Removing Weapons From Ai

[Springheel]

Continued from Animation thread:

 

2. When is the best time to remove the weapons from AI and prepare them for AF attachments? How much work is it to do this?

 

2. Not entirely sure, since I don't know how objects have attachments applied to them in Doom 3. Although if it's like I think it is, we can simply keep the sword on the model we animate with and the rig animations could be imported to the Doom 3 model that has the sword attached in-game. In that case we could remove them right away.

 

2. Whenever. It means the anims have to be re-exported though. I think the more important question is - when will the command line interface for adjusting AF attachments I came up with going to be implemented? Otherwise you'll be back to spending hours on one attachment

[Springheel]

Yeah, I definitely won't be trying to attach any weapons until I get some kind of command line interface--waaay too frustrating. We'll also need a system that allows the AI to actually draw weapons, moving it from one joint to another.

 

So removing the weapons means the animations have to be re-exported. I personally think we should do this now and get it out of the way, so there are fewer animations to export later. Is removing the weapons at all difficult?

[New Horizon]

Agreed. Do it now. The command line thingy probably isn't too far away at this point. Would we be able to even add some type of gui in dark radiant with those commands?

[Springheel]

Well, it would be great if DR actually showed the attachment, and could refresh it without having to exit. Doomedit doesn't show you any attachments in render mode, so you have to load the game to see it.

[Ishtvan]

I'll do the function for dynamic attachment as soon as I can (which needs to be done before we can refresh any, otherwise it's just done at spawn).

 

However, there is another option for accurate attachment that could be done right now: If the modelers could just open up the AI and read off the coordinates with respect to certain joint coordinates, we would know exactly where to attach stuff. Apparently there is some difference in going from model units to doom units, but I would've thought this would be a known conversion by now?

[Springheel]

If the modelers could just open up the AI and read off the coordinates with respect to certain joint coordinates, we would know exactly where to attach stuff.

 

The coordinates are actually less important than how much the joint moves during animations--ideally we want joints that don't move very much.

 

I've already found coordinates for several things--hands, belt, etc (though it's possible these could vary from model to model, which is a potential issue). But I was doing it by trial and error, and that's quite time consuming.

[ascottk]

Why do we just have a nodraw texture for the weapons (short term, easy solution)? Then we'd have to make skins for the attachment.

[Domarius]

If the modelers could just open up the AI and read off the coordinates with respect to certain joint coordinates, we would know exactly where to attach stuff. Apparently there is some difference in going from model units to doom units, but I would've thought this would be a known conversion by now?

I don't know it. I'll see if I can post you some coordinates tonight though.

[Springheel]

*Note to other people removing weapons!*

 

There's still a attachment bone on the skeleton & if it's not attached to the mesh, then the d3 export will not use it! Instead of deleting the weapon mesh, put a no draw texture on it & rig it to the weapon attachment bone.

[ascottk]

Actually, you can remove the weapons. You need to add the -keep option in the def file:

 

export builderguard {

options  -keep Body Body2 Hips Lupleg Lloleg Lankle_r Lball_r Ltoe_r Lknee Rupleg Rloleg Rankle_r Rball_r Rtoe_r Rknee SPINNER Waist Belly Chest Lrib Rrib Shoulders Lshldr Luparm_orbit Luparm Lloarm Lhand Lhand1 LHANDCONNECTOR Lfings1 Lfings2 Lfings3 Lindex1 Lindex2 Lindex3 lthumb1 Lthumb2 Lthumb3 Rshldr Ruparm_orbit Ruparm Rloarm Rhand Rhand1 RHANDCONNECTOR Rfings1 Rfings2 Rfings3 Rindex1 Rindex2 Rindex3 Rthumb1 Rthumb2 Rthumb3 loneckcontrol neckcontrol headcontrol lshldrpad rshldrpad chair eyecontrol -parent RHANDCONNECTOR Rhand1 -parent LHANDCONNECTOR Lhand1 -parent headcontrol neckcontrol -parent neckcontrol loneckcontrol -parent loneckcontrol Shoulders -parent rshldrpad Shoulders -parent lshldrpad Shoulders -parent Body2 Body -parent Hips Body2 -parent SPINNER Body2 -parent Waist SPINNER -parent RHANDCONNECTOR Rhand1 -parent LHANDCONNECTOR Lhand1 -parent headcontrol neckcontrol -parent neckcontrol loneckcontrol -parent loneckcontrol Shoulders  -parent rshldrpad Shoulders -parent lshldrpad Shoulders -parent Body2 Body -parent Hips Body2 -parent SPINNER Body2 -parent Waist SPINNER -sourcedir models/ask/builder_guardmbs -destdir models/md5/chars/builders/guard
  mesh stance2.mb -dest builderguardmesh