Player Model mounted green screen rectangle

[ZanderNao]

I know it's an odd request, but Jedi Academy has remained the definitive engine for my film group's machinima efforts for over a decade because there is a constant flow of amazing content from all these talented individuals, and it can be implemented into game so easily. The one thing that has eluded us, though, is being able to specifically position green screen elements into existing maps.

Would it be possible to make an invisible player model with a head to toe, three body lengths wide rectangle attached to their torso (so it wouldn't move even when they do their idle head back and forth motion)?

As a noclipped player it could be positioned into any spot, and as an NPC you could drop it conveniently into several spots...

Is it too strange of a request? Or could someone besides me have use for it as well?

[Psyk0Sith]

Sure. It's strange but has a purpose and quite easy to do.

[Kualan]

Just to clarify - you basically want a character model that is just one big green screen? So it can be positioned behind NPCs, etc?

 

If so, that's a pretty creative idea and offers a lot of opportunities for machinima. Nice.

[AshuraDX]

@@Psyk0Sith I take it you're allready at it?

[Psyk0Sith]

@@AshuraDX Almost done, except windows 7 and the xsi plugin don't cooperate for now.

[Psyk0Sith]

I know it's an odd request, but Jedi Academy has remained the definitive engine for my film group's machinima efforts for over a decade because there is a constant flow of amazing content from all these talented individuals, and it can be implemented into game so easily. The one thing that has eluded us, though, is being able to specifically position green screen elements into existing maps.

 

Would it be possible to make an invisible player model with a head to toe, three body lengths wide rectangle attached to their torso (so it wouldn't move even when they do their idle head back and forth motion)?

 

As a noclipped player it could be positioned into any spot, and as an NPC you could drop it conveniently into several spots...

 

Is it too strange of a request? Or could someone besides me have use for it as well?

 

Try this un-tested version the screen is weighted to the pelvis but if that doesn't work well i can change it. It will need a shader to make it a pure color. I will do fixes later if needed.

 

[ZanderNao]

Oh wow! I'm really blown away by the fast response and from so many people! This warms my heart!

So the initial test was a success. I'm going to make a couple NPC's for it and get some better screenshots. I think it'll meet my needs just fine. The only quirk is if the player has a weapon/item out (I use datapad and comlink frequently) it tilts the screen at a bit of an angle, but it should still work fine. I'll let you know of my progress.

[ZanderNao]

Alright, I played around with it. I had 3 NPC's at 100%, 200% and 300% scale. It seems that my initial guess as to what size coverage I would need was MUCH smaller than what would be good in reality.

It also makes me wonder what the possibilities would be for a green screen parallel to the floor mapped to the player model's feet, but I'm getting greedy and getting the normal up and down version is quite an advancement!

@Psyk0Sith by the shader to make it a true color, I assume you mean so it doesn't react to the map lighting as much?

 

Staggered green screens to try and get coverage.


The sort of camera angle I might use to pretend the ship was on another world than the map it is in.



A failed attempt at bottom of ramp action.


Another camera angle test.


100% and 200% scale tests.


100% test behind bars.


300% scale test.

 

 

[Kualan]

Interesting results. You'll probably need to download one of the custom animation mods so that the 'idle' animation leaves the NPC straight-backed rather than the tilted-hips of the vanilla game, in order to make it easy to pose the green screen without it being angled to the right. Either that or modify the .glm in Blender slightly to compensate.

 

And yes, the right shader settings should be able to make it a 'pure' colour.

[ZanderNao]

Interesting results. You'll probably need to download one of the custom animation mods so that the 'idle' animation leaves the NPC straight-backed rather than the tilted-hips of the vanilla game, in order to make it easy to pose the green screen without it being angled to the right. Either that or modify the .glm in Blender slightly to compensate.

 

And yes, the right shader settings should be able to make it a 'pure' colour.

I like the shader idea. The problem is I can't change the idle animation for the greenscreen without changing it for 'characters' in scene, so to avoid the angle we'd have to play with the model itself.

[AshuraDX]

@@Psyk0Sith get my turntable model, and use the skeleton from the included max scene, then export& compile it against my turntable.gla

 

that' should be better suited than the default humanoid.gla

[Psyk0Sith]

It also makes me wonder what the possibilities would be for a green screen parallel to the floor mapped to the player model's feet, but I'm getting greedy and getting the normal up and down version is quite an advancement!

 

@Psyk0Sith by the shader to make it a true color, I assume you mean so it doesn't react to the map lighting as much?

 

If you want a floor added it's no problem (can be turned off via .skin files anyway). Hell you could even use an inverted box or cylinder so you get a better coverage no matter where the camera shoots. Yes, the shader means the lights won't affect the color, it will always be the same, so no fussing around when you "alpha" it out of the picture.

 

@@AshuraDX good idea, that would get rid of the crooked screen completely. One major problem tho is that i'm still on max 2010 and can't load the original scene, i'll see if i can re-import the .glm instead.

[AshuraDX]

If you want a floor added it's no problem (can be turned off via .skin files anyway). Hell you could even use an inverted box or cylinder so you get a better coverage no matter where the camera shoots. Yes, the shader means the lights won't affect the color, it will always be the same, so no fussing around when you "alpha" it out of the picture.

 

@@AshuraDX good idea, that would get rid of the crooked screen completely. One major problem tho is that i'm still on max 2010 and can't load the original scene, i'll see if i can re-import the .glm instead.

alternately try @@Archangel35757's .xsi importer

 

I think I included my root.xsi aswell

[Psyk0Sith]

@ Hit this DOWNLOAD link for the final version. Type npc spawn greenscreen for the version without a floor and greenscreen2 for the floor model. There's a glitch with the floor version, it can't be used in far away shots (the game's floor seems to z-fight with it) but as long as the player stands relatively close to the back wall it will work. Big thanks to @@AshuraDX for providing a better alternative.

[ZanderNao]

This is absolute perfection! Thank you all so very much!!!! You are all heroes and legends. Magnificent work!

[Langerd]

@jchapman1984 make a shader for this to not gaining shadows from the map It would be easier later for remove (I hadnt work with greeenscreen before but i think that it would be easier later to workj with)

[AshuraDX]

@ Hit this DOWNLOAD link for the final version. Type npc spawn greenscreen for the version without a floor and greenscreen2 for the floor model. There's a glitch with the floor version, it can't be used in far away shots (the game's floor seems to z-fight with it) but as long as the player stands relatively close to the back wall it will work. Big thanks to @@AshuraDX for providing a better alternative.

submit it here, probably add different color skin options - I'm sure more people will have a use for this.

also: why did you make your own color texture? The game has 6 flat color textures in assets1.pk3/textures/colors/

models/players/greenscreen/diffuse
{
    q3map_nolightmap
    {
        map textures/colors/green
        rgbGen identity
    }
}

[Psyk0Sith]

Because it took me exactly 5 seconds to make it and i wasn't aware the game had flat colors If there's a way to fix the floor issue i'm all ears (i could move it up but then that would clip through the players feet even more...)

 

 

Archive updated:

 

Default green color
npc spawn greenscreen (no floor)
npc spawn greenscreen2 (with floor)

Additional colors:
npc spawn greenscreen_black
npc spawn greenscreen_blue
npc spawn greenscreen_gray
npc spawn greenscreen_orange
npc spawn greenscreen_red

Additional colors with the floor, add "2" at the end like so:

npc spawn greenscreen_black2
npc spawn greenscreen_blue2
npc spawn greenscreen_gray2
npc spawn greenscreen_orange2
npc spawn greenscreen_red2

[ZanderNao]

@@Psyk0Sith you are a god...

Now I can finally start doing layered composite shots to populate hallways and battle sequences...

Lock down the camera so it doesn't move, film the back end of a hallway, throw down a greenscreen, film the foreground. Suddenly you've doubled the population of the hall!

 

[Circa]

Would love to see it submitted here on JKH for more people to see and use. Really simple concept that would be really helpful!

[AshuraDX]

@@Psyk0Sith theres a shader option that offsets each surface slightly, it's used for decals in maps. Maybe check that out, could be the key to fix the z-fighting.