Wiki animations review. What is available?

[Fidcal]

I have a neutral hooded figure for atmosphere in the lockpicking section of the trainer. It occurred to me he might look better with his hands held in prayer or similar. I look on the wiki to see what is available and there is a huge number of articles on animations and it is not clear which one the mapper should use. I try several and eventually find a mention that animations are listed in the def for the AI. I look in the def and there are none that I can see. But we know all AI can sit and walk and lean forward to open a door, etc.

 

I think we need a master wiki article for mappers with links with an overview of ways of setting up motions: path_anim, conversations, etc and including a master list of all animations even if it says 'might not work with all AI'. That should probably be the main article on the index, titled say 'Animations: main article' or something and have links to all the other articles.

 

I can do this but where do I get a master list of motions? Searching further I see animations_reference.def. Am I right in thinking that as human AI will use a common skeleton then all human motions will work? Does the word 'anim' define the animation name in that def? and also 'anim' is the spawnarg in the path_anim?

 

Like everything else, we need to make this info easily available and understandable to the mapper or it will not be used very much.

[greebo]

Does the word 'anim' define the animation name in that def?

The anims for a specific AI model are listed in its modelDef, see tdm_ai_guard_proguard.def:

 

model tdm_ai_proguard {

mesh			models/md5/chars/guards/proguard/tdm_ai_proguard.md5mesh
...

anim walk					models/md5/chars/guards/proguard/walk.md5anim
{
	frame 1	 footstep
	frame 19	footstep
}

....

Each "anim" refers to an md5anim file which contains the motion info for the skeleton. Easy to see, there's the "walk" animation, which is played by the code when the AI is supposed to move.

 

and also 'anim' is the spawnarg in the path_anim?

Yes, iirc.

 

A prayer pose animation sounds useful - I think I can do something like that very easily. It will look a bit off on the proguard, but other characters will be using the same skeleton, so that's not a problem.

[Fidcal]

Thanks greebo. But the one I'm using is atdm:ai_townsfolk_commoner and there are no anim lines in there at all. It inherits from atdm:ai_humanoid so looking for that I see a single anim - idle. So from that I can deduce that the only anim available for the commoner is idle? I find that hard to believe. It seems to me that the anim spawnarg merely states what anims have been assigned to this AI, not what can be assigned to it.

[Fidcal]

On the current idea for a prayer anim, are 'poses' treated differently from motions? There is a sitting pose and a stand to sit and a sit to stand motion. Can mappers control these? Would a pray anim involve a permanent pose like a guard holding a torch or would it be a periodic motion? What about running away or alert? Would that override a prayer pose?

[greebo]

Thanks greebo. But the one I'm using is atdm:ai_townsfolk_commoner and there are no anim lines in there at all. It inherits from atdm:ai_humanoid so looking for that I see a single anim - idle. So from that I can deduce that the only anim available for the commoner is idle? I find that hard to believe. It seems to me that the anim spawnarg merely states what anims have been assigned to this AI, not what can be assigned to it.

You have to search like this:

 

Go to the entityDef atdm:ai_townsfolk_commoner, which carries (or inherits) a "model" spawnarg, which points to tdm_ai_townsfolk_commoner. If you scroll down in the same file, you'll find the following model declaration:

 

model tdm_ai_townsfolk_commoner {
...

This is the modelDef for the commoner and it contains a bunch of anim declarations.

 

On the current idea for a prayer anim, are 'poses' treated differently from motions?

Living AI can only "play" animations, i.e. they play the whole animation once or repeatedly. There is no single "pose" played by AI, it's always a series of frames. Otherwise this would immediately look off for the observer, an AI which is absolutely still looks almost like a statue.

 

There is a sitting pose and a stand to sit and a sit to stand motion. Can mappers control these?

Theoretically, yes, but only by scripting, hence I'd say: no, not meant for the average mapper. The sitting and sleeping behaviour also has impact on general movement and pathfinding decisions in the AI C++ code, that's why this kind of stuff needs to be done by the AI coders (i.e. angua or me) to work in general.

 

Would a pray anim involve a permanent pose like a guard holding a torch or would it be a periodic motion?

It's always a motion. The torch-carrying guards are using the "idle_torch" anim as replacement for the "idle" anim, which is triggered automatically by the code. Same for walk => walk_torch, search => search_torch, etc.

 

What about running away or alert? Would that override a prayer pose?

Yes. AI can play animations on separate channels (TORSO, LEGS, HEAD and EYELIDS), but running and walking involves both TORSO and LEGS channels, otherwise it looks off.

[Fidcal]

So, is it true to say most of the human anims are on all the humans? I'd like to make one giant alphabetical list with comments on the wiki with a note that they might not work on all AI (plus new ones might not be documented.) The mapper doesn't want to be searching through files and newcomers won't even know (like me ) They need it to be in the first animation article they go to on the wiki index or by searching 'animation', 'pose', and indirectly, 'motion' because dromeders would likely use that term.

 

Any problems or objections to the above?

[greebo]

Well, the set of animations available is in flux as I speak, so I think it doesn't make too much sense to start such a list right now, unless you're willing to re-work it later on.

 

The proguard will be our base character from now on, and the citywatch and builder guard will be converted to use its skeleton and its animations. We haven't ported all of the citywatch anims over to the proguard yet, so the list of anims which will be available is rather small right now (about 50% of the ones available for the citywatch).

[Tels]

You have to search like this:

 

Go to the entityDef atdm:ai_townsfolk_commoner, which carries (or inherits) a "model" spawnarg, which points to tdm_ai_townsfolk_commoner. If you scroll down in the same file, you'll find the following model declaration:

 

model tdm_ai_townsfolk_commoner {
...

This is the modelDef for the commoner and it contains a bunch of anim declarations.

 

Ugh!

 

I can whip up a quick script that spews out all anim lines for a model, if that helps.

[Fidcal]

What would be very useful is a script that reads all AI files, gets all the models, retrieves all anims, creates a master list of every vaid anim. Divides it into human and the various creatures. Probably saves it in wiki bullet format.