Doug's Thread

[Springheel]

Hey Doug, have you made it in here yet? I was wondering if I could assign you the following animations:

 

 

Panic, standing (for AIs who are cornered and panicked)

The AI is cowering in a corner, possibly wounded, afraid for their life but too tired or cornered to run any further. Arms up to protect themself from the attack they fear is coming.

 

Panic, crouching (please don't kill me!)

Same thing, but crouching, hiding their face

[Doug]

Hey Doug, have you made it in here yet? I was wondering if I could assign you the following animations:

Panic, standing (for AIs who are cornered and panicked)

The AI is cowering in a corner, possibly wounded, afraid for their life but too tired or cornered to run any further. Arms up to protect themself from the attack they fear is coming.

 

Panic, crouching (please don't kill me!)

Same thing, but crouching, hiding their face

 

I asked this in another thread, but I'm gonna delete it after this post.

 

Is crouching the same as huddling over? Or is crouching defined as moving the hips lower than normal standing height? Just want to make sure

[Springheel]

Yes, crouching would be actually crouched down, as if trying to hide.

 

Something like this, except panicked, not sad:

 

[ascottk]

The cough is much better

[sparhawk]

Is there somewhere a sample video to see it?

[Springheel]

The cough is an example of an animation that we DO want to control the head channel. What do we have to do to make sure that happens, so the AI isn't holding their hand up to their ear?

[Doug]

The cough is an example of an animation that we DO want to control the head channel. What do we have to do to make sure that happens, so the AI isn't holding their hand up to their ear?

 

 

Crap, did I do something wrong? I'll let you know what joints I keyed after I get home. I don't have access to these files at work.

[Springheel]

No, no, that wasn't directed at you specifically, Doug. We just finished having a big discussion about how animations don't seem to override the head channel by default, which is normally good. But the cough is an example of an animation that we DO want to control the head channel, otherwise the AI could choose to look behind it just as it plays the cough on the torso channel.

[Domarius]

Cowering I think is the best word to describe it. Shaking in fear, arms up to protect your head.

 

And cowering can be done standing or crouching. They did it standing in TDS and I think for very good reasons. Crouching is a more complex action and could entail problems with legs clipping through clothing on on robed/gowned characters, clipping through the wall from taking up more horizontal space, etc.

 

There could be other issues; the principal is that the upright position is what they are in 99.9% of the game (running, walking, searching, standing, fighting, etc) so it's pretty safe from a technical point of view, and still gets the point across aesthetically.

[Doug]

Sorry I haven't been active the last week. I just started my new job at Paradigm Entertainment. I'm still going to work on the animations but probably only once a week (1 cycle a week). Unfortunately that's all the time I'll have.

 

I'll see if I can get the panic up this evening. Are you going to need transitions in and out of the pose?

[Springheel]

Yes, a transition would be needed too, thanks. Don't worry about timing...slow and steady is much better anyway.

[Springheel]

Domarius raises a good point about the crouching version. Maybe we should just stick with the standing version for now.

[Doug]

I think I may have asked this before, but is there documentation on naming conventions for these animations?

[Doug]

I've run into some problem with the rig.

 

The rig keeps deforming the skeleton (pulling in the wrong way) when I undo or scrub through the timeline.

[Springheel]

I think Ascottk was working on a naming convention but I don't know.

[Doug]

I am going to have to re-rig this character in order to animate it. The controls and effectors are buggy all to hell.

 

Scott,

there's nothing wrong with the curves, the joints/controls are just sticking. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the FBX imported skeleton from motion builder. I'll strip it down tomorrow and re-rig it

 

If anyone else is a Maya animator and wants to use the rig once I'm done, ill upload the file.

[Springheel]

Which character are you talking about?

[Doug]

The guard character is the one I am currently animating.

 

Do they not all use the same rig?

[Springheel]

Well, that's why I was asking...if you change the rig, doesn't that mean all the existing animations have to be redone?

[squill]

The guard character is the one I am currently animating.

 

Do they not all use the same rig?

 

well that's the thing with full body IK in Maya. I think your just like me not used to working with fbik. I use both Maya and MotionBuilder to animate. But these rigs are easier to animate in Motion Builder because it handles fbik much better.

[Doug]

No, the only thing the doom engine cares about is the joint rotations/translations

 

the rig data isnt actually used in game.

[Domarius]

Huh? Squill didn't mention the game. He was talking about it being easier to animate in Motion Builder, and that the rig works in Motion Builder.

[squill]

Huh? Squill didn't mention the game. He was talking about it being easier to animate in Motion Builder, and that the rig works in Motion Builder.

 

I think Doug was referring to Springheel's question about re-doing existing animations. But i guess when you change the rig the bone count, scale and names have to be the same.