Animated objects ?

[Springheel]

We've had great difficulty in the past getting af set up on simple objects. I think Ascottk is probably our resident expert. There's also someone in the EOC forum who apparently knows quite a lot.

[Baddcog]

sorry, what's the EOC forums?

[Ishtvan]

The rope is actually just a bunch of bodies connected one after the other, so if you look at the first two bodies of the rope, that should be the same as the AF for connecting two bodies in a simple switch. For this application, if the switch never "dies" and goes to ragdoll state, you don't even have to worry about the constraints (just so long as something is there so the file loads), the collision models for each AF body is the important thing (which are also in the file).

[Baddcog]

this is the rope.af

 

/*
Generated by the Articulated Figure Editor.
Do not edit directly but launch the game and type 'editAFs' on the console.
*/

articulatedFigure env_rope {

settings {
model "env_rope"
skin ""
// friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 0.8000000119, 0.5
friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 0.1, 0.5
suspendSpeed 2, 2, 10, 10
noMoveTime 15
noMoveTranslation 10
noMoveRotation 10
maxMoveTime -1
totalMass 65
contents corpse
clipMask solid, corpse
selfCollision 0
}

body "bone1" {
joint "origin"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "origin" ), joint( "bone1" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "origin", "bone1" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "origin bone1"
}

body "bone2" {
joint "bone2"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone2" ), joint( "bone3" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone2", "bone3" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone2"
}

body "bone3" {
joint "bone3"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone3" ), joint( "bone4" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone3", "bone4" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone3"
}

body "bone4" {
joint "bone4"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone4" ), joint( "bone5" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone4", "bone5" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone4"
}

body "bone5" {
joint "bone5"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone5" ), joint( "bone6" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone5", "bone6" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone5"
}

body "bone6" {
joint "bone6"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone6" ), joint( "bone7" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone6", "bone7" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone6"
}

body "bone7" {
joint "bone7"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone7" ), joint( "bone8" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone7", "bone8" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone7"
}

body "bone8" {
joint "bone8"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone8" ), joint( "bone9" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone8", "bone9" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone8"
}

body "bone9" {
joint "bone9"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone9" ), joint( "bone91" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone9", "bone91" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone9"
}

body "bone91" {
joint "bone91"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone91" ), joint( "bone92" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone91", "bone92" )
density 1.5
containedJoints "*bone91"
}

ballAndSocketJoint "origin" 
{
body1 "bone1"
body2 "world"
anchor joint( "origin" )
// shafts ( 0.0000004888, 0, -1 ), ( -0.0000001629, 0, 1 )
friction 0.5
}/*
Generated by the Articulated Figure Editor.
Do not edit directly but launch the game and type 'editAFs' on the console.
*/

articulatedFigure env_rope {

settings {
model "env_rope"
skin ""
// friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 0.8000000119, 0.5
friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 0.1, 0.5
suspendSpeed 2, 2, 10, 10
noMoveTime 15
noMoveTranslation 10
noMoveRotation 10
maxMoveTime -1
totalMass 65
contents corpse
clipMask solid, corpse
selfCollision 0
}

body "bone1" {
joint "origin"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "origin" ), joint( "bone1" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "origin", "bone1" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "origin bone1"
}

body "bone2" {
joint "bone2"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone2" ), joint( "bone3" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone2", "bone3" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone2"
}

body "bone3" {
joint "bone3"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone3" ), joint( "bone4" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone3", "bone4" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone3"
}

body "bone4" {
joint "bone4"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone4" ), joint( "bone5" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone4", "bone5" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone4"
}

body "bone5" {
joint "bone5"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone5" ), joint( "bone6" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone5", "bone6" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone5"
}

body "bone6" {
joint "bone6"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone6" ), joint( "bone7" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone6", "bone7" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone6"
}

body "bone7" {
joint "bone7"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone7" ), joint( "bone8" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone7", "bone8" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone7"
}

body "bone8" {
joint "bone8"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone8" ), joint( "bone9" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone8", "bone9" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone8"
}

body "bone9" {
joint "bone9"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone9" ), joint( "bone91" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone9", "bone91" )
density 0.5
containedJoints "bone9"
}

body "bone91" {
joint "bone91"
mod orientation
model bone( joint( "bone91" ), joint( "bone92" ), 4 )
origin bonecenter( "bone91", "bone92" )
density 1.5
containedJoints "*bone91"
}

ballAndSocketJoint "origin" 
{
body1 "bone1"
body2 "world"
anchor joint( "origin" )
// shafts ( 0.0000004888, 0, -1 ), ( -0.0000001629, 0, 1 )
friction 0.5
}

 

this is my switch af

 

 

 

 

/*

Generated by the Articulated Figure Editor.

Do not edit directly but launch the game and type 'editAFs' on the console.

*/

articulatedFigure bc_switch01 {

settings {

model "bc_switch01"

skin ""

friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 0.1000000015, 0.5

suspendSpeed 2, 2, 10, 10

noMoveTime 0

noMoveTranslation 0

noMoveRotation 0

minMoveTime -1

maxMoveTime -1

totalMass 65

contents corpse

clipMask solid, corpse

selfCollision 0

}

body "bone1" {

joint "Origin"

mod orientation

model box( ( -10, -2, -10 ), ( 10, 2, 10 ) )

origin bonecenter( "Origin", "Bone1" )

density 0.5

friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 0.1000000015

contents corpse

clipMask solid, corpse

selfCollision 0

containedJoints "origin bone1"

}

slider "origin" {

body1 "bone1"

body2 "world"

axis bonedir( "Bone1", "Origin" )

friction 0.5

}

}

 

very similar to that of the rope. But I can't find any explanation of the AF editor other than Id's dev page which pretty much has a picture that says this is the af editor. None of the settings I try work, the boxes you can type in, well, I don't know what to type except corpse but I'm sure that has to be wrong.

 

I can't even find a rope in the gamesys to create, is it a corpse of rope arrow?

 

[Baddcog]

Alright, easy enough to make the animated obj block player and Ai. that's just the min/max in def file.

 

Still can't get arrows to collide. Picked up this info off Doom3World. MAybe i'm using it wrong:

 

"editor_var use_combat_bbox" "1"

 

That is supposed to make the comabt system use bounding box info for collision. Does it look right? I put that in 2 places:

the gfclock def and

the fun_anim def.

 

In the editor I can add that prop from the clocks pull down menu, it has no1 but I can add that. But doesn't seem to work.

Can't get an af to work either.

[Springheel]

Alright, easy enough to make the animated obj block player and Ai. that's just the min/max in def file.

 

Just min/max? That's good to know. What does that do, set a bounding box dimension?

[Baddcog]

Yeah, and I even found a way to check it.

 

r_showcollisionmodels

 

cool command, it shows all collision modes in colors. Like the clock has a red box around it, all objects without collision are pretty much traced in red.

The Ai are traced in red and blue I think. Red for collision so blue must be the combat model. Think I saw green and yellow too.

[Springheel]

Well, that solves the most significant problem--characters being able to walk through things. Come to think of it, things like the gfather clock would need to have a monsterclip brush put around it anyway for the AI, but it's good that the player won't be able to walk through it anymore.

 

Still can't get arrows to collide. Picked up this info off Doom3World. MAybe i'm using it wrong:

 

"editor_var use_combat_bbox" "1"

 

Did you type it like that above?

 

It should be like this:

 

"use_combat_bbox" "1"

 

Sorry if that's obvious, but I don't know how much you know about this.

 

If we could get that to work that would solve a lot of our problems, although it would be somewhat less satisfactory for oddly-shaped objects, since the bounding box has to be a cube (I think). Still would get us a lot further than we used to be.

[Baddcog]

I'm pretty clueless about all this stuff but I'm learning. The problem with this is that I'm clueless and so is about everyone else (these bounding box issues) so I can't just ask.

 

I imagined that after 3 years the doom 3 community would have everything worked out. So far I've only got 3 answers in a couple of weeks on this stuff and it usually ends with "maybe..."

And ironcially most of the searches for anything I needed to figure out at Doom3 world have found threads by Domarious, sparhawk... So I might as well just ask here eh?

 

What really bugs me is the Doom3 tuts. I've found a hundred tuts regarding how to make a bent pipe, or how to hollow a brush, but nothing at all on any kindof of complex terrain, or do's and dont's.

 

That seemed to me to be something at TTLG that was so good, sure there were duplicate tuts but usually people tried to right tuts about things that weren't already explained, or tried to do complicated things to write tuts about.

The doom tut people seem like they just like to be the ones to point out simple features and leave it at that.

 

I think I did try

"use_combat_bbox" "1"

but it didn't show up in editor, but if I used "editor_var use_combat_bbox" "1"

then it shows up in editor as [blue]T[/blue] use_combat_bbox 1

 

I'll try again and make sure I do it that way specifically, before I was just taking shots in the dark and guessing so it might not've been exact.

 

EDIT------------------

 

this is in the func.def, this is why I thought editor_var was needed. I found that info at doom3 world as "editor_var use_combat_bbox" "1"

and that matched the info already in here. But it doesn't seem to work either

 

entityDef func_animate {
"editor_color"				"1 .5 .3"
"editor_mins"				"-16 -16 0"
"editor_maxs"				"16 16 32"

"editor_usage"				"Object that changes animation when triggered."

"editor_var anim"			"anim to play when triggered.  (unless 'num_anims' is set)"
"editor_var start_anim"		"anim to play when first spawned.  anim will loop until triggered."
"editor_var num_anims"		"the number of anims to play in sequence.  trigger entity to start next anim.  set anims using 'anim1', 'anim2', 'anim3', etc.  Triggers targets when done playing animl."
"editor_var blend_in"		"how long to transition from the start_anim to the triggered anim."
"editor_var wait"			"how long to wait before auto activating.  -1 means only activate when triggered."
"editor_var cycle"			"how many times to play the animation after being triggered (use -1 for infinite)."
"editor_bool remove"		"set to 1 to remove object when animation finishes."
"editor_var target"			"all entities with a matching name will be used after anim plays."
"editor_bool hide"			"if 1, object remains hidden until triggered.  doesn't work when 'start_anim' is set."
"editor_var sound_bone"		"Bone to play sounds from."
"editor_var loop_last_anim"	"Loops the last anim when 'num_anims' is set.  the next trigger will cause the entity to hide, or be removed if 'remove' is set."
"editor_var auto_advance"	"When 'num_anims' is set, won't wait to be triggered between each anim."
"editor_var use_combat_bbox"	"1"

"spawnclass"				"idAnimated"
"blend_in"					"0"
"cycle"						"1"
"wait"						"-1"
"pose_frame"				"1"
"sound_bone"				"origin"
}

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

OK, I did use

 

"use_combat_bbox" "1" on both the clock def file and in the fun.def file under the func_animate heading.

this time it showed up in grey under inherited props in the editor, I didn't have to add it.

But still no luck.

 

I was also wrong about that command it is

g_showcollisionmodels

 

still, it only shows the red bounding box, not a blue one like Ai have.

----------

hopefully ascottk will show up soon and help me figure if the af file will help.

[Ishtvan]

You don't need the blue one. I think that's the navigation model for AI, not the combat model. The "combat model" is the same as the visual model, and only used for projectile collisions. Red is good, that usually means it's a collision model (not all things that have red are solid though, because some have collision models that are only used for frobbing).

 

If you get really close to an AI with that command on, you will see their AF body collision models (the individual red polygons around their feet, lower legs, upper legs, torso, etc). That's what you want to see on the animated objects as well, if the AF is set up appropriately.

[Baddcog]

I think the prob is that I can't figure out how to get the anim-object (mostly working with the gfclock right now as it's big and wood so an arrow should stick - better than my small metal switch for testing)

to have an AF attached (or whatever needs done).

 

I posted my af file for the switch up a few posts. The clock would be very similar, but that has a bine to connect the origin and pendulum. the switches bones are connected, but there isn't one in between.

 

Anyway, it still has 'corpse' in the af file. I'm sure that's what is wrong. But the clock will never have a corpse. So I guess I need to find out what goes there instead. I've searched thru alot of D3 stuff and couldn't find anything else.

[Crispy]

this is in the func.def, this is why I thought editor_var was needed.

The editor_var stuff just provides comments that show up in D3Ed; they're not used in-game. You'll never need to add any editor_var info yourself. You need to strip off the editor_var bit if you actually want to change something in-game.

[sparhawk]

And ironcially most of the searches for anything I needed to figure out at Doom3 world have found threads by Domarious, sparhawk... So I might as well just ask here eh?

 

Yes, That was also my experience. Either I found very simple tuts, that I didn't need explained, or I found nothing or only my own stuff, some from Ishtvan and Spring. As soon as it gets to more complex stuff the probabillity to dig something up gets down to zero.

[Baddcog]

Wahoo!

 

 

What's that? an animated object with a blue and red box and an arrow stuck in it?

 

YEP! So stoked, after 2 weeks of racking my brain, completely stuck on this problem and not being able to think of anything else, it's finally done!

 

I'll upload the file in a few so you guys can shoot a clock!

[Springheel]

Cool! How'd you do it?

[Baddcog]

Something simple of course

 

"CombatModel" "1"

 

I found it on the storage container in Doom. It's a metal box with a code pad, the box lid opens.

Which means that by using the codepad (ie lockbox) it must send a param to run the open anim. Might be good for animating chests. Just thought of this though so haven't looked into that yet.

 

Currently working in particle editor to make particles for sphere lights. I think they might end up more of a blue/white than yellow though since they are magic. We have enough yellow lighting.

--

oh yeah, I'm gonna try and use a cylinder model like on the player, I think it's possible we can get a little more complex than a box.

Orientation I don't know. But I'm thinking if we have an animated water tank style object, cylinder on it's side the collision model could fit it, so if something was set on top it could slide off.

[Springheel]

I think they might end up more of a blue/white than yellow though since they are magic. We have enough yellow lighting.

 

Agreed.

 

oh yeah, I'm gonna try and use a cylinder model like on the player, I think it's possible we can get a little more complex than a box.

 

That would certainly be better for some models. Worth a shot. Can you write up a little tut on how to do this and I'll add it to the wiki? (or you can)

[New Horizon]

Awesome, document this stuff...quick.

[Baddcog]

If you want to wikify it Springheel that would be great. I don't want to deal with learning the formatting at this time.

 

This is the def file for the clock

//not sure if the damage command is needed, probably not. Will mess with it more and update, Baddcog
model gfclock {

mesh   models/md5/props/gfclock/gfclock.md5mesh
anim idle  models/md5/props/gfclock/gfclock_idle.md5anim
{
 random_cycle_start
}
}

entityDef atdm:furniture_gfclock {

"spawnclass"   "idAnimated"
"model" "gfclock"
"editor_mins"	 "-12 -12 -52"
"editor_maxs"	 "12 12 52"
"size"	  "24 24 104"
"start_anim"	  "idle"
"snd_bounce"	 "material_wood_impact"
"CombatModel"	"1"

"damage"	  "100000"

}

 

the clocks material file has wood of course. I'm not sure that snd_bounce above is needed either, I think since it now has a collision box it uses the material to determine the reaction/sound.

 

Other than that I think the neccesary info to include is that the animated obj is a combo of the md5.mesh and md5.anim (maybe links to those things, I think the Wiki does have info on that).

 

Der_tons md5 model exporter works great for exporting the model/anim. He has several versions. I have only used the 3dsMax one. But he does have a GMax one, gmax was free public download, just checked but looks like they stopped offering it in 2005. I think I have it on disk somwhere, not sure we'd want to distribute it though.

 

I'd like to add to it at some point the option of adding 'child meshes' for rotationg parts. I'll have to look into how that's done. Also how to change shape of bounding box, ect...

Also, scripting options to start/stop animated objects, this I will probably need some help with. The defining of different anims I think I can handle.

 

One problem with the bounding box is that it is one material. It seems to have glass up front but I don't see that in the md5.mesh file. So currently I'm not sure if the material it uses is in the def file or mtr file.

 

Hold off on this until after the weekend, I'll put in a little more time trying to pin point some of these details.

 

-EDIT-

the clock doesn't have glass, I'll look into multiple materials too. I deleted the "snd_bounce" "material_wood_impact" info from that file and arrows still stuck and sounded like wood.

 

OK, I'll put it up on wiki and let someone format later if I don't get around to it. I know it's nothing too complicated, just time ya know...

[sparhawk]

Just copy the text into WIKI. It can be formatted later as well.

[Baddcog]

wanted to keep this seperate from info above.

 

I'm pretty sure the af file isn't going to work with animated object. mainly becasue of concerns I had above, they don't have a corpse.

 

Before I figured out the problem I was using atdm:ai_base as a spawn type. this was working to a degree with some funny results. If the clock was alerted it would turn to face me If I shot it once it would presumably die and couldn't be shot again, the bounding box would vanish.

Another prob was that the anim wasn't working, but it was refernceing files that have neck, head ...bone names.

The clocks bones are bone1, bone2 and bone3

 

So if an animator could help me figure this out I think we could have animated objects with collision for all the bones witout attaching objects.

What we'd need as far as I can tell:

 

atdm:obj_base

(basically a completely ignorant ai that can't see, hear, move or die)

It would have origina as a base bone of course, and the ability to add bones on a per obj basis instead of a rigid biped bone hiearchy.

 

--EDIT--

Regarding the info being Wikified:

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

 

that took longer than I meant for it too:D

[Ishtvan]

The "corpse" thing in the AF file is a collision mask, setting it to CONTENTS_CORPSE, which means that the player can go through it, but all other things bounce off of it. It won't effect anything but the player, but if you do want the player to bump into it, you'd want to put in "contents solid" instead of "contents corpse".

 

The combatmodel solution is not really the best solution, because it uses every single plane of the visual model for collision detection, and may only work for projectiles (have you tried throwing a crate at the thing and making sure it bounces off?)

 

I still think the best way to do this is to make some AF bodies and attach them to the bones you want. Then it will use the AF bodies for collisions. You shouldn't need to worry about AF constraints at all. Just put in some dummy ones there so that the parser is happy with the file, but they'll never get used. The object is never going to "die" and go into floppy ragdoll mode. When the object is animating, it doesn't use any of the AF constraints, it just follows the animations and moves the AF bodies according to how the bones move in the animation. The constraints are only used if an object dies and flops to the ground. So all you have to do is set up AF bodies attached to the right bones.

 

The people who set up our AI, (ascottK and Oddity), should be able to explain how to associate AF bodies with the correct bones so that they move along with the anims properly.

 

The idea is instead of using every tri on the visual model, set up AF collision bodies in the AF file that track with the bones during the animation.

[Baddcog]

Yeah, I've been hoping one of em would drop in and shed some light, but no luck so far and I haven't wanted to just wait so I'm doing what I can to solve the problem.

 

It seems to me the collision model is only a box though, maybe that's just what the editor shows.

 

Anyway, here's what I just finished up

 

It has 4 anims. One is a one frame, closed anim. an opening anim, an open anim where the lid stays up, and a closing one.

 

When it opens the blue box changes size, so the arrows deffinately miss when it closes. I've found that the md5 exporter will export 1 mesh with multiple textures just fine unlike the ase export. (I think Domarius already told me that but I hadn't actually tried yet.)

The difference is, in ase you need //base/shader name

in the md5 you just use shader name

 

Anyway, I was stoked to see that if nothing else the collision model resized so you couldn't shoot thru an open lid, I was really stoked to see the arrow stick to the wood inside. I know it doesn't really work since the arrow will go thru the mesh when it closes, but good to see multiple materials can react differently for collision.

The bounding box however doesn't change size.

 

Cylinders can be used, but they are vertical. So a round tank on it's side would need to be exported vertically, then rotated in editor, this rotates the cylinder collision model too.

 

As far as crates, it's buggy. I laid a cylindrical clock on it's side. When I did get a crate to fall on top of it it would behave properly and roll off of the cylinder. However 7 times out of 10 the crate would fall thru it. Any time I throw a crate at it it just goes thru it. I messed with mass, density and whatnot, that didn't seem to work either.

 

I did read on the Wiki that a single blank keyframe anim is needed to set up the AF's and I hadn't seen that before or had an anim like that to use, so I will try that again. crossfingers.

 

If ascottk, domarius or oDDity show up hopefully they will help.

[ascottk]

I did read on the Wiki that a single blank keyframe anim is needed to set up the AF's and I hadn't seen that before or had an anim like that to use, so I will try that again. crossfingers.

 

If ascottk, domarius or oDDity show up hopefully they will help.

Just use the main pose as the af. For the characters I justs used the t-pose.

[Baddcog]

[size="2"] 



/*

Generated by the Articulated Figure Editor.

Do not edit directly but launch the game and type 'editAFs' on the console.

*/

articulatedFigure chest_collide {

settings {

model "chest21"

skin ""

friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 8, 0.5

suspendSpeed 20, 30, 40, 60

noMoveTime 1

noMoveTranslation 10

noMoveRotation 10

minMoveTime -1

maxMoveTime -1

totalMass -1

contents solid

clipMask solid

selfCollision 1

}

body "chest_base1" {

joint "BaseBone"

mod orientation

model box( ( -27.5, -27.5, -27.5 ), ( 27.5, 27.5, 27.5 ) )

origin joint( "Origin" )

density 0.200000003

friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 0.8000000119

contents solid

clipMask solid

selfCollision 1

containedJoints "-*basebone"

}

body "chest_lid" {

joint "LidBone"

mod orientation

model box( ( -44, -44, -44 ), ( 44, 44, 44 ) )

origin joint( "LidBone" )

density 0.6999999881

friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 0.8000000119

contents solid

clipMask solid

selfCollision 1

containedJoints "*lidbone"

}

body "desperate" {

joint "Origin"

mod orientation

model box( ( -10, -10, -10 ), ( 10, 10, 10 ) )

origin ( 0, 0, 0 )

density 0.200000003

friction 0.0099999998, 0.0099999998, 8

contents solid

clipMask solid

selfCollision 1

containedJoints "*origin"

}

}

[/size]

 

I did make a new anim, was easy enough, followed the Wiki tut in modeling (set up af) to the T.

 

Still not seeing anything like the boxes AI have on their arms.

 

Am getting thie error when I change anything in the afeditor and have my level loaded:

 

id::af:load: articulated figure 'chest_collide' for entity 'atdm_chest21_2' at (96 -296 0) has no body which modifies the origin joint

 

that should be body 'desperate', but the modified joint rollout under that bodies properties is greyed out, but has Origin typed in, so I can't change it.