Doug's Animation, Application!

[New Horizon]

I would like to introduce Doug Hines. He is applying for a position in animation. Judging from his demo reel and experience with doom 3, this should be a quick interview process.

 

Are you still looking for animator/modelers/texturers? I am mostly an animator and rigger.. My demo reel can be found below. I have done game mods for school events: 72 straight hours of modding. Fron concept to alpha. I have been responsible for getting keyframe animation and motion capture animation data into the doom3 engine.

 

If you like what you see, let me know.

--

Animator/Technical Animator

Doug Hines

http://doughines.3d-artists.net

http://www.linkedin.com/in/doughines

[sparhawk]

The bug looks nice. Is it inspired by Starship Troopers? Remindes me a lot of these.

[ascottk]

Animating in Maya too The facial animations should come in handy

[SneaksieDave]

Do we dare get our hopes up yet again?

 

...yep

[Doug]

The bug was actually inspired by both Starship troopers (angular features) and Pokemon. I got the idea for it while watching Pokeman, but needed a more realistic look for my animated short.

 

I am looking forward to animating for this MOD. I have always run into groups that use Max or XSI. I hope you'll be able to use my skills, and I hope I will be able to help smooth out the pipeline .

 

Keep the questions comming, I'll gladly answer anything you'd like. Here's some personal info as is customary on interviews...

 

Name: Doug Hines

Age: 22

Education: BA at the University of Texas at Dallas

Current Job: Still looking for one x.x

Locale: Dallas, TX

Interests: CG movies, games, rock climbing, scuba diving

Current guilts: Battlefield 2142, CS:S, Starcraft, Quake4

[New Horizon]

You'll have to excuse our wary members Doug. We've seen a lot of great animators sign up, only to have them vanish into thin air after we assigned them some work. We hope that you'll stick around.

[sparhawk]

Yeah. So the major question is, why do you want to join to mod, and do you plan to stick around. It's really frustrating to see good animators sign on, just to get away after a week or two.

[Doug]

That's ok. I don't plan to go anywhere. Other than my job at the gym, I am going to be dedicating myself to this mod, my MEL script and portfolio work,... and battlefield 2142.

 

I do have some questions about the rigs, if you dont mind my asking.

 

-Are they the same rigs for each biped model? If so, are we simply importing FBX data into the scene?

-What type of controls are we looking at? Anything facial? Hands?

-Are the rigs broken heirarchy or continous?

 

Are there any naming conventions or particuliars that I'll need to know?

 

To answer your question: I want to do this mod so that my animating skills do not get rusty.

[ascottk]

-Are they the same rigs for each biped model? If so, are we simply importing FBX data into the scene?

They are the same & I started using our generic citywatch rig for the base of our AI animations so we can use his animations for most of the AI. I made a full body ik Maya animating rig complemented by the Motion Builder equivalent. We had problems with previous MB versions (we're using 7.5 around here).

-What type of controls are we looking at? Anything facial? Hands?

The heads are separate & we're starting more advanced head rigs. The hands are similar to Doom 3 mitten hands (one thumb, one index, & the middle-pinky are combined).

 

-Are the rigs broken heirarchy or continous?

Continuous I do believe. All Doom 3 characters need the "origin" bone as the root joint so everything is a child of origin. In the Maya fbik rig I parented the humanIK to the origin bone for walking animations. The origin moves the whole body on the x axis in a walking animation for forward/backward movement.

 

Are there any naming conventions or particuliars that I'll need to know?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. I guess we'll iron those things out later in this thread.

[Springheel]

Yes, your animation work is excellent. Are you familiar with any of the Thief games? It's not necessary, but we often use it as a common frame of reference when describing things.

 

A little bit about our animation design philosophy:

 

Players of stealth games spend more time watching the AI than just about any other type of game, so the animations are very important to creating a sense of believability. The more colourful, realistic animations we have, the better.

 

That said, there is a huge list of animations we would like to have. It isn't feasible, given the low number of animators we usually have at any one time, that we will be able to include them all for an initial release.

 

For that reason, anything we can do to save ourselves time with the animations is good. Specifically, we want animations to be as versatile as possible. All AI should share the same skeleton whenever feasible, so animations can be shared between AI with as little work as possible.

 

I'm the Art Director of the project. Ascottk is our most knowledgable character animator, however, who winds up handling virtually all of the technical stuff. Squill, Solis, and Domarius also have done some animation work and will no doubt be happy to help you out with getting started.

[sparhawk]

Well, I say let's give it a try. NH, can you set him up as contributor and then Spring or Asckott could assign him some task.

[New Horizon]

You got it.

[sparhawk]

Cool! Welcome!

[ascottk]

Here's the source Maya & Motion Builder files (along with the def file) for the citywatch:

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/models/In...tch_AnimRef.rar

 

I normally have the folders set up as:

models/ask/*MBs

 

In this case it'd be:

models/ask/citywatchMBs

 

of course you know where the def file goes

 

& if he can read the modeling & animation forum, I'd like it if he could read this:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=5035 (also we're using Maya 7.0.1).

 

I think Springheel knows what we'll need better than I do (I mainly experiment & if the animation is useful then I commit it ).

[Springheel]

I think the easiest thing for you to do as a contributor task (which is basically a hoop we make people jump through before getting access to the full Mod, just so we can increase the chances that they're someone who will stick around) is to tackle a couple straightforward idle animations. These are animations that will be played randomly on idle AI to make them seem more lifelike.

 

We'd like to make these useable for both standing, walking and sitting characters, ideally, so only the torso and head channels should be used. Some of our characters will be carrying things (torches, etc) in their left hand, so try to avoid situations that would set up serious clipping when possible. These idle animations won't be played when AI are in alert state, so you can assume that their weapon (right) hand will be free.

 

1. Stretch arms forward and crack knuckles (we'll probably disable this one if AI are carrying something)

 

2. Sniff underarm--character lifts arm slightly and sniffs himself--("I need a bath")

 

3. Raise hand to mouth and cough

[Doug]

I think the easiest thing for you to do as a contributor task (which is basically a hoop we make people jump through before getting access to the full Mod, just so we can increase the chances that they're someone who will stick around) is to tackle a couple straightforward idle animations. These are animations that will be played randomly on idle AI to make them seem more lifelike.

 

We'd like to make these useable for both standing, walking and sitting characters, ideally, so only the torso and head channels should be used. Some of our characters will be carrying things (torches, etc) in their left hand, so try to avoid situations that would set up serious clipping when possible. These idle animations won't be played when AI are in alert state, so you can assume that their weapon (right) hand will be free.

 

1. Stretch arms forward and crack knuckles (we'll probably disable this one if AI are carrying something)

 

2. Sniff underarm--character lifts arm slightly and sniffs himself--("I need a bath")

 

3. Raise hand to mouth and cough

 

Are these supposed to be commical? I just need to know how far to emphasize some reactions.

I might add one: brushing dirt off an arm.

 

Should the fingers intertwine, or are you talking more like fists?

 

Re: to an earlier ascottk post...

Regarding the FBX question: if we are using the same skeleton naming conventions (the same skeletons), I could in theory simply send you the fbx data, it could then be imported ovewriting the base skeleton data, and be saved as a new animation. This is how we did it for the Snowcraft mod we did at school (took 72 hours from design to Alpha (2 animators/mocap techs))

[SneaksieDave]

If I may interject an opinion on the "comical" question:

 

Thief 1 + 2 style, realistic unfortunate fellows for a voyeuristic chuckle - yes. Example: sightly drunk guard on wobbly feet, singing to himself, just trying to stay conscious through his night shift.

 

Thief 3 (TDS) style, dorky slapstick comic relief - oh god no. Example: slipping and falling on his ass from an oiled floor.

 

That doesn't tell you much about the requested anims, but the whole rather tangible paradigm shift from T1+2 -> T3 (if you're familiar with them) sums up pretty well the distinction. That's my opinion at least, though I imagine not too many among the team thought much of T3's dorkiness either.

[Springheel]

Tone: The Dark Mod is set in a world that is dark, gritty, adult, and most of all, believable. Characters talk and act in ways that are appropriate to their background. Uneducated guards don't recite poetry or discuss philosophy. Whores do not have hearts of gold. In the towns and cities of The Dark Mod setting, most people live in squalid conditions. Brutality is commonplace. Public torture and hangings are one of the most popular forms of entertainment.

 

And what SD said. I'm heading to bed, but I'll try to be clearer tomorrow.

[Domarius]

Some animations are obviously comical, like a drunk guy, maybe a noble getting startled, but not a guard attacking or getting hit.

 

And for the comical ones, it'd be as if it was mo-capped and the mo-capped actor was doing it in a comical way. NOT comical in a cartoony animated way.

 

Though, what I found is that I had to slightly exaggerate the animations I was doing, for people to beleive them. I think this is the same issue as Shrek vs Polar Express. PE was critisized for looking boring and lifeless, whilst Shrek, the characters hit you in the face with their personality. PE went purely for realism. Shrek used traditional cartoon exaggeration to give everyone a different character. Because it is not real and doesn't have all the little subtleties, so you have to exaggerate what is there slightly for it to look appealing. Same with video games, just a certain amount, not full on cartoonlike. Just take the realistic movements and extend them further.

 

It's even the same with movies - the way people act in movies is often pretty exagerated than real life, it's so you can say "he's sneaking, he's angry, she's sad" etc. so there's no ambiguity.

[Doug]

Got ya. I will attempt to have the 3 requested animations done by Sunday evening (maybe monday evening). I hate working weekends.

[ascottk]

Re: to an earlier ascottk post...

Regarding the FBX question: if we are using the same skeleton naming conventions (the same skeletons), I could in theory simply send you the fbx data, it could then be imported ovewriting the base skeleton data, and be saved as a new animation. This is how we did it for the Snowcraft mod we did at school (took 72 hours from design to Alpha (2 animators/mocap techs))

That'd work. The citywatch reference animation source has a fbx_import.mb just for that purpose.

 

It looks like you have a lot more experience with rigging/animation than I do (I kind of fell into the part due to a tiny bit of AI rigging I did for Thief: Deadly Shadows . . . not the official game but after the editor came out). So I have a question for you:

 

The problems I had with rigging was that the maya importer only kept one mesh, or none at all, during the mb->md5mesh conversion. So I experimented & came up with the only thing that worked for me:

export citywatch {

options -sourcedir models/ask/citywatchMBs -destdir models/md5/chars/guards/citywatch -scale .94
mesh citywatchmesh.mb -dest tdm_ai_citywatch

addoptions -keep Hips LeftHips_Dummy LeftUpLeg LeftUpLegRoll LeftLeg LeftLegRoll LeftFoot LeftToeBase LeftToe_end joint3 joint4 RightHips_Dummy RightUpLeg RightUpLegRoll RightLeg RightUpLegRoll RightLegRoll RightFoot RightToeBase joint5 joint6 Spine_Dummy Spine Spine1 Spine2 LeftShoulder_Dummy LeftShoulder LeftArm_Dummy LeftArm LeftArmRoll LeftForeArm LeftHand LeftHandIndex1 LeftHandIndex2 LeftHandIndex3 LeftHandRing1 LeftHandRing2 LeftHandRing3 LeftHandRing4 LeftHandThumb1 LeftHandThumb2 LeftHandThumb3 Neck Head RightShoulder_Dummy RightShoulder RightArm_Dummy RightArm RightArmRoll RightForeArm RightForeArmRoll RightHand RightHandIndex1 RightHandIndex2 RightHandIndex3 RightHandMiddle1 RightHandMiddle2 RightHandMiddle3 RightHandThumb1 RightHandThumb2 RightHandThumb3 joint8 joint9 leftpad rightpad joint7 sword -scale .94

I had very little export options for the mesh & that kept all the submeshes I wanted. When it came to the animations, I had to be specific about which joints to keep or the md5anim wouldn't match the md5mesh. So I comb through the md5mesh with a text editor & added/subtracted any joints in the def file according to the md5mesh. Only then would the anims match the mesh.

 

This creates several problems. We can't mix/match/share md5 animations between characters because the doom 3 importer is finicky (I would swear that I rigged one character to the same joints as another character but the joint numbers & names would not match).

 

You wouldn't happen to know why this happens?

[Springheel]

Ok, a little more information about tone....

 

The animations should *definitely* not be intentionally comical. We want the AI to be as believable as possible. Sometimes AI will be amusing because people in real life are sometimes amusing, but we don't want to intentional try to make them so.

 

Should the fingers intertwine, or are you talking more like fists?

 

Originally I'd intended the fingers to intertwine as they cracked their knuckles, but now that we're using half-mitten hands that might not be feasible. Whatever you think might look good.

[Domarius]

Sometimes AI will be amusing because people in real life are sometimes amusing,

Yeah that's sort of what i was trying to say in the first half of my post. Like a dorky noble jumping in shock or running away in fear.

[New Horizon]

It will mainly be conveyed through the voice acting. The movements themselves should be as lifelike as possible, without drifting into farce like T3 did.

[Springheel]

Yes, the voice acting will certainly have a huge impact on tone. The *horrible* dialects, not to mention the anachronistic dialogue and tongue-in-cheek scripts, were what really turned TDS into a commical farce.

 

The only humour I want to see in TDM is the "when am I going to get my dinner?" style complaints from T1/2. That was humorous, but it wasn't a "wink wink, nudge nudge, aren't we funny" kind of humour.