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Zombies, Ghouls and Revenants


Noisycricket

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http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Undead

 

Just wondering when the animations for these were going to be worked on. Dom, Squill, up for some of these?

 

I guess we need some basic questions answered:

 

1. Are we using the proguard rig for the animations?

 

2. What animations are needed or desired?

 

3. Are all 3 of these going to be using the same animation?

 

4. Revenant first? Since it can use existing combat animations and code, i assuming?

 

5. Are the rigs for the zombies ready now? Are the models ready for joints? Will they need a ton of special combat code?

 

6. Anything else?

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The zombies already use existing D3 animations. I'm not a big fan of the current walk cycle, but other than that I think the only thing they might benefit from is a search animation.

 

With the revenant, we have some options. I can rig it to the proguard skeleton, but it would look silly to have it use the same animations, so a new set would need to be made. Or, I could rig it to an existing D3 character and use those animations. But the downside is we'd be limited to characters of the same size as the revenant (animations determine size) and we would need to create any missing animations (no suitable characters have 'attack with weapon' animations, frex).

 

My daughter is talking in my ear at the moment, but give me a bit and I'll come up with a list of 'next steps' for animations.

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Ok, now with some time to think about it, I think the priorities go like this:

 

 

1. Minor: Re-export existing animations so that they use the pauldron joints. Currently there are still several animations that clip the pauldrons on the citywatch. I meant to make a list but haven't gotten to it yet.

 

2. Some "sitting" animations. Currently, AI can sit, and look great doing it, but they don't actually look like they're *doing* anything while sitting. Animations that simulate the character doing something a sitting person might do, like "eat", "drink", "write in a book" or "turn page" would be useful.

 

3. Female animations. Right now, we cannot have any female characters in a mission because we are lacking animations for them. I'm not sure whether female characters will need a new skeleton or whether they could make do with the same skeleton but just different animations. However, I think female characters takes precedence over rare monsters like revenants.

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I completely forgot about D3 zombies...thats great, so we "just" need a textured model?

 

Thinking out loud about the size change

I think the only hurtle for changing size is re-exporting animations, but that would mean *I think* that they would have to have their own set? Would it be easier to batch-load the existing animations to a new folder and edit the top line via scripting or .dll during start-up? I know with the xyzprecision option, it doesn't seem to change the file at all, I wonder if its the same thing for the size value? I have no idea.

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I completely forgot about D3 zombies...thats great, so we "just" need a textured model?

 

:huh: We already have two textured models, with different skins. Zombies are already in game and fully working. The only reason they're not in release 1.0 is that there is currently a combat code bug that affects all AI with unarmed attacks.

 

http://www.mindplaces.com/save/zombies1.jpg

 

About the size issue,keep in mind that we don't have the original maya files for the D3 animations, just the md5anim files, so it's not so simple as re-exporting them.

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Ok, now with some time to think about it, I think the priorities go like this:

 

 

1. Minor: Re-export existing animations so that they use the pauldron joints. Currently there are still several animations that clip the pauldrons on the citywatch. I meant to make a list but haven't gotten to it yet.

 

2. Some "sitting" animations. Currently, AI can sit, and look great doing it, but they don't actually look like they're *doing* anything while sitting. Animations that simulate the character doing something a sitting person might do, like "eat", "drink", "write in a book" or "turn page" would be useful.

 

3. Female animations. Right now, we cannot have any female characters in a mission because we are lacking animations for them. I'm not sure whether female characters will need a new skeleton or whether they could make do with the same skeleton but just different animations. However, I think female characters takes precedence over rare monsters like revenants.

Dom Squill, have any free time at the moment? :)

 

I'm guesstimating that i'll be done with the drunk_idle in a couple weeks. If neither Dom or Squill have time, do you want the sitting anims or the re-exportations done before the drunk_idle? Im back working again, so my time is limited to evenings and weekends.

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About the size issue,keep in mind that we don't have the original maya files for the D3 animations, just the md5anim files, so it's not so simple as re-exporting them.

 

Ah right, but we do have the utility that imports skeletal animatons from md5anim files to Maya, then we can re-export?

 

 

Edit: Do we have information or a thread somewhere detailing the desired sitting animations? If not could you start one when you have a chance to outline what is needed and how to deal with desk heights and positions, etc?

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or the re-exportations done before the drunk_idle?

 

Yeah, re-exporting the existing idle animations is more important (and probably easiest). That has an impact on the release. Everything else is post 1.0.

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Checking on and fixing the pauldrons seem to be the priority for the release. I might find some spare time to animate some sitting idles.

 

I'm not sure whether female characters will need a new skeleton or whether they could make do with the same skeleton but just different animations. However, I think female characters takes precedence over rare monsters like revenants.

 

they will use the same skeleton but that's for later.

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The zombies already use existing D3 animations. I'm not a big fan of the current walk cycle, but other than that I think the only thing they might benefit from is a search animation.

 

Which walk cycle are you using mine or Squills?

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I don't know if it's possible to import a mesh+joints from MD5MESH format to Maya. Maybe somebody already did that, or maybe it's possible via another application.

 

Blender can import md5mesh+md5anim and allows you to edit and export it right as it is, but Blender is not as powerful as Maya (I think there's no curve editor in Blender, afaik).

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The zombie walk cycle is from Doom 3, I think. It has never been altered by us as far as I'm aware.

 

Actually, the current walk was done by someone on the team...I think it was Solis. All the other animations are D3 ones. Solis had a lot of trouble animating...I think he had to animate using only the skeleton, without being able to see the mesh deformation. The result is ok, but not great. I think a walk that is just a slower version of the run (using the animation rate spawnarg) would probably look better.

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Is the zombie animation the one where the right arm is pulled up as he lurches forward (I don't have the more recent mod files so I can't view it myself)? If so then yes, that's the one I worked on way back. It's difficult to animate the stock Doom 3 models because we don't have an IK rig or mesh set up for the skeletons, so you have to animate them entirely with FK and you can only see the bones themselves (unless we have a more efficient way of animating them now). I still have the animation file for it, so new animations could be added to the zombies if we need it, but it takes a fair amount more work than the models based on the standard rig/IK that's used. That probably goes for any other models that would be animated using Doom 3 skeletons.

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I have a plugin installed which imports the md5mesh and anims into maya. But rigging a skeleton that way is not something i recommend, it would be better to start from the last skeleton. But i'll have to look at the D3 skeleton first before taking any assumption.

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It's also possible to rig the zombie to a new skeleton, isn't it? Springheel has done that before, am I right?

 

Yes, that's something I can do. I could take the current skeleton mesh and rig it to the proguard skeleton if we wanted, though that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. The current zombie animations cover pretty much everything we'd need. I've already rigged the current zombie mesh to the 'fat zombie' skeleton to create the "short zombie" varient, and had plans to do the same for one of the other zombies, once they become a priority.

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I have a plugin installed which imports the md5mesh and anims into maya. But rigging a skeleton that way is not something i recommend, it would be better to start from the last skeleton. But i'll have to look at the D3 skeleton first before taking any assumption.

It looks like just a standard bone setup. For basic walking changes, we can just rig up some ik to each leg (4 minutes?) can't we?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

There appears to be 4 different zombie walk animations. 2 slow and 2 fast. They look pretty good too. Here is a link to a Doom 3 save-game which shows on of the fast walks. Then, if you proceed in the game, you will shorty see the rest of them, in less than a few minutes time if im right.

 

http://www.mediafire...04e75f6e8ebb871

 

Download all of the fast walk files and put them into your doom 3\base\savegames\ folder

 

(btw: get your jump button ready to jump back up on the table for the next on-fire zombie)

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