Ascottk's Ai Journal

[ascottk]

Yet another thread about progress or the lack thereof. Models listed are at least started.

 

Builder Guard

 

As taken from Springheels thread.

- clipping of legs through armour when walking (in progress)

- hand texture needs modifying

- hand size is rather small (in progress)

- walk animation is borrowed from proguard so reposition sword bone so it doesn't go on the hip.

walk animation is no longer going in circles but now he wanders & changes direction randomly

City Watch

 

- rigging touchups (messed up mesh, detached triangles, where the chain mail material is applied FIXED)

- more mesh to the neck

- fix idle & other animations. The arms & hands clip through body.

- cvs commit

- figure out why head is showing as black box

- separate mesh where chainmail material should go

- has mitten hands & head detached

 

City Watch Elite

- figure out why head is showing as black box (bb-head) Stupid mistake. I had an older, conflicting def file using the same head mesh

- may need to add more mesh to the neck on the main body after fixing bb-head.

- update on cvs

- has mitten hands & head detached

 

Proguard

 

- resized

- detach head

- mitten hands

- delete weapon from mesh

 

Thief

 

- rigging tweaks may need more tweaks but it's good for now

- mitten hands

- detached head

 

General

- spinning"helicopter" AI (walking animation problems) - WIP (borrowed from proguard)

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=3916&hl=

- fix head meshes to better fit bodies.

[ascottk]

A couple things I noticed with the citywatch--is it me or do the pauldrons look like they're too close to the head? At the moment, when the head turns side to side it noticeably clips into them, and they look like they really should be further down the shoulder. Also, I noticed a distinct 'warp' in the right foot, where the foot sticks out from the leg further than it should.

 

... the pauldrons are too close & that might be resolved by modifying the animations. I put a note in my AI journal to fix that as well as having the hands & arms too close to his body (clipping).

 

Also the animations, as well as the ragdolls, of all AI have the head clip into the body especially of they have shoulder armor. If I have time I'll look into the AFs of them to restrict head/neck movement. The AFs also have the arms banding backwards a little bit from the elbow.

[ascottk]

Incorporate Ishtvan's dynamic attachments to AI.

 

AI Dropping objects:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=4697

 

Attachment Updates:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=4369

 

Discussion:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=4352

 

* One concern is having different offsets when transferring from the hips to the hand

[ascottk]

Running anims have the sword drifting around the hand. Constrain the sword joint to the hand so it doesn't drift so much.

 

* The joint is constrained in the animations but the sword joint wanders when AI looks around.

[ascottk]

Tweak rigs I've done so far & add inside cloth mesh (between body armor & hip armor) for the builder guard.

[ascottk]

Pay attention to this thread:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=4729

 

Ideas on how to fix builder guard:

First, not really a rigging issue per se, but the hammer currently doesn't move with the torso, so when the builder looks behind him or turns side to side, the hammer handle often clips right through his shoulders into his chest. I know if it does move it could easily clip into his butt, so this might a case of the lesser of two evils.

Experiment with constraints in Maya. The sword bone should move with spine2 since the upper armor is rigged to that. Where the armor goes then the sword joint should move with that.

 

The right hand seems slightly detached from the arm:

Try going 50/50 with the forearm & hand.

 

10-30-06: 50/50 results in having the hand stick out of the armor.

 

From most angles, the right thumb seems to be missing a joint, though it appears from other angles.

Check normals on the mesh.

 

10-30-06: It looks like it's animation related.

 

The left pauldron has a bit of metal protruding out while the right one doesn't.

The upper armor might rigged to the leftpad joint. If not, check the mesh.

10-30-06: The left pauldron was partially rigged the the left shoulder instead of the leftpad.

 

bit of butt showing through

The weighting should match throughout the layers.

 

10-30-06: There was leg mesh sticking out the back.

Thief

I notice that the thief has the same strange twist in his right foot as the citywatch had.

Check joint rotation. Since they are sharing animations, check the animations for weird joint rotation. It's the idle animation with the weird rotation.

 

Also, from the side, he seems to be leaning backwards almost to the point of falling over, or is that a trick of perspective? I couldn't tell.

Some of the AIs (citywatch(es)) have a strange tilt on the feet (looks like they're standing on their toes). This might be mesh related. If not, check foot joint rotation. Check mesh rotation for the thief. He might actually be leaning backwards.

 

Also, don't we have the thief's sword model somewhere? It might be the longsword that is making him look off-balance.

We might have to raid the md5mesh of the player & resize it appropriately.

[ascottk]

Add missing meshes to thief & find missing textures.

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...ost&p=88387

 

Arm rigs look funky.

[ascottk]

Post about elite city pauldrons looking like wings. I thought I fixed that?

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...ost&p=88413

The walking/running anims probably need leftpad/rightpad rotations fixed.

[ascottk]

The proguard's legs need to be rerigged. They look more like a skirt than pants

[ascottk]

Play around with these values:

	"look_min"						"-90 -125 0"
"look_max"						"25 125 0"
"look_joint Spine"				"0.4 0.4 0"
"look_joint Spine2"				"0.1333 0.1333 0"
"look_joint Head"				"0.6 0.6 0"
"look_joint RightArm"				"0 0 0"
"look_joint LeftArm"				"0 0 0"

The hands clip into the body when they're looking around.

[ascottk]

The citywatch mesh is being problematic. The chainmail underneath the lower tunic is black & there's no reason why it should be like that. The md5mesh export shows that the mesh is included & has the proper material definition but as to why it's black? I dunno

 

Also the citywatch ragdoll:

I tried a few things that didn't work but it's a little better I guess.

[Ishtvan]

Hmm, I wonder if that could have to do with the model being resized and rerigged but the ragdoll (in the AF file) staying the same? It didn't happen with the other rerigged AI though, did it?

[ascottk]

Figure out what's going on with the thief animations since adding it as a player model.

 

Port Black Guards from TDS.

[ascottk]

I noticed a glitch in most of the borrowed walk animations. A frame in that animation rotates to the right thus the funky circular walking in-game.

 

Finish converting animations to use their respective character meshes in maya. Remove the first frame of animation (the rigging pose has the first frame).

[ascottk]

Noblewoman:

Female mitten hands

New legs

New AF

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5050

 

Citywatch:

Legs rigs fixed (not on cvs yet) - the lower legs needed to be weighted into the upper legs in the back.

[ascottk]

Finally revised the npc hand texture:

Could be better

 

(Weird, Firefox won't copy anything it'll paste but not copy . . . )

 

EDIT: Something's wrong with the window's clipboard Nothing a reboot won't fix . . .

[Springheel]

The new hands make a big difference--they look great!

[ascottk]

Fix for sword joint distorting mesh:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...ost&p=94397

 

original thread:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5109

[ascottk]

Citywatch chainmail isn't rendering properly. Maybe it's overlapping sub-meshes.

Rerigged & it's fixed. Now tweaking meshes around legs for less clipping.

[ascottk]

Keep track of new AIs to put into game: big thug, diego thug, & houseguard.

 

Diego's thug (needs textures):

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5146

 

Houseguard (on cvs):

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=1455

 

Big thug (major setback, I deleted his textures ):

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5123

[ascottk]

Look into shadowmeshes.

 

(doesn't seem to impact performance that much?)

[ascottk]

Rig missing attachment joints (Left/RightHips_Dummy, left/rightpad). AI missing attachment joints:

 

Builder Forger:

leftpad

 

Thief (not critical since he has shoulder pads):

leftpad

rightpad

 

Noble Woman (probably won't need these):

leftpad

rightpad

[ascottk]

That's a decent solution I guess.

 

Well, I've tried the "fake lipsync" approach described in my above post, and it works! It's not perfect, but it does work, and I think it looks a bit better than the simple animation loop approach.

 

It needs some tweaking before I upload it to CVS. In the meantime, I've got a request for an animator: Could you please create an animation for the builder guard head (perhaps replacing talk1) that:

 

- Starts out with the mouth completely closed

- Finishes with the mouth completely open (at a decent stretch, as if yelling)

- Goes for 20 frames

- Is interpolated linearly

 

This will give me a bit more flexibility in controlling the mouth movement from the code. The animation won't be played directly; rather, the code will jump from frame to frame to open the mouth the desired amount.

Done

[ascottk]

Added builder priest:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5264

 

Needs some rigging fixes & complete normal maps.

[ascottk]

Keep up with animations from Dom, Squill, Solis, & Doug.

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5342

 

Dom:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5203

 

Doug:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5339

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5186&hl=

Solis:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=4720

 

Squill:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5156

_________

Tweak existing animations.

 

Looking anim is rough.

Get elite city up to date.

 

Maybe reorg (adding animations to each def file is a PITA):

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5269

_________

Improve nobleman (& maybe houseguard) & new heads (eyes too big)

 

Nobleman:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5063

 

Houseguard:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=1455

 

Dev Heads (low priority):

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5268

 

Ask myself what I got myself into once again