I'm back! (Hoverbot)

[Psawhn]

Sorry for disappearing for a while.

I've got some textures up for the hoverbot:

https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/hoverbot_lightcannon_texture_final_candidate_1.blend
https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/hoverbot_lightcannon.tga

I'll get some screenshots up.

[Wanderer]

Sorry to seem mean, but that's got to be one of the ugliest paintjobs I've ever seen.  

The constant speckling of the colors makes it look horribly dirty.  The green the aliens use is a shiney, deeper green, not something that looks like it's camo'd for ... I dunno, Grand Central Park?

The twin colors across the front make it look like it's been landing in dirt, repeatedly, and it's starting to take on the color of the ground.  Either that or they left the blood of the dead on the front.

The fans look like they've been through 8-10 fights already with the blackened portions and they've got carbonization.

Nice try though?

[Psawhn]

Heh, actually that's exactly the goal of this paintjob: Dirt, battleworn, and bloody. You described exactly what the goal of it was.

Still, it definitely is too dirty. It's going to change a lot, too.


Okay, after following Winter's suggestions on IRC:



I also figured out how to bake an ambient occlusion map onto these things

I should note that UV unwrapping this thing was a real pain. About 37% of the texture space is wasted, reducing the resolution of what you do see. I also don't know how to make seams be seamless.

[Psawhn]

More work:



There isn't any visible sensor gear yet. (Who knows, it could be a radar or ultrasound system hidden inside the main hull )

[Winter]

More work:



There isn't any visible sensor gear yet. (Who knows, it could be a radar or ultrasound system hidden inside the main hull )

I don't think I'll be the only one to say that looks a LOT better. Thumbs up!

Regards,
Winter

[Psawhn]

Thanks a lot. It definitely looks better to me, as well, and I've been staring at this thing longer than anyone else! :p

If this is good enough for final, the files can be found here:
https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/hoverbot/

If there's more you think needs changing, just lemme know.

I still have to do some animations, which I should be able to handle (at least on the blender side. )


The list of animations is here, right? http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Modelling#List_of_needed_animations_for_a_character

Because this model isn't humanoid, what are the required animations for this?

Would things for the death animation, like sparks and smoke, be handled by the game engine? Can I add a couple of my own things like flying fan blades?

[Mattn]

even if this hoverbot will be very small in game (correct me winter - if i'm wrong) imo this texture still needs a little more details

don't add sparks to the death animation - but flying rotors are ok

in general all animations that a character has are needed for an ugv, too. But not in the model - it's sufficient if these animations are in the anm file and are using the same frames. e.g. it is not needed to animate the model to crouch - but the animation id should be there - just use the same frames as you used for the normal movement.

[Wanderer]

I don't think I'll be the only one to say that looks a LOT better. Thumbs up!

Regards,
Winter

Nope, you won't.  Now, that looks sweet, Pshawn.  Nice work.

[Psawhn]

Right now I'm mostly done the first draft of animation. Just a couple questions:

16 blender units = 1 tile width, right?

The center of the model is directly on the origin (coords (0,0,0) ). In the death animations, I have the model treat the 'floor' as 10 blender units below it. Is this all right?

Does the game engine handle interpolation between a walkcycle and standing animations?

How many shots does the gun fire?

How many frames should an individual action be? Is there a maximum limit for total frames?

Does anyone know that the bloodspider .blend has a second death animation that isn't tracked in the .anm file?


Edit: Okay, I stayed up late to finish off the first draft of animations.
Texture is here: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/hoverbot/hoverbot_lightcannon.tga
.blend is here: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/hoverbot/hoverbot_lightcannon_anim_RC1.blend
.anm file is here: https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/hoverbot/hoverbot.anm

As usual, let me know if there are any problems/suggestions, etc.

[Psawhn]

Silly me, I realised I could make a video for more people to see. :p

https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/hoverbot/hoverbot_05-06-07.avi

Edit: It uses Xvid codec, a free divx-like codec.

[Winter]

Silly me, I realised I could make a video for more people to see. :p

https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~djetowns/public_html/misc_files/UFO_AI/hoverbot/hoverbot_05-06-07.avi

Edit: It uses Xvid codec, a free divx-like codec.

Quick question -- shouldn't the thing bounce a little in some of those death animations?

Regards,
Winter

[Mattn]

the death animations shouldn't spread that far - or only small parts. The bigger parts like the turbine would block the movement, but the animation is clientside - make sure that the bigger parts of the hoverbot doesn't leave the 2x2 unitsize bounds

[blondandy]

The turbines chug round a bit too slowly. perhaps it would be better to give the impression of motion within the turbines using particles (not sure if this is possible).

Note for windows users: media player doesn't like that avi, but realplayer seemed OK with it.

[BTAxis]

Note for windows users: media player doesn't like that avi, but realplayer seemed OK with it.

It worked in WMP for me, and also in Media Player Classic. I probably just happen to have a compatible codec installed.

[Psawhn]

The turbine texture is supposed to be a snapshot of a spinning fan - blurry. By slowly rotating, it's supposed to look like when you film a rotor blade or something - the individual blades are just out of phase with the framerate, causing it to look like slowly rotating fuzzy blades.

Of course, it doesn't work as well after the turbines have stopped .

The codec is xvid, a free codec.

http://www.xvid.org/

The animations themselves are actually constrained to a 1x1 box, if I've got my dimensions right.  (16 blender units = game tile)

There's a 1x1x2.45 box on layer 11 (with the armature) for reference in the .blend files, too.