Future Rigging Issues

[Springheel]

Ascottk has been doing an awesome job working with the AI, and the rigging gets better every week, it seems.

 

I wanted to make a thread where I could include observations of things that could still use a bit of tweaking, since I've been taking a lot of screenshots and PMs aren't as convenient for that.

 

Builder Guard:

 

First, not really a rigging issue per se, but the hammer currently doesn't move with the torso, so when the builder looks behind him or turns side to side, the hammer handle often clips right through his shoulders into his chest. I know if it does move it could easily clip into his butt, so this might a case of the lesser of two evils.

 

 

The right hand seems slightly detached from the arm:

 

 

The following are fairly minor issues:

 

From most angles, the right thumb seems to be missing a joint, though it appears from other angles.

 

The left pauldron has a bit of metal protruding out while the right one doesn't.

 

 

And you know about the bit of butt showing through--also fairly minor.

 

And a note to me: the belt desperately needs a new texture.

[Springheel]

The Thief:

 

I notice that the thief has the same strange twist in his right foot as the citywatch had.

 

 

Also, from the side, he seems to be leaning backwards almost to the point of falling over, or is that a trick of perspective? I couldn't tell.

 

 

Also, don't we have the thief's sword model somewhere? It might be the longsword that is making him look off-balance.

 

note to me: The thief texture needs some definite work. It looks very low-res and boring at the moment.

[ascottk]

Thanks for this, Spring

The Thief:

 

note to me: The thief texture needs some definite work. It looks very low-res and boring at the moment.

The thief doesn't seem to have his own leg texture as well. Either I didn't find one or one didn't exist. So I borrowed the elite citywatch texture.

 

I added this to my AI thread with some possible ideas to fix them:

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?s=&am...ost&p=88342

[Springheel]

Elite City Watch:

 

(will look at these guys in detail later, but this one has bugged me for a while)

 

The pauldrons on the elite guard stick out like wings, to the point where they clip into things because they are outside the bounding box. They were intially intended to sit on the arms more (as were the builder guard's, but he can get away with it). I think that needs to be addressed.

 

 

They should sit more like this image:

[ascottk]

Are you sure you have the correct model for the elite? The pauldrons look fine to me.

model tdm_ai_citywatch_elite {
mesh					   models/md5/chars/guards/elite_citywatch/tdm_ai_citywatch_elite.md5mesh

 

EDIT: I should look at the leftpad/rightpad joint angles for the animations. It looks like from your screen that one of the animations has a weird angle on the pads.

[Springheel]

Come to think of it, when I look at my own screenshots from the guard in idle pose, it looks fine as well. But when they are walking around, the pauldrons stick out like above, regardless of whether they are turning or not. Is it possible the walking animation has them in a different position than the idle animation?

 

You can load up warehouse.map to see them patrolling around.

[ascottk]

Come to think of it, when I look at my own screenshots from the guard in idle pose, it looks fine as well. But when they are walking around, the pauldrons stick out like above, regardless of whether they are turning or not. Is it possible the walking animation has them in a different position than the idle animation?

 

You can load up warehouse.map to see them patrolling around.

It's possible because I'm using the proguard's walking animation because the other walking animations tend to make the AI spin around.

[Springheel]

(btw, I see the thief is looking much better!)

[Springheel]

City Watch:

 

These guys are looking pretty good. Just a couple of things.

 

The left foot is crooked like the thief.

 

 

The sword currently doesn't go through the frog...not really a rigging issue, but I wonder if we can modify the origin so it does? Would that mess up the draw/sheath animation?

 

Also, there seems to be some missing texture at the top of the leg on both sides.

 

A very minor bit of clipping at the top of the arm --I wouldn't even have bothered mentioning it if it weren't visible in this shot already.

 

 

Some noticeable clipping through the right pauldron from behind.

 

 

Also, noticed a weird ragdoll position in one shot--

 

[Domarius]

I think the Hammer guard should have the hammer attatched to the torso bone, not his waist, that should avoid major clipping problems I think. After all, that's where it's supposed to be strapped to.

[ascottk]

I think the Hammer guard should have the hammer attatched to the torso bone, not his waist, that should avoid major clipping problems I think. After all, that's where it's supposed to be strapped to.

It's not on his waist btw. It's on Spine2 where the upper body armor is rigged to.

[Domarius]

Maybe if it was directly in the center of the back it might avoid most clipping?

[ascottk]

Maybe if it was directly in the center of the back it might avoid most clipping?

I added a request for joint constraints in the programming forum. When the look code gets going them any joints referred to in the def file will do the looking animations. The problem with that is a non-related joint that should go along with a looking joint doesn't move thus the clipping.

[ascottk]

I fixed some issues but I'm committing a whole bunch of changes. I forget the extent of the changes but here's a few:

• Citywatch Elite's idle animation has the left foot distortion fixed somewhat.
  
• Citywatch Elite's pauldrons "wing effect" is fixed in the run & walk anims. Might have some clippage.
  
• Builder Guard's rigging issues mostly fixed (there was leg mesh sticking out of the cloth) now we don't see his butt as often. That bit of metal near the left shoulder is fixed.
  

Back to the thief.

[Springheel]

Did you upload these? I just did a full checkout and I couldn't see any difference.

[ascottk]

Did you upload these? I just did a full checkout and I couldn't see any difference.

They should've been up. Deja Vu, didn't we have this conversation before?

[Springheel]

Usually I just get errors because CVS messes with the code. No errors this time, but everything looks exactly the same to me. I'll see if I can figure out what's up.

 

edit: hmm, don't know what happened, but I did another checkout and now things look fine. The builder does indeed look nearly perfect now. The elite's pauldrons also no longer look ridiculous. Good work!

[ascottk]

Okay, the citywatch & thief are being uploaded to cvs. Hopefully the weird left foot is fixed, the thief has the meshes that were missing, both have touched up rigging, and some animations were fixed.

 

Well, I'm totally burnt out with the rigging stuff so that's it for a while. I may fix other major problems but not the rigging I think these'll hold up for now. I'll upload the maya binaries to ftp eventually.

 

So I might pick up where I left off with the gen_texture project or work on new sound effects.

[Springheel]

*sigh* I seem to have no end of problems getting your updates.

 

I've checked for messed up merges and can't find anything, but the thief's tunic is currently showing black for me. Any chance that's not a CVS muck-up on my end?

[ascottk]

*sigh* I seem to have no end of problems getting your updates.

 

I've checked for messed up merges and can't find anything, but the thief's tunic is currently showing black for me. Any chance that's not a CVS muck-up on my end?

Just the thief? I'm recommitting him just in case so he should be up soon.

[Springheel]

I just finished updating. I can now see the extra bits of the thief, which is good, but there looks like some wonky rigging issues....

 

Is this just me not having any luck with your files again?

[ascottk]

I just finished updating. I can now see the extra bits of the thief, which is good, but there looks like some wonky rigging issues....

 

Is this just me not having any luck with your files again?

I don't think it's the rig & you have the right files because I'm getting the same thing after adding this model to the player. I may have to make a separate model just for the player because I think the sdk code for the player animations are causing some strange side effects.

 

The walking/running/crouching animations have the knees bend backwards too.

[Springheel]

Weird...

[ascottk]

I don't think it's the rig & you have the right files because I'm getting the same thing after adding this model to the player. I may have to make a separate model just for the player because I think the sdk code for the player animations are causing some strange side effects.

 

The walking/running/crouching animations have the knees bend backwards too.

I just had a thought, once I referenced the tdm_ai_thief model for use as the player model, maybe the sdk code uses all instances of tdm_ai_thief.md5mesh regardless of the entityDef. Not only is the code taking over the animations in the player model, but the AI model as well.

 

If anyone has the time before I get home, copy the tdm_ai_thief.md5mesh then rename the copy to tdm_ player_thief.md5mesh (no spaces since I had problems putting tdm_ thief as one word). Then in tdm_ player_thief.def change the model to the player and see if the AI thief is still distorted.

[Springheel]

Tried it, but no change.