Baddcog's Bots

[Baddcog]

well, I do have the extra bones that I'm supposed to need on the knees for IK. But I haven't set up any limits or anything. Haven't got that far into it yet, not sure what degree of IK is needed.

 

I thought about making the body move AFTER I did everything else so I just tested as is.

 

I couldn't get him to react AND play the anim at all? One or the other. hmmm.

 

He is non-combatant, I suppose he could have vision for now just for test purpose, in fact I think I left that alone in the def file. But eventually hearing only. Then he'll make a high pitch whistle to give player away.

 

I think I meant to make him bigger to, not quite double the size.

[Springheel]

Not really sure if we'll need an AF, the death could just be a fall down anim. Player doesn't need to drag bots does s/he? More reason to plan out the kill.

 

You should talk to Ascottk about that. I suggested the same thing for spiders, but apparently there is some problem where the resulting 'dead body' would be immobile. This means if the spider/bot died on the edge of a cliff it would just hang in the air, or if it died in front of a door it would permanently block the door, etc.

 

about that face bot, been thinking. Not sure about animal faces. Maybe humanish faces would be better. I really like the looks of the faces on the concept, maybe we can get redface to do a closer detail? I don't want human, but I'm thinking 3 animal faces might be 'lopsided' in a bad way.

 

Yeah, I know where you're coming from. I wasn't sure it would work either.

[Baddcog]

Well, I do have the basic principle of AF down, I've got the chest lid fixed so it doesn't flop inside itself anymore. But the damn thing still acts like a mexican jumping bean.

Anyway, it shouldn't be hard too to make a very simple AF (fall on ground laughing) so it could fall, but the player doesn't have to frob it I guess, which would probably save work with the AF being too precise.

[sparhawk]

Can't wait to see this in action. I was not aware that you already had a testmap as well for it.

[Baddcog]

Kindof a general whatever I've been fudging with test_map. Nothing special for sure.

 

Just wanted to update, I did uncomment the 'channel' lines for torso and legs. I thought that had more to do with animating in one channel or another, still don't undertand it obviously.

 

But now he can play anim AND turn around to watch you.

 

I found an AI import tut by Brain Trepaning. His other tuts weren't very informative but this is an hour long slog thru ai, beginning to end. Boring but helpful.

[Springheel]

Just checked this out. I love the little pump at the back, and the gage, as well as the steam-valve opening and closing (we should definitely attach a small steam particle effect there).

 

I agree with Crispy that the bot doesn't need to be moving his legs while idling. It looks like he's lifting them up because they're getting sore or something. Just a subtle sway back and forth would be fine, since those other bits are already moving. And we definitely need to add some mechanical sounds--there's probably something in the D3 folders already that would work.

 

Atm it seems that there is no collision info, as arrows go right through it?

 

As for size, I think a 50-60% increase would probably be about right.

[Baddcog]

Glad you like him. I do think I got carried away with the idle, but it was so much fun getting to that point finally.

I think just a little bit of bobbing (the body) will give the legs movement without them lifting, then maybe a little shuffle to let of steam.

 

Currently I'm redoing some of the bones structure so I can correctly limit the 'hip' attachments correctly. It'll make anims much easier. I'm also looking into IK solving to simplify anims, so far that's a work in progress.

 

I've also started on the AF file setting up collision model, so yeha, that also is wip. Was easy setting up body so he died and fell down, but as soon as I started the first leg he tips over all weird. next 3 legs will help stabalize him though.

 

the texture is still wip too. I did finish up the mapping, just need to dirty him up, maybe work on the lantern lid a bit still. That was kindof a quick hack to get the uv done.

[sparhawk]

I thnk a little shuffling would be good. It might look strange if the bot has all kind of moving parts but his feet are glued to the floor. Maybe not really a shuffling but more of a swaying would work.

[Baddcog]

Lantern Bot Update: map test_baddcog

 

OK, I resized him a bit, still small but can get thru doorways.

 

Redid his idle anim. Much better I think. Not really any sway but enough movement.

 

I also made him walk, just the same anim with foward momentum, I had to see him move. Also turned him 90* so he actually faces you now.

 

Will work on actual walk anim maybe tommorrow night.

----------------------

So anims needed will be few I suppose. He's a small guy and doesn't attack. Will need to attach a light and a steam puff every 40 frames.

 

Anims (feel free to suggest some)

 

*walk

*scurry (run)

*search (not sure this is needed, he doesn't have a head to look around, could use walk again for leg movement while he turns back and forth which I suppose is more an AI feature than anim)

*alarm - when he finds player, blows whistle. mainly sound but I thought stomping feet like he's frustrated would be good. move legs faster than walk or scurry.

 

he's got no arms/ head. his ear does move back and forth during idle, probably same during search, maybe not as much walking?

 

--EDIT--

maybe I spoke too soon. I laoded up editor after seeing the new anims in test_baddcog. everything seemed good, but in editor he's splayed out all over. I resized after I had him rigged. This must've caused it.

Weird thing is , even though he's all broken looking in editor he is fine in game after that, same in der_tons model viewer, the mesh is broken but load an anim and he's fine.

and I had to get rid of IK I was using on piston, now that anim is gone (just did it again damnit)

 

Ah well, I can't put him out like that, but now I've worked thru the problems I had it should be fairly quick (but not painless) this time.

[SneaksieDave]

Holy shit.

 

Baddcogg: I just checked out the bot; 'awesome' doesn't even begin to describe this thing. There's so much detail and charm in the design, it's quite believable, the textures are perfect (the colors, and even grease coming out of the hole in the back - that's detail!)... I could go on. I especially love the whistle, ear, steam release, and crank-gear underneath.

 

Edit: just noticed a prob with his collision flags (I know it's wip, just wanted to mention) - although it is solid to the player, I can set the crate down right through it. Edit: Oops, same with the clock.

[Springheel]

Anims (feel free to suggest some)

 

*walk

*scurry (run)

*search (not sure this is needed, he doesn't have a head to look around, could use walk again for leg movement while he turns back and forth which I suppose is more an AI feature than anim)

*alarm - when he finds player, blows whistle. mainly sound but I thought stomping feet like he's frustrated would be good. move legs faster than walk or scurry.

 

You'll also need a 'death' animation of some kind unless he's going to go ragdoll (which could also work).

 

Is the lantern set so that it pivots, like the AI's heads do while they're idle?

[Baddcog]

Thanks Sneaks (I think I know why crate does that with bot, have to look into it)

 

Spring, Head doesn't move (lantern that is) since he can't see, but his ear moves.

I'm currently re-rigging , gotta go to work but will be at it again tonight. If you REALLY want it to turn I guess it's not too late. He's so small though and as he is now under spider he turns alot. I don't think the spiders head turns.

 

I think it's better just to have him turn since he's so small and it shows the motion better, I think when he's backlit from the lantern it'll be harder to see just his head move.

either way the light beam would rotate when he looks around.

 

I vote for no head turn, but let me know.

[Springheel]

I'm currently re-rigging , gotta go to work but will be at it again tonight. If you REALLY want it to turn I guess it's not too late. He's so small though and as he is now under spider he turns alot. I don't think the spiders head turns.

 

The spider's head does turn--D3 automatically moves the head randomly unless other animations override it. It isn't necessary for this bot though. I was just curious.

[sparhawk]

The bot definitley looks nice. But when I looked at it in the map, I noticed that we might need some command to ignore the player. I could never get a view from his backside, because he always tries to get at me.

 

One thing I noticed is that he looks very clean. I think he should get a few scratches on the torso. I definitely like the attention to detail. Reminds me of these movies where a weird scientist constructed all kind of uselless but fun to watch gadgets that constantly moved and jingled and such.

[Springheel]

We haven't really discussed the gameplay implications of this bot. How is it disabled? Forcing the player to attack it with arrows, swords or mines is sort of counter-productive, since that will make just as much noise as the bot's whistle would.

 

I don't see any obvious place to hit with a water arrow though.

[SneaksieDave]

Use notarget to be invisible to AI. I use it so damn much it's bound to a key.

[sparhawk]

Ah! Thanks!

[Nyarlathotep]

Why is the bot self-shadowed?

[Springheel]

I just checked it out. I like the new idle better. There was no 'walk' animation being played for me...the bot just glided along the floor playing his idle animation when he moved after me.

 

I tried killing it for fun, and it collapsed into a nice little ragdoll, so I guess we don't need a death animation after all.

 

One thing that might be worth looking at--if you could set the 'hearing cone' to register as the 'head' then D3 would randomly move it around, and even move it towards sounds, rather than the regular pendulum effect it has now. Don't know exatly how hard that would be though.

[Baddcog]

let's see:

 

sparhawk, the tex isn't quite finished, but the uv mapping is, so I was anxious to rig and animate.

Too anxious, I started rerig this morning, should be done with that and have some anims by next week, then I'll work on tex more. I also noticed the ragdoll can have a texm not sure if I want to make a 'dead' tex, would make sense to have a burnt up one IF the ragdoll only had that IF hit by firearrow, don't know how easy that would be.

ELSE... (bahaha) [what's wrong with this guy?]

 

I hadn't thought of binding commands I use other than editafs, I'll have to do that.

 

Nyarlathotep, cause he's still wip. I do need to add noselfshadow though.

 

Springheel,

I did bring up the gameplaystuff pretty early on. My thought was that it doesn't have a boiler, pretty small dude so they just fill him with boiling water, close the lid tight and off he goes. Obviosly he would have limited time span, but long enough of one that any taffer could finish a mission before it ran out.

This would be a good detail for a inventors journal.

At this point it's really too late to add one unless I want to start weighing verts again. (not really) cause I'd probably end up having to add more polys or add another texture map and polys. I used the tex map space pretty well, and some spots use the same space, so if I painted boiler on one spot, there might be 2 boilers on bot (not boilers but vents)

Basically my thought was taking it out with a sword/blackjack. I don't know, I really didn't build a boiler into the design since he is so small and non-combatant.

 

edit, just read new post...

Currently the hearing cone is the head layer, but is animated to turn. I don't know how D3 will handle that. Or how it handles that, maybe AscottK has a better understanding.

 

Yeah, all I did for walk anim so far was move him foward in the idle anim to see if he would trol, he does. Once I get this rigging done I'll work on actual anims that will be used. I am getting a pretty good IK set-up going now after messing with that alot, that'll make it fairly eaasy.

[Springheel]

Basically my thought was taking it out with a sword/blackjack. I don't know, I really didn't build a boiler into the design since he is so small and non-combatant.

 

There are three options, basically:

 

1. The bot can't be disabled at all--the player just has to avoid it (like a will-o-wisp).

 

2. The bot can only be disabled by loud weapons (alerting any nearby AI).

 

3. There is a quiet way to disable the bot.

 

 

My thinking is that if this is a cheap/common type of bot, then there should be a way for the player to disable it without alerting everyone nearby. Flashbombs don't make sense since it can't see. Water arrows don't make much sense given the design. What about moss or vine arrows? Perhaps the moss/vines could gunk up the machinery, or soak up all the water or something. Or perhaps the player could bash it to death with a blackjack, making only a muffled sound?

 

Currently the hearing cone is the head layer, but is animated to turn. I don't know how D3 will handle that.

 

If it's set up as the head, then D3 will randomly rotate it around (though you may have to set values in the def file for that, see below). But if you specifically animate it, that will override the random movements.

 

These are the relevant values:

 

"look_min" "-90 -125 0"

"look_max" "25 125 0"

"look_joint Spine" "0.1333 0.1333 0"

"look_joint Spine2" "0.1333 0.1333 0"

"look_joint Head" "0.1333 0.1333 0"

"look_joint RightArm" "0.1333 0.1333 0"

"look_joint LeftArm" "0.1333 0.1333 0"

"look_joint sword" "0.1333 0.1333 0"

 

The look_min and look_max set the amount you want the head to rotate. I'm not sure about the other joints--that has something to do with setting up a hierarchy so that turning the head can also move the shoulders, torso and arms as they turn. Probably don't need that for just the cone.

[Baddcog]

I like the moss arrow idea, since that would be gunky, maybe hard for it to walk in too. The light would still be on, maybe it would just be set back to idle. I don't think it should be vine though, or rope as they don't really put out matter (gunky stuff in laymans terms).

 

The black jack would be quieter IF it doesn't get alerted while being clubbed. (how many hits disable?)

 

If D3 will make the head (earphone) react, then deffinately it should NOT be animated for search mode. I like it for idle and walk though because it just gives it more flavor. Make it look like the bot is searching on it's patrol (even though it isn't actually doing a search)

 

Then again, I think I just commented out the look min/max cause I wasn't sure they'd be needed. As he doesn't have eyes.

But to some degree I know he can't be blind, that would probably make him not function as an Ai.

I just want it to have the impression for the player that he is listening, not looking.

I don't think it would be too noticable by player either way. Obviously if they are standing silently in the light and an Ai comes by they know they are busted. I think the players mentality will work into our favor there, they know they have to be in shadow AND quiet. No reason to actually say 'this bot can't see you in the light', we just need to diminish it's sight a bit so he doesn't see as well as the others.

 

Thanks for bringing that issue up, I will test out a bit before deciding on those anims. Most likely I will do a few and they will just be offered up for critique, then I will get more focused on actual release anims.

[Springheel]

Then again, I think I just commented out the look min/max cause I wasn't sure they'd be needed. As he doesn't have eyes.

But to some degree I know he can't be blind, that would probably make him not function as an Ai.

 

AI can be blind with no problem--I often set AI to be blind for testing. They just don't react to visual stimulus (obviously).

 

The look min/max doesn't have anything to do with looking, really. It just determines how much AI will turn their heads left and right, up and down. Although I think that is directed by the AI's POV.

[Baddcog]

hmm. side to side good. up/down bad. the ear is just a horizontal joint.

 

I checked but actually didn't comment out head min/max, I also saw some other head props. They didn't work right now though, must be because it's animated.

 

also, my AF is now 90* off since I have rotated him to correct orientation. So at this stage it's a full redo. Best way to learn is to mess something up the first time.

 

__edit__

Moss arrows to disable:

the bot will need "not mossable" enabled, we don't want clumps landing on top of him, that looks bad, they are as big as him so they'd be 'floaters'.

So we need to do something like put a receptron on the moss, and a stim on him (or maybe some script). But better to have stim on him cause there will be fewer bots than moss clumps. When a moss clump recieves the stim it disables him. Makes his anim stick on idle?

Would have to be something like ^lantern_bot ( ^ = nearest hiearchy type ). I can't think of an easy way to make randomly generated moss clumps turn off a specific AI.

 

Or do the moss clumps already have some proerty, or can they be assigned a property that would make the bots automatically stim themselves into submission? We don't want 10-20 moss clumps sending stims I don't think. Somebody smarter takes over here...

[Crispy]

There's already a script (written by greebo) for the moss clumps; weapon_mossarrow_result.script. It already detects what entity the blobs fall onto (for purposes of deciding whether or not to stick to the entity), so it would be fairly straightforward to make it disable lantern bots as well. Using stims is probably better than hardcoding it though. I haven't touched Dark Mod S/R yet, so I don't know exactly how the system works.