Solis' (new) Thread

[Springheel]

Hey Solis,

 

It just occurred to me that we have some animating needs that don't require the rigging to be fixed on our AI (though that's now almost done). I can't believe I didn't think of it before, but we're using some of the zombies from D3, but they currently have only one movement speed, and we need a walk and a run. You interested?

 

Sure, that sounds fine by me. Are the files on the FTP? And what are the names of them? Also do they have an origin bone so that we can set movement speed based on the animation itself?

 

Thought I would post this publically so that we can get feedback from the other animators. Ascottk in particular has done a lot of work with the D3 skeletons and may be able to help.

 

I've asked Solis to handle adding some walk animations to the D3 monsters we're using in TDM. With some of them, a slower version of the run animation might work, but in others it probably wouldn't.

 

One question that Ascottk might be able to answer: I notice that both the zombie_boney and zombie_morgue have the zombie_base model 'inside' them. Does that mean they use the same skeleton? If so, would it be possible to take the animation from other characters using that skeleton and just apply them to those particular models, the way you did applied the citwatch animations to the thief?

[ascottk]

One question that Ascottk might be able to answer: I notice that both the zombie_boney and zombie_morgue have the zombie_base model 'inside' them. Does that mean they use the same skeleton? If so, would it be possible to take the animation from other characters using that skeleton and just apply them to those particular models, the way you did applied the citwatch animations to the thief?

Since the tdm zombies use the same base which is the boney one, I'd use that one. The animation joints and the mesh joints to to match exactly and they need the same number of joints & the same hierarchy.

 

Since we have the source mb files of the tdm characters & each skeleton is the same for all of those, it's easier to use animations from another character as long as we have the source maya binary. That way we can keep whichever joints in the animations that the mesh references.

[Springheel]

Sorry, I didn't entirely understand that.

 

Right now we have two TDM zombies. One is a variation of zombie_boney (which has two skins), and one is a variation of zombie_morgue.

 

If you load either one up in the editor, you can see parts of zombie_base poking through. It's as if that model is inside each of the other two models. What I'm wondering is if that means both zombie_boney and zombie_morge use the same skeleton as zombie_base. Because zombie_base has a LONG list of animations that it would be great to have for the other two zombie characters.

 

Are you saying that without the .mb files (which I doubt are included in the D3 folder structure) it isn't possible to share those animations, even if the skeletons are the same?

[ascottk]

Sorry, I didn't entirely understand that.

 

Right now we have two TDM zombies. One is a variation of zombie_boney (which has two skins), and one is a variation of zombie_morgue.

 

If you load either one up in the editor, you can see parts of zombie_base poking through. It's as if that model is inside each of the other two models. What I'm wondering is if that means both zombie_boney and zombie_morge use the same skeleton as zombie_base. Because zombie_base has a LONG list of animations that it would be great to have for the other two zombie characters.

I don't think they use the same skeleton. It might be the gibs of the zombies poking through but I'm not entirely sure about that.

Are you saying that without the .mb files (which I doubt are included in the D3 folder structure) it isn't possible to share those animations, even if the skeletons are the same?

If the skeletons, number of joints, and the joint heirachy are the same, then yes you can probably share them. I looked at both of the md5meshes through a text editor & it looks like they are eintirely different though.

[Springheel]

Ah, ok, thanks.

[Springheel]

Hmm, ok. I haven't actually done any messing around with the Doom 3 format files so I'm still trying to figure out how everything works. I've extracted the dds, md5, and tga files from the paks for the enemies (dds are in pak001.pk4, tga and md5s are in pak002.pk4), but I wasn't sure how to get them into a format readable by motionbuilder or how to preserve the mesh (doesn't it need a def file for that?). So far I've only gone from Motionbuilder to Doom 3, not the other way around.

 

Is there a tutorial that shows how to do that? I've never worked with the md5mesh/anim format before, I thought all the animations would be contained in the model file itself. Guess it makes it easier to edit individual ones, though.

 

My understanding is that there is a way to convert md5meshes back to mb files, but I'll let those who actually know what they're talking about address that.

[ascottk]

My understanding is that there is a way to convert md5meshes back to mb files, but I'll let those who actually know what they're talking about address that.

I think he's after doom 3 to motion builder conversion. That I don't know, but the fbx format is motion builder (i think) & oDDity did most of the animations in motion builder then converted those to a maya binary for export.

 

There is a md5 to maya converter on doom 3 world:

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=6278

 

But it adds a prefix to the joint names according to the file it's importing & I'm not sure how to turn that off.

[Solis]

I guess I'm a little confused as to how all this works. Are we sharing the same skeleton between all Dark Mod characters, including the zombies? If so, then wouldn't I need to be editing the characters that already have the TDM skeleton applied to them rather than these Doom 3 format models which use a different skeletal structure?

 

And if we use the same skeleton on all the characters and the md5anim files are separate from the mesh itself, shouldn't I simply be able to animate the characters with any generic model that we're using the skeleton on and apply that to the zombie later on? So for example I could take the Thief model and animate it, and then once the MD5anim is saved simply move it to the Zombie directory and the animation would work on the zombie?

 

I just need to know what exactly I would need to animate for the animation to be applied to the Dark Mod zombie that we're using. If we have a .mb file of the basic zombie stance (unless we need to make that), then it should be simple to go from there.

 

Will the zombie need any other of the standard animations (idle, alert, etc.) or do we just need a walk and run for them? If we're customizing them and changing the skeletons on them, the only animations that would work for them are the ones we've done for the other Dark Mod characters, so I'm not sure if we'd need custom ones for these or not.

[Springheel]

Are we sharing the same skeleton between all Dark Mod characters, including the zombies?

 

No. Most TDM characters share the same skeleton, but the zombies were copied directly from D3, so they have the D3 skeleton.

 

Will the zombie need any other of the standard animations (idle, alert, etc.) or do we just need a walk and run for them? If we're customizing them and changing the skeletons on them

 

The zombie already comes with all the animations we need, except it comes with only one movement speed (since in D3, zombies either stood there or ran at you), and we need two.

 

We aren't customizing the skeleton, since it doesn't make sense to go through all that effort when the D3 zombie animations already do virtually everything we need.

 

Basically, what needs to be done is:

 

1. Take the walk.md5anim file from the monster/zombie/boney/ folder (I don't know if that's the actual name, but something like that).

 

2. Use some kind of software to convert it to a format you can work in (mb or fbx).

 

3. Modify it so that it is 50% slower than its current speed.

 

4. Export it back to a md5anim file, called walk2.md5mesh (or something).

[ascottk]

I read something about increasing the ik_footSize results in speeding up the character. That might be another possibility except I haven't tried it yet. Perhaps we could increase the foot ik size when the AI is alerted if it works?

entityDef monster_demon_imp {
"inherit"		  "monster_default"
"scriptobject"	 "monster_demon_imp"
"model"			"monster_demon_imp"
"ragdoll"		  "monster_demon_imp"
...
"ik_numLegs"	   "2"
"ik_footSize"	  "4"
"ik_waist"		 "Body"
"ik_hip1"		  "Lupleg"
"ik_hip2"		  "Rupleg"
"ik_knee1"		 "Lloleg"
"ik_knee2"		 "Rloleg"
"ik_ankle1"		"Lankle_r"
"ik_ankle2"		"Rankle_r"
"ik_dir1"		  "Lknee"
"ik_dir2"		  "Rknee"
"ik_foot1"		 "Lball_r"
"ik_foot2"		 "Rball_r"
...
}

 

EDIT: That might actually look funny: Speed walking

[Springheel]

I've modified the foot size before and haven't noticed any change. All it does is tell the code how much space a foot should take up so it knows whether it would fit on stairs, etc, so I'm not sure why it would affect speed.

 

(besides, we need to slow down the D3 characters, not speed them up)

[Solis]

Sorry for the period of silence, I was planning on checking back when I had made some progress but unfortunately I've hit a brick wall. I really haven't found a way modify animations for existing models without having the source materials. Although, I think there's a way to adjust the speed of animations without needing to change the animation itself, which might work as a temporary solution if we need to. But I'm really at a loss here for changing it otherwise, the only useful tutorials I've seen focus more on building models from the ground up.

 

Personally I'd almost rather we just rebuild the zombies using the D3 source material and then make all new animations for them. It would be easier to work on animations if every standard bipedal creature used the same skeletal structure.

[Springheel]

Are you able to model, texture and rig new zombie models? If so, be my guest.

 

Personally I can't see how it makes sense to make and texture a new model, rig it, and make new attack, run, idle, pain, etc animations, when all that is already done for us if we use the D3 version.

 

Although, I think there's a way to adjust the speed of animations without needing to change the animation itself, which might work as a temporary solution if we need to.

 

Just slowing down the existing animation and saving it as a separate file would be fine for zombie_boney and the vagary. I'm not too sure how it would look for the zombie_morgue, but it would be better than nothing.

[Springheel]

Posted about this in the Recall to Hell forum and got the following response:

 

Hey! Of course it's possible to add new animations!

I've done that a several times.

But I use the md5toMaya script (Ver. 1.9b) that I found on D3W. Except of a few odd problems sometimes it works fine for me.

There are just a few things to take care about.

When importing an md5mesh file into maya using that plugin it renames all of the joints by adding a prefix. Delete those prefixes so that the bone names fit to the hierarchy of the original mesh.

Also the origin is interpreted as a joint but in maya it's a polycube. So remove that "origin" joint and add a polycube names "origin".

So in conclusion hierarchy and joint names have to be the same.

 

That's the importer Ascottk linked to above.

There is a md5 to maya converter on doom 3 world:

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=6278

 

Have you tried this yet?

[ascottk]

Here's a conversion of the zombie boney walk1:

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/models/as...boney-walk1.zip

 

EDIT: It's a maya binary,btw . . .

[Solis]

OK, that binary seems to work, thanks. When I tried to convert it before, it got through the Doom 3 exporter, but when I tried to use the md5anim on the original model the model would become badly deformed and only random jittering motions would be applied to it. I think it was the origin bone that was screwing things up, either that or I was renaming the bones wrong. What did you have to do to get it working, ascottk? Just remove the prefix and remake the origin as a polycube like the guy on Recall to Hell forum said?

 

I noticed that the animation itself seems to have a lot of problems though, a lot of joints bend incorrectly and jump around, so I'll just make the animation from scratch using the bones instead of trying to modify the existing animations. I did notice that the model itself doesn't work when it is converted into motionbuilder (it had the same deformation issues in the animation that I had when I tried to convert it), but the bones seem to work correctly so I can just ignore the mesh and animate the bones directly, hopefully it won't slow it down too much.

 

I'll see what I can come up with and post it here in the next few days. As long as we have an md5anim file that's compatible, we can apply it to the original model without changing anything else about it, right?

[ascottk]

OK, that binary seems to work, thanks. When I tried to convert it before, it got through the Doom 3 exporter, but when I tried to use the md5anim on the original model the model would become badly deformed and only random jittering motions would be applied to it. I think it was the origin bone that was screwing things up, either that or I was renaming the bones wrong. What did you have to do to get it working, ascottk? Just remove the prefix and remake the origin as a polycube like the guy on Recall to Hell forum said?

I used the md5 importer in 3ds max then I converted that to a maya binary with deep exploration.

[Solis]

OK, I've had some success in getting it working. I've managed to generate a new .md5anim file of a walk cycle I created which is compatible with the original zombie model, you can take a look at a very rough version of it here (ignore any texturing errors, I just loaded the basic mesh in a model viewer for reference): http://www.geocities.com/canisinvicti/zombiewalkv1.avi

 

Unfortunately, it's going to be difficult working on animations as it is. As I mentioned before I'm unable to import the mesh itself, so I'm working with the raw bones themselves without any visual reference as to how the model will actually look in those poses. The hardest part however is that Motionbuilder doesn't associate the bones to the character control panel, so I can't use any of the effector pinning and I have to select the bones directly in the view window. I'm pretty much animation each bone freehand, which is taking a while and it's why the test animation I did looks pretty stiff and jittery (especially where the feet touch the ground). I might have to take some time to set the model up in Motionbuilder so that I can use the extra options, although since I only need to make two animations I'm not sure if that would take more time than it's really worth.

 

Oh, and also, I had to import the animation on top of the original .mb file ascottk made or else Doom 3 gives an error when I tried to do a modelexport of the bones alone. So if anyone else works with this remember that you do need the full mesh on the model in order for Doom 3 to make even a md5anim file for it.

 

In either case I'll work on it over the next few days and see what I can come up with. It moves at about half the speed of the original version so it should even be good enough to use as a placeholder for now. If anyone wants to check it out and make sure it works in the actual game here's the md5anim for it, I'm not entirely sure if I did the origin bone correctly so it might be worth checking now to be sure it moves the way it should: http://www.geocities.com/canisinvicti/boneywalk.zip

[Springheel]

I wasn't able to get it to work. Any map with a zombie in it would crash with the error:

 

"Error: GetBodyId: No body with the name 'head' is not part of the articulated figure"

 

I got the same error when trying to get a map with our prelate model to run too. I don't know what it means.

[ascottk]

I wasn't able to get it to work. Any map with a zombie in it would crash with the error:

 

"Error: GetBodyId: No body with the name 'head' is not part of the articulated figure"

 

I got the same error when trying to get a map with our prelate model to run too. I don't know what it means.

I just compared boney to Solis' animation & they don't match. They need to match in order to work.

 

When you exportmodels in doom3, you need to add a few options to the def file:

export james {
options	-prefix BERNIE_ -scale 1.1 -keep Lknee Rknee -align ALL -keep Neck SPINNER -parent SPINNER Body2 -parent Waist SPINNER  -sourcedir models/monsters/zombie/boney/cycles -destdir models/md5/monsters/zombies/boney
mesh	boney_mesh.mb -dest boney

addoptions -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 Flametrap Loneck Neck Head Flamehead Jaw mouth4 vomit Jaw2 mouth_end vomit2 lbrow1 lbrow2 mouth10 mouth2 mouth5 mouth7 rbrow1 rbrow2 Lshldr Luparm_orbit Luparm Lbicep Lloarm Lhand Lhand1 Lfings1 Lfings2 Lfings3 Lindex1 Lindex2 Lindex3 lthumb1 Lthumb2 Lthumb3 Rshldr Ruparm_orbit Ruparm Rbicep Rloarm Flamewrist Rhand Rhand1 Rfings1 Rfings2 Rfings3 Rindex1 Rindex2 Rindex3 Rthumb1 Rthumb2 Rthumb3 Flamehips Flamepelvis
anim	af_pose.mb -range 1 1
anim	stand2.mb -dest stand
anim	sight1.mb 
anim	walk1.mb -rotate 90
	anim	solis_walk.mb -rotate 90
anim	swings.mb -rotate 90 -range 381 416 -dest swing1
anim	swings.mb -rotate 90 -range 417 470 -dest swing2
anim	swings.mb -rotate 90 -range 477 512 -dest swing3
anim	swings.mb -rotate 90 -range 642 705 -dest swing4
anim	swings2.mb -dest swing5
anim	pain_head.mb -range 287 318 -dest head_pain1
anim	pain_head.mb -range 124 157 -dest head_pain2
anim	pain_head.mb -range 159 186 -dest head_pain3
anim	pain_chest.mb -range 47 73 -dest chest_pain1
anim	pain_chest.mb -range 100 121 -dest chest_pain2
anim	pain_leftarm.mb -range 64 100 -dest leftarm_pain1
anim	pain_leftarm.mb -range 202 233 -dest leftarm_pain2
anim	pain_rightarm.mb -range 36 65 -dest rightarm_pain1
anim	pain_rightarm.mb -range 159 186 -dest rightarm_pain2
//anim	spit_attack1_boney.mb
}

You need to add this (all on one line):

addoptions -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 Flametrap Loneck Neck Head Flamehead Jaw mouth4 vomit Jaw2 mouth_end vomit2 lbrow1 lbrow2 mouth10 mouth2 mouth5 mouth7 rbrow1 rbrow2 Lshldr Luparm_orbit Luparm Lbicep Lloarm Lhand Lhand1 Lfings1 Lfings2 Lfings3 Lindex1 Lindex2 Lindex3 lthumb1 Lthumb2 Lthumb3 Rshldr Ruparm_orbit Ruparm Rbicep Rloarm Flamewrist Rhand Rhand1 Rfings1 Rfings2 Rfings3 Rindex1 Rindex2 Rindex3 Rthumb1 Rthumb2 Rthumb3 Flamehips Flamepelvis

After the:

mesh	boney_mesh.mb -dest boney

and before:

anim	af_pose.mb -range 1 1

 

If that doesn't work, look at the boney.md5mesh with a text editor & add/subtract joints in the def file. The md5mesh & the md5anim joints need to match in the number of joints, joint names, and heirarchy.

[Solis]

OK, I gave it another try, but using the def file you had there it gave a "could not find joint "ALL" to align model to" error. I deleted the "-align ALL" from the def file and it seems to have exported it then, but I'm not sure if that screwed something up or not. In any case, here's what it exported, I guess it's worth another try to see if it works this time (on a side note, how do I insert new animations into the game to test?): http://www.geocities.com/canisinvicti/solis_walk.zip

 

Now I'm really confused as to why the model viewer could load the animation correctly with the first animation if the bones don't actually match though...

[Springheel]

You need to modify the tdm_undead_zombie.def file (I think that's the right name).

 

Currently the run and walk animation point to the same md5anim file. You need to change the walk animation to point to wherever you save your version.

 

Then insert the tdm_zombie into a map and run the mod.

[Solis]

OK, finally stopped being lazy and exported the new version of the animation I made. I ran it with ascottk's script minus the -align ALL part, so hopefully it will still work. Works fine in the external model viewer, but I still need to test it in the game. But in any case, hopefully this should work and I won't have to mess with it anymore (although it doesn't loop quite as well as I hoped, but it's passable)

 

http://www.geocities.com/canisinvicti/solis_walk.zip

[Springheel]

I got it working, but it's currently rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise from where it should be. I tried removing the -rotate 90 you had in the command line, but that didn't seem to do anything.

[ascottk]

I got it working, but it's currently rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise from where it should be. I tried removing the -rotate 90 you had in the command line, but that didn't seem to do anything.

the -rotate 90 only works when exporting from a maya binary to a md5mesh. Solis, you might have to add this to the end of the anim declarations:

 

anim	solis_walk.mb -rotate 0