyway, a bit too casual for a professional guard, but ok for other AI.

[Domarius]

Okay send me your turn left, I'll make mine like it and adopt the pose into the other anims.

[Domarius]

Now that I have oDDity's file and can analyse it, I've found that oDDity's version only gets away with a 90 degree turn without intersecting his legs because;

1. He doesn't turn the full 90 degrees.

2. In the final pose his feet end up much wider appart than the initial pose.

 

It's imperative to get the above correct otherwise the animations won't blend into each other properly and we'll have the slidey feet thing between anims that annoyed the hell out of me in T2. Mine ends up with his feet wider too - which is why he brings the other one back in again.

 

And like I said, I began my animation first by rotation the model exactly 90 degrees on the last frame, numerically, by entering -90 in the Y axis rotation. If this isn't perfect, and the author sets him to rotate every so often so that he does a full circle, or sets him to rotate randomly, eventually he'll be facing directions the author didn't intend.

 

An ACCURATE turn left 90 is still impossible without intersection if only doing it in two steps, using this particular mesh and rig.

 

The little shuffle he does at the end in mine gives it a less accurate and more human apparence anyway.

[oDDity]

Lol, it does't have to be exactly a numeric 90- degrees, I didn't type numbers in, I did an animation.

Again, you're never goign to get anything finished if you keep obsessing over these little details.

As for the foot not being in the same position - when the left foot swings round and plants, just move it a little closer to the right one so it's the same as the starting position. I'tll still not clip through.

[Domarius]

I'm also part programmer, and I say it does have to be a numeric 90 degrees. There are parts of a game where art crosses over into mechanics, and this is one of them.

 

Your solution to the clipping is bad - he will end up 90 degrees AND shifted sideways slightly. So he will not be turning exactly on the spot.

 

Look, remember how you can urge the T3 guards to fall into the water just by standing on the boat and watching them shake their fist at you? The fist shaking animation takes them forward, a TINY amount, not noticible to the eye, but you wait around and they eventually fall in. It's these kinds of techincal considerations that artists are not always aware of but programmers are.

 

The way I did it is fine, and it was quick - entering numbers is quicker than manually animating, when you are doing simple yet accurate things.

 

Ironically, its THIS subsequent obsessing about details that will waste time.

[Ishtvan]

Actually, doesn't the turn to face direction script (I think it's a path_* entity) turn to an arbitrary direction? If that's the case, maybe we just need an anim for them shuffing their feet around some as if they're turning, and loop it until they've turned the required amount? I dunno though, that would look more unnatural than turning 90 degrees in one step in some cases.

[Domarius]

No, AFAIK, position changes of mesh animations equate to actual entity position changes in Doom 3. The walk cycles of all the AI are done with the anim actually moving forward with each step, not on the spot.

 

The anims you see of mine where he appears to be walking on the spot are done by having the camera move exactly the same distance forward that he does.

[Ishtvan]

I realise that, but I'm saying you can instruct the AI to turn to any arbitrary direction, but you can also have a turning anim. I don't know if D3 just plays enough of the anim to face a certain way and then stops it, or what.

[Domarius]

The reason you leave it up to the anim is so that it looks better and his feet don't slide around. It would take more work to syncronise the code and the anim like this - it only takes me 2 seconds to rotate the model by a perfect 90 degrees.