Sheathe Animation

[Springheel]

We may however need modified animations for walking around with the hammer out so that it doesn't look silly clipping into themselves.

 

Yes, we should eventually have an "alerted_walk" animation, where they carry their weapon out like they did in T1/2. I'm not sure it has been created yet though.

[Crispy]

@Crispy: Do you think it would be possible to modify your attachment-based animation-replacement system so that it's sensitive to what position the object is attached to? I.e., sword attached to position "slung_across_back" doesn't need to replace animations, but sword attached to position "hand_r" would have to replace some.

No reason why not, in theory.

 

Does idActor::Attach get called again each time an entity changes its attach position? If not, what does? The code for the replace_anim_ spawnargs is in idActor::BindNotify at the moment, which would be fine except it needs to know the name of the attach position and I don't think it's stored anywhere. So it would need to be moved to another method.

 

The other thing to consider is spawnarg naming. The syntax is quite elegant but limited at the moment: It's just "replace_anim_OLDANIM" "NEWANIM". To make it conditional on attach position I guess we'd need another spawnarg. Like "replacement_attach_pos_OLDANIM" "ATTACHPOS". But then you run into problems if you want to do two different replacements of the same anim depending on attach position... eh, this is getting kinda ugly.

 

We'd probably need a whole new set of spawnargs, and have the ability to index them so we can attach more properties to them. For example, if you wanted to replace cautious_walk with cautious_walk_holding_weapon when the hammer was attached to the left or right hands (just for the sake of demonstration), but replace cautious_walk with cautious_walk_hammer_on_back when the AI has a hammer on their back, then you'd need to be able to do something like this:

 

replace_anim_1_from "cautious_walk"

replace_anim_1_to "cautious_walk_holding_weapon"

replace_anim_1_only_at_pos_1 "hand_r"

replace_anim_1_only_at_pos_2 "hand_l"

 

replace_anim_2_from "cautious_walk"

replace_anim_2_to "cautious_walk_hammer_on_back"

replace_anim_2_only_at_pos_1 "slung_across_back"

 

Ugly as heck. I'm willing to implement it but only if we really need it (and if I don't do it today then I'm not sure when I'd get to it).

[Ishtvan]

idActor::Attach still gets called (from idActor::Reattach), and it takes attach position as an optional argument (it's a char * and NULL if not supplied). I guess it would have to pass this argument on when it calls BindNotify, if that's where the anim replacement is done.

 

There is some funny business that happens in ::ReAttach where it shifts the new reattachment back to where the old attachment was in the m_Attachments array, but that probably won't effect what you're doing.

[Crispy]

OK. So do we definitely need this? If so I suggest someone puts it on the tracker.

[squill]

i've added the hammer_draw animation.

[greebo]

i've added the hammer_draw animation.

Great, thank you, I'll take care of getting it in-game.

 

edit: done! Just alert the builder guard in test/walk with a fire arrow to see the action. After a while (when reaching alert level 3), they sheathe their hammer again. Looks good!

[SneaksieDave]

They don't seem to be putting the hammers back correctly (this may require them walking and/or playing the conversation first; when I stopped them prior, it didn't happen). Either that, or my alert got him really excited... He wasn't given the nickname "Hammer-Head" for nothing, you see.

 

(blooper reel, anyone?)

[Ishtvan]

If any animation blending goes on that makes them skip out of the sheathe animation before they hit the reattach command, it's possible they could fail to actually put the hammer away. (although it shouldn't do that )

[SneaksieDave]

Note that this is fully reproducable; just load up conversation, let them talk, and then go back to standing. Fire a noise arrow, pick it up, and wait. They play the sheath anim, and then... pow! Boner-fide!

 

Edit: and if I do interrupt that process (get them before they talk) it works fine.

[Ishtvan]

I can look at the reattach command in the def file when I get back from work. It should be reattaching to position slung_across_back_lr.

[Springheel]

My guess is that they're playing the sheath to hip animation instead of the sheath to back one.

[greebo]

I can look at the reattach command in the def file when I get back from work. It should be reattaching to position slung_across_back_lr.

This is what I set up in the frame commands of the sheathe animation:

frame 19		reattach		melee_weapon slung_across_back_rl

 

My guess is that they're playing the sheath to hip animation instead of the sheath to back one.

No, they are using hammer_sheathe.md5anim, this should be fine.

 

I checked the animation in test/walk and I had the builder boner situation once. When I ran the map again everything was looking ok, so I assumed it was me not having saved the def files or something, but obviously there's something going on.

[Ishtvan]

Hmm, it could be that there's something wrong with the reattach code, I don't think we ever tested reattaching something once and then reattaching it again, although it really should be no different.

[SneaksieDave]

As an update (afaik nothing has changed here, but I'm not sure): trying footstep volumes out, I had a bonerfide patrolling builder. He was alerted by me, and when he calmed down, voila. So it's apparently not just about interrupting the conversation anim, or anything like that. And it's not 100% of the time of course; most of the time it goes back to the correct location.