Citywatch rig

[Springheel]

Squill, Dram is ready to start rigging some of the new characters. Is the skeleton in the proguard folder the most up to date version?

[squill]

small update:

 

i haven't checked the last version in. Still need to adjust the weightings before it will let me export to the engine I changed the positions of 2 shoulder joints which makes the bending of the arms look better which isn't in the skeleton on svn.

 

Today i have some freetime to work on this and make some more progress.

 

Will Dram use Max or Maya to rig any characters? Because i believe he was using Max but i don't know how the skeleton will translate to max smoothly.

[Springheel]

Yes, it sounds like he is using 3DS Max. Here's the topic:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8674

 

Will you be able to upload the updated skeleton? I want to make sure I point Dram to the right one.

[squill]

Yes, it sounds like he is using 3DS Max. Here's the topic:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8674

 

Will you be able to upload the updated skeleton? I want to make sure I point Dram to the right one.

 

the skeleton on svn can be used for rigging but i must say a fully complete version hasn't been tested yet. I'm still getting a message once i export that some vertices are still missing weights although i can work around it by editing the md5mesh file manually.

[Springheel]

I'm still getting a message once i export that some vertices are still missing weights although i can work around it by editing the md5mesh file manually.

 

Does Maya have a "select by weight influence" option? That's what I do to track down missing verts in LW...select all the verts that are already weighted and then invert the selection to see which ones aren't.

[squill]

Does Maya have a "select by weight influence" option? That's what I do to track down missing verts in LW...select all the verts that are already weighted and then invert the selection to see which ones aren't.

 

Maya's component editor displays the weight values for each vertex.

 

although the engine outputs the verts lines in the md5mesh file which don't correspond with the verts numbers in maya. But I'll make it work

[Springheel]

How are things coming along?

[squill]

Last week i finished the animation rig.

 

although the exporting doesn't go smoothly yet. When i want to test the model ingame i get the following message in the console: joint "RightHand" not found for attachment position "hand_r"....

 

the older version of the mesh file works without this problem, it might be the hierarchy of the skeleton which is slightly different. Maybe some of the def files is pointing towards this joint, i haven't figured it out.

[greebo]

You can comment out the attachment position stuff when testing your models - just comment out the def_attach, name_attach, pos_attach and attach_pos_* spawnargs, this is something we can set up later on.

[Springheel]

Is the newest version on SVN somewhere? As long as everything is exported I can get the def file working.

[squill]

Is the newest version on SVN somewhere? As long as everything is exported I can get the def file working.

 

i'll upload this version today together with the rig file.

You can comment out the attachment position stuff when testing your models - just comment out the def_attach, name_attach, pos_attach and attach_pos_* spawnargs, this is something we can set up later on.

I don't see those spawnargs present in the def file, or do i need to adjust them elsewhere?

[greebo]

I assume it's on the atdm:citywatch_elite entityDef or on the atdm:humanoid_base entityDef. But anyhow, this is something you don't need to chew on, we can help out.

[squill]

the md5mesh is on svn. When i exclude the attachments in humanoid_base i got another message: Joint "Head" not found on head_joint"...

[Ishtvan]

The head attachments look for a joint named Head, is there still a joint named Head in the new skeleton?

[Springheel]

Squill, you didn't update your changes to humanoid_base.def to SVN did you? I'm having the following problems: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8764

[squill]

Squill, you didn't update your changes to humanoid_base.def to SVN did you? I'm having the following problems: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=8764

 

nope, none of the def files are synched just local adjustments. I have the same messages, also the warning above "unknown command no_random_headturning" causes some problems to start up any map with ai characters. So i had to comment out no_random_headturning to skip this error.

 

The head attachments look for a joint named Head, is there still a joint named Head in the new skeleton?

 

yeah its still named head, also the meshfile contains this joint. Atleast what i understand each joint binded to the skin should be exported and i didn't change the names of the joints. The hierachy is slightly changed with an extra joint on the hips to seperate the lower and upper body but i don't know of this could cause these errors.

[Springheel]

I just had a look at this and there are several significant problems.

 

 

It appears that some meshes have been merged together. The chainmail mesh has been merged with the shadowmesh. And as you can see, the shadowmesh has some badly weighted verts in the wrist. The shadowmesh head should also have been removed (I thought Domarius told me he did that already). That shadowmesh clearly pokes through the visible mesh all over the place, which will cause all kinds of unwanted shadows on the AI as it moves.

 

Also, looking at the skeleton, I'm left with a few questions...what happened to the bones controlling the hanging part of the tunic? There used to be four separate bones to control that and now they seem to be all weighted to the same joint as the legs...won't that really limit your ability to make the tunic move properly (or maybe it's just easier to move it exactly like the legs)? Also is there any reason for the "sword" joint to still be there? I guess it doesn't hurt anything, but it isn't used for anything and could be removed.

 

I'm not sure I can do anything to help with this yet. I can make the shadowmesh from scratch if I have to, but only if I have an updated version where all the other meshes are separate and weighted properly.

[Domarius]

Wow. You are using the new file, right? It's pro_guard_v2 or something like that, from memory. (I'm in London and can't check) We didn't overwrite the original file just yet.

 

In any case, I'm sure there are plenty of kinks to work out at this stage - we hadn't yet got it working properly in-game by the time I went on holidays.

 

When I get back I'll check out all these things. The shadow mesh shouldn't be merged with anything. I did notice one mesh with shadow in the name that wasn't the shadow mesh, I'll need to take care of that. I don't know what the origins of this model is, but it can be fixed good as new I believe.

[squill]

I've got the model working ingame..whooo!! just in time for Christmas

 

the main problem was the shadow mesh, so i cleaned it up making both sides symmetrical and i made sure it was triangulated. I removed a few animation lines from the proguard def file so i can start from scratch with some basic animations.

 

only the material of the hands are full bright as you can see and the shadow is headless, like Springheel mentioned before. Also the sword joint is still there clipping thru his leg, but i can remove it if needed. Well now i'm off for a few days to celebrate Christmas so i'll speak to you guys next year.

 

Happy holidays!!

[greebo]

That's good news indeed!

[Springheel]

Yes, very promising. As far as the skeleton goes, I don't think there is any point in having the sword joint. Nothing gets weighted to it, and with the attachment points we're using, it isn't necessary. If we're starting off fresh there's no point in having joints that don't do anything, IMO.

 

There's one last thing we *might* want to address, but only if it's not too much trouble.

 

 

One remaining issue with the AI is the way the head rotates. When the AI tilts his head back, it becomes clear that the neck is not attached--sometimes it pokes out in a very unappealing way. Ascottk and I talked about this a long time ago--apparently there is something that could fix that, but it wouldn't work with the old skeleton. I don't know exactly what the problem was, so it may be that the new skeleton already would be fine. Could you take a look at this and see if it makes sense to you? I've cut and pasted the relevant parts:

 

Oh, Ascottk, one other thing about the citywatch...the way they are set up currently, none of the existing D3 heads will work on them, as the model ends right at the base of the neck....I can get the D3 heads to sit right on top, but when they look up, you can see into the neck. In order to make that not happen I have to sink the neck into the AI model a bit, but that makes them sit far too low, as you can see above.

I'm going to respond to this twice & you can't stop me But I found something but it doesn't quite work because the head's rotation goes awry:

 

	"copy_joint Neck"			"neckcontrol"
"copy_joint Head"			"headcontrol"

 

This section goes underneath the "head_joint" in the def file. Essentially the main skeleton animations can control the head skeleton's mesh too. Basically the head becomes an extension of the body instead of a separate entity.

 

The head anims do not have neck animations, but the body anims do. If you want the neck to deform with the body then you copy the body's neck & head controls to the head.

 

Here's what happens when I do that with our stuff though:

 

Kind of looks like a sleeping bird . . .

 

I'll try a d3 head to see if I can get a different result.

 

EDIT: Yeah, it's oDD's skeletons causing the funky head rotation.

Well, it's no wonder we can't copy joints from the main skeleton to the head rig. The animation rotations are screwed up.

 

entityDef atdm:ai_thief
{
"inherit"		"atdm:ai_humanoid"
"ragdoll"						"guard_base"
"model"							"tdm_ai_thief"
"def_head"						"head_thief"
"head_joint"					"Head"

	"head_thief"				"4 0 0"

"copy_joint Neck"			"Neck"
"copy_joint Head"			"Head"

 

This allows the main body animations to control the head joints (as well as the mesh). With this, there'll be no more open mesh between the body and the head when AI look around. When the neck moves on the body, the mesh on the def_head will move too. Seamless integration between the body & the head.

 

This is the shot of the thief's main skeletal pose (used for the mesh rig):

Everything's nice and straight.

 

Compare that to the idle joint rotations:

This is all screwed up When we use these declarations on the def files then the head mesh totally distorts because the animation rotations are totally different from the mesh.

 

Since I've been revising the maya binaries to help future animators, I may fix this problem but this will take a while.

 

EDIT: The copy_joint works like this:

"copy_joint main-neck_joint"			"head-neck_joint"
"copy_joint main-head_joint"			"head-head_joint"

 

Sorry, the images appear to be lost. Sounds like the issue is related to the idle joint rotations. Does this make sense to you? If this is working properly on the new skeleton, that will be great for head swapping--I won't have to go through all kinds of hoops to try and hide the neck seam on AI models anymore. On the other hand, it's not worth a lot of time, especially now, so if it would be time-consuming to figure out, don't worry about it.

[Springheel]

I'll be making some adjustments to the mesh (the neck is a mess from before) but otherwise it's looking pretty good. The hand was pointing to the wrong shader, so I fixed that, but something is odd with the texture for some reason. I'll have to examine it a bit more.

 

The hands are fully shadow-casting (it was impossible to get a shadowmesh for them that didn't clip badly) but I can remove that part of the shadowmesh easily.

[Springheel]

It looks like the hands have serious problems. The uvmap has been moved, for some reason, and it also carries forward some of the uv-problems created by exporting to a md5mesh. I'm probably going to have to redo these from scratch.

[squill]

Yes, very promising. As far as the skeleton goes, I don't think there is any point in having the sword joint. Nothing gets weighted to it, and with the attachment points we're using, it isn't necessary. If we're starting off fresh there's no point in having joints that don't do anything, IMO.

 

There's one last thing we *might* want to address, but only if it's not too much trouble.

One remaining issue with the AI is the way the head rotates. When the AI tilts his head back, it becomes clear that the neck is not attached--sometimes it pokes out in a very unappealing way. Ascottk and I talked about this a long time ago--apparently there is something that could fix that, but it wouldn't work with the old skeleton. I don't know exactly what the problem was, so it may be that the new skeleton already would be fine. Could you take a look at this and see if it makes sense to you? I've cut and pasted the relevant parts:

 

it might be that the rotation axis of the joints on the head are different then on the body. For example you use Y-rotation on the body mesh to rotate the head but on the head mesh it might be Z. We'll have to see what happens when you apply an idle on the meshes with this new skeleton.

 

concerning your adjustments. i haven't checked the model closely yet, i first wanted to get the rig working ingame. I could help you with the hands and shadow mesh, i guess you still import the md5mesh into Lightwave?

 

I'd rather see the mesh changes being done on the rig file so the animators are always working with the latest mesh in case any (uv/clipping) problems may rise. But if there's no alternative right now we'll have to work this way (unless your willing to learn maya).

 

I'll remove the sword bone and i'm going to setup some test anims soon to check if any other issues might show up.

[Springheel]

I'd rather see the mesh changes being done on the rig file so the animators are always working with the latest mesh in case any (uv/clipping) problems may rise. But if there's no alternative right now we'll have to work this way (unless your willing to learn maya).

 

I'd like to learn Maya, but frankly I don't have the time to devote to it--especially when I can do almost everything I need to do with Lightwave already.

 

I can understand wanting to have the most up to date version as an animation rig, especially for the proguard, which will be the new baseline character. I'm not entirely sure how to manage that, however. The hands I can give you as a straight mesh, if you don't mind rigging them. I've already fixed the uvmap and just have to test and see what might mess up during an export (.md5meshes don't allow verts to be in more than one place on a uvmap, something that is fine for a regular static mesh).

 

Other things, like fixing the neck or splitting up the mesh to match armour types, would be a lot harder to transfer to a maya file. Those things would have limited impact on animations though.

 

Maybe the best route is for me to leave the proguard alone for the time being. I'll give you the updated hands and let you work with him without having to worry about any changes. I can get to work on other characters that need to be converted to this new skeleton instead. Does that make sense?