Setting Animations to AI

[HappyCheeze]

I want to have my builder guard on his knees praying.

 

So that would mean that there has to be a praying/kneeling animation (Do we have that?).

 

But also it would have to set in DR which anim/pose to start with. I searched around the forums and wiki, but either I'm looking in the wrong places, or what I'm thinking of isn't implemented yet. I looked in the entity editor values for the builder guard but than stood out to me.

[greebo]

So that would mean that there has to be a praying/kneeling animation (Do we have that?).

Yes, you'll need a new animation for that. This is a complete world of its own, it's definitely feasible to create animations yourself, but the learning curve might be steep.

[HappyCheeze]

I've done some 3d modeling before, it was with milkshape3d, I was doing some hl models. I've also used Blender a little bit. I have the basic concepts of animation done.

[greebo]

Well, if you're not afraid to dive into animations, that'd be great for the team anyway. Beware that there's a lot of trial and error going on, but I'm sure we could get you started. It's of course an art, which means that the first contributions are likely sub-par, but that's how we all started.

[HappyCheeze]

It's of course an art, which means that the first contributions are likely sub-par, but that's how we all started.

 

Naturally :-D

 

Mapping is my main thing.

 

How would I set those anims to my AI's when I get to that point? Where do I go to in DR?

[greebo]

How would I set those anims to my AI's when I get to that point? Where do I go to in DR?

I'd have to look at the code - I think you just set the "anim" spawnarg to the anim name in the AI's modelDef. But that might be overwritten by the IdleState they're being initialised to. We'll be able to come up with some sort of solution, even if it involves writing a custom modelDef, redirecting the idle anims to something different.

[Ishtvan]

I think you can also put in a path_anim entity that makes them play a certain animation when they reach a certain path node. So you could have on his patrol route a path_anim in front of an alter or something, and he would kneel down and pray.

[HappyCheeze]

I think you can also put in a path_anim entity that makes them play a certain animation when they reach a certain path node. So you could have on his patrol route a path_anim in front of an alter or something, and he would kneel down and pray.

 

Yeah that would be cool, maybe I'll put a key on his belt, so the player has to follow him to the meditation room. Its this small room with the circlular stainglass window and I'm going to have moonlight shining down and thats where he'll kneel. I'll post some pics once I've got it done.

 

Which modeling software do we use for Doom 3?

[Springheel]

There is currently an animation that kneels down on one knee (I think it is already applied to the builder guard but I'm not 100% sure). That might work for you.

 

I think you just set the "anim" spawnarg to the anim name in the AI's modelDef. But that might be overwritten by the IdleState they're being initialised to.

 

Yes, I'm pretty sure this didn't work for me when I tried it with the werebeasts.

[greebo]

Which modeling software do we use for Doom 3?

For the actual modeling, people use Lightwave, 3DS Max and Blender, but for animation the tool of choice is Maya. It's possible to create animations in MotionBuilder too, but I think this info is not current anymore.

[HappyCheeze]

Alright. I'll DL blender and see what I can do.

[greebo]

I assume nobody on the team ever used Blender for animation, so you'd be the first one - you might want to consult doom3world.org for that, I don't even know whether it works to load the Maya binaries into Blender or whether Blender is suitable at all.

[squill]

I assume nobody on the team ever used Blender for animation, so you'd be the first one - you might want to consult doom3world.org for that, I don't even know whether it works to load the Maya binaries into Blender or whether Blender is suitable at all.

 

blender hasn't got the most smooth tools to do animation although you can get some nice results if you put some effort into it. But it would mean you'd have to build an animation rig yourself.

 

setting up a praying pose in maya is faster and i can setup one if needed.

[HappyCheeze]

A quick search yielded this. Looks promising.

 

I'll start messing around and seeing what I can do when I finish up a remix I'm working on.

 

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=31285

[Springheel]

Be aware that making an animation and making one that can be successfully applied to existing TDM characters are two different things. There is a HUGE learning curve ahead if you're serious.

[HappyCheeze]

Hmmm.

 

Well, I don't know how much of this I'll be doing. All I'm trying to do is make my guard pray :-O

 

I haven't finished this part of my map yet. So I guess we'll see what happens when I come to that.

[Crispy]

I think you can also put in a path_anim entity that makes them play a certain animation when they reach a certain path node. So you could have on his patrol route a path_anim in front of an alter or something, and he would kneel down and pray.

Yeah, that's the way to do it.

 

1. Create the animation in Maya or whatever.

2. Export it into D3 as an md5anim.

3. Put an "anim" entry into the appropriate modelDef (e.g. under "model builderguard" in tdm_ai_builder_guard.def) referencing the md5anim.

4. Make the AI's path include a path_anim or path_cycleanim entity at the appropriate point, so it actually uses the animation.

 

You might find it easier to just make the builder guard stand in front of the altar. Up to you.

[HappyCheeze]

Alright, I'll get around to it when I can.

 

If you wanna listen to my remix its here http://remix.nin.com/play/mix?id=1165

[Domarius]

I thought we were going to make some sort of entity that causes certain AI to play one of a set list of random anims when nearby - eg, for looking at a painting, or warming hands by fire? That would cover praying.

[Crispy]

There was some talk about that sort of thing. My view is that you can already do it on a case-by-case basis using path entities (see wiki link above). Since we don't have wandering AIs or anything like that, and given that we're hoping to release 1.0 in a mere 8 months or so, I'm not convinced that we actually need or should bother implementing such automatic behaviour.

 

It would be kind of neat from the mapper's point of view to automatically give AI behaviours to decorative entities, but it's hardly critical, and might actually interfere with the mapper's intentions (especially in the case of looking at paintings - for patrolling guards it changes their behaviour quite significantly, and a mapper might not figure out immediately that the guard standing in the hall is looking over to the right and just asking for a blackjack all the time because of that painting). If it's not 100% automatic and requires mapper intervention then it's no different from making them place an extra path entity.

[Ishtvan]

Yeah I tend to agree. I believe you can already set up a random chance to diverge from the path to go to another path entity. If not that would be pretty easy to do. Then you'd just link in the "diverged" path back to the next target on the original path.

[HappyCheeze]

If it's not 100% automatic and requires mapper intervention then it's no different from making them place an extra path entity.

Thats a good idea, because the more power to the mapper the better.

 

I'll have to see about the extra path entities, but if you had a random anim entity, I think there should be a checklist of anims that the mapper can chose for his AI to do.

 

If I have a map where theres a party at some estate and all the noble families are there, I'd probably want to apply the random anims to all the guests. And for the guards I either wouldn't use that entity for them at all, or if I have the ability to set which random anims would apply. For example: The guards wouldn't stare and look at a painting because they're seen it for how everlong they have been working there for. So their random anims would be limited to something like yawning, sneezing, maybe tying one's boot.

 

The noble guests haven't been there before so are putting all their attention into the stuff like painting and sculptures that they are comparing to their own.

[Tels]

Thats a good idea, because the more power to the mapper the better.

 

If I have a map where theres a party at some estate and all the noble families are there, I'd probably want to apply the random anims to all the guests. And for the guards I either wouldn't use that entity for them at all, or if I have the ability to set which random anims would apply. For example: The guards wouldn't stare and look at a painting because they're seen it for how everlong they have been working there for. So their random anims would be limited to something like yawning, sneezing, maybe tying one's boot.

 

The noble guests haven't been there before so are putting all their attention into the stuff like painting and sculptures that they are comparing to their own.

 

Yeah the two scenarios differ: in one, the AI follows a (or more, randomly) predefined paths. In the other, they just walk around, idling, from point to point.

[Ishtvan]

You could do that by assigning different path nodes to the different AI. The guards wouldn't ever go stare at the paintings because their path nodes wouldn't hit a random branching path node, but the guest's would.

 

Random idle animations like yawning and scratching are already done automatically now. You don't need path nodes for that (although them if you wanted them to yawn or stretch repeatedly in one particular place).