So I'm back and a little bored...

[Mandalorian]

That's really cool, It looks about right to what I had in mind, I'm sure a few people would like to use these animations for their mods.

[Mandalorian]

Here is my roughdraft of the dodge:

Standing in place

 

Now to take cover

 

It is buggy so don't worry about that (like the gun position.)

I'm going to go ahead and work on this. I'll make the player move about two more body lengths to the side, or more if people want.

 

It isn't perfect for cover because of the way JA handles the dodge. Mechanically you MUST stand still. Then you can hold 'use' and A and D to cover. If you shoot while in cover the character will start strafing in the direction you are holding. So you MUST let go of the A or D, make your shots, and then go back into cover.

There is only one dodge animation so pistols and rifles will all be held the same way. I've got a more neutral cover stance planned now.

 

Interesting idea popped in my head right now! What if instead of D being cover right it is cover left? That seems backward, but if you press shoot you will move out of cover firing. And A would be cover right.

 

Ponder this. I'll do it either way.

I have this method implemented with a crouch at the moment but from what you describe it should work correctly. the Idea for my mod was a cover system where you use dodge to position yourself before a jet pack jump to the next point or tactical position. I am workong on replacing the force jump system to a jetpack one.

[eezstreet]

Most FPSes use Q/E to lean left/right. In JK2:HD I bound the Xbox/PS3 shoulder buttons to it. The problem with a dodge button is that it's pretty irrelevant unless you work in some kind of special mechanics for it.

[katanamaru]

@@Mandalorian: You have a cover animation that moves the character to the side replacing the crouch animation?

 

@@eezstreet: You are correct. I never use the lean function, but Mandalorian gave me the idea so I decided to try it. I never used lean in FPS because it is easy to step out and back into cover.

[Botdra]

I'd love to see the TFU animation for force push and force lightning. There was one for push but as I remember none of my friends could get it to work, and neither could I.

[Mandalorian]

Most FPSes use Q/E to lean left/right. In JK2:HD I bound the Xbox/PS3 shoulder buttons to it. The problem with a dodge button is that it's pretty irrelevant unless you work in some kind of special mechanics for it.

 

 

 

@@Mandalorian: You have a cover animation that moves the character to the side replacing the crouch animation?

 

@@eezstreet: You are correct. I never use the lean function, but Mandalorian gave me the idea so I decided to try it. I never used lean in FPS because it is easy to step out and back into cover.

It's just a default anim I am using for now. I am also using various animations from mb2 that arent used to conceptualise my game. I have things like boba's wrist rocket and blaster using the clone rocket launcher anims and the old unused dc15 stances for a start aswell as being in the process of replacing force lightning to use mand flame anim.I am using these as place holders while i try work out the perfect fov and camera angles and other gameplay mechanics. I am going to start a thread asking for help with specific things to do with my mod I think. I have done a lot of concept art this week, about two days worth, as well as playing republic commando and swbf2 bfx to get ideas on mechanics I like in those games.

[katanamaru]

I'd love to see the TFU animation for force push and force lightning. There was one for push but as I remember none of my friends could get it to work, and neither could I.

Well my backhand styles mod had new push and lightning animations. Mainly to correct where the left hand saber was pointed.

What did you have in mind?

[Corto]

Kata, what are you using to make your animations? Do you use rotoscopy to match move by move the movements of a real person? I recomend using Mod Tool 7.5 with Minilogo's rig and get a friend to perform whatever new animation you want to make. Film him from the side and from the front and then using rotoscopy you can match his movements. Since we don't have mocap equipment, that's the second best technique (used during by no less than Jordan Mechner to produce Prince of Persia's animations).

[katanamaru]

Is that possible with Mod Tool 7.5? That's very cool!

I've downloaded it along with Mini's rig, but I didn't get to try it out yet.

So far I'm using Dragon until I get MT set up.

 

Normally I preform the movements infront of a mirror a few times to see what looks good while being realistic. I have really good feel for kinesiology so I understand the angles at which my joints need to bend and be placed.

[ChalklYne]

the tfu style force push will work animating wise very easily...but if u wanna add the efx file to it you will see that he orients the effects all screwy are u saying u fixed that kata? i thought it was just orienting the saber tag a little differently... but could never get it right

[Corto]

Well, it's very picky when it comes to loading videos as reference, but still, you can use multiple pictures to match the multiple steps of the animation, I can teach how to prepare the setup. Then you have Minilogo's amazing rig which will not only make your life easier, the quality of your animations will be much better. Once you have the basic animations blocks in place you can adjust the fcurves which control the animations and transitions to achieve the perfect feeling. You can modify the interpolation curve between keyframes until you get it perfect. There's a lot of stuff to it. Let me know when you have Mod Tool installed.

[katanamaru]

the tfu style force push will work animating wise very easily...but if u wanna add the efx file to it you will see that he orients the effects all screwy are u saying u fixed that kata? i thought it was just orienting the saber tag a little differently... but could never get it right

 

I was talking about the animation and not the effects. I don't have any efx file/mod to test my animations with. Since there is only 1 push animation I made it the one-handed version so it works with the saber out. If a two-handed push is coded I'll gladly make it.

It could be up to others to make the effects though. I'll help where I can though.

 

Well, it's very picky when it comes to loading videos as reference, but still, you can use multiple pictures to match the multiple steps of the animation, I can teach how to prepare the setup. Then you have Minilogo's amazing rig which will not only make your life easier, the quality of your animations will be much better. Once you have the basic animations blocks in place you can adjust the fcurves which control the animations and transitions to achieve the perfect feeling. You can modify the interpolation curve between keyframes until you get it perfect. There's a lot of stuff to it. Let me know when you have Mod Tool installed.

I'll be making a post once I get MT up with the questions I have. I may be able to figure some stuff out on my own, but I figure if I start asking questions, even if they are easy, then we'll have a thread that other potential animators can read up on.

 

I want other animators to show up so that large projects and be taken up by more people.

I felt a little bad for Hirman when he was the only animator for JKG...

[Corto]

Well, whatever you learn with Mod Tool will also be useful for UDK if you wish to make the jump.

[minilogoguy18]

Between @@Corto and myself I'm confident we can answer anything you can throw at us. I may have built that rig but he was the one who taught me Softimage years back, we definitely have a lot of experience under our belts in this area.

 

Also make sure you have the most recent version, I'm always updating that rig to make it better as I learn more and more, there's so much you can do with a program like Softimage, especially in it's very finest mode and what it's know best for which is animation.

 

Just seeing what you can do with such a simple and very limited program like Dragon I know with a real animation package you'll be able to make some amazing things and not just that, you'll do it in a fraction of the time because you'll have an IK biped.

[Corto]

@@minilogoguy18 is right. And you can save the sequences and go back whenever you feel like you can improve your animations one way or another. Just think that every piece of animation made for Jedi Knight 2 was keyframed since Raven didn't have mocap equipment at that time. Again, everything you learn with Mod Tools will prove to be useful if you wish to move on to Unreal or Crytek since you have addons for those two engines too.

[katanamaru]

@@minilogoguy18: I've posted in your rig a couple of questions.