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Citywatch rig


squill

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i've tweaked the combat idle pose a bit. The poses idle & combat idle are synced to SVN which you can use to adjust your current combat animations. The tricky part is once you import a pose it's not yet attached to the character set, but it's the same method as we do with anim clips.

 

Import the pose (.ma) file -> add it to the trax editor -> delete the pose in the trax editor. Now its included in the character set and in the visor(character poses) you can select the pose -> RMB -> apply pose to add it to a frame in your animation. I've done a test with this on the combat attacks which worked fine.

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@squill: What's the general strategy on migrating the animations from the old citywatch rig to the new proguard one? Is there a possibility to "transfer" animations from the old rig to the new one or do they need to be re-animated?

 

If it's the latter, I can try to do a few of the easier ones. I know how to create anims and how to export them to MD5.

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@squill: What's the general strategy on migrating the animations from the old citywatch rig to the new proguard one? Is there a possibility to "transfer" animations from the old rig to the new one or do they need to be re-animated?

 

If it's the latter, I can try to do a few of the easier ones. I know how to create anims and how to export them to MD5.

 

We're are doing the animations from scratch. The citywatch rig still had some scale values (my mistake) on the move ctrl which caused problems when you transfer the old animations to the new rig. The move ctrl is a parent of all other controllers so when you load an animation to the new rig it's all screwed up because of the scale differences, in the end it was easier to start from scratch then spending a lot of time fixing those issues and tweaking the animations.

 

back to your question: yeah you can take any animation which is open. I just posted a comment about the animation list on the mainpage which should give you an overview of the things left to to.

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back to your question: yeah you can take any animation which is open. I just posted a comment about the animation list on the mainpage which should give you an overview of the things left to to.

I'll try to get the idle_armwipe done. It's a bit of a challenge for me, so let's see what comes out of it.

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Ok, my first attempt is in SVN. Squill, could you review that one?

 

some notes:

 

his left foot is sliding because it moves at the same the hips start to shift weight. I think shifting his weight with the hips should be enough. Or if you do want to add the step, first shift the hips and then his foot (do it yourself, and see what i mean). Although watch the side view because he looks a bit out of balance (bended knees).

 

the head moves a bit fast when he looks down. You could make him first look down before he rotates his upperbody and reaches for the left arm.

 

the end is a bit long (around frame 38). You could first lower his right arm and then the left one. Good start though.

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I removed the side step. I obviously didn't look at the model from the side, it definitely looked unbalanced.

 

Next version is up for review. I let the right knee bend a bit more to emphasise the weight shift, and let the upper body rotate to the right to let it stay upright and compensate the movement.

 

I moved all the keys to later anim times, to shorten the end of the anim (the Dope Sheet is quite handy for that) and flattened a few of the tangents in the Graph Editor. The head is moving a bit earlier than the rest of the body now.

 

I notice some "hastiness" in his movements, which I can't fully locate in the Graph Editor yet - are keyframes and curves interfering with each other or do the curves take precedence? This interaction might be something I don't fully understand yet.

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i've tweaked the combat idle pose a bit. The poses idle & combat idle are synced to SVN which you can use to adjust your current combat animations. The tricky part is once you import a pose it's not yet attached to the character set, but it's the same method as we do with anim clips.

 

Import the pose (.ma) file -> add it to the trax editor -> delete the pose in the trax editor. Now its included in the character set and in the visor(character poses) you can select the pose -> RMB -> apply pose to add it to a frame in your animation. I've done a test with this on the combat attacks which worked fine.

Hey squill I'll probably need some more info. I've uploaded the file I want to convert to SVN, it's model_src\proguard_mb\combat_sword_attack_overhead.ma

In that file, I've finished animating it and haven't made any attempts to import your new pose, so it's unaltered while I mess with my local one.

 

I import the pose with File -> Import, open the trax editor, click "new track" button (blue square with yellow spikes), got an error "nothing is selected", so selected the citywatch_body character set, click the "new track" button again, and the character becomes all mangled at that point. The new track is called "run". I press play and it's obviously trying to play the overhead swing attack but with the new mangledness on top. I delete the new track and the character returns to normal.

 

I continued on and found a clip combat_pose1Source in the Clips tab in the Visor. I right clicked on it and applied to character. It seems to have the desired effect - most major difference is his left foot is moved outwards a fair bit, this is your new idle pose I'm assuming.

 

If I ever set a keyframe on the body part at this point, the character goes super mangled and stretches and distorts off the screen. So I undid that.

 

Then in the Trax editor, there's a new very short track that seems to be sucessfully applying your new pose to my animation, but it only lasts for one frame. After the first frame, he snaps back to the original pose and continues his overhead swing animation as normal. I've tried to find a way to stretch the new short track over the length of the rest of the animation, but I can't find out how.

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ok the first button you selected is for creating clips not loading the character set (i should also change this is the wiki tutorial). The right button to load the character (character set must also be active) is the one with the red stick figure and a plus sign.

 

To illustrate how you can add the pose to the overhead anim:

 

Open the visor -> go to Unused Poses tab -> RMB Import Combat_pose -> activate character set

 

Before you continue i noticed the scene still had some anim clips in the visor. If you transfer an animation to a new rig version check if the visor is empty once you save. Otherwise your getting the things you mentioned above.

 

open trax editor -> drag(MMB) the combat pose from the visor to the trax editor -> delete the pose in the visor and trax editor -> now the pose is added to the character poses tab in the visor. If you go to frame 0-> RMB click -> apply pose in the visor. This adds the pose and you can key the whole pose.

 

I know it's a bit of a tedious way to apply a pose. It much easier to have just one shelf button which applies the pose instantly.

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Thanks! I filled in the gaps and made a more concise set of steps for everyone else.

  • Delete any anim clips in Window, General, Visor, Character Clips, and also Character Poses
  • In Visor, go to Unused Poses, RMB, File, Import
  • Choose the file (Combat_pose.ma)
  • Activate character set (bottom right of main window)
  • Open Window, Animation, Trax
  • If only see green "Sound" track heading, have to click the icon with a red stick figure and a +
  • drag(MMB) the combat pose from the visor to the "citywatch" heading in the trax editor (doesn't matter where)
  • delete the pose from the trax editor, and also the "Unused poses" tab in the visor now the pose is added to the "Character poses" tab in the visor
  • Deactivate the character set.
  • Go to frame 0
  • Go to the Character Poses tab in the visor, RMB click -> apply pose.
  • This adds the pose and you can key any part of the whole pose. If you play the anim without setting keys, it snaps back to normal, so it's like you just moved the body parts there yourself.

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Is it normal fighting stance for the back foot to be pointed out so sideways? It's fine, it's just that when I want to drive something downwards forcefully, I naturally want to spin my foot as the heel comes up so that the toes point forward, so that I have more stability throwing the downward force, then resetting it back the way you had it during the recovery phase. I'm a little bit experienced with fighting and keeping balance after going to Jujitsu for a few years, so I don't have zero clue, but if someone with actual sword fighting experience wants to weigh in, I'm interested. I don't mind the anim being like this though, but in case anyone notices - that's why he's doing it.

 

I uploaded the overhead swing attack with the new pose. Ran out of time to do anything else, but I think I'll wait till I've done them all till I export them all to the game anyway.

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Thanks! I filled in the gaps and made a more concise set of steps for everyone else.

 

i've added this to the wiki.

add new poses

 

Is it normal fighting stance for the back foot to be pointed out so sideways? It's fine, it's just that when I want to drive something downwards forcefully, I naturally want to spin my foot as the heel comes up so that the toes point forward, so that I have more stability throwing the downward force, then resetting it back the way you had it during the recovery phase. I'm a little bit experienced with fighting and keeping balance after going to Jujitsu for a few years, so I don't have zero clue, but if someone with actual sword fighting experience wants to weigh in, I'm interested. I don't mind the anim being like this though, but in case anyone notices - that's why he's doing it.

 

I uploaded the overhead swing attack with the new pose. Ran out of time to do anything else, but I think I'll wait till I've done them all till I export them all to the game anyway.

 

if you think the foot needs to be rotate inside you can change it. If you change for example the value of Rotate Y to 10 just let me know because we need to add it to all the animations using the combat pose which is faster to change then replacing that pose again with a pose_clip.

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Is it normal fighting stance for the back foot to be pointed out so sideways? It's fine, it's just that when I want to drive something downwards forcefully, I naturally want to spin my foot as the heel comes up so that the toes point forward, so that I have more stability throwing the downward force, then resetting it back the way you had it during the recovery phase. I'm a little bit experienced with fighting and keeping balance after going to Jujitsu for a few years, so I don't have zero clue, but if someone with actual sword fighting experience wants to weigh in, I'm interested. I don't mind the anim being like this though, but in case anyone notices - that's why he's doing it.

 

In sport fencing the back foot is sideways and the front foot is straight forward, but you are pretty much only moving forward and backwards in one direction. I would imagine that in combat where you can move in any direction and your opponent can be at any angle to you, the stance would look different, probably the back foot would be more forward and the front foot would be more sideways? I don't know, you could look at some rapier fencing or something for some inspiration. Just watch out for people who don't know what they're doing who are leaning backwards or contorting their bodies and stuff. :)

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I used to do a little sport fencing myself. When you turn your body sideways (to become a smaller target), it's almost neccessary that one foot is sideways for the sake of balance when you parry.

 

If you look at the way T1/2 guards stand in combat, They turn their torso sideways so they're becoming more like a vertical target, and they hold their their sword vertically in front of them, ready to parry in any direction. If the player moved, the guard would side-step or crab walk to change their alignment. It's almost like they're acting like first-time amateur fencers.

 

post-2515-1243137936_thumb.jpg

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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Yeah, the angles of the feet in that shot might actually be okay, with the back foot pretty sideways and the front foot turned about 45 degrees. We probably don't need to have them turned quite so sideways though. The positioning of the feet (not the angles) is probably fine as we have it (although I'm not sure I've seen the new combat idle yet :)).

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I created an idle_sneeze.md5anim using my idle_sneeze.mb, put it in the proguard Darkmod folder, went in the game to load up the test/idle_animations.map and it gave me an error: Citywatch.md5mesh and idle_sneeze.md5anim have different # of joints. Any idea what could be causing this?

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I created an idle_sneeze.md5anim using my idle_sneeze.mb, put it in the proguard Darkmod folder, went in the game to load up the test/idle_animations.map and it gave me an error: Citywatch.md5mesh and idle_sneeze.md5anim have different # of joints. Any idea what could be causing this?

Are you fully up to date with your SVN? Maybe you're still using the old citywatch defs?

 

If you're synced, you probably need to add the "anim" line to the citywatch's model block. If the anim is already there, most likely there occurred an error in the export process. Once my Maya exporter couldn't open the .mb file and it didn't write an .md5anim file.

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Must have been an error in the export process. Sorry i must have been tired, i meant to mention that i was sync'd up. I had just previously viewed the citywatch doing the idle_sneeze in the test/idle_animations map with the new skeleton. I tried re-exporting it twice, so i wonder if there is a problem with the conversion or saving of the file. I think i only changed the "required version" setting when editing the .ma file. I'll play with it further and see what happens.

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I think i only changed the "required version" setting when editing the .ma file. I'll play with it further and see what happens.

On my end, I needed two steps to convert a Maya 8.5 file to 7.0. First, edit the required version stuff manually to 7.0 and then open the file in Maya 7.0 and re-save it. Without resaving it, the exporter couldn't open the file.

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I used to do a little sport fencing myself. When you turn your body sideways (to become a smaller target), it's almost neccessary that one foot is sideways for the sake of balance when you parry.

 

If you look at the way T1/2 guards stand in combat, They turn their torso sideways so they're becoming more like a vertical target, and they hold their their sword vertically in front of them, ready to parry in any direction. If the player moved, the guard would side-step or crab walk to change their alignment. It's almost like they're acting like first-time amateur fencers.

 

post-2515-1243137936_thumb.jpg

 

it does look more menacing once a guard stands in front of you like that. I remember from the first 2 thief games i didn't want to get close to the guards because that sword was almost right in your face once you stood in front of them.

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I'm not a specialist but I always thought that combat animations in Thief games didn't quite match the size of the weapons guards had. I mean they had big swords but fought as if they were using light sabres. But they were great anyway. I think animations don't have to be 100% realistic as long they look good.

 

edit: did I just say "light sabres"?

It's only a model...

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On my end, I needed two steps to convert a Maya 8.5 file to 7.0. First, edit the required version stuff manually to 7.0 and then open the file in Maya 7.0 and re-save it. Without resaving it, the exporter couldn't open the file.

 

Looks like im losing bones somehow during the exportmodels function. All versions of the Maya idle_sneeze files have 71 joints. The previous version of the idle_sneeze had 71 joints. However using TortoiseMerge, i see that the version im producing is said to have 67 joints, which is what TortoiseMerge says the previous tdm_ai_citywatch.md5mesh had for joints as well.

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