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New Idle Animation


Springheel

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Hey Squill,

 

I know that the main goal for the current idle animation was just to allow the new skeleton to be imported into a map, rather than get it looking perfect. I just want to double-check what you plan to modify though, partially because it will affect how I weight the nobleman mesh.

 

1. It seems like the tunic is opened unnaturally. I suspect this is because the legs are rolled out a bit. It is a little unnatural on the proguard, but it really stands out on the nobleman with his shorter tunic. Is this likely to change or should I try weighting the tunic differently?

 

2. This is more an aesthetic issue, but I notice that the hands seem to clench and unclench in a way that looks a bit extreme. This may be because of the new position of the hands, but I would recommend leaving the index finger a bit looser; it generally curls less than the other fingers. The way it curls right now makes it look like he's pretending to hold something.

 

idle1.jpg

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1. It seems like the tunic is opened unnaturally. I suspect this is because the legs are rolled out a bit. It is a little unnatural on the proguard, but it really stands out on the nobleman with his shorter tunic. Is this likely to change or should I try weighting the tunic differently?

 

the tunic moves along the upperleg so you could try to decreases the weights on the edges of the tunic and give the joints in the hip area some more influence. But if you give to much influence the tunic will probably clip thru the upper leg once a foot is lifted.

 

You could also try to move the vertices on the tunic edge closer to each other so the gab between the tunic edges in the T-pose is already smaller once we move the leg outwards.

 

if it's still difficult to get it right i could add some extra joints to the knees to control the tunic.

 

2. This is more an aesthetic issue, but I notice that the hands seem to clench and unclench in a way that looks a bit extreme. This may be because of the new position of the hands, but I would recommend leaving the index finger a bit looser; it generally curls less than the other fingers. The way it curls right now makes it look like he's pretending to hold something.

 

yes i'll put this on my list of animation tweaks. They animation controls on the hands only consist of a grab option which curls all the fingers at the same time. I still have to add a separate curl option for each finger so i can also add some offset to the finger movements. Thanks for your feedback.

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You could also try to move the vertices on the tunic edge closer to each other so the gab between the tunic edges in the T-pose is already smaller once we move the leg outwards.

 

I did move the verts a bit, but the tunic is essentially closed in the t-pose state. If I overlap them then I'm afraid they will clip each other when walking. But I'll play around and see what happens. What's going to happen when we have a tunic that is closed in the front though, like the citywatch?

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What's going to happen when we have a tunic that is closed in the front though, like the citywatch?

 

you'll probably have to deal with the stretching. The citywatch tunic is more of a flap and compared to the proguard much shorter.

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Are the legs rolled outwards?

 

Yes, that seems to be the cause.

 

Looking at our other models, I have a feeling this could be a problem with those characters who have solid tunics in front--the citywatch might have a short flap, but there is the builder priest and other robed characters, not to mention the engineer with an apron. I'm not sure of a way to weight them so they don't roll with the leg but still move forward with it. The old skeleton had separate bones specifically for the tunic, but the new one doesn't.

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Great, I'm glad you liked it! I think having to re-do all the anims is a great opportunity to replace my old work with better stuff, since my skills have improved since then.

 

I hoped to get something more intimidating but I couldn't quite get it and decided it was sufficient and time to move on. The good thing is in the future I can improve them again after the mod is released.

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I'm not sure of a way to weight them so they don't roll with the leg but still move forward with it.

There isn't a way. If you weight to the rig and it looks correct, and then the idle anim kicks in and the legs rotate outward, that's a problem with the animation. I think it's a simple matter of tweaking the anim. I'll make a note of it.

 

 

The old skeleton had separate bones specifically for the tunic, but the new one doesn't.
I'd like to see squill's opinion on this. We will have men in robes and women in gowns, we might need bones for cloth over the legs.
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I'd like to see squill's opinion on this. We will have men in robes and women in gowns, we might need bones for cloth over the legs

 

You don't want to adjust the animation just to fix a mesh problem. So like i suggested before, we could add extra joints to the knees if it becomes an issue.

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Based on what I'm seeing, I think adding extra joints might be necessary. While having the tunic weighted to the leg works great for walking and sitting because you don't have to worry about clipping, anything where the leg rotates is going to cause problems. How much work is it to add a few new joints?

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  • 1 month later...

Hey Squill, I was just checking out the new idle animation and noticed a couple things I wanted to ask you about:

 

1. Now that the fingers are moving independently (which looks great), I noticed that the second finger has verts weighted to the index finger joints, which causes it to stretch oddly in game.

 

hand_prob.jpg

idle_prob.jpg

 

I've fixed the nobleman hand, but you or Domarius will need to adjust the proguard at some point. (actually, I also had to flip the uv-map for the hands because it didn't match the .tga anymore...it might be easier just to copy the hands over from the nobleman).

 

2. Also, I notice that the new idle animation seems to be stretching the tunic skirt quite wide again. Before the update, the tunic looked normal, but now it is opened unnaturally wide. Were the upskirt joints modified in some way?

 

tunic_prob.jpg

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Sorry to interrupt with this dumb question, but I notice we have some modelDefs with animations like idle1, idle2. Is there some internal system that actually plays animations at random if you put a number after them, or does picking between them have to be done by hand? I know the random idle actions (yawn, wipe_nose) are put in a string by hand, but I wasn't sure about the numbered ones.

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Sorry to interrupt with this dumb question, but I notice we have some modelDefs with animations like idle1, idle2. Is there some internal system that actually plays animations at random if you put a number after them,

 

I'm pretty sure I recall hearing that. Isn't that what happened with the attack animations before you started working on the new system?

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. Could you tell me what you've changed on the uv map? Also because i haven't found a working script for import/exporting skin weights, otherwise i could swap hands with the nobleman.

 

Sorry to interrupt with this dumb question, but I notice we have some modelDefs with animations like idle1, idle2. Is there some internal system that actually plays animations at random if you put a number after them, or does picking between them have to be done by hand? I know the random idle actions (yawn, wipe_nose) are put in a string by hand, but I wasn't sure about the numbered ones.

 

is this documented somewhere how you add them by hand? If not i think it would be very helpfull because i still don't know or simply forget how to add the idles to all the necessary files for the random idle actions.

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Sorry Squill, I butchered your message above because I hit "edit" instead of "reply".

 

i fixed the finger stretching by simply re-exporting the mesh which already had better skin weights :laugh: . The tunic joints are fixed and should now be included if we might have to do another transfer to a new rig version.

 

Ah, ok, maybe I'll use those ones then. :)

 

i checked on differences between the nobleman and proguard hands in the uv maps but i couldn't find the differences you made. They both point to the same shader in the md5mesh file but ingame the normal map is f#$%ed on the proguard :P

 

Yeah, the reason it is messed up is because the uvmap is flipped vertically on the proguard for some reason. At first, I was going to fix it by flipping the .tga as well, but that just made every other AI look crappy. So I flipped the uvmap on the hand instead. Would a screenshot help? You'll have to flip it vertically and align it with the md5/chars/npc_hand_full.tga

 

edit: And I accidently deleted the bit about the tunic. :blush:

 

 

is this documented somewhere how you add them by hand?

 

There is something on the wiki about it but I don't know where off-hand.

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@Ishtvan: Yes, the code is choosing between idle1, idle2, idle3 randomly when calling playAnim("idle"). (You can override that behaviour to play a specific one by directly passing "idle2" including a number postfix, but this is not happening anywhere in the code.)

 

is this documented somewhere how you add them by hand? If not i think it would be very helpfull because i still don't know or simply forget how to add the idles to all the necessary files for the random idle actions.

There's a bit of info here: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?...Idle_Animations

 

However, if you need to check something out, I'm more than happy to help you figuring this out to save you some time. Just let me know (PM or here), I'll try to be quick.

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Sorry Squill, I butchered your message above because I hit "edit" instead of "reply".

 

i knew you had something against me <_<

 

Yeah, the reason it is messed up is because the uvmap is flipped vertically on the proguard for some reason. At first, I was going to fix it by flipping the .tga as well, but that just made every other AI look crappy. So I flipped the uvmap on the hand instead. Would a screenshot help? You'll have to flip it vertically and align it with the md5/chars/npc_hand_full.tga

 

hmm somehow i'm missing that npc texture, even when i forced sync it doesn't show up. Is this perhaps a local file? Anyway i loaded the dds version on the hand which looked fine but i'll also flip the uv's and see what happen.

 

There's a bit of info here: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?...Idle_Animations

 

However, if you need to check something out, I'm more than happy to help you figuring this out to save you some time. Just let me know (PM or here), I'll try to be quick.

 

but this is for the editor? I actually mean the default idle state, like when i add a new idle animation. In which files do i need to add this new idle string so when you spawn a guard it's included in the random idles.

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hmm somehow i'm missing that npc texture, even when i forced sync it doesn't show up. Is this perhaps a local file?

 

It should be dds/models/md5/chars/npc_hand_full.dds (as best I can remember; I'm at work).

 

The problem isn't immediately apparent, but any AI with flipped uvs should look like their fingers have been dipped in brown paint, and the normals will be all screwed up. I'll try to remember to post a screen when I get home.

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but this is for the editor? I actually mean the default idle state, like when i add a new idle animation. In which files do i need to add this new idle string so when you spawn a guard it's included in the random idles.

The spawnargs listed on the wiki are in tdm_ai_base.def.

 

But to get this to work, one needs also a line in the ai script files, which is something like this. The "SniffArm" part in the spawnargs refers to this set of script functions:

 

void ai_darkmod_base::Torso_SniffArm() {
PlayAnimationOnce(ANIMCHANNEL_TORSO, "sniff_arm", 4, "Torso_Idle");
}

void ai_darkmod_base::Legs_SniffArm() {
PlayAnimationOnce(ANIMCHANNEL_LEGS, "sniff_arm", 4, "Legs_Idle");
}

 

The "sniff_arm" string in the function call is the name of the anim as mentioned in the model def. I figured you might not be interested in messing around with scripts, that's why I offered to do this for you, if you want me to.

 

Another possibility would be to temporarily point an existing idle anim (say sniff_arm) to a new .md5anim file in the model def, that way you could test it more easily without messing with scripts.

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Anyway i loaded the dds version on the hand which looked fine but i'll also flip the uv's and see what happen.

 

The image below is how the proguard hand uvmap is at the moment. It needs to be flipped horizontally so that the fingers point up like the texture does.

post-9-1241641665_thumb.jpg

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i first flipped the uv's on which i saw no difference. Then i flipped the normal map vertically and the textures matched but i still saw the weird shadow and light artifacts on some of the fingers.

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Hmm, I'm not sure exactly what you're describing. No flipping of the textures should be necessary. You just need to make the uvmap above look like the one below (In lightwave, I just used the "flip V" option, and then moved the uvmap into place).

post-9-1241903298_thumb.jpg

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i first flipped the uv's on which i saw no difference. Then i flipped the normal map vertically and the textures matched but i still saw the weird shadow and light artifacts on some of the fingers.

Can you post a screenshot? I have seen some unwelded verts on the hands. It will be easy to tell if this is the problem by looking at a picture of it.

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The only unwelded verts are along the edges of the UVmap. These cannot be welded without creating 'texture smearing' along the nearby polys, since md5meshes cannot handle verts that occupy more than one coordinate on a UVmap. Even the D3 characters have unwelded verts along UV edges.

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