Animation assignments

[squill]

another basic walk:

(compression only adds a tick at the end of the anim)

 

perspective

side view

front view

 

@oDDity

the casual walk looks nice, only the upperbody looks static, adding rotation to the hips and animating the shoulders going up and down a bit would make it more dynamic. The feet go thru the ground but your probably still working on it. Same goes for the scratch in the neck, adding a movement to the hips when he reaches would add a lot.

[New Horizon]

Gah, what's up with the back of the legs in this side view?

[squill]

skin weighting? In-game it usually looks better.. i haven't checked it yet.

[Springheel]

It looks like Oddity is using a different rigging than you are (you've got the old, larger legs, it appears). Will animations made on one be compatible with the new rigging?

 

I like this walk as well (other than from the side). It looks more purposeful and directed, while Odd's looks more casual. I think both would be appropriate for different characters--I can imagine this one being quite good on Builder guards, for example.

[SneaksieDave]

Wow, they all look great! The only critique I'd mention is for the oDDity casual walk, the way the knee pops straight on each extension. A degree or two less might make all the difference in appearance.

[New Horizon]

When oDD is finished re-tweaking the models, we'll have to make sure everyone is using the most recent version of everything.

[squill]

It looks like Oddity is using a different rigging than you are (you've got the old, larger legs, it appears). Will animations made on one be compatible with the new rigging?

 

That's what i'm curious about. i've always used this rig, which has some skin weight issues but in previous animations it was compatible with the rest of the character rigs. Unless Domarius or ODDity are also changing the joint setup.

[sparhawk]

Yeah, I like the second better. As I said, in the dark it might make sense, but the hand is really quite stiff and wooden. It's better in the second one.

[oDDity]

the casual walk looks nice, only the upperbody looks static, adding rotation to the hips and animating the shoulders going up and down a bit would make it more dynamic.

I'm careful about how much torso movement I include, because it's hip and shoulder movement that make a walk take on personal characteristics, such as arrogance or grooviness or jauntiness.

Your walk I think has too much side to side swing (and that swing seems totally linear in nature) and is too floaty, due to no real dip when the front foot contacts, which considering the big macho strides that are being taken, should be considerable.

The root of that problem is that the legs never straighten out.

GIMG pointed out the IK pop in my legs, but at least that means they do straighten before the drop, and you get a sense of weight. I don't think the pop will be noticeable in-game. I prefer to err on the side of a pop, and thus, straight leg, than a Groucho Marx gait.

Same goes for the scratch in the neck, adding a movement to the hips when he reaches would add a lot.

No hip or leg movement, or weight shifting, is required for such a move. It's not necessary to make every action a big theatrical performance.

If I have the fbx file, I should be able to use any animation on the new rig.

 

HEre's a Salute

[squill]

No hip or leg movement, or weight shifting, is required for such a move. It's not necessary to make every action a big theatrical performance.

If I have the fbx file, I should be able to use any animation on the new rig.

 

it may be a bit too much making it look macho, and the arms need tweaking. The legs has some weighting issues so i'll wait with new anim till the rig is finished.

 

i'm not aiming for theatrical or totally lifelike movements, if it works and looks believeable fine. You've also animated more of the body in the rest of your anims like the peer which works great. Anyway I would choose to animate some movement in the torso/hips, but that's my personal taste.

[sparhawk]

The salute looks pretty good to me. Don't know if we can really use it though.

[Arcturus]

Anyway I would choose to animate some movement in the torso/hips, but that's my personal taste.

I agree. I doesn't have to be theatrical, just minimal muscle movement. No man can stand still like a sculpture (except those british guards with funny hats) and that one is making quite strong hand moves which would affect rest of the body. But except that minor thing everything looks great.

[oDDity]

The salute looks pretty good to me. Don't know if we can really use it though.

 

I thought it could be used in some stim/response way for when an elite guard passes by a regular guard.

[oDDity]

it may be a bit too much making it look macho, and the arms need tweaking. The legs has some weighting issues so i'll wait with new anim till the rig is finished.

 

i'm not aiming for theatrical or totally lifelike movements, if it works and looks believeable fine. You've also animated more of the body in the rest of your anims like the peer which works great. Anyway I would choose to animate some movement in the torso/hips, but that's my personal taste.

 

Hip movement only comes from either weight shifting in the legs, or torso rotation, but as I say, neither of these things is required to simply raise your hand to your neck.

Anyway, a lot of these idles can be played only on the torso channel over the base_idle.

[sparhawk]

I thought it could be used in some stim/response way for when an elite guard passes by a regular guard.

 

Yeah, but that would have to be scripted by the mapper. I don't think that this would be generically usefull. Would look strange if every map would make use of it.

[oDDity]

I dont' see what's strange about a city watch guard saluting a superior officer on any map, or a builder guard saluting the inqusitors (though the priests would probably bow)

Interaction between the AI is always nice to see, and this is one simple way of adding it.

[New Horizon]

Yeah, but that would have to be scripted by the mapper. I don't think that this would be generically usefull. Would look strange if every map would make use of it.

 

Nope, doesn't have to be scripted by the mapper..just included in the sub classes for the underling guards with the SR editor, and then put a randomization on it so that there is only a small chance of playing the animation when an elite guard or nobility walks by. It could be done now with our SR editor.

[Domarius]

I won't be doing any anims this weekend, I'll be doing them in the evenings during the week.

 

My fav is the drunk guard, a lot of subtle movements there.

 

The only critique I have is that the knee popping is pretty distracting in oDDity's walk, my brain picked up straight away that something was pretty wrong, before I realised what it actually was.

 

I prefer squill's walk because oDDity's looks too much like modifying the mo-cap walk on the FTP, which gives it a jittery puppet-like look that I can't quite place. I feel like squill's has more life to it. Just my opinion.

 

@oDDity - I'm pretty sure you can remove the knee popping by not letting it reach it's limit so hardly, just add some more key frames where it's reaching it's full extent to slow it down a touch before it hits it, ideally never fully hitting it by the tiniest unoticible amount. That's how I removed any knee popping from my old walk and run anims (in my sig there)

 

Regarding exporting vids from Motion Builder - why did you have to Fraps it, was there problems? You can export an XviD avi straight from Motion Builder, but I discovered that if you don't render the vid at one of the standard sizes (640x480, etc) XviD won't be able to convert it, which is an easy mistake to make in Motion Builder because it has "camera window" as the default rendering size, which is whatever arbitrary size your render window was.

[Springheel]

I thought it could be used in some stim/response way for when an elite guard passes by a regular guard.

 

Yeah, I think that would be great. Currently guards are already set up to react to other classes of AI by giving specific barks--there's no reason they couldn't do certain animations as well.

[Springheel]

Oh, Odd, something else while you're working on the citywatch--there are some strange shadows on the rear of the tunic that I think are being caused by too much smoothing on the tunic mesh (it's possible that it's caused by the new shadowmesh, but I think I see them in your salute animation as well).

 

[Domarius]

squill and oDDity, you guys should also start your own pages in the Wiki on "how to best make a walk cycle" even if they have conflicting advice. We can all learn from each other, and it'll be good if we finally do find other people willing to animate.

[Crispy]

Nope, doesn't have to be scripted by the mapper..just included in the sub classes for the underling guards with the SR editor, and then put a randomization on it so that there is only a small chance of playing the animation when an elite guard or nobility walks by. It could be done now with our SR editor.

Yeah, I think that would be great. Currently guards are already set up to react to other classes of AI by giving specific barks--there's no reason they couldn't do certain animations as well.

This is definitely doable, but as Spring says I would much prefer putting it into the AI reaction thing that sophisticatedZombie set up (the code that makes someone say "how's it goin'" in test/walk_ik.map every three goddamn seconds ) rather than adding it to S/R. That way it would properly take visual obstructions, darkness, etc. into account, and it would prevent them from saluting at enemy nobles.

[Solis]

Well, for those that remember me, I'm still here and (should) be available for animating again if I'm needed. From what I can recall, I had finished all the animation assignments I had on the main list and had taken a few others as well (shivering is one I remember). But I'm not sure if they made it into the game since they were just raw .FBX files that needed to be converted to the more recent skeleton structure we were using. If they haven't, it might be worth looking at them to see if any would be usable.

 

Should we make a new master animation assignment list and hand out tasks?

 

For oDDity's animations: they look pretty good, only major flaw I can see is that the right leg seems to snap a bit quick when the hips are raised too high in the peer and salute animations. Mostly just the peer one when he looks to the left, easy enough to fix by either lowering/twisting the hips a little or raising the heel of the foot (I find the latter results in less undesired side effects).

[squill]

squill and oDDity, you guys should also start your own pages in the Wiki on "how to best make a walk cycle" even if they have conflicting advice. We can all learn from each other, and it'll be good if we finally do find other people willing to animate.

 

might be an idea to add also the general basics of a walkcycle besides our own thoughs/tips, although those can also be quite different. This weekend (today) i'll look into the idles and refine the walk. Also why does the current walkcycle in-game moves away from it's original starting point?

 

..and thx for uploading the reference footage

[sparhawk]

The point is, that such a salute is quite s specific reaction. If you have this animation playing each and every time some AI is meeting, each other, it will look just plain stupid.