Author Topic: Dwarf faction  (Read 96817 times)

jda

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #250 on: 17 February 2010, 21:25:36 »
Hum, that latest update just seems to have an added 'nothing.001' action (which does nothing?) added...  :-\ So I guess that's doesn't include the animation? Did you improve the walking ones?

Now for the challenge... can you animate a four-legged animal? ;)
Actually I do think that is the less good animation in the current pack, as the rhynox just jumps between the two rear legs moving together and the two front ones (would it could be a simple two main motions animations but with crossing the legs (front right an left rear go forth, then front left and rear right; a four legged walk is actually more complex than this but given as the rhynox legs are rather short for its body, you'll never get to see all four at the same time (as you can with the tech horseman whose animation is perfect ;)).
But that's not what actually needs fixing the most on that unit (but of course, unless we figure out how to reexport G3D shape keys, we're bound to rerig and reanimate - hold it! wciow is still on his guard, let him rest some more! ;D). The BIG problem is a SHORT spear! The unit is a range 3 unit but ingame you can easily notice the spear hardly reaches range 1! Result: your outrider is piercing thin air! (yeah, it does affect the attacked unit but that's not what you see!).
So... the fix would be to give the outrider a longer spear (in blender, look at it from the NUMPAD 1 angle and make sure the tip touches the end of the second square counting from the tip of the rhynox's head).
Yes, it would be easier to just change the range to 1 but ... in the case of the outrider, it pretty much should be balanced a bit to the tech horseman and magic drake rider. I've done a few changes to the XML (one of the earliest, I couldn't stand seeing it move slower than the magic daemons and battlemages! lol). It's not much faster than those now but I think it's more sensible. Still, compared to the fast units in magitech, it was still underpowered (a notable exception to the the overall overpowered dwarves!). As this is a very specific unit, I think powering down should, as much as possible be done elsewhere. So I've also made other changes to the XML.

Anyways, here's the challenge:
Redo walking and attacking animations (at range 3, the same spear should be used in all anims of course! :P) for the outrider (you'll have to import the basic standing anim from G3D first)!

If you don't feel like it, its alright: I've got good news: I figured out how to reexport shapekeys!!! Yay! :) :) :)

Anyways, whether you reanimate the outrider or not, when you're done, there's something else I'd like you to do: Take a break! I need time to get my sh*t together wit what I've done and am doing and I'm wasting it explaining you what needs to be done. :P
I apreciate it, honestly do, but I need to get what's going on in my harddrive together and make an alpha release with roadmap (I've been working on this alone for a couple months or more, need time to make it make sense for others...).
After that, we can discuss what to do next, how to do it and who to do it. Heck, we can even turn the dwarves into giants, if we want to! (just kidding :P)

K?... ;)

P.s.: YES, there are stuff I haven't told you about my future plans for the outrider (after first release) so take it easy on the ideas! :P

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #251 on: 17 February 2010, 21:39:02 »
I've got plenty of ideas about the whole faction, and if there is anyway around it, I'm not going to re-rig and re-animate.

Don't worry, you don't have to explain all this to me.....oh gotta go! See ya!
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modman

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #252 on: 17 February 2010, 22:52:23 »
You may want to look at an actual horse for a model on how a rhino(x) would run.  Horses run similar to rhinos, I assume, so it's fine.  I got a couple of them of rhinos, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48JEsxYPeVo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l48Kwa6izsE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiVmNVb1lwg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52ikUDJjJG0

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #253 on: 18 February 2010, 00:35:54 »
Thanks Modman, I have learned a great deal more about how horses gallop, now I should be able to do a better job on four-legged animals! ;D

New progress on the Flame Team!

We should do a standing anim, because that barrel has got a weigh a lot, and with him just sitting there stationary, how could he not tip over! :D
I'm changed the walking anim a bit mainly arm swinging and making the other dwarf look like he's confidently hauling that barrel.
New Attack anim, only 6 frames, but it looks pretty good.
Last but not least, I slammed and knocked over the last obstacle before completion, the dying anim, it has a high frame-count, but it's worth it!

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jda

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #254 on: 18 February 2010, 02:17:12 »
Thanks for the vids, Sir Modman! :)
Yep, it's crossed like I said but then there's another thing: Bothe legs on the same "axis" also have a spread-apart motion followed by a get-close one. And then there's more... :P

The dying animation is amazing! :) :) :)

The attack animation has a couple glitches (tall dwarf's left elbow should pull the hand a bit upper and the short dwarf hands are off-centered (both to much to the dwarf's left side). But other than that, it looks really cool. :)

I also like the short dwarf's stance a lot better than the old one. ;)

jda

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #255 on: 18 February 2010, 10:57:56 »
Found a BUG in your anims, Archmage! :(
The bug is actually in the model, not the actions.
The flamer (weapon) is off-centered... again! :( So though the animations look cool in themselves, the model looks kind of crapy interacting with the other objects (I only tried it ingame today).

Details why:
The muzzle of the flamer is displaced to its right. When it fires, Glest aligns the flame team center to the target center. Currently the muzzle of the flamer is, as said before, to the right of this center - the obvious sollution would be to offset the particle making it come from the muzzle again (it currently is at x="0", would make like x"-0.2" or something like that).
The problem with this "sollution" is that though Glest correcctly animates the rotation of the unit on all 360º (possibly even more fractioned), it only "poses" it at one of eight fixed 45º intervals. It then calculates and draws the trajectory from the offset x particle start to the center of the target unit.
Now the target center may be everywhere in between at -22.5º to 22.5º relative to the attacking unit's center (a total angle range of 45º). So, if your projectile/particle center is offset at x=0, you'll get a 22.5º variation to each side drawn trajectory. The result is not always perfect (actually only is when the two units are at a 0º (or 180º if you prefer) angle from each other) but it will look alright in most cases.
But if you have the particle center offset on the x axis to something other than 0, you'll have an uneven pair of angles, e.g. 30º to the right side and 15º to the left. Now, if the target is on this left side, it's all good (still under the acceptable 22.5º angle) but if it's on the right side, it may very well get this very weird awfully wide angle, making the trajectory look very awkward.
This might not matter so much if the unit's particle_proj.xml file defined a "line" kind of primitive value (or even better, the projectile moved with no trace left behind). But in the case of the flame team, it's a quad type of trace and a rather wide one too. So it does look bad. :(
Rule of thumb: Place the center of the muzzle of your firing weapon at the x center of the unit's model (the vertical green line in Blender on NUMPAD 7 angle) and have the firing weapon in a perperdicular angle to the x axis (i.e. paralel to the z axis)!  ;)

So, I fixed the objects position so the flamer conforms to the above rule of thumb. ;)
Another problem arises. :(
You now have the flamer aligned to the center but the flame crew are offset to their left!  ::) Obviously, they are now placed a bit too far to objects on their right and a bit too close (sometimes even overlaping) objects on their left. Not as much as wciow's original model but still noticeable.
Fixing this is a whole more troublesome:
1. Re-edit the flamer model (the hose may not get so smooth again but I rahter it less smooth but allowing better ingame interaction). Possible problem (?): Maybe the armature must be re-edited too .. for every pose in every animation? ???  :o  :-\
2. R-edit the front right side flame crew too! You correctly went to the trouble of editing it to fit his new position. Sadly, as the new position is wrong, it must be edited back to the original position. In this case, I'm almost definitively sure it must be so for every pose in every animation. :(
Rule of thumb for this one: Keep your model's proportions to the box it will fit in ingame! Which, in the flame team case means: keep the objects in position!

It's partially my fault 'cause I gave you the green light too soon. Sorry.
I'll try and fix it next week.

In the meantime, if you want to get your own hand on it, here is the recentered model:
http://www.mediafire.com/?kmglw0wmzzt

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #256 on: 18 February 2010, 14:50:29 »
OMFG!!!!!!!
A particle is always going to look strange if it appears while a unit is turning!!! >:(

I see why you would get all hyped up about the particle angle, but it's not going to be a problem, just get over it!

I don't see how there is going to be such a big problem, although just to humor you, I modified two anims, the attack(so the nozzle is closer to the center), and the dying(a little crooked knee problem).

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jda

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #257 on: 18 February 2010, 15:29:30 »
No, the turning is not the problem. The problem is when the unit is NOT turning. :P

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #258 on: 18 February 2010, 16:43:07 »
You'll hardly notice, and I've tweaked it a bit, so it should be less of an issue, check it out.
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wciow

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #259 on: 18 February 2010, 18:40:04 »
Ok here are all of the original dwarf blends:

EDIT: filedropper doesn't sem to work so back to good ol media fire then: http://www.mediafire.com/?ni02mkmwm51

There may be some junk files since I simply selected every file in my "dwarf" blender directory.

As you will see all of the units (except the rhinox) use the same skeleton. All animations are interchangeable and stored as seperate action sequences rather than one long action. The models also get progressively better since I trimmed out some uneccesary polies from the earlier models.

Happy modding guys  ;)
« Last Edit: 18 February 2010, 19:34:35 by wciow »
Check out my new Goblin faction - https://forum.megaglest.org/index.php?topic=9658.0

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #260 on: 18 February 2010, 19:26:48 »
Thank you so mu-
Oh crap, I told you we should've stopped pushing him........... :o
What the hell are these fluffy things, holy crap I floating in......I don't know what, oh hi Jda, I think this is heaven, do you remember what happened because I think I broke something on the fall....... Oh there's my body and there's yours, and oh there's Wciows, they're all twisted..........

(GOD): Oh come on guys do you have to wreck those perfectly good bodies, here, I'll send you back down. Now stop pushing poor old Wciow, as you can see he's given you the .blends now be on your way. And with a flick of his wrist, WHAM, we were back in our bodies! And we sat there all twisted up happily ever after.

Oh alright, I'll fix the bodies. ::)

...and we all lived happily ever-

(GOD) Oh come on, you didn't have to walk off the second cliff!!!



Thanks Wciow! :D
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-Archmage-

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #261 on: 18 February 2010, 19:28:39 »
Dude, the link doesn't work, it just goes to the filedropper homepage, which says right there, 7-day free trial, why would you use that. ::)
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John.d.h

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #262 on: 18 February 2010, 20:02:08 »
Semi-OT but possibly helpful:

In case you want to swap animations from one .blend file to the other and don't know how (or forgot): File > "Append or link" > model-name.blend > Action > "name of action".

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #263 on: 18 February 2010, 20:08:43 »
Thanks Wciow for fixing the link.
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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #264 on: 18 February 2010, 20:36:29 »
Ok, I'm going to have to re-rig and re-animate anyway, most of those rigs are too basic or I get to confused, and it look like it will be very hard to animate like that. :P
Sorry Wciow, but I just don't understand how you could operate like that. :-\
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jda

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #265 on: 18 February 2010, 21:43:10 »
You'll hardly notice, and I've tweaked it a bit, so it should be less of an issue, check it out.
Dude, you had the muzzle of the gun on the right of the unit's center and it was pointing slightly to the same right side! How could it not look BAD?!? ("hardly notice"... you must have not tried your earlier version ingame...).
This one at least points straight ahead and as Glest actually does have more than 8 turn halt-positions (should have at least 16 I guess) it's alright.
But really Arch, you're shooting to the left (obviously 'cause it's offcentered) and the "gun" is pointing to the right...
I just explain too much. :P

@ WCIOW:
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! ;D


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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #266 on: 18 February 2010, 23:11:04 »
OMFG!!!
I can rotate the nozzle a little ok! ::)

Edit: Just checked the latest download I posted, it's pointing to the left. ::)
« Last Edit: 18 February 2010, 23:24:28 by -Archmage- »
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jda

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #267 on: 19 February 2010, 00:20:43 »
You've already rotated to muzzle and it's actually pointing slightly to the right but so slightly I only noticed it now I rechecked, it's certainly not pointing left. At least if this is the one you're talking about:
url=http://www.filefront.com/15617569/flame_team.r3.FINAL.blend]Download[/url]
I'd already said it was alright now, on my last post. Maybe that wasn't clear enough.

But I'll try and make this other thing clear now: there WAS a problem.

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #268 on: 19 February 2010, 00:51:24 »
Yah that's the right one.
Are your eyes bad or something?
Maybe your lefts and rights are screwed up, because it's pointing slightly to the left not the right........ ::)

I've worked some more and come up with a new standing animation and minor modifications to the attacking(to fix the short dwarves hand movement a little), and the walking(minor feet movement changes) animations. :)

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jda

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #269 on: 19 February 2010, 01:45:02 »
Yah that's the right one.
Are your eyes bad or something?
Maybe your lefts and rights are screwed up, because it's pointing slightly to the left not the right........ ::)
Could it possibly be that this (5th pic) de facto standard in 3D modelling is alien to an experienced modder like yourself?
(that's from Omega's guide BTW)

Quote
I've worked some more and come up with a new standing animation and minor modifications to the attacking(to fix the short dwarves hand movement a little), and the walking(minor feet movement changes) animations. :)

DOWNLOAD: a1-1
Yeah, well, as for myself, I'll look at your final mesh when it's done, alright? You don't seem to care about my comments anyways so... I'll look at it when it's done.

EDIT: Changed the link above, which was pointing directly at the picture, to point at the whole page it's in.
Alternative link (same concept, other pic; and I've seen this convention (which I think only natural) in every ttutorial about rigging in Blender). This one is from the glest wikia (wciow's animation tutorial, 3rd pic): https://docs.megaglest.org/Wciowanimation
« Last Edit: 18 June 2016, 13:58:49 by filux »

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #270 on: 19 February 2010, 12:01:26 »
It is pretty much done, and the nozzle is to the left as you wanted, do I have to explain the orientation in Blender, and why it's correct, so I do care about your comments and I read every inch of your posts.

That link you posted goes to a 403 page...
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jda

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #271 on: 19 February 2010, 14:41:50 »
The link was working fine when I posted it. I did PM omega (after posting the link), asking whether or not it was ok t directly link to the image. Might be omega changed something or maybe the server itself is configured to prevent direct access to a picture when it starts getting more hits than the page it's on...?  :-\
I have a somewhat vague concept about what is considered "leeching" and what isn't...

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #272 on: 19 February 2010, 15:31:30 »
Ok, it seems you're telling me I don't use conventional rigs, I've seen one of those conventional rigs, they're many times harder to work with compared to my rigs, and they don't produce very good animations. :-\

Don't make me prove that the conventional way reduces speed, quality, and how well you can work with it. It's not a trade-off at all, it's just that the conventional way sucks. :P
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jda

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #273 on: 19 February 2010, 17:24:20 »
We were discussing SIDES, not types of rigs.
So... don't just walk away from the subject just 'cause you can't admit you were wrong, ok?

You are smart but really, nobody else around here is that dumb... Get it?

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Re: Dwarf faction
« Reply #274 on: 19 February 2010, 19:47:54 »
Huh?
I thought you were talking about rigs.......

You think I have my sides mixed up!?!?

You're funny.

Is there anyway I can prove that your wrong?
Maybe a video?

I really shouldn't have argue about this with you, I mean come on get your lefts and rights straight! ::)
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