GLADE Team Project: Dark Magic

[John.d.h]

Whether necromancy/magic/whatever is good or evil really doesn't matter.

Anyway, I'll be working on some stuff for Dark Magic tonight.  We'll see how much I can get done.

This to me will never get done, you say by Christmas no too short, in 1 more month no also too short, a year.... Possibly...

I don't think you understand what it takes to complete a quality faction, not to mention organizing a team of volunteers doing this in their spare time.  Some of us do have lives, jobs, school, and/or other obligations, and can't devote a lot of time to this hobby.  One well-made mod beats the pants off of thirty crappy ones that were put together with complete disregard for model, texture, and animation quality --you know, like yours-- and good work takes time.

[-Archmage-]

I completely agree with John, down to every letter.

Sorry if what John says offends you, but it's the straight truth.

EDIT: John did you see this post?

[ElimiNator]

Yes I know, so Who ever is saying a dead-line or posting the polls should stop unles they plan to have it out by then.
Right?

[-Archmage-]

Well, I say keep making deadlines, because it gives people a drive to work on this.

Should the GLADE Team want or need more "manpower", or some help feel free to call on me.
(Just letting you 'GLADE-eteers' know that.. )

[modman]

For titi and other Linux users:

Download Gods Bane Models 10.02.15

You know what to do.  Overwrite the Gods Bane models in the main download, and I think there may be some blends you might delete if you want in it too.  This fixes the capitalization bug I believe.

[Mark]

I am learning animation, so once I have that mastered I will be able to do the anims for the humanoids.  Until then I can do the simple building ones(I think).

BTW John:  What is a good frame count for a human animation?  I know that you have probably done lots of work on this in the past, so you would know.

Also, how many bones should be in a humanoid skeleton?  I am thinking 4 in legs + 4 in arms + 1 in torso + 1 head + 2 feet=12 bones?  Is that good?  And does the number of bones in the rig make a lot of difference in file size?

[titi]

The number of bones doesn't effect the filesize of the result. Use as many as you want. ( Only the number of frames is interisting because for every frame the whole mesh is stored.)

[John.d.h]

EDIT: John did you see this post?

Yes I did, but I didn't get to look at the animation until just now because the G3D viewer on my machine is being a pain, but I have it installed on this university computer so I'm looking at it now.  It's an improvement over the one I made and it's plenty good enough to use, but there are still a few things I'd change about it.  Namely, the torso seems a bit too stationary and the wings seems to fold strangely.  Look at it from behind and you'll see what I mean.  If you don't want to fix it yourself, I'll have a look at it eventually when I'm done with the Gargoyle... or we can leave it the way it is.  It's good enough; I'm just a critic.

BTW John:  What is a good frame count for a human animation?  I know that you have probably done lots of work on this in the past, so you would know.

It depends on the animation.  As a general rule, use as many frames as you need for it to look good, but no more.  For Idle, you usually won't need more than two or three.  For walking or attacking, feel free to use up to nine or so.  While most machines can handle more than that, I'd like to keep DM fairly consistent with the rest of Magitech.

Also, how many bones should be in a humanoid skeleton?  I am thinking 4 in legs + 4 in arms + 1 in torso + 1 head + 2 feet=12 bones?  Is that good?  And does the number of bones in the rig make a lot of difference in file size?

What Titi said about the file size is correct.  The bones I normally use are head, neck, torso, lumbar (lower torso), and master, and then left and right shoulder, upper arm, forearm, hand, hip, thigh, knee, shin, foot, toe, and leg handle.

Try these two videos for (in my opinion) a pretty darn good guide on building a Glest-worthy humanoid armature:

• Part one.
  
• Part two.

In about 12 minutes, you'll be walked through how to completely build an armature from scratch, and there are plenty of annotations to make it easier to follow along.

Edit: Gargoyle's done.

Get it here (MediaFire link) or here (FileFront link).

[-Archmage-]

Mark, please limit your frame-count to about 20, you don't need more, and more only uses more graphics power.

@John:
Yes, I know it looks somewhat strange, but the rig and the mesh are a bit hard to work with, I did turn AutoIK off and that made the job a lot easier, I get why it looks strange but it took me a while and I was tired, so I just got it done, and sorted out a few obvious errors before going to sleep, I just had one of my late-night irresistible urges to work on something, so I got inspired and started working, problem is, I never finished it completely in the morning.

[silnarm]

Mark, please limit your frame-count to about 20, you don't need more, and more only uses more graphics power.

I covered this one recently when mictes posted asking about frame counts and showing off a rather awesome 'chaos obelisk', but it apparently needs repeating.

More frames will not put one iota more strain on your graphics hardware. It will merely use more memory (system memory, not video memory)... Nor will put more strain on your CPU, the interpolation happens between two of the frames, interpolating for a model with two frames requires exactly the same amount of calculation as interpolating a model with 20 (assuming the same vertex count). The only bad thing more frames will do is consume more memory.

It depends on the animation.  As a general rule, use as many frames as you need for it to look good, but no more.

Good advice. Use what you need to use, not more, and not less.

[-Archmage-]

Apparently I forgot what you said, sorry.

Wow, I wish I knew that, because most people including myself, have enough memory to handle that!
Good now I can use more frames without feeling like I'm doing something wrong.

[John.d.h]

If I'm not mistaken, higher frame counts means longer load times, right?  I have no qualms about making long animations (and I fully intend on using an egregious number of frames for some of the units in Solunar), but I was kinda hoping to keep the load time for DM comparable to the other Magitech factions, which is already longer than I would like, at least on my machine.

Did anybody look at the Gargoyle animations I posted?  Give me some feedback so I know if anything needs to be changed.

For reference:

Edit: Gargoyle's done.

Get it here (MediaFire link) or here (FileFront link).

[-Archmage-]

I did, and I've already made another Attack animation and a Walking animation, my Walking is similar to yours, and not much better, I just had a feeling that something wasn't right with your walking anim, so I made a whole new one, and like an idiot, I forgot to make a new action......

But I have to say I found your attack animation was very lacking in strength, and looked weak, also a little rigid, so I made a new one!
Mine looks a bit more powerful and more realistic, although, the way the wings worked on your model confused me, so I didn't work on the wings, I'll leave that to you, I feel kind of guilty redoing your work, but I justify it with I'm just trying to help and improve what's already been done.

<{[=Download my work on the Gargoyle=]}>

I would also love to work on your dying animation, no offense but it's not so great.

[ultifd]

Maybe I replaced the files wrong... or maybe I didn't setup it right.

Code: [Select]

12: XML Error in techs/magitech/factions/dark_magic/units/gargoyle/gargoyle.xml:
 Exception caught loading 3d file: techs/magitech/factions/dark_magic/units/gargoyle/models/standing.g3d
Error opening 3d model file
I was using GAE.
It loads file with the g3d viewer in the glest tools package though.
I left the blend files and the xcf alone...
I guess I'll try Archmage's Gargoyle now...
EDIT: the samething.
It's probably my fault though.
-----------
Looks cool.

[-Archmage-]

Well, it look like the Gargoyle XML doesn't point to the correct names.........

It's all your fault!!!!!!!! JK

Instead of:
standing.g3d
walking.g3d
attacking.g3d
dying.g3d

The XML should point to:
gargoyle_standing.g3d
gargoyle_walking.g3d
gargoyle_attacking.g3d
gargoyle_dying.g3d

That should fix it!

I'm hoping Modman will make a new release, or let me make one, that will have all the updates since the last release!

[John.d.h]

I did, and I've already made another Attack animation and a Walking animation, my Walking is similar to yours, and not much better, I just had a feeling that something wasn't right with your walking anim, so I made a whole new one, and like an idiot, I forgot to make a new action......

I thought my attacking animation was pretty good, aside from the lower body being a little too stationary.  What was wrong with my walking animation?  I thought it was pretty good, and conveyed the immense weight of the monster (i.e. each step is slow and his whole body moves from the recoil).  I wasn't quite sure what to do with the wings, though.  Be that as it may, I'll take a look at what you've made in a little while.

But I have to say I found your attack animation was very lacking in strength, and looked weak, also a little rigid, so I made a new one!
Mine looks a bit more powerful and more realistic, although, the way the wings worked on your model confused me, so I didn't work on the wings, I'll leave that to you

There are two sets of wings: the ones that stand up and the ones that lay down.  Whichever set I'm using for the animation, I keep on layer one, and whichever one I'm not using, I move to layer two.  Same with the two different swords.

I feel kind of guilty redoing your work, but I justify it with I'm just trying to help and improve what's already been done.

Isn't that the whole point of open source?

<{[=Download my work on the Gargoyle=]}>

I'll take a look later, after I finish my anthropology paper.

I would also love to work on your dying animation, no offense but it's not so great.

No offense taken.  I'm not too happy with that animation either.

[-Archmage-]

There are two sets of wings: the ones that stand up and the ones that lay down.  Whichever set I'm using for the animation, I keep on layer one, and whichever one I'm not using, I move to layer two.  Same with the two different swords.

 ???

[silnarm]

Wow, I wish I knew that, because most people including myself, have enough memory to handle that!
Good now I can use more frames without feeling like I'm doing something wrong.

My point exactly Modern machines have much more memory than Glest will typically require, a few extra frames isn't going to hurt anyone (no point overdoing it though!).

If I'm not mistaken, higher frame counts means longer load times, right? 

In theory, yes of course it will take longer to load.  However, loading binary G3D files is not taking long. The load times being the length they are is because of all the XML, it needs to be read (as per a text file), then 'parsed' by an XML parser, and finally all the useful numbers and paths and what-not pulled out of the parsed data. This will dominate the loading time.

[John.d.h]

In theory, yes of course it will take longer to load.  However, loading binary G3D files is not taking long. The load times being the length they are is because of all the XML, it needs to be read (as per a text file), then 'parsed' by an XML parser, and finally all the useful numbers and paths and what-not pulled out of the parsed data. This will dominate the loading time.

Ah, gotcha (I think).

Semi-OT:

There are two sets of wings: the ones that stand up and the ones that lay down.  Whichever set I'm using for the animation, I keep on layer one, and whichever one I'm not using, I move to layer two.  Same with the two different swords.

???

In Blender, you can move objects to different visibility layers, which allows you to work on a specific thing and get everything else out of the way (without getting rid of it).  It also allows you to separate different projects in the same file, like in sheol_temple.blend, which has the idle model in one layer, and the construction model in another.


Click.

In this image, the section circled in red is the layer selection tool, which allows you to switch between different layers.  To move an object to a different layer, space > object > move to layer.  It's actually really simple once you get the hang of it, and it can make your projects much less cluttered.

[-Archmage-]

Thanks!

[John.d.h]

Okay, I looked at your animations.  I can't even tell what you changed about the walking animation, as it looks just about the same to me. ???  The attacking animation seems off-balance, though.  Consider a few things: the gargoyle is very top-heavy, he's leaning far to one side, and he's got a lot of force going in that direction.  For a real-life demonstration, try wearing a backpack full of books, leaning to one side, and swinging a baseball bat.  On second thought, don't do that, or your parents might sue me when you fall and break something.

Edit: Okay, so according to the spreadsheet, the only models that we still need are construction and destruction for the Divination Crystal and Oblivion Portal.  Is this correct, or did someone make those?  There's a lot going on, so I could have easily missed it if they did get made.

[ElimiNator]

I love the new particals! very cool!

[-Archmage-]

Yah, I know there are a few balance issues with the animation, but those can be fixed, and I was mainly trying to get a better swing, I didn't really take care of the problems........

Sorry about those balance issues, are you gonna fix 'em or should I?

[modman]

I am unsure on when to make a new release.  Weekends are always good times for me, because I can test it out before I zip it up (and then spare myself humiliation when the damn thing crashes!).

The construction and destruction on the Oblivion Portal are done, it's just that I always forget to edit the Google spreadsheet.

If I'm not mistaken, higher frame counts means longer load times, right? 

In theory, yes of course it will take longer to load.  However, loading binary G3D files is not taking long. The load times being the length they are is because of all the XML, it needs to be read (as per a text file), then 'parsed' by an XML parser, and finally all the useful numbers and paths and what-not pulled out of the parsed data. This will dominate the loading time.

I always wondered about this.  It seems like XML work is more processor-intensive (because there is more hunting and less wrote copying), and the G3Ds are more memory-oriented (because I think Glest just has to copy the model to memory).

Did anybody look at the Gargoyle animations I posted?  Give me some feedback so I know if anything needs to be changed.

I like them.  I still have to try it out in-game, but a few XML anim-speed modifications will make this unit a true menace.  Switching to XML, I think that I'll make the Gargoyle about 50% stronger than the Battle Machine, making it by far the strongest land unit in the tech tree.  This is because the unit has no air attack.  Basically, 2 Gargoyles should be equal to three Battle Machines.

[Little Helper]

CHANGE THE DARK MAGIC LOGO TO THIS
https://forum.megaglest.org/index.php?topic=5060.0