Random Idea: Attachable Armor?

[Ishtvan]

I was wondering what would happen if we made some bones for the AI's armor and added the armor on as an attachment? This could potentially let us have more variation in the AI without having to remodel/reanimate entirely different AI for different armor setups, or it could potentially be a huge pain in the ass, I'm not sure which.

 

TDS apparently did this, but in their case it led to that 'floating pauldrons' bug.

[SneaksieDave]

Yep, TDS had a bunch of attachment areas. I think I mentioned in some thread that for my undead crypt level thingie, I put one or two eyeballs in the otherwise empty socket zombies. Really added to the creep-out factor when he's walking around with a single eyeball barely hanging on. And you have to pickpocket a necklace from around his neck.

[Springheel]

Technically you could do this now. Other than pauldrons, I'm not sure what would look good though. Breastplates or gloves would need to be able to move and bend with the model. Helmets would already be covered by head swapping...I can't think of any other armour pieces that would work.

 

Did TDS do this with any armour other than pauldrons?

[SneaksieDave]

Unsure, myself. Possibly not.

[Solis]

Technically you could do this now. Other than pauldrons, I'm not sure what would look good though. Breastplates or gloves would need to be able to move and bend with the model. Helmets would already be covered by head swapping...I can't think of any other armour pieces that would work.

Leg and arm armor, possibly. It could also be used to identify notable characters, for example a person with a sash to signify someone of importance, or something. Or even bracelets and necklaces, accessory items like that.

[Springheel]

It certainly would be useful for ornaments--even helmets/hats could be done this way if we make our heads without them from now on. Hmm, that makes me wonder if we could use some of the D3 heads (already rigged for facial animations) and slap a helmet on them with a def-attachment...?

 

I'm sure it's also possible to make AI with objects (bracelets, rings, etc) that only become frobbable once they're in ragdoll state, so you can strip the bodies but you can't do something silly like steal a bracelet off someone without them noticing.

 

If you wanted to get creative, with a combination of nodraw skins and attachments, you could even do peg legs and hook hands. Arr, matey!

 

Once we get a command line attachment system, we'll really be able to do a lot with it.

[Springheel]

Here's a proof-of-concept for attaching helmets. It can be done, although one problem might be that the helmet won't collide, so I don't know how/if that would affect blackjacking. Would certainly be useable for generic hoods/headgear, however.

 

 

The Builder Church, low on donations, looks to cut costs where they can:

[ascottk]

You guys are having way too much fun with the builders!

[SneaksieDave]

The prank was too perfect, and Brother Rectus would never live down his new nickname: Shithead.

[New Horizon]

The prank was too perfect, and Brother Rectus would never live down his new nickname: Shithead.

[Ishtvan]

Blackjacking can be set up completely separate from the helmet, so that should be fine.

 

It might effect damage though, if you want it to act as plate rather than chain for armor purposes, there would be no collision so it wouldn't detect the plate. Swapping heads with diff. helmets might work better in that respect, since the head materials would be presumably set up right for plate/chain/flesh based on the helmet or lack thereof.

[Springheel]

Ah well, no biggie. Just thought it might give even more flexibility to appearance. This still could allow them to use varied cloth headgear though, which would be good for making townsfolk look less cookie-cutter.

 

Here's another proof-of-concept, and an idea for a new weapon--the STEAM ARROW:

 

"What's that? I thought I saw something...ah, need to clean my spectacles again..."

 

(These glasses are too big and too opaque for using like this, but you get the idea)

[SneaksieDave]

ROFL! :laugh:

 

"En garde, rogue... Not in the face, not in the face!"

[ascottk]

We should post some of this stuff in the public gallery "TDM devs go insane & here's the proof . . . "

[Domarius]

When you see stuff like this, you know the mod is progressing well

 

Is there any reason why you didn't sit the pot right over his head?

 

Those glasses are a good demonstration of the flexibility of this system!

 

For different helmets - that could work if we make a "helmet head" that doesn't actually have a helmet graphically modelled on - just some of his bare head is textured with "metal" so that if he gets hit there, it counts as armour. Then we can put on any sort of helmet attatchment on that.

Though it would be better of course if the attatchments did the collision, to avoid making "helmeted" versions of each head as I just suggested.

[Solis]

Hmm, rather than modeling a head with "metal" on it, would it be possible to simply make a normal head, make the helmet an attachment, and then maybe allow the helmet to be removed in the game for whatever reason (for example if they get knocked over from a strong force, it would look cool to see their helmet get hit away). It could be an interesting game idea, although obviously just there as an option in case we come up with a situation later where it would be appropriate for a guard to lose his helmet. Or, maybe guards on break could sit down somewhere and put their helmet to the side, making them easier targets (I can't imagine they'd want to sit around for 12 hours with a slab of metal on their head constantly).

[Ishtvan]

Actually wait a minute, I confused myself earlier.

 

I believe that entities that are bound can still register a collision when something else hits them, so the helmet will register a collision. The collisions they don't register is when the bindmaster moves in such a way as they would make the bound object hit something else, but other things hitting the bound object should still register. (I.e., bound object moves and hits something - does not register. Something else moves and hits bound object - does register).

 

However, there'd be no automatic link between the helmet getting hit and the AI being damaged. This is okay if we want the helmet to offer 100% protection, but if not, the helmet would need some code/script to know what AI it's attached to and apply damage to that AI when it gets hit.

[Springheel]

Is there any reason why you didn't sit the pot right over his head?

 

Even with the new system it can still take a good ten minutes to get something angled just right, especially if it's on the head or has a weird origin placement. I didn't need to angle it perfectly to demonstrate the concept.

 

However, there'd be no automatic link between the helmet getting hit and the AI being damaged. This is okay if we want the helmet to offer 100% protection, but if not, the helmet would need some code/script to know what AI it's attached to and apply damage to that AI when it gets hit.

 

I think it probably makes the most sense to use systems that already exist. We could get pretty much the same level of variety from making fully-helmeted heads and just swapping the face textures. The only difference is that a mapper wanting a unique helmet design would have to model an entire head instead of just the helmet, but I don't think that's something we need to be concerned about.

[Ishtvan]

I think it probably makes the most sense to use systems that already exist. We could get pretty much the same level of variety from making fully-helmeted heads and just swapping the face textures. The only difference is that a mapper wanting a unique helmet design would have to model an entire head instead of just the helmet, but I don't think that's something we need to be concerned about.

I agree with that from the programming perspective (mainly since it means I don't have to do any work to set up new systems for this )

[Springheel]

I agree with that from the programming perspective (mainly since it means I don't have to do any work to set up new systems

 

Don't mention it. Who's a bigger proponent of not doing extra work than me?

[Springheel]

However, there'd be no automatic link between the helmet getting hit and the AI being damaged. This is okay if we want the helmet to offer 100% protection, but if not, the helmet would need some code/script to know what AI it's attached to and apply damage to that AI when it gets hit.

 

I was just rereading this, since we brought up the subject again, and I realized that helmets SHOULD give 100% protection from arrows/swords. So if that's what would happen, we really don't have a problem.

 

I think we should look into this idea again of def_attaching helmets to heads, because it increases our potential variety of heads by a lot. So if the helmet can register collisions from weapons, that's good.

 

What about KOing? We had talked about linking that information to the head, but really it's the type of helmet that should determine the KO specifics...is there any way we can link that information to the helmet used, rather than the head?

[sparhawk]

If we can make that attachment thingy, then linking the KO to the helmet is easy. Would be just a property on the helmet.

[Ishtvan]

If the helmet is another entity, you're probably going to have to modify the SDK to propagate damage to the helmet into damage to the AI, unless you want helmets to make them completely impervious to damage. It might be possible to do with just scripting, but may be more straightforward to alter the ::damage method on them in the SDK.

 

I think the attached head is another entity and it propagates its damage to the main AI's health, so you may want to look at how it's done there.

[Springheel]

If the helmet is another entity, you're probably going to have to modify the SDK to propagate damage to the helmet into damage to the AI, unless you want helmets to make them completely impervious to damage

 

Helmets *are* supposed to make them impervious to damage. Metal armour causes arrows to bounce off and break, so no problem there. Cloth hats and hoods aren't supposed to stop any damage at all, and making them nonsolid ensures that, so no problem there.

 

The only thing that would pose a problem is if we wanted to include a chain-mail coif as an attached entity. Chain mail is supposed to absorb some damage but not all. That's a rare case though, and I don't think it's worth messing around with the SDK for. We could just set chain-mail on the head to nonsolid as well.

 

The only thing we really need in order for this system to work is the ability to set KO info in the entity def for the helmet.

[SneaksieDave]

Heh, and bring back that kooky idea of frobbing helmets off first and then whacking them. Huh, I guess it's not so kooky. SORTA.