Solis' (new) Thread

[Domarius]

Sage advice.

[Solis]

Hmm, I've been trying to rig the model for Motionbuilder, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to turn it into an actual character. It always comes up under the Scene section instead of the characters one, and I'm not sure how to convert between the two. I'll have to keep searching through tutorials.

[Solis]

Bit of an update. Unfortunately the whole character control thing still baffles me, so between trying to (unsuccessfully) learn how Motionbuilder works, I've been doing a few of the animations freehand. The surprise and alert-idle animations just need a bit of tweaking, and the pain animation is pretty much done (not much I can think of to add to it since he just leans inward as he grabs his waist). The walking forward animations will be the most difficult to do though freehand, so those might take a bit longer.

 

Oh, and I also went back and raised the zombie animation so it shouldn't look like he goes through the floor now, and tweaked the movements a bit (I thought the right arm looked a bit funny when he moved). I just need to import it through Doom 3, I'll put it up with the rest of my animations when I get them done.

[Springheel]

Sounds great, Solis. I'm a little confused though--what is different now with the AI from when you did the throwing animation? Are they a different format or something now?

[ascottk]

Now that I have maya 7 worked out, Solis' throwing animation is on cvs. I ended up tweaking it for the pauldrons.

[Solis]

Sounds great, Solis. I'm a little confused though--what is different now with the AI from when you did the throwing animation? Are they a different format or something now?

The model we have now uses a different bone structure, but it isn't set up for Motionbuilder's character control/rigging system like the one used for the throwing animation was. As a result, you can't use effect pinners or simply select bones through the character control panel (you have to use the navigator instead). It makes the process take quite a bit longer and sometimes it doesn't look as nice, especially for animations where you need to move the feet or have pretty much any lower-body movement whatsoever.

 

I've been trying to figure out how to set it up correctly in motionbuilder, but I'm not very familiar with Motionbuilder and I'm a bit slow to learn new programs, so I haven't had much luck.

[Springheel]

The walking forward animations will be the most difficult to do though freehand, so those might take a bit longer.

 

Don't all the in-game characters already have a walk forward animation? Or are you talking about the searching?

 

I've been trying to figure out how to set it up correctly in motionbuilder, but I'm not very familiar with Motionbuilder and I'm a bit slow to learn new programs, so I haven't had much luck.

 

Hmm, don't know who on the team might have that...anyone know if Oddity used it?

[Solis]

Don't all the in-game characters already have a walk forward animation? Or are you talking about the searching?

Yes, the searching and stumbling forward animations. Both have the character moving position which requires a lot of tweaking for the legs to match up to the ground they're walking on

 

Hmm, don't know who on the team might have that...anyone know if Oddity used it?

I'm pretty sure Oddity set up the original models for Motionbuilder. From what I can tell he used the standard Motionbuilder skeleton for them since he was importing a lot of pre-made animations onto the characters. The new models all use our own customized skeleton.

[Springheel]

Hey, just wanted to say I finally saw your throwing animation in-game, and it looks great!

 

Any idea when you'll be uploading the ones you mentioned above?

[Solis]

Just saw that the throwing animation was on the front page from the picture. Cool, glad it worked out

 

The other animations are mostly done, I want to try tweaking them a bit since the feet still don't match up very well. I'll admit I've been a bit lazy with these, freehand animating gives me a headache after a while

 

I'll try to get them up later this week though (at least the 3 non-walking ones and the updated zombie animation), hopefully thursday or friday. The other two walking animations I'm not sure about, I'm thinking of just doing a bit of a rush job on them so that we can have it in the game and then when/if we get the character controls thing working I can update them so they look more natural.

 

One thing though, how did we manage to convert the throwing animation onto the new models? Did we have a .def that took care of reasigning the bones and such? If so, maybe we can use the old model which is set up for Motionbuilder and then simply run the def file on them to convert them to the new rig. Might be faster at this point.

[ascottk]

One thing though, how did we manage to convert the throwing animation onto the new models? Did we have a .def that took care of reasigning the bones and such? If so, maybe we can use the old model which is set up for Motionbuilder and then simply run the def file on them to convert them to the new rig. Might be faster at this point.

All of the AI have the throwing animation. While I was doing that, I ended up tweaking the animation to take care of the pauldrons. It'll have to be tweaked per AI though.

 

What software do you use for animation? If you're using Maya then I'm working on animation rigs with working ik (I still have a lot to learn for that). The legs are working though. The rigs will include the heads and weapons so we don't have to imagine them, even complete with the proper meshes.

 

In case you didn't know, I'm in Alaska untill thursday & I want to start chasing my music interests so less time is spent on the mod.

[Solis]

I'm using Motionbuilder, which is pretty closely connected to Maya so hopefully rigging in it will carry over. If I need to I could probably switch over to Maya for animations, assuming it has a pretty similar interface to Motionbuilder's for animating.

[Solis]

OK, I've finished those three animations (more or less, I'll probably tweak them later since I want them to look a bit more fluid, but they'll work for now), but I just realized I need to make a def file for them. Does it really matter at all what I put in it if all I need is the md5anim file? I can just use the def file I used for the throw animation and change it to point to the citywatch mb files if that will work. In the meantime, here's the fixed zombie animation, it should be properly faced and no longer go through the floor:

 

http://www.geocities.com/canisinvicti/solis_walkv2.zip

[Springheel]

Hmm, I don't see any difference in this animation. It's still sunk into the floor. Is it the right one?

[Solis]

Oh whoops, sorry about that, didn't notice that the def file was still pointing to the old version. Try this one (let me know if it goes through the floor at all, I just moved everything including the origin bone so I'm not sure if the model will be lifted along with the origin or not).

 

http://www.geocities.com/canisinvicti/solis_walk2-fixed.zip

[Springheel]

The arm looks improved, but the feet are still sinking into the floor....

[Solis]

Arg, now I see why game developers go crazy when making a game. Well here, I raised the model itself above the origin a ways and re-exported it (as well as raising the origin a little as well), so now it definitely should be raised up in the game. Although I also spotted a missing keyframe at the end of the animation that was causing the left arm to snap when it loops, so it's actually a good thing I went back and looked at it since I caught that. So anyway, here's the hopefully final version:

 

http://www.geocities.com/canisinvicti/solis_walk3.zip

 

Also, when I try to export the new citywatch animations, it gives an error about not finding the skinclusters in the mesh. I think I need the original citywatch .mb file so that I can import the animation on top of it, since resaving the .flbx doesn't seem to have all the data Doom 3 needs. Do you know where the .mb of the citywatch with the new skeleton can be found? I can't seem to find it on the FTP.

[ascottk]

Also, when I try to export the new citywatch animations, it gives an error about not finding the skinclusters in the mesh. I think I need the original citywatch .mb file so that I can import the animation on top of it, since resaving the .flbx doesn't seem to have all the data Doom 3 needs. Do you know where the .mb of the citywatch with the new skeleton can be found? I can't seem to find it on the FTP.

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/models/In...dels.part01.rar

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/models/In...dels.part02.rar

[Springheel]

Sorry, but there's no change as far as the feet go.

 

You're a full team-member, right? Why not install the mod, or at least the beta-version, so you can test these yourself? That would have to be less frustrating than waiting for feedback from someone else, I would imagine. It would also help see whether something else is causing the problem, other than the animation.

[Solis]

Yeah, I'm starting to think I should do that. Was kinda hoping not to since my Doom 3 directory is a mess right now and adding an incomplete mod would probably make it even more confusing, but I guess I might as well do it so I can see the animations in the game for myself. To install it I just need to extact the files in the "release" directory in thedarkmod on the FTP, right?

 

Although I do think I found the problem: for some reason when I import it to Maya from Motionbuilder, both the origin and the bottom of the model are lowered back to ground level in Maya, so for some reason raising the origin and hip bones are apparantly not going through. I might have to see about just modifying it in Maya then, although I'll have to figure out how to select groups of bones and changing animation values in Maya works.

 

Actually another thing related to that issue that confused me a bit is that I noticed when I imported the throw animation, looking back at the Maya file the animation has less frames than the original motionbuilder file (for example, the apex of the throw happens on frame 40, when in the original motionbuilder file it happens on frame 50). But the complete animation was there without anything cut, so...I'm kinda confused as to what's going on when it imports some of these animations. Might be something to keep an eye on for future animations, guess that's all the more reason to double-check it in the game right after I export it.

 

Thanks for the links ascottk, I'll check them out and start importing animations when I get the chance to.

[Crispy]

Yeah, I'm starting to think I should do that. Was kinda hoping not to since my Doom 3 directory is a mess right now and adding an incomplete mod would probably make it even more confusing, but I guess I might as well do it so I can see the animations in the game for myself. To install it I just need to extact the files in the "release" directory in thedarkmod on the FTP, right?

Yeah, that's the current beta mapper release. It's pretty much self-contained so it shouldn't mess up your directory much.

 

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/release/d...alpha-0.003.rar

 

You could also get CVS set up. That way you get to see the latest changes, and submit changes directly yourself.

 

Actually another thing related to that issue that confused me a bit is that I noticed when I imported the throw animation, looking back at the Maya file the animation has less frames than the original motionbuilder file (for example, the apex of the throw happens on frame 40, when in the original motionbuilder file it happens on frame 50). But the complete animation was there without anything cut, so...I'm kinda confused as to what's going on when it imports some of these animations.

Maybe the framerate is different. For example, the Motionbuilder file might be running at 25 frames per second while the Maya version is running at 20 frames per second. That would explain it.

[ascottk]

Although I do think I found the problem: for some reason when I import it to Maya from Motionbuilder, both the origin and the bottom of the model are lowered back to ground level in Maya, so for some reason raising the origin and hip bones are apparantly not going through. I might have to see about just modifying it in Maya then, although I'll have to figure out how to select groups of bones and changing animation values in Maya works.

Actually the origin is being scaled to about 0.3 which gives the illusion that it's being moved down. Select the origin joint then use the graph editor in maya (Window/Animation Editors/Graph Editor...), select the Scale X/Y/Z on the left, select all of the keys on the right, then replace .3 with 1:

 

Actually another thing related to that issue that confused me a bit is that I noticed when I imported the throw animation, looking back at the Maya file the animation has less frames than the original motionbuilder file (for example, the apex of the throw happens on frame 40, when in the original motionbuilder file it happens on frame 50). But the complete animation was there without anything cut, so...I'm kinda confused as to what's going on when it imports some of these animations. Might be something to keep an eye on for future animations, guess that's all the more reason to double-check it in the game right after I export it.

I'll look into this too. I actually get a lower value when importing a fbx into maya.

[ascottk]

You may want to look at this thread:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5035

 

There are new rigs for animations with heads & weapons for Maya & Motion Builder. Full body IK too.

[Solis]

Bah, hate to sound like a broken record, but I'm having more Maya import issues. I'm not sure, but it seems like the bone structure between the motionbuilder file I was animating with and the Maya files I got from Ascottk don't quite match up, importing the animation gives some...uhh...strange results: http://www.geocities.com/canisinvicti/city...inch-whoops.avi

Yeah...that one's going on the blooper reel. Anyway though, I think I might just remake the animations using the new IKed models from Ascottk since it should look better and be more uniform than the freehand ones. If anyone wants to try to import the fbx files to fix it then I can post them here, otherwise I think it's best just to use the same models for all the animations.

 

Actually the origin is being scaled to about 0.3 which gives the illusion that it's being moved down. Select the origin joint then use the graph editor in maya (Window/Animation Editors/Graph Editor...), select the Scale X/Y/Z on the left, select all of the keys on the right, then replace .3 with 1:

Hmm, it looks like the origin was properly scaled in the zombie walk animation. I'll keep an eye out for that in the future though, if I have an issue I'll check the scale first.

 

I think the problem might have been that I was using a different animation layer for the body raising tweak, for some reason it only imported the base animation layer. I directly edited it in Maya now and reexported it, and this time I double-checked that the model is indeed raised in the model viewer program (Forgot I had that program actually, might've saved some time...). So anyway, here's a version which DEFINITELY has the feet raised, I don't think there's any possibility that this one is wrong since I checked the MD5anim myself this time:

 

http://www.geocities.com/canisinvicti/solis_walk4.zip

 

 

You may want to look at this thread:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5035

 

There are new rigs for animations with heads & weapons for Maya & Motion Builder. Full body IK too.

 

Awesome, I'll definitely be using that from now on. I left some feedback in that thread if you haven't seen it already. That will make life a lot easier, thanks. I'll probably be redoing the animations I had done freehand using the IKed model, so I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Springheel]

Ok, the zombie has definitely been raised this time, but now he's about two or three inches off the ground.

 

We're getting there...

 

(If where the feet were before was 0, and where the feet are now is 1, I'd say the value we need is about 0.7)