New Idle Animation

[greebo]

I think we'll end up with two sets of animations. Likewise we need separate animations for female characters, we'll need separate ones for fat characters.

[Noisycricket]

I noticed that the rotation pivot for the head is near the center of the head so that when you rotate it forward, like in the sneeze animation, the lips actually move closer to the body and doesn't take into account the fact that the base of the neck rotates as well. The head could be moved farther out in future animations if i could figure out how the neck is rotated. At the moment, it doesn't respond to inputs.

 

On the othe hand, is their a medium build character that we could use instead for animating?

[Springheel]

I think we'll end up with two sets of animations. Likewise we need separate animations for female characters, we'll need separate ones for fat characters.

 

It's not even fat characters, though. Just regular sized ones (as opposed to very slender ones like the proguard) have some clipping during regular animations. The proguard seems to be one of the most slender models we have. Compare him to the citywatch or new thug below.

 

I don't think we can do much about it now, but it's just something to be aware of...other characters will be wider, especially in the hips area, so best to avoid putting the hands too close to that area.

[Noisycricket]

Who exactly are proguards anyway from T1 and 2?

[Springheel]

I'm not sure exactly what that question means, but the character represents professional swordsmen who hire themselves out to guard things, as opposed to untrained thugs or hired muscle.

[Noisycricket]

Oh, I assumed they were in T1 or 2, but i don't remember reference to them. I just remember the Citywatch, Hammerites and the Pagans.

[Springheel]

Hi guys. Sorry to be a pain about this, but I'm switching the citywatch over the new skeleton, and again I'm noticing some clipping of the right hand during the idle animation. I know the longer we leave this the more of a hassle it is to adjust it.

 

The top image below is the right hand clipping into the tunic with the current idle animation. It's not terrible on the citywatch, but it's worse on the new thug, and I imagine will be even worse on the builder guard, with his flaring armour.

 

 

Compare that to the bottom image, which is the idle for the old skeleton. The arms are much further away from the torso, which may not be strictly realistic, but I thought it looked great, and it allowed for a lot more of a safety margin for characters of different proportions. Any chance we could adjust the idle to something more like that?

[Noisycricket]

I thought we were doing separate animations?

[Springheel]

The plan is for all the characters to share animations, except for the really fat ones.

[SneaksieDave]

Discrimination!

[greebo]

I'll try to look into that over the weekend, but I need to figure out how to apply poses to various anims by following squill's instructions. This might take a bit.

[greebo]

@Springheel: I uploaded an experimental idle.md5anim for the proguard, wit the arms more to the side. It looks indeed a bit funny as the hips are so small, but would this be enough for the citywatch?

 

Is it an option to make the proguard wider around the hips?

[Springheel]

@Springheel: I uploaded an experimental idle.md5anim for the proguard, wit the arms more to the side. It looks indeed a bit funny as the hips are so small, but would this be enough for the citywatch?

 

Thanks greebo, I'll try it tonight. Did you replace the previous idle or is it a new animation name?

 

 

Is it an option to make the proguard wider around the hips?

 

Yes, modifying the proguard mesh is going to be necessary anyway...there is a big gap in the neck area for some reason. I also think Noisy-cricket's earlier observation about the belt being too round is accurate.

I'm hesitant to modify the mesh myself, however, since I don't know whether anything would be lost during the export/import/export process from Lightwave to Maya.

[greebo]

Thanks greebo, I'll try it tonight. Did you replace the previous idle or is it a new animation name?

I replaced the current idle animation. If this one doesn't fit our needs, I'll revert to the previous version as of yesterday.

[Noisycricket]

Did you change the idle pose as well, or just the animation?

[greebo]

I just uploaded a new idle.md5anim, a rather rough one, for testing. I wanted to get some feedback whether the arms fit the citywatch better. If this is the case, we can move on and improve these idle arm positions, and then create a new idle pose.

[squill]

Compare that to the bottom image, which is the idle for the old skeleton. The arms are much further away from the torso, which may not be strictly realistic, but I thought it looked great, and it allowed for a lot more of a safety margin for characters of different proportions. Any chance we could adjust the idle to something more like that?

 

i could turn the arms and especially the hands for that pose more to the outside, just like greebo already proposed but it would be nice to have some reference so we can see it ingame. When are you going to put the new citywatch/thug ingame?

[Springheel]

I uploaded the thug last week: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showtopic=9272

 

I'll upload the citywatch tonight.

[squill]

i just checked the thug model:

 

 

if the thug model is the one with the widest hips we should be save on the citywatch.

 

edit: oops the missing textures on the arms make it a bit hard to see but there should be enough space. Also reminds me to update the hands on the proguard.

[Springheel]

I added a thug to the idle_animations map for easier testing. The new arm position definitely gives enough clearance.

 

Not sure why there are missing textures though. I'll have to double check that I uploaded everything.

 

edit: Ah, I think I forgot to update a file. Should be fixed now.

[squill]

i can add a similar idle pose to our current animations, hopefully it's the last change we need to add, although it's a small change to do and it will save some time from creating multiple animations for different sized characters.

 

[Springheel]

I think that should probably do it, thanks Squill.

[Noisycricket]

i can add a similar idle pose to our current animations...

 

Does that mean your going to change the idle animations too?

[squill]

Does that mean your going to change the idle animations too?

 

just the arms in the idle pose. In your animations this means only the starting and end pose need to be updated.

 

i've updated the idle animation(not yet exported) and the idle_pose in the proguard's clips folder.

[Noisycricket]

I will get mine changed and updated.