Sitting Animations

[Springheel]

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.

 

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?

[Springheel]

I don't think there is a consistent height for tables/desks, etc, so we'd have to do a best guess. Sort of like the 'open doors' animation, which basically reaches in the right general direction but doesn't worry about actually being 100% accurate.

[Noisycricket]

Looks like a programmer worked some of his/her evil magic and added animations to the sitting posture. All i can say is: CHEATERS!!!!

 

No no, they look great in the sitting position. One thing though, at least on the training map, the hip joint (I think) angle during the animations is jumps back about 20-30 degrees to perform the animations, then jumps forward again.

[Springheel]

Looks like a programmer worked some of his/her evil magic and added animations to the sitting posture.

 

Those aren't new animations, they're just the regular idle animations being played on the torso channel.

[Noisycricket]

Those aren't new animations, they're just the regular idle animations being played on the torso channel.

 

Thats what i meant.

[Domarius]

I don't think there is a consistent height for tables/desks, etc, so we'd have to do a best guess. Sort of like the 'open doors' animation, which basically reaches in the right general direction but doesn't worry about actually being 100% accurate.

There will have to be at some point. I guess it will be chosen by the animator who makes these animations.

[squill]

i found most of the tables using a similar height, some of the larger dining tables are higher.

 

but i asked myself how we would make a guard read eat or drink on the table going from standing to sitting. Once a guard walks towards a chair and sits down the chair has to have some distance from the table to have the guard take a seat otherwise he would clip thru the table. Then if you would like the guard to read, eat or drink on the table the chair has to be closer to the table for him to do such things.

 

So either 1) the mapper has to place the guard and chair in the right position (which will cause him to clip once he stands up) 2) make him lean much more foward which looks odd or 3) the guard simply has to to these things on his lap? Another thing could be to animate the guard going to sit down sideways so that the chair can be closer to the table.

[Noisycricket]

I noticed while playing Builder's Influence that the idle animation for sitting is causing the back of the guards to clip out of the chair.

 

btw, is there a test map that the animators could use to quickly test sitting animations in the game? If not, animators could quicksave near an A.I. in the training map or Builder's Influence, etc.

[Springheel]

but i asked myself how we would make a guard read eat or drink on the table going from standing to sitting. Once a guard walks towards a chair and sits down the chair has to have some distance from the table to have the guard take a seat otherwise he would clip thru the table.

 

Our AI now spin to sit down/stand up, so they can be much closer to tables/desks. Have you seen the guard in the training map? He's quite close to the desk.

 

These animations could also have the character lean forward a bit--they won't be idle animations, so they don't need to blend quite as well as the other ones.

[Fidcal]

I noticed while playing Builder's Influence that the idle animation for sitting is causing the back of the guards to clip out of the chair.

There was the same in 'Storm' but by carefully moving the AI forward I found a reasonable compromise that looked OK but only clipped slightly into the front of the back. But might be an idea to remove the back stretch one where the AI looks up and stretches back.

 

btw, is there a test map that the animators could use to quickly test sitting animations in the game? If not, animators could quicksave near an A.I. in the training map or Builder's Influence, etc.

try test/sit.map and test/sitting.map. I've not looked at them so if not suitable post again and I'll make a test map.

[Noisycricket]

There was the same in 'Storm' but by carefully moving the AI forward I found a reasonable compromise that looked OK but only clipped slightly into the front of the back. But might be an idea to remove the back stretch one where the AI looks up and stretches back.

 

It should be pretty easy for us animators to create an idle animation where the backs of the A.I. do not move back and forth. Or even easier, simply delete the movement from the current idling anim. Is that a Doom idling animation thats being used?

 

Can anyone think of any good adjectives to describe the idling animation and another for supplemental idle animations like idle_cough?

[Domarius]

but i asked myself how we would make a guard read eat or drink on the table going from standing to sitting. Once a guard walks towards a chair and sits down the chair has to have some distance from the table to have the guard take a seat otherwise he would clip thru the table. Then if you would like the guard to read, eat or drink on the table the chair has to be closer to the table for him to do such things.

Like this The clips I got of Oblivion doing just that.

 

 

In this video they never actually reach for the table, but as you can see they are quite close enough to do anything, like turn pages, eat, etc. In Oblivion no one uses cutlery, so that saves a lot of animation trouble, not to mention washing up

[squill]

yeah good reference although i didn't know the foot floated(0:15) in oblivion

 

It looks like they eat from their hand. Anyway i'll think of some variations.

[Springheel]

Isn't it possible to def_attach objects to an AI on a particular frame of an animation? I was imagining something like the AI who was sitting starting to play an eat animation, at which point a food model (like an apple) would "teleport" into his hand. We could then make the model vanish at another frame of the animation (where he puts it in his mouth).

 

Not 100% sure that's possible, but I know that's how weapon use is handled.

 

Imagine an AI writing at a desk, who actually has a quill in his hand as he writes?

[Domarius]

It would be a future feature thing. One way to do it would be for the "action node" (eg. reading, writing, eating) to be a complete package, that includes the object to be used ready and waiting.

[Springheel]

Well, that's much more complicated than what I was suggesting, but I suppose anything is possible.

[Domarius]

Yes well - what you were suggesting is simple - but what's needed for it, is more complicated, and doesn't exist. When the game creates a guard, it creates a weapon to go with it. But nothing exists that allows animations to request objects (quills and apples) to be created and destroyed during the game.

 

I was suggesting a system that, rather than have things magically appear in their hands - you put an actual thing in the level where that animation is to be played, and they basically walk up to it and use it. Is simple and makes real-world sense I think.

[Springheel]

You were talking about a quill object - this has to exist beforehand.

 

No it doesn't. I was talking about spawning an object on a particular frame of the animation, the same way a bottle is spawned when they play their throw animation. Having them actually pick up and use an existing object would certainly be more realistic, but significantly more complicated to do.

[Noisycricket]

Side question, could we spawn zombies with an invisible sword and get them to work or would that also require a bunch of code development?

[greebo]

Side question, could we spawn zombies with an invisible sword and get them to work or would that also require a bunch of code development?

That will probably do the trick, but I'm afraid our zombies in general will need more attention than just getting their combat working.