Milestone Goals for Animation Department

[greebo]

The milestone goals for the coding and sound department have been defined and posted to the bugtracker.

 

See also this post in the information forum: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=7262

 

For the animation department, we just have a vague

- Existing animations improved where appropriate

- Unprepared (fbx) animations exported and in-game (needs clarification)

which might need some redefinition.

 

Does the animation department want to define some goals they want to achieve till June? I believe that clear goals could help to focus on what's important, but ultimately this has to be decided by the people who actually do the work on our characters.

 

Please post here what you think what's wise - I can help you guys putting the stuff in the tracker, if you want me to.

[Ishtvan]

Also if we want a melee combat system by the milestone, we're going to need at least placeholder animations for the various attacks and parries.

[Domarius]

Well off the top of my head - what Ishtvan requested is most important, because those anims are missing and are needed, which I agreed to do this week, and then improving existing anims that look crap. Unless we take votes on which anims need improving the most, then I guess it will be left to the discretion of individual animators.

 

I guess to create more hard and fast goals, we'd have to all vote on which ones need improving the most.

[sparhawk]

So you think, if the existing goals are not met, that it helps to add more goals to the list?

[Crispy]

I think he meant "better-defined goals", not "more goals" as such.

 

The animation department's milestone goals are very fuzzy, it would be good to make them more concrete.

[greebo]

I think he meant "better-defined goals", not "more goals" as such.

Yup, that's how I read it as well.

 

The animation department's milestone goals are very fuzzy, it would be good to make them more concrete.

Yes, that's why I opened this thread, but so far only our coders seem to be interested.

[Domarius]

And one animator!

 

(Not that anyone would know... lol)

[Springheel]

I have no idea whether this is too ambitious or woefully easy to accomplish, so take this as a "wish list".

 

 

 

NEW AI ANIMATIONS:

 

Use the idle_attack (or idle_sword, or whatever we're calling it) as the default pose.

 

3 attacks:

(while we may eventually want to create unique animations for different weapons, these first should be fairly generic sweeps that could work with either a sword or hammer)

slash from left to right at torso

slash from right to left (can we use the one that exists already?)

overhead slash

 

3 possible parries:

parry left

parry right

parry high

 

 

Idle animations:

at least 3 simple animations for AI to do while idling, like scratching themselves, shifting their weight, cracking their knuckles, etc. (the more the merrier)

 

walk_suspicious -- the slower walk an AI might do to go check out an odd noise (no weapon out).

 

NEW PLAYER ANIMATIONS

3 attacks:

slash from left to right

slash from right to left (can we use the one that exists already?)

overhead slash

 

3 possible parries:

parry left

parry right

parry high

 

 

 

REVISED AI ANIMATIONS

 

Fix or replace the following (see http://www.mindplaces.com/darkmod/animations.htm for more info):

 

idle_sword

itch

look_around ** do we replace this or just remove it? It is currently called in the code but I'm not sure it is needed.

pain

walk

walk_alert ** do we need this animation for anything?

sniff_arm

cough1

 

 

Apply any "in limbo" .fbx animations as needed.

 

Apply the above to the citywatch model, as well as whatever other two models we will be using for the demo (preferably 'A Level' AI).

[squill]

oh my god!!!!

 

no it's good to have this overview.

 

I've already got 3 idle animations which i'll import into maya as soon as i can and upload to svn.

 

- idle idle

- look left /weight shift

- scratch arms

 

I can create some more and these are easy and quick to setup. I'd like to focus more on the ai attack animations.