Elite Guard Walk And Run Anims Updated

[Domarius]

Don't kill me, I can change it back. I just heard someone make a comment (SneaksieDave i'm pretty sure) that the existing walk and run anims of the Elite guard (not mine) looked not so good and the run looked like an old fat lady trying to catch a bus.

 

Well I just replaced the walk and the run with my versions that I made ages and ages ago, to see if anyone thinks they're an improvement or not.

 

I did these without any reference material, so they're not as good as they could be I think. But are they an improvement on the previous ones, that's what I'm hoping.

[Domarius]

Uh oh... I broke the guard. For one thing, he's always walking when he's meant to be standing still, and for another, it seems to be a problem that I've animated the movement cycles as him actually moving forward, instead of walking on the spot. I thought the former was possible.

 

Maybe something different needs to be done if the animation contains the actual distance the character walks? As opposed to the animation just walking on the spot and the code moving the character forward.

 

I could convert the anims to walk on the spot I guess. I just thought (until now) that I was supposed to animate them actually travelling the distance.

[Dram]

lol, I think the animation just determines how fast they walk, while a speed value determines how fast they actually move. Though then again, I remember changing the anim rate of the hellknight to double and he physically moved twice as fast, perhaps it was through IK? dunno

[SneaksieDave]

@Dram: really? That would be quite useful, if we could change movement rates linked to animation easily. Then we could have zombies that really do... barely... pull themselves... along.......

 

Then again, we probably need our AI rigged properly for IK which I'm sure isn't the case because we never properly planned for anything, thus hamstringing and screwing ourselves later! Whoopee!

[Dram]

lol, yeah it would be super useful.

[Solis]

thus hamstringing and screwing ourselves later! Whoopee!

Why do I have a feeling I'll be hearing this statement a lot when working on this mod

 

But yes, by default, Doom 3 doesn't get character movement info from the animation itself. You'll need to set it up so that a bone is used to calculate the character's position as it moves. Here's a few threads about the subject:

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=2138

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1969

I haven't tried it myself in Doom 3 though, in Half-life it was done through a setting in the configuration file of the character.

 

Oh, and the engine can interpolate movement and animation speed so that you can adjust it however you want later and it will speed up and slow down the character appropriately. So if we decide later on to adjust the speed of a creature, we wouldn't have to change the animation or anything at all (unless you want to tweak it so that it looks more natural at that speed).

[Ishtvan]

@Solis: That would be excellent. Yeah, no one knew how to set up IK on our "from-scratch" characters at the time, and I guess no one had time to learn because it never got set up. It's definitely something we should do. [EDIT: Maybe we can use existing joints for this so we don't have to change the skeleton? I don't know.]

[SneaksieDave]

the engine can interpolate movement and animation speed so that you can adjust it however you want later and it will speed up and slow down the character appropriately

 

Aha, that's what I imagined/hoped. Why? Because it makes sense, and JC's work tends to make sense.

[Domarius]

Ahhh that's awesome info Solis. It's good for the animator to control the movement - not all movement is constant.

 

And yeah you wouldn't get far tweaking it till it started to look like a video tape on fast forward or slo mo, but it would be good for minor adjustments, or quick solutions.

[Ishtvan]

The citywatch elite is still broken. We should probably fix this if we want to test any maps with him in it.

 

@Domarius: What is different about the walk anim you used and the one Odd used? The one that Odd used moves him forward, with this one he seems to jump back to the place he started walking from at the end when it loops.

[Springheel]

The citywatch elite is still broken. We should probably fix this if we want to test any maps with him in it.

 

Sounds like a time to remind people to test their changes locally before uploading? There's no excuse for uploading animations to CVS without making sure they work properly on your own system first.

[Ishtvan]

I think Dom noticed that they were broken but didn't know how to fix it, judging from his posts above.

[Springheel]

I assumed from the way he worded his post that he uploaded them to CVS and then noticed they were broken (uploading ones you KNOW are broken is probably even worse). My apologies if that isn't the case. There's not much you can do if they work locally but not once uploaded.

[Domarius]

Well they look fine when I "tested" them using testAnim - I didn't realise that they didn't work when actually being used by the AI till later... though I probably shouldn't have left it this long before fixing it.

 

Now that I know there's a difference, I won't upload untill I've tested the AI themselves as well.

 

Sorry for the inconvenience though.

 

I have to review Solis's links and talk to oDDity if I can, to get them working proplerly.

 

But I should be able to upload the previous anims back tonight when I get home.

[Domarius]

Very sorry about that. The old ones are back up. I'll try again to get mine in properly sometime soon.