Citywatch rig

[squill]

ok i've tested the skeleton with the extra Pelvis joint. It's still not exactly the same like without IK but the end result comes very close. It shows more up and down movement in the pelvis area and his feet are touching the ground properly without going thru it.

 

I guess i just have to settle for a less perfect result ingame. Although the other animations show up fine which is good enough for me. Later on i might play some more with the IK settings but for now i don't want to spend more time on it and get back to animating

 

this is the current joint structure:

 

origin - Pelvis - Pelvis2 - [spine_Dummy (Parent), Hips (Parent)]

 

@Springheel: How far were you in skinning the nobleman? This last change would i consider as the final change to the skeleton.

[Springheel]

@Springheel: How far were you in skinning the nobleman? This last change would i consider as the final change to the skeleton.

 

I haven't actually imported the skeleton yet, so I just need to see what weightings need to be changed. I don't see a pelvis2 on the citywatch md5mesh though...did you upload the new one?

 

edit: Might help if I updated svn. Duh.

[squill]

I don't see a pelvis2 on the citywatch md5mesh though...did you upload the new one?

 

edit: Might help if I updated svn. Duh.

 

and look at the proguard mesh instead

[Springheel]

Different kind of 'duh' there...that was just a typo.

[squill]

[Ishtvan]

ok i've tested the skeleton with the extra Pelvis joint. It's still not exactly the same like without IK but the end result comes very close. It shows more up and down movement in the pelvis area and his feet are touching the ground properly without going thru it.

Cool. The walk might never be exactly the same with/without IK, since IK is by definition adjusting the joints a bit, even on flat ground apparently. Sounds good enough to me.

 

The ragdoll is pretty screwed up I notice. We'll have to update that for the new skeleton (or create a different version). I think the last person to actually create the collision bodies was AscottK. I just tweak the values, don't know much about creating the bodies.

[Springheel]

The ragdoll is pretty screwed up I notice. We'll have to update that for the new skeleton (or create a different version). I think the last person to actually create the collision bodies was AscottK. I just tweak the values, don't know much about creating the bodies.

 

Yes, ideally we'll need to have three different versions, one for each size of AI (hopefully that isn't hard to do). I notice that when you KO a "short" AI, their body grows a bit as they collapse (since the ragdoll is based on the larger character). Probably not very noticeable if you're not looking for it, but it looks pretty funny once you are aware of it.

 

Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about making ragdolls. I think Baddcog and Dram are the only current team-members who have worked on that.

[squill]

The ragdoll is pretty screwed up I notice. We'll have to update that for the new skeleton (or create a different version). I think the last person to actually create the collision bodies was AscottK. I just tweak the values, don't know much about creating the bodies.

 

i noticed it too yesterday. I think the bodies and contrains can be edited in the AF editor.

http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/editor_af.php

[Springheel]

Squill, what version of Maya do you use? I've got 7.0 and I'm trying to find a good md5mesh importer without much luck.

[Ishtvan]

i noticed it too yesterday. I think the bodies and contrains can be edited in the AF editor.

http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/editor_af.php

They can. For the old skeleton, we're using /af/guard_base. It works pretty well, so if we could use that one as a model, and make a new AF for the new skeleton, that would be great. I think the main things is that the joint names have to be updated. I'm not sure how much the joint positions changed from the old skeleton to new?

[Flanders]

Squill, what version of Maya do you use? I've got 7.0 and I'm trying to find a good md5mesh importer without much luck.

http://seithcg.com/wordpress/?page_id=26

It works for all Doom3 meshes, not sure if it works for all darkmod models too.

[squill]

Squill, what version of Maya do you use? I've got 7.0 and I'm trying to find a good md5mesh importer without much luck.

 

i'm using the one Flanders mentioned. Works fine for importing models and animations.

[greebo]

I'm glad this issue got sorted out, good work everyone.

[Springheel]

I've noticed another issue. The height of the proguard is much shorter than our other characters. Compare the proguard (below, in white) with the average commoner (left) and average citywatch (right). He is much shorter, but his legs are just as wide, making him look quite stunted. With a regular sized head on him he looks almost comical.

 

 

 

Here's a shot for illustration--that's the new nobleman that uses the proguard skeleton (still wip--there are clearly some bad uv issues to fix). He clearly looks too small for his head.

 

 

I'm not sure exactly what the problem is--the proguard was exported at .95 scale, which is the same as our "tall" AI. Could it be that the new skeleton was made to match the tall AI by default, and then the scale keyword is actually shrinking it unnecessarily?

[Domarius]

It could be. I can try re-exporting it. How did you craft up that nobleman test? If you upload the def file or whatever you used, I can re-create those screenshots and we can see if this is the case.

[Domarius]

Okay the proguard is actually currently being exported at .90 (it's his head that's being exported at .95)

 

For the body, I have attached screenshots overlaying it with the citywatch. The citywatch is all black.

 

This one is the current export scale setting of .90 - he's too small

 

This one is with no export scale specified - he's too big

 

And this one is with .95 - just right! I feel like goldilocks.

 

 

Unfortunately I don't want to commit it because it might break something. Usually when I export my anims I revert the model, so that I only change anim files, otherwise I get this "different number of joints" error. What I did just now was ignore the joints error, and reload the level and model anyway, and it somehow worked. But something is obviously up, and I'll probably break the game if I upload this model, so I'm going to check with squill what to do about this error.

[Springheel]

Squill, I did some researching into the head_control issue (so that there would be no gap when the head turns). It seems like something on the new skeleton is rotated in a way that causes this not to work. Can you check the thread:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...mp;#entry179372

 

Hopefully we can address this on the new skeleton, because we could then make AI without big collars to hide their neck. Is there any obvious different between the head/neck joints of the old and new skeleton?

[Domarius]

I can tell you that the neck bone rotation is all set to 0,0,0 in both skeletons, in the AF Pose anyway. The translate values are slightly different, but not wildly (8.8, 2.7,-0.7 in the old one and 10.5, 1.3, 0 in the new one). I don't know enough about it to help yet unfortunately. It is the "neck" bone that the head attaches to, right?

[Springheel]

I assumed it would be the "Head" joint, but I don't know.

[Domarius]

I'll move this line of discussion to the other thread, this one is getting cluttered with too many issues.

[squill]

ok i've set the scale option to 0.95 for the mesh and animations which matches the height of the citywatch. The new export options in the proguard def file should eliminate the "# of joints" error.

 

i'm not fully understanding how this head joint is working with the separated head model. More important are the rotation values than translations on the headjoints. On the new model those rotations are set to 0 but i don't know how these heads are exported and what (source) files are used for this.

[Domarius]

The proguard's def file was still causing "number of joints" errors on export, it was still pointing to old anims. But I updated the proguard's def file and it works now. I've been exporting using the proguard's def file just to make sure

 

I changed the scale to .97, that seems to match the citywatch better than my initial test. The proguard's head sits a bit higher than the citywatch, but I think that's just the way it is, because the limbs all appear to line up.

 

Also I renamed tdm_ai_merc_proguard.def to tdm_ai_proguard.def, never understood why there was a merc suffix. Hope it doesn't break anything...

[Springheel]

On the new model those rotations are set to 0

 

Can you check and see what they were set to on the old model? If there is a difference then that is probably the issue. If not I'm stumped.

[Ishtvan]

Also I renamed tdm_ai_merc_proguard.def to tdm_ai_proguard.def, never understood why there was a merc suffix. Hope it doesn't break anything...

I can't speak for why it was named that way (maybe just to organize them in groups, like we have tdm_ai_builder_* tdm_ai_undead_*), but the entityDef name is still atdm:ai_merc_proguard, so it may be confusing if the def file name is inconsistent with the entityDef name.

[Springheel]

I don't think the "merc" prefix is needed either. Best to change it now while no one is using the proguard anyway.