UFO:Alien Invasion
Development => Artwork => Topic started by: vedrit on April 21, 2009, 10:59:35 pm
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With new character models on the way, and a new animator, me, here, a new list of animations for the characters needs to be made. Any good suggestion, maybe even some silly ones, will be reviewed and, if approved, put on the list.
ANIMATION LIST (Standard humanoid):
Standing walk
Crouched walk
Prone crawl
Shooting from the shoulder (Standing)(One-Handed)
Shooting from the waist(Standing)(One-Handed)
Shooting from the shoulder (Crouched)(One-Handed)
Shooting from the waist (Crouched)(One-Handed)
Shooting from the shoulder (Prone)(One-Handed)
Shooting from the shoulder (Standing)(Two-Handed)
Shooting from the waist(Standing)(Two-handed)
Shooting from the shoulder (Crouched)(Two-Handed)
Shooting from the waist (Crouched) (Two-handed)
Shooting from the shoulder (Prone)(Two-Handed)
Shooting from the shoulder (Standing)(Dual-Wield)
Shooting from the waist(Standing)(Dual-Wield)
Shooting from the shoulder (Crouched)(Dual-Wield)
Shooting from the waist (Crouched)(Dual-Wield)
Shooting from the shoulder (Prone)(Dual-Wield)
Crouching
Standing
Laying down
Climbing ladders
Climbing stairs
Melee combat (Standing)(One-handed)
Melee combat (Crouched)(One-handed)
Melee combat (Standing)(Two-handed)
Melee combat (Crouched)(Two-handed)
Melee combat (Standing)(Dual-Wield)
Melee combat (Crouched)(Dual-Wield)
Heal (Crouched)
Heal (Standing)
Throw object (Crouched)
Throw object (Standing)
Throw object (Prone)
Die 1 (Standing)**NEEDS ELABORATION
Die 2 (Standing)**NEEDS ELABORATION
Die 3 (Standing)**NEEDS ELABORATION
Die 1 (Crouched)**NEEDS ELABORATION
Die 2 (Crouched)**NEEDS ELABORATION
Die 3 (Crouched)**NEEDS ELABORATION
Die 1 (Prone)**NEEDS ELABORATION
Animation list(Bloodspider and similar characters, if any):
Animation list(Alien Hoverbot):
Animation list(Alien Heavy Weapon Platform):
Animation List(UGV):
Animation List(Jumpsuit):
Animation List(Alein Wormhole Device):
LATER ANIMATIONS
Specific angle firing (If it can be supported by the game) for all positions
Idle (Prone)
Idle (Standing)
Idle (Crouching)
Idle (For two-handed, one-handed, dual wield in positions standing, crouching, prone)
Reaction fire stance
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Some thoughts on the list of animations:
1. There is standing walk and crouched walk, but no prone walk. Soldiers in the battlefield will crawl to avoid fire while moving, so I think it should be added. From a game mechanics perspective, this motion should be very costly in TU.
2. Do the standing, crouching and lying down animations are what the characters looks while not moving in that stance, or how the character moves into that stance? If the former, then you are missing the animations to transition from one stance to another. If the later, I think the animations should be defined in terms of start stance and end stance, since the motion to stand up from crouch is not just the reverse of crouching from stand, etc.
3. Melee combat should depend not only on the stance of the atacker, but also on the stance and/or height of the victim. The motion to stab if you are standing is completely different if your victim is standing, crouched or prone in the ground. Heal is affected by pretty much the same thing.
4. Climbing ladders and stairs should also have different animations when climbing up and when climbing down.
Cheers!
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1: Completely forgot about movement animations. BUt there should be an animation for movement while in the prone position
2: I guess there should be an idle animation (The ones on the list are transitory), and depending on how I animate it, they could work quite well as the same animation, but in reverse.
3: Now sure how the game mechanics work, but I dont think I can get too specific on the animations unless we can specify certain animation frames for specific firing angles. If we can, then yeah, being specific will be a nice effect
4: Watch someone climb up and down a ladder, the movements really are very similar, and would work very well for the same animation, but in reverse. Stairs, however, will require animation for up and down
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There is currently no support at all for number 3. It sounds like something fairly simple to introduce, though... But I think it's not that important compared to other animations.
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Specific angle shooting and various idle animations have been added to the "later" list
Prone movement, climbing down stairs have been added to the main list
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Pasted from other thread:
As for non-standard animations, I can think of: the alien hoverbot, the Breeder, the Bloodspider (has animations, but maybe needs additional/redone ones?), the alien heavy weapons platform we want to add (no firm design there at all yet, though, just some raw ideas), the UGVs, the jumpsuit (flying animations that aren't needed for any other humanoid model) and possibly a death animation for the alien wormhole device.
Just to be clear, this is NOT stuff that should go on the list.
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The list looks fairly complete to me, without going overboard on animations for turning, being hit, etc.
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Alright. Well, without further ado, I shall begin animating, but I will still watch this thread and update the list (Even the list of later animations), and start a list for the other characters that cant use the current one.
For non-walking characters (hoverbot, jumpsuit, UGV), should I just do slanting motions of accelerating and stopping? Not really sure what the idea is for these. For the UGV and jumpsuit, Im thinking X-COM, but better animated, and as much compensation for lack of physics as possible.
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Sounds about right.
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Hmm, I don't think there should be the possibility of attacking in melee from a prone position. It doesn't really make sense under battlefield conditions and would complicate code unnecessarily.
Regards,
Winter
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Hmm, I don't think there should be the possibility of attacking in melee from a prone position. It doesn't really make sense under battlefield conditions and would complicate code unnecessarily.
Regards,
Winter
I've actually seen Akido and other martial arts instructors do it (amazing to watch), although, to be fair, those are specialized experts with many years of experience (beyond what a soldier has) who aren't wearing heavy combat armor and reeaaallllyy know what they are doing. From a practical and realistic standpoint though, Winter is right, it wouldn't fit into the game very well, I agree with him.
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I don't see how it would complicate the code. Attacking in melee is nothing more than attacking with a range of 1. I agree, though, that it wouldn't make much sense.
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* I remember someone on the forum talk about the "bad" sniper animation, the weapon should be on the head, or something like that.
* At the moment, idle animation with rocket launcher dont work very well (check 2.3 GUI). Maybe we should have a custom idle for this weapon.
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Yeah, I was having a hard time imagining attacking with melee in a prone position. It will be removed.
Bayo: As I recall, there havent been any changes to charactes firing from the shoulder, as the sniper would be. Im sure it will look much better once its been incorperated (The animation frames have been found, and appear to be at the same time for all humanoid character)
We could put idling for one- and two-handed weapons, aswell as dual-wielding, but I think those would kinda be on the back burner. I think, as it stands, most of the characters just stand, with no animation for idle. It could remain so until after the important stuff gets taken care of.
Any complaints? Sorry, but as BTAxis said in another thread, its not a good idea to get bogged down, trying to get animations that make the game look nice in before or while working on animations that are mainly needed.
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How about adding an animation for fireing a large two-handed weapon...from the hip.
Like a massive plasma cannon or a minigun. Might not be needed, but it will be useful for modders in the future.
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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
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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.
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True, though you have to admit, it has more kick that an M-4 or other rifle, and would therefore need a special animation.
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This is obviously ultimately actually a feature request, but I'd so love to strafe...
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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
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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)
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the crouching walk is proving to be very painful...it doesnt want to look right
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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.
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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
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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.
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Actually, thats exactly what Ive said, lol
http://www.filefront.com/14967317/Soldier_Armor_v6_31_Crouch_Anim.zip
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good thing I uploaded the animation file. Didnt even think of it when I was saving files from a clean OS installation
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how's the stuff coming along?
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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.
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cool - great news - please also make sure to add some wiki article someday about exporting with blender (animations + tags and all the other stuff)
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Here's a "ready" pose (standing but alert and prepared to shoot or move to go after an alien) with the assault rifle - did I get the scale of the weapon right? (I'm still adjusting the pose, but if the weapon scale needs to be changed I'll have to also change the pose).
...please also make sure to add some wiki article someday about exporting with blender (animations + tags and all the other stuff)
Yes, I didn't forget about that.
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OK, I've done idle/ready positions and movement (crouch-walking and normal walking) for empty hands and rifle movements.
This is fun - it also ate up a lot of my day without me noticing, but I got quite a bit done.
At this rate I should have all the standard animations about done in roughly a week, and then I'll hand it all to vedrit to criticize and tear apart...
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lol
You have done well, my young apprentice.
Yeah, hours can fly by when ya get in the zone.
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lol
You have done well, my young apprentice.
Yeah, hours can fly by when ya get in the zone.
Thanks!
I've committed the unfinished files to the data source, along with exported TAGs and the MD2 if you (or anyone) want to play with them.
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did the comit include the source animation files? (The skeleton without the model, key-frames included)
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did the comit include the source animation files? (The skeleton without the model, key-frames included)
Yes, there should be a .zip file in that folder as well with a .blend file inside with everything I've put together so far.
http://ufoai.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ufoai/ufoai/data_source/models/characters/destructavator/unfinished/
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Update: Found a few stupid mistakes in the animations after I uploaded that, I'll upload corrections later (tomorrow) after I fix the flickering in-game which I just figured out the cause of.
Sorry if that's unclear, its late for me, good night...
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Here's a "ready" pose (standing but alert and prepared to shoot or move to go after an alien) with the assault rifle - did I get the scale of the weapon right?
hm... i would hold the weapon a bit more to the ground like in the "low ready position".
http://www.everycitizenasoldier.org/id16.html
and if the soldier shoots an other position is needed.
anyway: great progress.
happy new year ^^.
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hm... i would hold the weapon a bit more to the ground like in the "low ready position".
http://www.everycitizenasoldier.org/id16.html
and if the soldier shoots an other position is needed.
anyway: great progress.
happy new year ^^.
I guess it depends on if the player's units are to operate more like soldier-style or law-enforcement/SWAT style. Law enforcement and SWAT that I've seen (and I have actually seen a real SWAT exercise first-hand before, from my old job) commonly have weapons up and ready to shoot right away while moving through halls, around corners and such. (And regarding corners, there is actually a method of moving around them safely without giving away one's presence by having their weapon visible first, actually several ways of doing it, one of the old-but-worthy methods called "slicing the pie" IIRC among other techniques.)
Soldiers, on the other hand, can't constantly be all tensed-up and ready to shoot at any second all the time I'm guessing because they deploy into areas where they may be in hostile territory for long periods of time, days, weeks, months, or longer, etc. By comparison SWAT units work in relatively short, quick operations and then it is over. I'm not going to claim to be a military expert as I've never been in the military, and I admit I know more about law enforcement by comparison, but given that the UFO: AI missions are supposed to be quick and short-term (Phalanx units don't hang around for months at a target site) I would imagine they would conduct the short missions at least a little bit more like SWAT would, moving carefully and ready for action at any second.
EDIT: ...And by the way, I've actually already fixed the "ready" pose and plan to tweak it a little more anyways, but I was really more concerned with the scale of the weapon model, if I got it right.
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with the swat positions u are right. hm... havent thought about that.
EDIT: ...And by the way, I've actually already fixed the "ready" pose and plan to tweak it a little more anyways, but I was really more concerned with the scale of the weapon model, if I got it right.
compared to this picture the weaponsize looks right:
http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/typo3temp/pics/48bd1f2869.jpg
still i dont know why i think its a bit too big. maybe because older weapons were smaller or more gracile.
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...compared to picutes the weaponsize looks right:
http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/typo3temp/pics/48bd1f2869.jpg
still i dont know why i think its a bit too big. maybe because older weapons were smaller or more gracile.
Actually, with the old models the in-game weapons are in some cases huge IMO. That and the old soldier models have funky proportions that are a bit off, and in a way look more "cartoon-like" in a way to me.
With these screenshots of the new soldier model, the rifle was imported without any scaling, just 1:1, and in the game the current scaling is 1.25 for the assault rifle.
I think that when the time comes to replace all the old soldier models, all the weapons and some items will certainly need to be re-scaled.
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still i dont know why i think its a bit too big. maybe because older weapons were smaller or more gracile.
hm.. sry. i mean "old" weapons like old in 25 years ago and not the old model. also on pictures above i thaught the weapons might be minimal too big. scale 0.97 possible?
but ure right with the huge guns in-game. atm they are also huge =).
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I agree on "huge guns" in game. Especially the heavy needler is HUGE, it looks more like an atomic battery. :)
I think the assault rifle in the pictures has the right scale.
Andy
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This is a general note: My college classes started (Actually started Monday), so what time I had is now whittled down even further. Destructavator has show he can do stuff, so Im not worried about the new models being put on hold.
Destructavator, when you want me to check the animations, I'll be sure to put some time aside, watch it, and tell ya what I think
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This is a general note: My college classes started (Actually started Monday), so what time I had is now whittled down even further. Destructavator has show he can do stuff, so Im not worried about the new models being put on hold.
Destructavator, when you want me to check the animations, I'll be sure to put some time aside, watch it, and tell ya what I think
OK, thanks.
I've been working on "fattening up" the model so it doesn't look so scrawny and other stuff, slow but sure.
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maybe you could have a look at this bugreport - the bloodspider model is in the svn (data_source) as blender model, too
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=1738989&group_id=157793&atid=805242
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maybe you could have a look at this bugreport - the bloodspider model is in the svn (data_source) as blender model, too
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=1738989&group_id=157793&atid=805242
Will do.
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that would be very nice thanks - quite an old bug but still alive in current trunk.
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http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2079024&group_id=157793&atid=805242
this is another animation bug - should be quite easy to fix for someone how knows a little bit about animation imo. would be nice if someone could have a look at this, too.
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http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2079024&group_id=157793&atid=805242
this is another animation bug - should be quite easy to fix for someone how knows a little bit about animation imo. would be nice if someone could have a look at this, too.
I glanced at the models the game uses - The trees are made up of multiple MD2 files, but there aren't any TAGs or anything to keep them together - Is this intended or should TAGs be implemented for the trees?
If the answer is the latter, I'd be happy to create TAG files for the tree models.
As for the bloodspider, it's turning out to be a tad messy and will need some serious work on my part to find out exactly what's wrong with it. I already tried just re-exporting it and that didn't work. I'll probably have to check all the verts on it or something - I just hope the model isn't bad.
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i will think about the tag files, this currently isn't supported for misc_models but it sounds like it's the correct idea to fix problems like these for multipart models.
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https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2079024&group_id=157793&atid=805242
tag support for misc_models in in our svn now - would be nice if you could take a look at the models and submit tag files for them.
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https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2079024&group_id=157793&atid=805242
tag support for misc_models in in our svn now - would be nice if you could take a look at the models and submit tag files for them.
Aside from the trees, do we have any other misc_models that could use tags?
I'm also working on trying to make screen capture videos for tutorials on the TAG files, still working out some bugs and making things readable and such, as the last time I searched the net for MD2 tags and Blender I found very little - I hope to have something together soon for this project and others, so anyone else who wants to work with such files doesn't have to learn the hard way like I did.
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[...]the last time I searched the net for MD2 tags and Blender I found very little[...]
maybe that because only ufo:ai supports tags for md2 models ;) tags are in general part of a md3 model.
i can't think of other models that could use trees - as trees are currently the only animated-multi-level-models - for static models tags are not that important.
a tutorial about tag files would be cool. thank you very much.
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any news for us? did you had some time to look into the animated palm issue?
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any news for us? did you had some time to look into the animated palm issue?
I've added a TAG file for the animated palm in the trunk, IIRC the tag name for the model of the base of the palm tree is "tag_top" - please let me know if it works or not (or if it should be named something else).
I'm partway through getting a tutorial together.
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please let me know if it works or not (or if it should be named something else).
Check with rev. 29019.
Unfortunately, they are somehow still out of sync.
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i still have to update the maps with to use those tags.
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Sorry ::)
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R_ModLoadTags: found 100 frames in models/objects/vegi/palm_a/palm1.tag but model has 101 frames
Would be nice if you could have a look at that
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it also looks like the tags are rotating too much. the animation of the upper part is not very smooth. keep in mind that the triangle or poly (or whatever you are using to get the tag position) should not rotate more than the animation of the base model.
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btw. updated maps and so on is all in the svn right now - there are some problems with placing the tags left. but if you would like to see the fruits of your work, just recompile latest trunk and start skirmish with some oriental rma.
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Added "Reaction fire stance" to the extras list
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dave, your updated palm tag file still is one frame off.
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dave, your updated palm tag file still is one frame off.
Crap. :(
It might simply be that I only exported the TAG file and didn't re-export the MD2 file along with it - I'll test this theory ASAP then commit a (hopeful) fix. Thanks for letting me know.
In the meantime, I've got another problem - The hard drive on this computer I'm using right now is reporting a large and increasing number of bad sectors, which just started recently and may delay my contributions to UFO:AI for a bit (dammit!)... >:(
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good luck with the hdd ;)
i've fixed the (hopefully) last remaining bug with tags for misc_models in the morning. oriental maps are now working again and the tags are used and working.
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Hey Destructavator !
If you need a new hdd, check yourself a Samsung F1 or even better F3. These disks are very reliable, very speedy, run almost silent, do not use much power & do not produce much heat.
I had problems with every other company regarding hdds, but never with Samsung. Trust me.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Samsung-HDD-Platter-Disk-Spinpoint,8363.html
I hope you get all your data saved ;)
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I am asking just out of curiosity: Which brand is your currently dying drive ?