Please Make Cloth Physics!

[Lamented]

For the realm sake of JKA, someone make cloth physics available! Pls!

[Tempust85]

I doubt any programmers in the JKA community know how to implement cloth physics. No one seems to know how to implement any graphical enhancements except maybe Xycaleth but he's too busy.

[Stoiss]

like so many other have said, give it time guys

its been about 2 mounth now that we have got the jedi academy and jko engine now it needs alot of bug fixing and clean ups in it, it will take alot of free time to

make such progress happen for such old game i give it a year and in that time i think we will see some pretty awesome stuff comming out for openJK

[ChalklYne]

what model do u have that needs cloth physics so badly? ive seen it faked fairly well for most necessary cloth applications i mean whats the big issue yer having or do u have a model yer working on that yer worried about cloth deformation? or is this more just kinda like "hey somebody spend weeks coding something so i can see capes sway better" kinda deal? no worries if it is im just asking cuz if its actually for anything u need right now i can probably help u get it to work fairly well for now. 

[Botdra]

Right now no one is focused on graphical enhancements past what eezstreet did with QEffects, simply because everyone who knows how to code anything properly is busy working on fixing the thousands of bugs and error in the JA code already. Once that's all done, then perhaps we will see graphical improvements. There is a recreation of the JA assets going on currently, check the subforums and you'll see there is some work being done to improve base JA the way it is.

[Botdra]

false

 

 

Right now no one is really too focused on graphical enhancements past what eezstreet did with QEffects, simply because everyone who knows how to code anything properly is busy working on fixing the thousands of bugs and error in the JA code already. Once that's all done, then perhaps we will see graphical improvements. There is a recreation of the JA assets going on currently, check the subforums and you'll see there is some work being done to improve base JA the way it is.

 

Happy?

[CaptainChar]

seeing that JKA doesn't have any physics really at all, its all predetermined, so in order to get physics you'd have to splice in Havoc engine or something

[Mandalorian]

What other techniques are simpler and could simulate the effect of cloth, right now all you can do is use what is available in jka, is it possible to animate the cloth you want? I want to learn a similiar technique for capes. 

[Stoiss]

to animate cloth physics i guess it would need anim bones for that to be working, but also need a engine for it maybe ? but im not a animator so i realy don't know. DT85 might know this

[Tempust85]

Can easily add things like cloth bones, but it will greatly increase the workload due to the need of hand-animating them. Simulated objects (in 3ds Max at least) aren't built to work with looping animations such as run cycles.

[ChalklYne]

well, in xsi, i would constrain the nulls for the cloth to tails or whatever i needed and let them animate freely, then id have to go through the walk cycles and looped stuff manually and manually make it seemless. u can make really nice really decent faked cloth physics, but youd have to reanimate every animation for that character.

[Stoiss]

why reanimate for all char when it just need to be the same for all of them ?

[ChalklYne]

naw youd have to essentially make a custom skele, which in turn would break your gla cuz it doesnt have the rotation n trannslation keys for the new bones in the old _humanoid.gla just the regulare bones. well youd have to add in nulls, and put them into the heirarchy as bones so the information exported with your gla. not for every character. just for the one using that skele. now granted, u can make one ultimate custom skele with cape cloth nulls, furlow nulls, twilek and torguta tail nulls, tail nulls, swaying holster, ponytails, etc, u can add all of those into a skele for jka, animate it like i said with tails and such constraining the nulls but not in the heirarchy, then if u reanimated that entire skele... it would be something to marvel over. im willing to make the skele but certainly not animate the whole thing lol

 

if we hacked away at it tho we could pull it off sooooo much simpler. this is what i been thinking... take the raven basemodelsandanims file... import all the anims into xsi until u have u a full base _humanoid.gla of anims, but in xsi format, simple... then and now were getting into something i dont know too much about maybe we can get mini or corto to help out here.. but then take the full animation, and convert it to maybe i dunno mocap? or something. something like gator but for anims... then, have u an exact copy of that skele, but with the nulls u want added to it, then convert that animation data back to the new skele, run the anims, and it will animate the cloth and what not for u. export that and youd have a new base gla and skele we could all use to rig to and what not. and u wouldnt have to reanimate anything but a few frames here n there where the cloth n stuff didnt work right. this route would completely eliminate dragon tho for it doesnt import the constrain info cuz u cant export it in the root.xsi... did that make any sense?

 

or if that is a fail, how does xsi like u adding nulls to already animated skeles?

[minilogoguy18]

MOTOR=GATOR for animations in Softimage.

 

Having actual physics is the only right way to do it, animating it with bones even with the help of a complex rig would still take loads of time to ensure it behaves right.

[ChalklYne]

i dunno. i think its a lot of time either way. either for the coders to implement something like that, or, for the animators to doble check and tweak it. but thanx for the motor-gator clear up. sounds like a damn good idea tho. i could make the skele, but i would need an idea of everything needed first like what kind of nulls would b needed for a great jka skele with cloth, tails, and everything else explained earlier. after i rig starkiller ill try and import all of the xsi's to make one nice humanoid.gla and see what i can do it reallly seems like it should work but, i would need a test model, or two. something like vader for the cape, shaak ti for the torguta things, something with a tail, etc to test n see if the anim went correctly. thx for the clearup mini

[Psyk0Sith]

All major 3D packages can simulate cloth for any number of frames you'd need, but i don't think it would be possible to pin those pre animated objects onto the model. Then you'd have to match the frames on both objects and have a smooth transition between them.

[ChalklYne]

well, in xsi... all id really have to do is make 2 exact same skeles, off of the humanoidbasemoderlsandanims file or whatever it is. then take one skele, add what i want as nulls. then constrain those nulls with things like tails and spines and stuff. then motor the anims from the "base" skele, over to the new one... it would not care about the extra nulls. but, when u play the nimation, the constraints will cause the nulls to move accordingly, thus, making it already animated. all you have to do is go back through it and tweak it here and there. which would be the most time consuming part. which mini posted previously, but, also, if we constrained the nulls correctly and set the stiffnesses all correctly and made sure our IK was good, it shouldnt have to be tweaked very much at all. if anything, just the cape and furlows for clipping into the legs here and there. someone rather familiar with xsi could set up the rig in maybe a day or two... its just weaking the nulls would take a hot little minute. but soooooo worth it imo. also... if we did that, while were going thru tweaking the nulls, we could also improve the normal anims by constraints/ bounding planes/etc. but... u are prolly right the last thing i posted about just adding nulls to pre animated skeles prolly wont work. but the way i just explained, while still a theory until i google a bit and pick a few more brains, is totally do-able. 

 

next time im bored, ill set up a simple stick figure rig, and do exactly what i just said and will be back with the test results

[ChalklYne]

ill be honest i didnt think it was gunna work first time lol. so what i did was, i took i beleive this is minis skele, i added a small anim to it. then copied the skele, then added nulls and a tail for constraints... ran the anim and bam ponytail started "animating" itself. u can see how it goes into his neck and just all kinds of horrible things right now cuz i literally spent 5 minutes on it... but... u could imagine what a full day or two or maybe a week could do for us.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_vy2jnw-Tw&feature=youtu.be

 

this opens up a huge possibility. now we can import the custom xsi with all the anims.. lets call this _humanoid.xsi to eliminate any more confusion... u could take the custom _humanoid.xsi that im proposing we create, and add things to it like grievous's extra 2 arms... and the entire model will be pre-animated all u will have to do is go back through it all and move the new arms how u saw fit. which, granted is a decent amount of work... but the benefits far outweigh the work. as before if you made a custom skele u were reanimating the whole thing. this technique just fixed my kazdan =)

 

now i just need a torguta model, with a tail =) and furlows, and a cape, and holsters, and a ponytail to test it on lmao thats one ugly jedi

[Lamented]

I actually am using this for my TC, and... would this humanoid interfere with creating new animations? Because I'm learning how to make new Savage Opress animations through XSI and stuff. I can't ask you to do that too, but I'm just curious.

[ChalklYne]

create the new anims in xsi off of the new skele we will be creating, export the xsi. go to assimilate and compile u a gla. glaMerge it into the custom _humanoid.gla that would come with the skel. the exact same process, except no dragon. im bursting at the seems that you're learning xsi deviance. from this point forward deviance will not be "moderately creepy", but has graduated into a padawan n00b. celebrate =) any help u need devi just PM me and thank you for flying XSI

now everyone toast devi for learning xsi

 

 

i feel like this everytime someone tells me theyre considering learning xsi...

 

 

 

 

[Xycaleth]

Didn't the Darth Vader model from JK2 have some form of simulated cloth physics baked into the animation for his cape? I can't remember who made it off the top of my head though.

[minilogoguy18]

I wouldn't use that skeleton as a base, use my custom rig instead, link is in my sig.

 

Like I said, this can work but only to an extent, what may work ok for one character the clipping will be bad for another since it doesn't take the models dimensions into account, it's still keyframed objects and not actual physics.

[ChalklYne]

i just youtube'd some gameplay of that veder, and it looks to me like its just rigged to the legs like how we've been doing it. i could be wrong though.

 

EDIT: Im wrong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tk0yHWYV34

if youll notice at around 0:50 vader does a roll. pause it here n there and u will see this...

 

 

 

 

 

and the last 2 images to the right, are to show that it is indeed not rigged to the feet. seems like its rigged to the spine and pelvis and possibly the left and right femurs...

[ChalklYne]

I wouldn't use that skeleton as a base, use my custom rig instead, link is in my sig.

 

Like I said, this can work but only to an extent, what may work ok for one character the clipping will be bad for another since it doesn't take the models dimensions into account, it's still keyframed objects and not actual physics.

yeah i thought about that as well and to me, its kind of like if u take the base skele, and rig a vader. yer gunna have to fake it here n there and make it work the best u can with the old methods. this should be about the same headache here n there, but will look soooo much better. people would have to once again fit their model to the skele, and try to make it fit as best as u can for that specific model, and fix the issues as best as u can with weighing tricks and animation changes. to me it seems like a HELL of a decent project to consider. and thank you in advance for the permission to use the skele in your sig. because i am most definately going to get a beta version going tonight most likely so we can see the benefits and bugs of it and go from there. ill prolly also model a stick figure with a ponytail and saber "holster" a front furlow and a cape. just real basic stuff though dont expect the world from it... but i will definately give it a go... and i think once i kick around a few versions of the skele, and get an overall community consensus of what bones are needed to be added and how stiff, etc, then i can start working on a finalized skele.

now, another thing i was thinking...

if we could get one of these big projects like say openjk to implement this new skele as like say assets5.pk3 with the new humanoid.gla and animations.cfg... then have it dispersed along with openjk(once again im only using openjk as an example forgive me for profiling lol) will the multiplayer aspect work? because i dont play MP, or code, but, from what i understand, the server as well as the clients have to have the same skeles right? so would this work?

and now to fix the problem with the hundreds of existing playermodels that have already been finished, that want to go back and rig it to the new skele and fix things like the cloth, if u still have the xsi file u compiled for that character, gator it to the new skele and tweak it here n there. it would be mad simple. but, most people probably dont have the xsi file for their released playermodels anymore, and will be forced to fully re-rig him/her. which is what a few hours of work? lets get some ideas kicked around as to what all bones i should add...

kinda like this...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and i dunno why i kept saying togruta tails... theyre kinda stationary i beleive i meant twilek

 

now i think im off to go learn collision in xsi and how to sort of set up boundary planes so the cloth and things never pass throught the body. THAT would be a HUGE advancement, and should eliminate some not all but some of the issues mini is referring to. and if not, and your furlow or cape is just too awkward and u cant get the things to work right, your either going to have to tone down the weights a bit and fix it manually, or re-think your model and its geometry positioning. like i said, you will have to use this skele just like the base one and build your model around the skele to eliminate most problems.

[minilogoguy18]

You're just talking about something that DT is already attempting which is a retardedly huge amount of work especially for you since you have very little experience in this area. DT already asked for my help back when they started that whole JA recreation thing but I knew how much work it would be to redo the games animations and with only giving it a single second of a thought I said no, it's too much work with few rewards, I'll wait for better physics or just mod another game if I want it that badly which at this point I don't care much about it.

 

Changing the skeleton breaks MP compatibility, ruining the game, you can try it but don't expect any help from me.