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Model and rig revision


oDDity

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Can you be more specific? I would recommend to learn how the curve editor works.

As I don't know much about animation in Maya I can't be more specific, I'm afraid. I know how to create an anim in MotionBuilder, import it into Maya (using the fbx_import file) and export it to Doom 3.

 

If the whole process is going to be performed in Maya (and if this is recommended by you animators), I want to have a look at that too. Whatever is helpful/useful to get me to my goal faster, I'd be thankful for any kind of tips.

 

I gather that the Curve Editor is an important tool in Maya, so I'll have a look at that next time I'll put my nose into animating.

 

I don't intend to become an excellent animator, but I want to be good enough to help you (or The Dark Mod in general) making progress.

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As I don't know much about animation in Maya I can't be more specific, I'm afraid. I know how to create an anim in MotionBuilder, import it into Maya (using the fbx_import file) and export it to Doom 3.

 

If the whole process is going to be performed in Maya (and if this is recommended by you animators), I want to have a look at that too. Whatever is helpful/useful to get me to my goal faster, I'd be thankful for any kind of tips.

 

yeah would definitely be helpfull ;)

I don't know how familiar you are with the interface but i'd suggest you first read about for example the use of the timeline, how to set keyframes etc. and then start looking at the graph editor (curve editor).

 

A way to learn this for example could be creating a ball, animate a motion with it and finally use the graph editor to edit and smooth that motion. After these basics you could load the rig for instance and play with the controls.

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As I don't know much about animation in Maya I can't be more specific, I'm afraid. I know how to create an anim in MotionBuilder, import it into Maya (using the fbx_import file) and export it to Doom 3.

 

If the whole process is going to be performed in Maya (and if this is recommended by you animators), I want to have a look at that too. Whatever is helpful/useful to get me to my goal faster, I'd be thankful for any kind of tips.

 

I gather that the Curve Editor is an important tool in Maya, so I'll have a look at that next time I'll put my nose into animating.

 

I don't intend to become an excellent animator, but I want to be good enough to help you (or The Dark Mod in general) making progress.

 

I did a quick video tut of animating a (rough) walk cycle with this new rig. Should help you get around in maya.

You use the shift+middle mouse button for selecting and on the timeline and MMB for dragging tangents in the curve editor. Also MMB on the timeline to jump around without moving the animation to that time, so you can set hold keys.

 

http://www.pixelwerks.be/pictures/walktut.7z

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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Sorry to be intrusive, but what's the status in this area? Are we waiting on something or are people working in the background and I just don't notice it?

 

i'm still working on getting the animations on the current builder guard model. But i've also been occupied by other tasks of daily life which kept me from working on the mod.

 

So far the builder guard is the only model which hasn't got the exact same rig as the other characters. I'm even thinking if it would be faster to replace his skeleton with the base skeleton. But does this model have any model variations or skins? If not only this model would need to be re-painted and exported once, which i don't think would have to take long ...and the animations do not have to be adjusted that much.

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So far the builder guard is the only model which hasn't got the exact same rig as the other characters. I'm even thinking if it would be faster to replace his skeleton with the base skeleton. But does this model have any model variations or skins? If not only this model would need to be re-painted and exported once, which i don't think would have to take long ...and the animations do not have to be adjusted that much.

There is only this builder guard with this single skin, as far as I know, so I assume this step would be ok.

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If not only this model would need to be re-painted and exported once,

 

There aren't any skins for that mesh, but why would the model need to be re-painted just because you add a different skeleton? Adding a new skeleton doesn't change the uvmap of the mesh. :huh:

 

Also, Oddity said he already modified the mesh and made a new skeleton for this builder, so you may want to get him to upload it somewhere to take a look at.

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There aren't any skins for that mesh, but why would the model need to be re-painted just because you add a different skeleton? Adding a new skeleton doesn't change the uvmap of the mesh. :huh:

 

meaning weight painting.

 

Also, Oddity said he already modified the mesh and made a new skeleton for this builder, so you may want to get him to upload it somewhere to take a look at.

 

his last version had a different joint setup/names which was not compatible with our current skeleton. With the base skeleton i'll be sure the animations will play out the same as on the citywatch/priest.

 

When he's finished i'll look at his rig but this i can do fairly quickly and reduces the work i need to do for adjusting animations.

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As I estimate it from my humble point of view, we won't be able to pull off a complete revamp of our rigs before release, so if you think you can do this step quickly I'm inclined to say go for it, squill.

 

Then we won't have to bother converting all our animations before release - we can (or rather should) look into that right after saintlucia is out.

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One change to the mesh that DOES need to be made before the release is the shadowmesh of the head. It can be left on for the time being (I haven't added a shadow to the builder head yet), but right now it's very tall and distorted for some reason, casting a weird shadow.

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i've replaced the skeleton with the base skeleton and scaled the builder guard model to fit the skeleton. But when i export the model it only shows 2 meshes inside the md5mesh which should be 8. What settings do you use to get those 8 meshes properly exported?

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I don't know the right terminology for using Maya. I just remember reading that if you didn't have the individual meshes on separate layers, the export process would merge them together.

 

Also, I don't know whether the head cube is necessary...I haven't noticed it on any other models.

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at least the model is separated in different parts like the citywatch.

 

even when i export without the missing meshes/textures i still see the feet of the builder guard go through the floor when he's walking like he's not using IK properly although the origin joint stays flat on the floor.

 

I've done some test to see what could cause the feet to go through the floor. When i lift his waist the feet stay above the ground so i guess the heel/feet joints in the mesh are positioned higher then the skeleton of the city watch.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey when this is all sorted out, if there's anything new that I need to do when I start animating again, could you make a new thread that describes what to do?

 

I haven't tried the Maya layers plugin yet, but if it works I'm definetly dropping motion builder from my workflow, that would remove exporting from motion builder then importing into maya - when making tweaks, especially after checking in game and going back again, this will save a lot of time.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I went back and re-read this, and to be frank I'm a little unsure about where we left off. Are we now using the revised skeleton that Oddity posted?

 

Anyway, this can be used as a template if you guys ever do want to revise the other model setups.

 

http://www.pixelwerks.be/files/guardrevision.rar

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Without a technical artist like ascottk to bring everything together, we may as well continue on as normal.

 

squill seems to be our next best technical artist.

 

even when i export without the missing meshes/textures i still see the feet of the builder guard go through the floor when he's walking like he's not using IK properly although the origin joint stays flat on the floor.

 

I've done some test to see what could cause the feet to go through the floor. When i lift his waist the feet stay above the ground so i guess the heel/feet joints in the mesh are positioned higher then the skeleton of the city watch.

So this is only a problem with the builder or is the builder the only one you tried? Probably the new rig is weighted slightly differently than the old one?

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So this is only a problem with the builder or is the builder the only one you tried? Probably the new rig is weighted slightly differently than the old one?

 

Builder guard is the only character who uses an older/different skeleton. Replacing the older skeleton with ascottk's version still showed the same results. There hasn't been used any new rig so far.

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Weird. I just noticed that the citywatch skeleton has a joint called leftToe_end, but not a rightToe_end. And leftToe_end has just two verts weighted to it, at about 10%. The joint almost isn't there at all. I'm not sure why that joint is there.

 

Just so you know, Squill, I've decided to try something. I'm going to try using the LW importer/exporter to convert the builder guard to the citywatch skeleton. It worked for the beggar character, so it might work here. If it doesn't, we haven't lost anything. I've already identified a few oddities in the mesh I was noticing in game. Also, I'll add the new full-fingered hands.

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Just so you know, Squill, I've decided to try something. I'm going to try using the LW importer/exporter to convert the builder guard to the citywatch skeleton. It worked for the beggar character, so it might work here. If it doesn't, we haven't lost anything. I've already identified a few oddities in the mesh I was noticing in game. Also, I'll add the new full-fingered hands.

 

Yeah sure i'm curious if this will work ;) I think it will if you did the same for the beggar. Let me know how this turns out.

 

I'm also able to export the current builder guard mesh with working textures etc. but i still have to figure out why certain textures aren't showing up when i export with the citywatch skeleton. It's going slow but i'm at the same time studying on rigging.

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Ok, I spent a few hours on this today. I added the new hands and did my best to rig them (though it's hard to tell if I'm successful since the hands never looked right anyway). I also fixed some things in the mesh that were set up strangely--there were bits of armour set to texture/common/shadow when they actually should have been visible.

 

Currently D3 is complaining that some verts aren't mapped to existing bones, so I probably have to go through and manually rename some of the weightmaps.

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Hmm, this seems to be going well. I now have the builder using the citywatch animations. All the idle ones look pretty good, and he doesn't sink into the floor when he walks. He does appear to slide a bit, but so does the citywatch, so that might just be something about the way the animation plays in the editor, since I've not noticed it in game.

 

The fingers are a little wonky in some of the animations, but I can't tell how much of that is my poor rigging job (I've never rigged anything from scratch before, and the low-poly hands weren't designed with rigging in mind) and how much of it is just the weird hand rigging issues that existed before.

 

There's also a bit of a problem with the cloth skirt clipping through the armour in several animations. I'll play with the weighting a bit tonight and then upload tomorrow so people can check it out.

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