Citywatch rig

[Springheel]

Ok, I'm out for the day but I might get time to try it tonight.

[Springheel]

I'm not going to have time to export it tonight, but I did load and take a look at it. I can see two significant areas of concern:

 

The legs are much closer together than the original skeleton. I would definitely have to manually move the legs of all the meshes, and if I center the legs over this new skeleton, the upper thighs on many models will overlap (not serious, but awkward to work with). Clearly any animation that moves the legs would definitely have to be fixed as well.

 

Secondly, the new hand bones are perfectly straight, which is WAY off the current hand mesh. I'm not even sure I could modify the mesh to match that skeleton without messing up the appearance of the hands, and even if I could it would be a significant amount of work.

 

I'm not sure why it's necessary to straighten out the fingers like that. The current skeleton matches the hand mesh almost exactly:

 

 

The forefinger bone and the thumb bone could use a small amount of tweaking, but nothing as drastic as what you've done with the new one.

[squill]

The legs are much closer together than the original skeleton. I would definitely have to manually move the legs of all the meshes, and if I center the legs over this new skeleton, the upper thighs on many models will overlap (not serious, but awkward to work with). Clearly any animation that moves the legs would definitely have to be fixed as well.

 

yes because all the joints in the legs are posed straight they are now closer to each other. You can move RightUpLeg and LeftUpLeg more to the outside to make it a better fit. Remember to give both side the same amount of translation.

 

i've taken into account what could happen to the legs. It certainly would give them an offset. But most walk/run animations are done with character sets which means the animation controls don't change because the keyframes are on the animation controls(curve objects) not the joints. It's easier editing those controls then joints.

 

Secondly, the new hand bones are perfectly straight, which is WAY off the current hand mesh. I'm not even sure I could modify the mesh to match that skeleton without messing up the appearance of the hands, and even if I could it would be a significant amount of work.

 

I'm not sure why it's necessary to straighten out the fingers like that. The current skeleton matches the hand mesh almost exactly:

 

If you work from a straight posed hand you can easily go the any hand pose. Now it's already into a relax state on which the hand and fingers have rotated. From a rigging standpoint it's better to create finger controls when they are more or less straight. You could set them a bit more in a relaxed pose. I've rarely worked with rigs which have (that much)curled fingers in the default bind pose.

 

But I'm also thinking we could do it another way which will probably relief you of some work. This is default pose i have in mind:

 

i could rotate the fingers matching the finger poses of the current skeleton. The hand joints will be slightly in a lower position as you can see in the last skeleton i uploaded but if i would set the rotations on those fingers back to zero it would straighten the mesh. Would that be an option?

 

I also (not to scare you with more work) found some vertices in the hands were not merged. Did you see this in your file?

[Springheel]

I also (not to scare you with more work) found some vertices in the hands were not merged. Did you see this in your file?

 

Yes, I'm aware of them. In an md5 you can't have verts merged if their uv points are in different places on the uvmap, otherwise the texture gets smeared all along them. There are all kinds of tricky things md5s do differently than normal meshes.

[Springheel]

Here's my last pitch for not changing the fingers in any significant way:

 

1. Straightening the fingers to match the new skeleton will take a fair amount of time. I have to manually bend all the fingers and position them properly so that they still look natural. This will be a lot of trial and error for me in terms of what looks good--hands are notoriously difficult to model, and I'm limited in what I can do to Oddity's originals while still making them look as good as they do now. An expert modeler could probably do it easily, but I am not that.

 

After fixing the hands on one model I would then have to copy it to the other seven models using the new hand and resize/tweak to fit. It wouldn't take me weeks to do, but it would be at least one week of working on nothing but that. And to be honest, getting up the motivation to go back and work on things that I thought were finished already is not guaranteed, especially when:

 

2. The hands are currently positioned in such a way that they don't need much animation. They are already perfectly positioned for any kind of idle motion. Going through the various animations, I found that the new hands looked quite convincing even when they weren't specifically moving. They are well-positioned for throwing, scratching, turning pages, even pulling a bowstring. The only thing they really need to do that requires them to be animated is make a fist, and that should be easy enough with the current skeleton. There might be one or two animations, like the warming hands one, that would be easier if the hands were redone, but that's one or two from a list of forty or fifty.

 

Frankly, Squill, your animations have always been great, IMO. I would be thrilled if all our animations were of the same quality as the ones that you have done--and you made them with the current skeleton. So it's very hard for me to get on board for this change to the hands, which seems like a lot of work for very little benefit.

 

i could rotate the fingers matching the finger poses of the current skeleton. The hand joints will be slightly in a lower position as you can see in the last skeleton i uploaded but if i would set the rotations on those fingers back to zero it would straighten the mesh. Would that be an option?

 

Now, having got that off my chest, I'm not sure exactly what you mean above. For all I know you just rendered my objections obsolete .

[squill]

I don't expect you be an expert in all things related to modeling, rigging etc. and i don't want you to do redo things you've done before. I'm all for reducing the steps to relief you of any un-motivating work

 

With the last comment i simply meant to set the hands back to a pose that matches the current hand. This way i will still have enough control over the fingers and you can match the hands more easily.

 

To illustrate it more clearly:

 

you see the position of the hand will be slightly lower because of the straight arm. Would this only require you to lower the hand mesh?

 

i'll just upload the file so you can see it yourself.

[Springheel]

I'll take a look, but that should be a heck of a lot easier than trying to straighten things.

 

Btw, I've looked at the skeleton in Layout and I can't see any joint rotation information. I can see joint *position* x,y,z values, but that's it.

[squill]

I'll take a look, but that should be a heck of a lot easier than trying to straighten things.

 

Btw, I've looked at the skeleton in Layout and I can't see any joint rotation information. I can see joint *position* x,y,z values, but that's it.

 

ok thanks.. i've synced the changes.

 

hmm... if you press "Y" you should see some rotation (H-P-B.) info in the left corner.

[Springheel]

Ok, here's a few values:

 

Spine: 0,0,-25.98

 

Hips: 179.97,0.02,87.36

 

Neck: 180,0.05,172.08

 

So what is the next step?

[squill]

Ok, here's a few values:

 

Spine: 0,0,-25.98

 

Hips: 179.97,0.02,87.36

 

Neck: 180,0.05,172.08

 

So what is the next step?

 

that was what i expected, i hoped those values were set to zero but that's part the result of using md5mesh importers.

 

Have you got an estimation on what you have to do to get the mesh fit to this new skeleton and are there any more issues your seeing?

 

I'd like to try using this skeleton because it would solve a lot of problems i've experienced animating the current skeleton...but it depends on your findings.

[Springheel]

Ok, I'll go ahead and try to set up the citywatch to use this new skeleton and see how long it takes.

 

One issue this creates is working around St. Lucia. It's kind of pointless for me to convert the Thief and Priest to the old citywatch skeleton if we won't be using it any longer, but there's no way we'll have the new skeleton and animations up and running by the feature freeze at the end of next month.

 

And what does this do to a 'draw from back' animation which we need for the map?

[squill]

Ok, I'll go ahead and try to set up the citywatch to use this new skeleton and see how long it takes.

 

One issue this creates is working around St. Lucia. It's kind of pointless for me to convert the Thief and Priest to the old citywatch skeleton if we won't be using it any longer, but there's no way we'll have the new skeleton and animations up and running by the feature freeze at the end of next month.

 

And what does this do to a 'draw from back' animation which we need for the map?

 

This release is coming pretty fast. I could set the anim up in a day + the sheathe sword animation for the citywatch. If we got the new skeleton working the sooner i can start builing the animation rig and convert the animations. I guess improved attack animations (3 from animation goals list) are also needed for the release.

 

How many characters are to be included for St. Lucia? I've seen most of the time builder guards and the priest in a small back room.

[greebo]

How many characters are to be included for St. Lucia? I've seen most of the time builder guards and the priest in a small back room.

There are a few builder guards, one builder priest and one beggar. And a few rats, but these are ok.

[Springheel]

This release is coming pretty fast.

 

Well, given that we started working on it seven months ago, I guess that's a matter of opinion.

 

I guess improved attack animations (3 from animation goals list) are also needed for the release.

 

Since combat isn't going to be fully working by then, we don't really need them. All that will be necessary is one good attack animation. The one currently being used is probably fine if we fix the arm bone issue (where the left arm stretches out like it did in the throw animation).

 

I've got some time this morning so I'll see what I can do with the citywatch.

[Springheel]

Squill, how exactly does the hand mesh need to match the skeleton? The ring bones are longer than the index bones, so it's almost impossible to center the fingers over both and still have them look right. This is what I have currently--the index bones are just under the index mesh, the ring bones stick out a bit, and the thumb bones are just along the outside edge of the mesh.

 

 

 

Is this sufficient or does it need to match more exactly?

[squill]

to me it matters that when you rotate the finger joints the mesh bends properly. That it doesn't fit perfectly is something i can live with. Id' rather see the arms and legs being a bit more centered then the hands right now.

[Springheel]

Id' rather see the arms and legs being a bit more centered then the hands right now.

 

Are you thinking of changing the skeleton again some time in the future?

 

Anyway, if that hand position is ok, it shouldn't be too difficult for me to modify the other meshes to match. It's mostly repositioning and rotating the entire hand, and a little bit of moving the index finger. Doing the arms, legs and the one hand took about twenty minutes. I still have to line it up with the wrist and rename the changed joints, then I can try exporting and see what happens.

[squill]

Are you thinking of changing the skeleton again some time in the future?

 

nope..i was more thinking about mesh changes, which can be improved if needed later on

 

Anyway, if that hand position is ok, it shouldn't be too difficult for me to modify the other meshes to match. It's mostly repositioning and rotating the entire hand, and a little bit of moving the index finger. Doing the arms, legs and the one hand took about twenty minutes.

 

ok sounds good.

 

I still have to line it up with the wrist and rename the changed joints, then I can try exporting and see what happens.

 

is it just renaming or do you have to reassign the weights also, because otherwise you could rename those RightHandRing joints back to RightHandMiddle if it creates a lot of work.

[Springheel]

is it just renaming or do you have to reassign the weights also

 

Luckily it's just renaming, so it shouldn't take long.

[Domarius]

Okay I honestly believe I can do this. 3DS Max allows me to modify the positions of the bones without deforming the mesh, and lets me modify the verticies, without having to re-weight the rig. Layers lets me tweak the animations simply by moving body parts ONCE and it offsets for the entire animation, making it easy to compensate for any change in the rig.

 

I did a test export from editing the rig, mesh, applying an animation on the mb (following squill's tutorial in the wiki) and it all came out fine.

 

So there's a very real chance I can get this done singlehandedly.

 

Spring I was able to straighten the fingers in about 10 minutes. At the risk of stepping on your toes - I would gladly take over any tweaks you're trying to do right now, so that we don't overwrite each others work. With the exception of my birthday on the saturday after this, I'm not doing any other major things until I get this done.

 

The current rig will cripple every animation and mesh made from this point, including the hundreds of fan missions that will be made, and any of their new models and animations. I can't sit by and let that happen. If I'm going to be animating with it, I don't want to have to hold back due to a poor rig, and I can't expect anyone else to either.

 

 

 

 

Now here are the main reasons I want to edit our rig. The main problem is the knees and elbows, look at how they bend. It looks bad enough on a heavily armoured guard, but can you imagine how awful this will look on a willowy slender noblewoman?

 

 

Now here is my re-rigged version bending. Like all good rigs, it can bend to 90 and still look ok, and then 45 degrees after that, before it starts to look bad.

 

 

Also, since the fingers are modeled bent they can't straighten properly. Also there are some unweighted verts on the current version, which you can see clearly below. But ignoring that, look at how wonky the fingers look when they are straightened.

 

 

This is my adjusted mesh with the fingers all aligned instead of 3 of them hanging down in that absurd way

 

 

Now look at how nicely they bend with the bones, and go to the straight position.

 

 

 

 

 

I agree we should make a branch, as long as you guys think we can merge it back successfully. How do I make a new branch? I've never done it in SVN.

[greebo]

I created a branch of the darkmod/ repository for you. You need to switch to this URL, using TortoiseSVN (right-click the darkmod folder):

 

https://darkmod.homelinux.com/svn/darkmod/b...es/domarius_rig

 

Afterwards, all commits will go to this URL for you (you can check that URL in the commit dialog). Beware that the model_src repository is still the same, so don't overwrite the stuff there with WIP. It's possible to have a separate branch for model_src too, of course.

[Springheel]

@Squill:

 

Well, I'm not having much luck. I finished moving the mesh to fit the new skeleton, renamed the finger joints to match and tried exporting. But I'm getting an error that I can't explain.

 

The layer with the pauldrons only has about half of the verts weighted, which usually means that the other verts are weighted to a joint that doesn't exist in the skeleton. Yet it looks like

 

Looks like there's a typo in the skeleton--rightpad is listed as righttpad. You'll need to fix that on your end, I think.

[squill]

@Squill:

 

Well, I'm not having much luck. I finished moving the mesh to fit the new skeleton, renamed the finger joints to match and tried exporting. But I'm getting an error that I can't explain.

 

The layer with the pauldrons only has about half of the verts weighted, which usually means that the other verts are weighted to a joint that doesn't exist in the skeleton. Yet it looks like

 

Looks like there's a typo in the skeleton--rightpad is listed as righttpad. You'll need to fix that on your end, I think.

 

i've updated the skeleton with the fixed name. I don't know which version of Lightwave you have but could you test importing this skeleton using the fbx file i synced to:

 

darkmod\models\model_src\citywatch_mb\skeleton.fbx

 

you can download the fbx import plugin (LW 7.5 & 8) here. I want to see i we can avoid having rotation values on the joints and improve the workflow between LW and Maya. I tried it with LW 9 but it crashes once i try to load the fbx file (using different export settings).

 

The current rig will cripple every animation and mesh made from this point, including the hundreds of fan missions that will be made, and any of their new models and animations. I can't sit by and let that happen. If I'm going to be animating with it, I don't want to have to hold back due to a poor rig, and I can't expect anyone else to either.

 

Now here are the main reasons I want to edit our rig. The main problem is the knees and elbows, look at how they bend. It looks bad enough on a heavily armoured guard, but can you imagine how awful this will look on a willowy slender noblewoman?

 

are you using the current rig to fix these bendings? The new skeleton Springheel and i are testing fixes the bending problems on the fingers, arms and legs because i've set the positions and rotations of the joints straight in the new skeleton (you can import the skeleton.fbx into max/maya to see what we're testing).

[Springheel]

I'm still running into problems. Now there is apparently a single vert in the leather layer (the boots and bracers) that is weighted to something that doesn't exist. I don't know what's causing this. I didn't change the weighting of any verts in that area. I also can't find the vert that is causing the problem. I'll have to explore further (this is what I mean about things usually taking longer than they should.... )

[Springheel]

Hrm. I compared the joints on the new and old skeleton and found another discrepancy.

 

The new skeleton has a new joint: "RightToe_end". It is also missing a joint that was on the old skeleton: "RightForeArmRoll". So the total joints are the same, but the names are not. That's probably causing the export errors.

 

edit: Ok, there was a vert weighted to RightForeArmRoll, which is why I was getting an error. However, I'm not sure what effect it will have on the existing animations if you swap one joint for another. Maybe it doesn't care as long as the total is the same, but I have my doubts. I'm retrying the export now.

 

edit: As I suspected, I'm now getting a "joint names don't match" error.