[Concept] First Person Animations

[Silverfang]

Each weapon will use it's own .glm and .gla pair, this includes:

• Left and Right arm skeleton
• Weapon model
• Tags for flash efx
• Tags for attachments
• Tags for magazines
• Tag/Bone combination for animated gun parts

Although player models use a generic _humanoid .gla, almost every weapon in JKG has a distinct position for where the left arm should be placed, where it should go during reloading etc. However, generic animations can be placed in a separate "noweap" glm/gla that includes animations for both left hand and right hand, we can load a separate .gla for the off-hand for actions such as hand-signals or pressing buttons in first person etc.

 

Additionally, we can load a second weapon .glm/.gla for the left hand only for dual-wielding!

 

An ARC Caster Mk.1, a weapon in desperate need of proper first-person animations.

 

Each weapon will come with its own animation.cfg to define what frames do what:

 

Most weapons will include:

BOTH_Idle

BOTH_Raise

BOTH_Lower
BOTH_Fire1 //3 Firing animations to keep it just a little different each time you fire the weapon since it's right in your face.

BOTH_Fire2

BOTH_Fire3

BOTH_Reload //Divided into 3 distinct sections that affect what will happen if you cancel reloading

Weapons that can be held with one hand will also include

RIGHT_Idle

RIGHT_Raise

RIGHT_Lower

RIGHT_Fire1

RIGHT_Fire2

RIGHT_Fire3

LEFT_Idle

LEFT_Raise

LEFT_Lower

LEFT_Fire1

LEFT_FIre2

LEFT_Fire3

 

In addition to animation, we can load new .efx, models, etc. to bolt to or remove from tags from the animation.cfg, for example, the dressellian projectile rifle will need 2 bullet models bolted to tags every time it cycles the bolt after firing, an empty shell and a fresh shell that has a bullet. These 2 tags will be inside the model to start with, stacked on top of each other, when the animation plays that reveals the chamber of the rifle the first tag that has the empty shell bolted to it will get ejected in the animation, and the second tag that has the new bullet will get moved as though it were ready to fire.

 

As each model moves out of view we can unbolt them since we don't need to render them anymore.

 

This is also how magazines will be attached to weapons, this means that we can have new types of ammo attached to weapons, all without updating the original model as long as whatever animation is already present will fit the new magazine during reload etc. We can have small, medium and large clips for every single E-11, not just dependent on which E-11 you have purchased (there are some balancing factors to this, but that's not what this thread is about).

Additionally, this also means we can have things like barrel smoke after firing several shots or smoke/steam coming out of the magazine well just like in Republic Commando when you reload the DC-17m.

[eezstreet]

It seems you forgot to mention another nice thing about Ghoul2 models: they can be skinned like the player can. Meaning we have the option for retexturing an entire weapon (maybe as a unique weapon variant) without copying the model several times. You could maybe even condense a lot of the weapons that we have now which are different models (such as the Slugthrower Carbine) of the same gun with different attachments.

 

In case people didn't notice by the names of those animations: Dual Wielding will likely drop around the same time that this feature does.

[Omicron]

It seems you forgot to mention another nice thing about Ghoul2 models: they can be skinned like the player can. Meaning we have the option for retexturing an entire weapon (maybe as a unique weapon variant) without copying the model several times.

 

sweet.

[ensiform]

I'm wondering though... Wouldn't it make more sense to be able to have the hands from the player model? CoD does this nowadays.

[Silverfang]

Unless we get a better skeleton rig from the player models, no. All future player models and ones that are used currently will get the arms/hands separately rerigged to use the first person skeleton.

 

This has the side benefit that I can also increase the subdivision level of the first person arms without adversely affecting performance of third person player models.

[ensiform]

I'm not sure I understand. Why can't the arms and hands from the player model get used?

[Silverfang]

They can, just not with the same skeleton. For the fingers+thumbs there's only 6 bones (2 for the pinky and ring finger, 2 for middle and index, and 2 for thumb). DT's skeleton from his .glm Heavy Repeater for example uses 15 bones, 3 for each finger and thumb.

[Tempust85]

Well actually the pinky, ring and middle fingers are meant to be driven by the "d4" bones.

 

Anyways. I can always recompile the JKA animation source to include all 5 fingers with 3 segments and toe bones (like JK2) if you want it. I can even thrown in the full facial bones as well. Would break compatibility on existing models though.

 

P.S sorry for the necro posting.