Ascottk's Ai Journal

[ascottk]

Inventor Engineer (WIP):

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5371

 

Noblewoman rigging/mesh fixes:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5425

[ascottk]

Belchers:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5452 (needs AF fix)

 

Spiders:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5458 (needs AF fix too along with playing the correct animations)

[ascottk]

Excellent AF information:

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=16360

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=12485

Having worked some more with this and that, I found some info tucked away on the iddevnet pages that actually made sense in conjuction with some problems I'd been having:

 

On a spider like critter I'm fooling around and making an AF with, I got a lot of weird twitching and thrashing, despite care and careful tweaking of the joints.

 

If your AF, when you punch, shoot or drag it, starts to spin, twitch and thrash around on the floor all by itself, or jumping and 'popping' all over the place without you touching it, then these tips should help:

 

iddevnet had the answer - which one actually fixed it I can't tell yet, so I'll share both of them:

 

1) From iddev: "Make sure the mass of each body is within a reasonable range. Use af_showMass 1 to show the mass of each body. A body mass in the range [1, 100] usually works well. Connecting a very heavy body with a lightweight body often causes problems. It's usually also wise not to make the articulatd figure too heavy. The forces required to keep heavy bodies together can grow quite large and might not be represented accurately in the physics engine."

 

In more pratical terms, go to the VIEW tab and check 'show mass'. This will display the total mass for each BODY in your AF. If your AF has bodies at the END of a chain that have MORE mass than the bodies ABOVE it, then you can get the wierd thrashing of which I spoke. For example, if the UPPER ARM body has a mass of 50, and your LOWER ARM and/or HAND body has a mass of 80, then the AF will think the hand is much heavier than the shoulder and cause the wierd twitching and thrashing. Set the lower body extermities to lower numbers by going to the BODIES tab, selecting the appropriate BODY and going to the DENSITY field. Fiddle with the numbers there until you get better results. Once I set my shoulder body to 60 mass, the upper arm to 40 and the lower arm to 20, I got much better results....

 

2) iddev: " Make sure there are no contact points fighting with joint like constraints. When for instance three bodies are connected with two universal joints, and the bodies are relatively close to each other. The outer two bodies might be considered in contact. The figure will be pulled apart at the contact points while the universal joints try to keep the bodies together. Jumpy behaviour is often the result. Disabling self collision on the whole figure or on certain bodies can fix the problem."

 

In 'normal people language' - If you're making a spider or something similar that has a lot of joints really close together, it can make the AF thrash around a lot. The 'self collision' may be causing this. You can turn off self collsion for the whole model in the PROPERTIES tab. You can turn off self collision for individual bodies with the check box in the BODIES tab. Fiddle around until you get a combo that works best.

 

(Note - turning off self collision did NOT fix my thrashy model problem. I didn't get results until I altered the mass on the individual legs.)

 

Hope this gives yet more clarification to a process that was once a mystery to everyone except the folks at ID......

 

Slyrr

[sparhawk]

I think this info should be linke on the WIKI. This thread will soon be forgotten, so it wont help here much.

[ascottk]

Added shadowmeshes for:

houseguard

inventor engineer

nobleman

citywatch elite

thief

proguard

 

When I'm up to it I'll customize the shadowmesh according to the AI because they're all using the same one.

 

I still don't know why the builder guard & citywatch won't export any more.

 

EDIT: Had to rerig citywatch & will probably have to rerig builder guard.

[ascottk]

When I'm up to it I'll customize the shadowmesh according to the AI because they're all using the same one.

It'll be necessary to fit the shadowmesh inside the visible mesh because if the shadowmesh is larger, then it'll cast shadows onto the visible mesh which results in black areas on the AI. Also the pauldrons (low priority) and the helmets need to be accounted for.

 

How often does a person quote themselves?

[sparhawk]

Talking to yourself again? Forgot to take your pills?

[ascottk]

Talking to yourself again? Forgot to take your pills?

What's up with this guy? Can he hears our thoughts, Precious?

[ascottk]

Redo mitten hands: (for anyone reading this, they are separate meshes so I don't have to redo everything).

 

Fit shadowmeshes to AI. They should not clip because they'll cast shadows on the visible mesh (I think I covered this in another post in this thread).

[PinkDot]

Fit shadowmeshes to AI. They should not clip because they'll cast shadows on the visible mesh (I think I covered this in another post in this thread).

I don't think shadow mesh has to be inside visible one, cause doomengine computes shadows only for backfacing surfaces. It sounds illogical, but that's very useful in most cases. This way shadow mesh doesn't have to be deformed to fit into visible AI.

[ascottk]

I don't think shadow mesh has to be inside visible one, cause doomengine computes shadows only for backfacing surfaces. It sounds illogical, but that's very useful in most cases. This way shadow mesh doesn't have to be deformed to fit into visible AI.

I noticed some black areas on the AI after I added the shadowmeshes & most of the shadowmeshes extend outside of the visible mesh. You can see it in the engineer shot especially on the left shoulder of the apron, there's a black strip going lengthwise.

[PinkDot]

Hmmm... strange, I don't know why shadow mesh for AI would be handled diffrently than any other shadows... I have to find out more about this...

[ascottk]

Update on the mitten hands:

 

Needs more detail.

[PinkDot]

One more finger wouldn't harm, I would say... (or is it hidden somewhere?)

And that upper one - is it thumb? If so, then it seems to be too long...

 

I wonder if darkening areas of texture outside fingers (where nails are) would help. It wouldn't look perfect, but as the background in dark mod is usually darker than skin colour, it might look better.

 

Another option is alpha map, but from certain angles it might look like holes in fingers.

[ascottk]

One more finger wouldn't harm, I would say... (or is it hidden somewhere?)

And that upper one - is it thumb? If so, then it seems to be too long...

The thumb is hidden behind the hand.

 

I wonder if darkening areas of texture outside fingers (where nails are) would help. It wouldn't look perfect, but as the background in dark mod is usually darker than skin colour, it might look better.

 

Another option is alpha map, but from certain angles it might look like holes in fingers.

Yeah, the textures are still a wip. Besides, it'll be rare for anyone to take an extreme closeup while they're playing & the only way to take an extreme closeup is noclip.

[SneaksieDave]

The hooked finger just always struck me as unnatural, jutting out and curled, that it should instead be relaxed more. Agreed on the detail needed; it seems very blurry. Perhaps the hairs should be excluded from the normalmap altogether. They're too fine of a detail for that, they end up looking like he has a bad case of worms.

[PinkDot]

Besides, it'll be rare for anyone to take an extreme closeup while they're playing & the only way to take an extreme closeup is noclip.

We also have zoom option (spyglass)...

 

And.... have you seen Twin Peaks? Nails were the place were murderer of Laura Palmer (and others) used to hide some clues for the detective... Don't underestimate the potential role of fingernails in such dark mood game.Not to mention the actual contribution of Fingernail's for this mod...

[ascottk]

The hooked finger just always struck me as unnatural, jutting out and curled, that it should instead be relaxed more. Agreed on the detail needed; it seems very blurry. Perhaps the hairs should be excluded from the normalmap altogether. They're too fine of a detail for that, they end up looking like he has a bad case of worms.

That's the animation's fault as far as the unnatural position. I think I will remove the hairs.

 

 

We also have zoom option (spyglass)...

 

And.... have you seen Twin Peaks? Nails were the place were murderer of Laura Palmer (and others) used to hide some clues for the detective... Don't underestimate the potential role of fingernails in such dark mood game.Not to mention the actual contribution of Fingernail's for this mod...

Well, these will be better than Doom3's mittens by the time we're done The normals on D3's are jaggy

[Springheel]

The only thing about the original hands that was an issue for me is that the thumbs would seem to get abnormally short or even disappear depending on what angle you looked at them. I agree that no one is ever likely to see the hands close enough to notice minor details like how much the hair stands up (and if they're examining things that closely they'll be disappointed with lots of other glitches they would notice too).

[SneaksieDave]

I've never noclipped in close to see them; I simply see them in the maps I make. But based on the recent belcher, I'm sure they're going to come out sweet.

 

I didn't know the finger was the result of animation. I assumed they didn't animate since they're always hooked like that. Here's hoping that's a simple issue.

[ascottk]

I've never noclipped in close to see them; I simply see them in the maps I make. But based on the recent belcher, I'm sure they're going to come out sweet.

 

I didn't know the finger was the result of animation. I assumed they didn't animate since they're always hooked like that. Here's hoping that's a simple issue.

We've been lazy with animating the fingers & honestly I really haven't noticed because I've been too close. I need to learn motion builder because maya doesn't treat ik very well. If you animate the arms in maya then the fingers end up getting all twisted up even if you never touch the fingers

[ascottk]

YAU (yet another update):

 

They look better from a distance but a little more work is needed for extreme close ups like this.

[ascottk]

Keeping tabs on the new mitten hands & shadow meshes:

 

Mitten Hands - Now on svn.

• 
  
• Inventor Engineer
  
  
• Builder Guard
  
  
• Builder Priest
  
  
• Builder Forger doesn't need it
  
  
• Citywatch
  
  
• Elite Citywatch
  
  
• Merc Proguard
  
  
• Merc Elite doesn't need it
  
  
• Houseguard
  
  
• Nobleman
  
  
• Noblewoman
  

Shadowmesh *=Needs to be resized

• 
  
• Inventor Engineer
  
  
• Builder Guard
  
  
• Builder Priest
  
  
• Builder Forger
  
  
• Citywatch
  
  
• Elite Citywatch
  
  
• Merc Proguard
  
  
• Merc Elite
  
  
• Houseguard
  
  
• Nobleman
  
  
• Noblewoman
  

[Ishtvan]

Those hands look like a great improvement to me!

[ascottk]

Pagan female:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5621

 

Townsfolk Male1 (needs head, inventor engineer is temporary):

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5635

 

Diego's thug in progress:

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

 

AI Mix & Match:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5628

 

Model svn repository:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5623

 

AF fixes:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5529

 

Rigging tutorial:

http://www.thirdfilms.com/darkwiki/index.p...aracter_rigging