Thief Animations

[Springheel]

According to Ascottk's post back in January, the Thief is using the same skeleton as the citywatch.

 

The thief fov was off 270 degrees according to Spring so I switched skeletons on the thief so he'd use the city's rig (because the original mesh was facing the z-axis when it should be facing the x-axis). I added player specific animations like crouching (in third person he no longer gets stuck in crouching position because he now has crouch up/down anims) & creeping. The fov now looks fixed.

 

Squill, can you confirm that this is in fact the case? At the moment, the Thief does not have very many animations--is it just a mater of exporting the rest of the citywatch animations to the Thief? (I'm hoping so)

 

I have been developing the beggar character to use the same skeleton and animations as the Thief. So the beggar will only have the animations the thief has. Currently, the thief is still using the old idle, and doesn't have a sitting animation, a warm hands animation, or any of the 'idle flavour' animations.

 

In order to use him for the release map, those animations will need to be added to the Thief model. I'm hoping this is pretty straightforward, but probably better to find out now rather than waste any more time on this mesh if it can't be done.

[Dram]

According to Ascottk's post back in January, the Thief is using the same skeleton as the citywatch.

Squill, can you confirm that this is in fact the case? At the moment, the Thief does not have very many animations--is it just a mater of exporting the rest of the citywatch animations to the Thief? (I'm hoping so)

 

I have been developing the beggar character to use the same skeleton and animations as the Thief. So the beggar will only have the animations the thief has. Currently, the thief is still using the old idle, and doesn't have a sitting animation, a warm hands animation, or any of the 'idle flavour' animations.

 

In order to use him for the release map, those animations will need to be added to the Thief model. I'm hoping this is pretty straightforward, but probably better to find out now rather than waste any more time on this mesh if it can't be done.

 

Theoretically, if the thief uses the same skeleton as the citywatch, then simply copying/pasting the anims would make them usable for the thief. Or just linking to citywatch ones.

[Springheel]

It uses the same skeleton, but obviously scaled down in size, since the thief isn't the same height as the citywatch. So the animations have to be (at the very least) exported with the -scale keyword as well.

[Dram]

It uses the same skeleton, but obviously scaled down in size, since the thief isn't the same height as the citywatch. So the animations have to be (at the very least) exported with the -scale keyword as well.

 

Ah, didn't think of that

[squill]

It uses the same skeleton, but obviously scaled down in size, since the thief isn't the same height as the citywatch. So the animations have to be (at the very least) exported with the -scale keyword as well.

 

i assume this scale option is defined in one of the def files. When i'm home i'll look into this.

[Springheel]

i assume this scale option is defined in one of the def files. When i'm home i'll look into this.

 

From memory, I think the value was -.94, but I could be wrong. It should be in the thief's def file already, however.

 

If it's just a matter of exporting the animations, I could probably muddle through and do it myself--I understand the steps though I've not yet tried it with Maya. But I'm sure you'd be able to do it a lot quicker than I could.

 

The beggar character is pretty close to being done. Barring any unforseen problems with the export process, he should be ready to go by the end of the weekend.

[squill]

the thief is indeed using the same skeleton as the citywatch. The def file even points to the same source directory. I've exported a bunch of those animations, they only need to be added to the def file and other necessary text files.

[Springheel]

Awesome, thanks Squill. I can do that myself tonight.

[Springheel]

Squill, there seems to be a problem. The Thief is listed as having 57 joints in the md5mesh file, while the citywatch has 67. "LeftUpLegRoll" is just one of the joints missing.

 

Shouldn't the number of joints match up if they're using the same skeleton?

[squill]

the joints listed in the thief def file are not the same as in the citywatch def file. I don't know why there are these differences in joints between joints if the skeletons should be the same.

 

When i replace the list of exported joints with that of the citywatch i get the "# joints are not the same" message again.

 

Maya shows shows both the citywatch and thief skeleton(model_src) having 75 joints. I guess the thief mesh is somehow exported in another way?

 

next week i won't be at home to look at this but i'll be back the week after. Maybe you can re-export the thief mesh with the same joints listed in the citywatch def file. For now i'll sync the anims with the same # of joints.

[Springheel]

next week i won't be at home to look at this but i'll be back the week after. Maybe you can re-export the thief mesh with the same joints listed in the citywatch def file. For now i'll sync the anims with the same # of joints.

 

Well, the strange thing is that the animations actually *work*, already. I was under the impression that you would not be able to export the animations if the number of joints don't match up.

 

I think I recall Ascottk saying something about the Maya export culling out joints that aren't used, and that you have to use a -keep option when exporting? But again, I would have expected the animations to not work, and they clearly do, so I'm not sure whether there's actually a problem here or not.

 

I'm pretty sure I can get the beggar working as is...I just have to find the verts that are weighted to joints that exist only on the citywatch and delete them from the beggar. But I don't want to do that if it's going to cause problems in the future (there aren't very many verts though, just 8-10).

 

edit: Is this related to a recent change? http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=7856

 

I'll return the thief to it's current state so things work.

[Springheel]

Fascinating. The Thief isn't just missing joints that aren't used, it's actually missing some that the citywatch is weighted to, like joint 7, joint 8, and joint 9, as well as any joints with 'roll" in the title. I can post a full list later.

 

I don't know why the animations still work. The only thing I can think of is that even though the citywatch is weighted to those joints, none of the animations actually use them. But then, I was always lead to believe that if the number of joints in the animation did not match the number of joints in the md5mesh, you could not export them.

[Springheel]

While we're on the topic of the Thief animations, is it just me or is the walk animation really, really slow? It almost looks like he's walking in slow motion. The 'cautious walk' is even more slow. Was that intentional or an unintended result of something? Even the warm hands animation struck me as a little slower than normal, though I didn't have time to actually compare it.

 

edit: Yes, I can confirm that ALL the thief animations (and therefore the beggar as well) seem to be being played at about half speed for some reason.

 

edit: Hmm, a bit confused again. I'm not sure that they are playing half speed in the game itself. I know for sure they are in the editor, but they might be at the proper speed in game. I'll need to do more tests to be sure.

[Springheel]

the thief is indeed using the same skeleton as the citywatch.

 

Um....

 

I just noticed that all the new animations were not exported with a "scale" keyword (actually, they look like they were just copied directly from one folder to another). That means that they are the same size as the original citywatch animations. This means that when the Thief plays any of those animations, he becomes the same size as the citywatch.

 

Originally, he was considerably shorter (and he still is, when he plays any of the old animations, like "look_around"). The def file shows a "scale" keyword of from -90 to -94 on several animations. The new animations, however, are not even in the def file. They need to be exported with a scale keyword to work properly.

 

This will also affect the beggar character, who uses the Thief animations. It may also be an issue for the builder priest, who appears to be the same size as the citywatch as well.

[SneaksieDave]

Yep, though I assumed he was the same height always:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...st&p=153690

 

Don't know when exactly this may have happened but it's been this way a while now.

[Springheel]

Yep, though I assumed he was the same height always:

 

No, he shouldn't be that height, and he wasn't, when Thief's Den was released. I think it's just that when Ascottk changed him to the citywatch rig, the animations weren't scaled for him. Shouldn't be too hard to fix, if so.

[SneaksieDave]

Right, to clarify I mean since the change. I recall back when he was a wee little fellow alongside guards.

 

I admit I'm not crazy about that coming back -- made the player look like a child -- but it's probably preferred over revisiting the "how tall should X be?" issue.

[Springheel]

I recall back when he was a wee little fellow alongside guards.

 

 

I don't mean the original Oddity sizes. I mean the size that Ascottk exported them to, where the citywatch was about 6'2" and the Thief 5'7" or so. The same sizes used in Thief's Den.

[Springheel]

Doom 3 animations, on the other hand, the size of the animations dictate the size of the mesh. If you use a citywatch animation (the citywatch md5anim is bigger) on the thief then the thief would resize to the citywatch. For example, if you copied (which is pointless since you can use the def file to point to that animation) the citywatch run.m5anim to the thief folder, then the thief would appear to grow when he's running.

 

In order to share (misnomer since the md5anim is not actually shared) animations point the def file, when exporting, to the source Maya binaries (mb or ma) of the animations you want shared.

[Springheel]

Hmm, I'm not sure exactly what the problem is. I re-exported the animations and scaled them by -.88. Yet there doesn't appear to be any size difference when I preview them.

[Springheel]

Heh. Ok, the scale keyword is definitely working...I put it at a ridiculous level just to test. Do we need hobbits in TDM?

 

In all seriousness, it would be pretty easy to make children using this method...no new animations or model required, just export existing ones with a scale keyword.

[Crispy]

The feet look a bit munged...

 

Other than that, I fully support the inclusion of hobbits.

[Springheel]

It was interesting...in that shot the thief's md5mesh was also shrunk, but the beggar's was not. So the thief looks small, but proportional, and the beggar looks dwarfish, with individual limbs the same relative size, but short. I'm sure there are some neat things that could be created that way.

[Domarius]

In all seriousness, it would be pretty easy to make children using this method...no new animations or model required, just export existing ones with a scale keyword.

Yeah... maybe as placeholder. The problem with just shrinking adults is they look just like shrunken adults. They don't scamper around or have the proportions that children do.