Citywatch rig

[ascottk]

If push comes to shove we could alter the rotations on the head joints.

[Domarius]

squill got back to me in email and said yes, that is what we should do.

 

Judging from Springheel's pic

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...st&p=179369

looks like the head needs to be rotated forward 90 degrees.

[squill]

@Domarius

about the mailing back and forth. I think it's a good idea to continue to do this on the forum in a separate thread for example. Because it gives the team a better overview and insight of what we are doing and a lot of your questions related to maya or animation and our other findings could be also very useful to other members.

 

it's not the actual head joint that needs to be rotated but the orientation of the rotation axis like i pointed out here. If we should do this on the rig or the separate head model is another thing.

 

If i look at the (proguard)head file it has all kind of twisted joints in the default state. i would replace those and at the same time fix the weightings on the head. But we have to do this for every head which i don't think some people will like.

 

But first of all on which joint does the head get attached to on the rig? is it the Head joint? and loneckcontrol or Head joint on the separate head model?

[Domarius]

Well, I got the skirt joints added and everything exporting properly again. Tunic warping is a problem of the past, here's a screenshot of the current idle animation, with the tunic tweaked to keep it's position in spite of the legs being rotated.

 

 

I musta done something wrong when exporting the run animation, because it seems like it loops over too early, as does the left attack animation, but all the others are fine. I'll look into this tomorrow if no one beats me to it. Should be something simple.

[squill]

I musta done something wrong when exporting the run animation, because it seems like it loops over too early, as does the left attack animation, but all the others are fine. I'll look into this tomorrow if no one beats me to it. Should be something simple.

 

check the following File -> Open scene -> option box. See if you have Execute Script Nodes unchecked. When this is turned on it saves the amount of frames in the time line of the scene.

[Domarius]

Yep the def file works, joints added and everything, I did "exportModels tdm_ai_proguard" to test it, before uploading.

 

I did set the main timeline to the correct amount of frames, the mb file plays and loops fine, so it must be something else - I'll check out the Script Nodes thing, thanks, it probably is something wierd like that.

[Domarius]

Execute script nodes is checked... hmm...

[squill]

Yep the def file works, joints added and everything, I did "exportModels tdm_ai_proguard" to test it, before uploading.

 

but you didn't upload it yet?

 

I did set the main timeline to the correct amount of frames, the mb file plays and loops fine, so it must be something else - I'll check out the Script Nodes thing, thanks, it probably is something wierd like that.

 

i'm not seeing any problems ingame, or do you have to upload a newer version of the anim files?

[Ishtvan]

But first of all on which joint does the head get attached to on the rig? is it the Head joint? and loneckcontrol or Head joint on the separate head model?

On the body rig, yes it's the Head joint. I don't know where on the head model is moved to correspond to that joint, but I would guess its origin joint?

[squill]

i've updated the rig with connecting the finger controls, fixed the right IkHand controller (which was broken) and removed some remaining keyframes. The fingers only need some small skin weight tweaks but i first need some sleep

[Domarius]

Ahhh I see - I didn't realise there was a problem, or I would have checked! (Come straight out and tell me "hey your latest commit is giving me errors!" next time ) Yes it seems I didn't upload the def file, and I know why and how I'm going to prevent it - I'm not going to have my hacked version of the mainmenu.gui anymore (hacked to not play the menu music), because it makes the little red exclamation mark icon on the darkmod folder lose its meaning. Now I know if it's red, I've forgotten something.

 

I noticed you uploaded a new def file at mesh that's not compatible with what's there, which is understandable if you didn't have the latest stuff.

 

What I did now was revert to the working versions of the proguard mb and def file, which means your changes are overwritten, but you can get your previous versions from SVN history and now resolve your work with mine (now that it's uploaded...). I did this to make sure what's on SVN is always working.

 

We should always check that this is the case by running "exportModels tdm_ai_proguard" and then restarting Doom, and running "map test\climb" (I just like to test there, it's small and no AI) and then "testModel tdm_ai_proguard". Also this makes us not forget to update the proguardmesh_export.mb

[squill]

What I did now was revert to the working versions of the proguard mb and def file, which means your changes are overwritten, but you can get your previous versions from SVN history and now resolve your work with mine (now that it's uploaded...). I did this to make sure what's on SVN is always working.

 

i agree a working version should always be on svn. But the only thing not up to date was the def file. This i changed before you uploaded your latest md5 files and i realized you locked the rig file.

 

The proguard exported md5 mesh matches the md5 anim files you uploaded. I see no problem why we should revert to an older version of the rig file, were you still working on the skirt weights? Also because i just updated the fingers and controls which i have to redo.

 

Also this makes us not forget to update the proguardmesh_export.mb

 

every rig change requires the proguardmesh_export file to be updated otherwise your exporting the rig file with a head mesh which you only need for animating.

[Domarius]

Yeah the def file was out of date - only reason I reverted the rig file was because I didn't have time to test it. I'll revert back to yours tonight and make sure it still exports properly.

 

Regarding the proguardmesh_export.mb, yes that's true, so we should see a corresponding proguardmesh_export.mb update with every update of the rig. There wasn't one, so I figured it hasn't been tested. It's okay, I'll do it tonight.

 

Just paranoid - I hate it when things are out of sync and you can't work on animations, and I'm sure you and ascottk do as well

[Domarius]

Yeah I didn't need to revert the rig, I tested it - I updated the proguardmesh_export.mb, exported the proguard, and he still displays in the game. You can keep working on it where you left off, everything is up to date now, including your changes.

[squill]

Yeah I didn't need to revert the rig, I tested it - I updated the proguardmesh_export.mb, exported the proguard, and he still displays in the game. You can keep working on it where you left off, everything is up to date now, including your changes.

 

k thanks. I was pretty much done after the finger ctrl tweaks. Only the maya files need to be converted to the last version again which i could do if you haven't done it already.

[Domarius]

Do you mean how we do the import clip thing to make the other animation mb files use the same rig? Cause I was thinking - we will use the updated rig from now on, but as far as the existing animations go - it doesn't have a difference in game (everything still exports and looks the way it should because it uses the latest mesh), so the only draw back would be if someone wanted to tweak one of the anims we've done so far (walk cycles, attacks etc.) they wouldn't get your finger control changes.

 

So I was thinking we could just keep animating No problem if you want to update them though.

[squill]

Do you mean how we do the import clip thing to make the other animation mb files use the same rig? Cause I was thinking - we will use the updated rig from now on, but as far as the existing animations go - it doesn't have a difference in game (everything still exports and looks the way it should because it uses the latest mesh), so the only draw back would be if someone wanted to tweak one of the anims we've done so far (walk cycles, attacks etc.) they wouldn't get your finger control changes.

 

So I was thinking we could just keep animating No problem if you want to update them though.

 

 

it's not nessecarry to convert them all for now but eventually having all anims up to date would be nice.

Also because some anims still have the broken ik handles and i'm using your combat idle as a reference for the sheathe and draw animation. There are only a few anims on svn now so i can do it pretty quickly.

[Domarius]

That's fair enough. Combat_idle needs the tunic animated to look good. If you end up doing your draw and sheath based off it before I get around to that, I don't mind also pasting the changes over to your draw and sheath.

[squill]

That's fair enough. Combat_idle needs the tunic animated to look good. If you end up doing your draw and sheath based off it before I get around to that, I don't mind also pasting the changes over to your draw and sheath.

 

well it's possible to make a button in your shelf menu(mell script) which stores the pose of the skirt joints. So if you load a scene which starts from combat idle you can simply use this button to set the skirt joints.

 

Still the combat pose could use some adjustments. It has some balance issues the way he stands. For this and other animations we could create custom pose buttons to quickly set the pose for any new animations. I also do this at work which saves the process of deleting frames or creating poses with the character set.

[Domarius]

That's awesome. Well feel free to adjust the combat idle if you want. Long as it doesn't create too much work - we need to move forward once things are "passable" at this point.

[squill]

yeah i won't be too picky about the movements but things like strong poses are something to keep in mind.

 

i only found a small issue on the IK hand controls when i was working on the sit animations. It's fine when you use FK controls but once you set a key, save the file and re-open the animation you can't switch to IK arms properly because the IK handles stick to the joints instead of the IK controls.

 

Thats just something i'll have figure out this weekend.

[Domarius]

FYI - when I updated I got updated versions of all the anims, so I'm assuming you updated the finger control thingy on those.

 

I just commited a parry_left anim I was working on, so it got missed out on that finger control update.

[squill]

FYI - when I updated I got updated versions of all the anims, so I'm assuming you updated the finger control thingy on those.

yep

 

I just commited a parry_left anim I was working on, so it got missed out on that finger control update.

yep

[squill]

ok updated the rig and unparented the IK hand controls from the move_ctrl. If you animate a walk or any type of animation that needs the IK hands to move along just parent it to the move_ctrl or any other controller like you do with the dummy sword.

 

i've only transfered the maya files (including your last parry anim) to the last version because nothing has changed in the joint setup to re-export the mesh and md5anim files.

[Domarius]

Great!