New Soldier model test pk3 / status of animation work

[Destructavator]

what exactly is missing until we can add this to trunk?

Well, if you really want the new models in for 2.3, here's what would really need to happen:

1)  The female versions need to be finished - I hope to have at least the un-armored version done sometime this weekend.

2)  I need to finish all the animations - Most are done but I didn't do the ones for throwing grenades yet, although that shouldn't take very long.

3)  Right now I just have "No Armor" and "Light Combat Armor" done, IIRC I believe there's one other armor type (needs to be researched in-game) that should be done to match, and the other types are listed as "postponed" in the wiki.

4)  If Winter wants anything fine-tuned, I would of course need his input.

Unless 2.3 is to be released in less than a couple weeks I'm pretty confident that I can get this all done for 2.3 and have it in that version, otherwise 2.3 would end up being delayed a week or two (at least) because of incomplete soldier models.

When 1 and 2 from that list get done, I'd say that it would then be time to put them in the main trunk.  I'm very close to that point.  Not quite there yet, but very close.

[Destructavator]

http://ufoai.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ufoai/ufoai/data_source/models/characters/destructavator/test_pk3/

New test PK3, including a female model!

Also, the soldiers now have gloves that are textured instead of "blocks."

[vedrit]

Dont forget, Destructavator, that there are other people that can do animations
Also, I dont know how you set things up, but once a skeleton has been animated, it can be applied to other models.

[Destructavator]

Dont forget, Destructavator, that there are other people that can do animations
Also, I dont know how you set things up, but once a skeleton has been animated, it can be applied to other models.

Good point - If you're willing to finish up the animations I didn't do, and make a few corrections here and there to the ones I've already done, I can upload the source Blender files shortly and hopefully by the end of this weekend we can have completed animations for the new models, and by then I'd also have the armored female soldier model done.

Then we can put all of it into the trunk, with Mattn's permission.

As for how it is set up, the animations are almost identical - All three completed models - male, male light armor, and female - have vertex groups with identical names and likewise with the bones.  I simply copied all the animation steps from the action editor and applied the whole thing to the copied skeleton of the other models, then made adjustments and tweaks.

So yes, if you finish up the animations for the first male model, it would be very easy to apply all of it to the others.

BTW, the female model is actually a modified version of the male one, it uses the same mapped texture files (one loaded for the male model can be loaded and painted on the female of the same armor type), but the verts are in different base locations.  It's a similar deal with the female skeleton, I didn't erase the copied animations from the male one, I just edited some bone lengths and positions to fit the female model.

This actually means the .anm files are also the same (right now), although they don't have to stay that way once everything is done.

[Destructavator]

Here, I've uploaded the latest, up-to-date source file, for Blender:

http://ufoai.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ufoai?view=rev&revision=29279

Also, the .anm file is attached.

[Destructavator]

Ack!  I found two holes in the models, all three, where the shoulders are!

I can't believe I missed them...  Well, they should be easy to fix.

@vedrit:  The minor fix needed for the soldiers' shoulders shouldn't affect the animations by much at all, if you started working on finishing up the animations go ahead and continue.  I'll just need to re-render all the textures after re-attaching a few verts.

[H-Hour]

Cool, I had a look over the new models this morning. Looking good! The crouching and crouch movement animations are a vast improvement over the existing models.

I did have a few comments that you can see in the attached image. The only thing that might involve a lot of work is the way the UV mapping is done. You've spliced the vertices up a lot, which can make it more difficult to create skins with an organic feel (ie - that hide the sharp lines of polys). Some of it is more natural and makes sense, like the boots and gloves, but even these aren't really necessary. And if you link them together in the UV mapping, a skin can do more work across the lines, like my belt pouch example shows. As it is now, it can be worked around alright. But it will involve more work if we want to make quite different skins in the future.

But anyway, nice work!

(ps - when I used both pk3 files (8 and 9) and loaded up in skirmish mode, some soldier models were definitely not right. I assume that's just models that aren't done yet or something?)

[Destructavator]

Thanks for the advice, I'll take it into account when fine-tuning things.

The UV mapping is going to likely be re-done anyways, after all the shoulders are fixed and other things are touched up.

As for the poses and animations, I'm hoping vedrit will have time to help out with that, he's got a lot more experience than I do with that.

(ps - when I used both pk3 files (8 and 9) and loaded up in skirmish mode, some soldier models were definitely not right. I assume that's just models that aren't done yet or something?)

Can you please clarify/elaborate?

[vedrit]

H-Hour: I'll definatly look into things. My internet was PMS'ing this morning, so I couldnt update my files or download the models themselves. Still waiting for my files to update (Got home from work about 10 mins ago)

[Destructavator]

Alright, I totally re-built the texture skin, it now works and looks much better, but I didn't just stop there - I realized that many people would like to easily create their own camo colors but don't have the expertise to re-plaster everything in Blender (the technique I used in the source file *is* compound and a bit complicated) and wouldn't want to study Blender for a year before learning how.

Therefore, I rendered the new skin in layers with alpha channel, and put all the layers into a GIMP file.  Now all one has to do is open the GIMP .xcf (or the individual PNG files of the layers), click on one of the camo pattern layers, and select "colorize" from the menu.  Adjustments to contrast and brightness before and after can also fine-tune the colors.  Once doing this for all three layers of the camo pattern, presto! - A new soldier texture is born, with custom camo colors.  There is of course also another layer for all the other parts of the skin (gloves, belt equipment holders, etc.), as well as a top layer that blends with the camo pattern layers to make cloth-like wrinkles and folds.

I'm really proud of this - now anyone can easily customize the model skin, without having to know a complex program like Blender.

Here's shots of the original (uncolored) GIMP xcf, and one example of a woodland texture.

Edit: BTW, these new skins are UV mapped very differently, they won't work with the current models in the SVN PK3 files (because they were re-done to fix and improve things).  I will later update the SVN files, and this issue shouldn't interfere with any of the animations, so there should be no problems.

[Mattn]

nice - the easier the better

[H-Hour]

Nice one Dave! Thanks for attaching the vest area pieces. I'll get a screenshot for you soon of the red/invisible soldier models I saw when using the pk3s.

[H-Hour]

Here's a screenshot of the oddities I'm getting on some soldiers. This appears when I have 9models8.pk3 and 9models9.pk3 in my /base/ folder. Have I installed them wrong?

[Destructavator]

Here's a screenshot of the oddities I'm getting on some soldiers. This appears when I have 9models8.pk3 and 9models9.pk3 in my /base/ folder. Have I installed them wrong?

No, its not your fault - From looking at the issue in the screenshot, something I've seen before, it appears your copy of the game can't find the textures.  I thought I fixed the path before building the PK3s, but it since then I've found reports of bugs in the utility I use to add the additional skins to the model.  I'll be looking around for a different utility to add the multiple skins for next time.

Edit:  The texture path part of the exporters for Blender are all really horrible, I've always had to use another 3rd party utility for adding the other skins.  It would really be nice if the game - in the .ufo script files - had a way to specify exact paths for textures/skins for models.  Most graphic engines have such a feature in the code to specify a file for a texture, instead of trying to rely on the MD2 header that Blender mangles, especially since most regular MD2 files only support one skin in the MD2 standard.

[Mattn]

is there an error message on the game console or in ufoconsole.log?