Animations

[vedrit]

I think that would be done with the regular 2-handed firing motion from the hip, unless its HUGE, which would be unreasonable.
On the otherhand, that does make me think of using high-powered weapons, like a bazooka or high-powered shotgun, where the kick would be strong

[Hertzila]

Quick correction: Bazookas don't have any kick since the exhaust fumes leave the tube from the other end. If it had kick (the end was sealed), I'm pretty sure nobody could keep hold of it. Also if I understand correctly, the best way to "absord" the kick is to fire it from the shoulder with stock kept as firmly as possible at the shoulder.
The 2-handed hip position could knock you out of your feet with a strong recoil but on the other hand a recoil like that could possibly be dangerous if fired from shoulder.

[vedrit]

True, though you have to admit, it has more kick that an M-4 or other rifle, and would therefore need a special animation.

[flexo]

This is obviously ultimately actually a feature request, but I'd so love to strafe...

[vedrit]

True, that would more be in feature request, but it does have something to do with animations.
However, considering the game set up, I dont really see how much use strafing can be. Some would say that it saves TUs from having to turn and face different directions, but, another request, running is faster (Not implimented, and so is not on the list), so your really only losing TUs by strafing.

Though, having said that running isnt in the game, it might be a good replacement for walking, in a game where every last TU counts

[vedrit]

Beggining animations

List of completed animations

Walk (Re-worked it, and now it is much better. Smoother, and slower, though its still 2 steps/second. Frames 2-28. To frame 30 ends in standing.)
Crouch (This proved to be quite simple, actually. Works forwards and backwards (For crouching and standing). Frames 31-121)

[vedrit]

the crouching walk is proving to be very painful...it doesnt want to look right

[Destructavator]

the crouching walk is proving to be very painful...it doesnt want to look right

If you really have to, you're welcome to adjust/tweak the skeleton bones in edit mode, if that will help - But if you do so please email me the .blend file with the updated skeleton (or upload it somewhere where I can grab it), so I have the updated source file.  I would then also update the SVN file in the data source.

The same goes for changing the groups that verts are in (which bones they move with, weight, etc.) if this is necessary.

[vedrit]

its not the bones thats the issue. Its that as I work on the cycle, it just doesnt look right. Its all asthetics in animation; it doesnt have to be how it actually moves to look right.
If you want some practice on animating, you can do the crouch, lol. I have a set of frames sectioned off for it

[Destructavator]

Sure, I could certainly use experience animating, its something I've been itching to try.

Please send me what you have so far, I'd like to study the animations you've already completed to get an idea of how to best go about it.

(If the working file is too big too email or upload somewhere, you could send just the skeleton armature without all the other content and I could then import and re-attach it.)

I don't know if I've said this before, but once this model gets fully animated it shouldn't be too difficult to import the animated skeleton into future models with just a few tweaks and adjustments here and there, so I'm guessing the bulk of the animating work would really only need to be done once.

[vedrit]

Actually, thats exactly what Ive said, lol

http://www.filefront.com/14967317/Soldier_Armor_v6_31_Crouch_Anim.zip

[vedrit]

good thing I uploaded the animation file. Didnt even think of it when I was saving files from a clean OS installation

[Mattn]

how's the stuff coming along?

[Destructavator]

Ha!  I did it!  I touched up the crouch walk, exported the whole thing to MD2 and tested the stand, regular walk, and crouch walk in-game, and they look great!

@vedrit:  If it's OK, I'd like to try more animations, then perhaps later you could "proofread" them if I put up some video clips of the animations in action?  BTW, if you've got that PM I sent, I've updated and fixed the crouch walk since then.

[Mattn]

cool - great news - please also make sure to add some wiki article someday about exporting with blender (animations + tags and all the other stuff)