minilogoguy18

I've seen 1 person recently using Maya, if I were forced to migrate to another software that would probably be it since it received a lot of ported stuff from Softimage but the interface is a total disaster that requires immediate user revision before even using it. I like to learn hotkeys and do away with all the toolbars to leave more room for ortho/3d views on screen. If that day comes hopefully there will be dotXSI export, if not I'm sure there would be some FBX->dotXSI workaround.

^This is true, I never noticed a slow down.

@@AshuraDX From certain POV's certain things can look not right especially with the scene camera's FOV setting which I may have to mess with. It makes me look at how we're limiting how we're showing content, dotXSI is going away along with Softimage. It'd be nice if we could get a new carcass to support the more widely used FBX format which was made to be like dotXSI but for Alias Maya before Autodesk bought it. They have a really nice model viewer for free that's way better than the old XSI Viewer. I kinda wanna send the model out with some of the sequences to have you take a real look at it.

Good cause I have a pretty good victory animation in mind, it could probably even double as a taunt but I'll try to think of something a little different for a taunt. Haven't done anything lately, been updating my rig for the _humanoid since I've had some interest in it and have found various ways to improve it by some of the things I learned making a rig for Gorc.

Reguardless, this thread is pointless, with all talk and no action it may as well just fall to the bottom of the forum.

Linear games suck so bad, especially the ones that are just 1 long interactive cut scene. Just upgrade the existing engine since movement and mechanics wise it really can't get much better, just needs visuals improved and physics added. @@Echo, JA didn't add anything but extra saber blades, all the powers that are in JA are in JK2, just not all of them are available in the SP campaign.

I thought that's what you said but I think the file size thing depends, on 1024x1024 maps with alpha channels and such PNG does come out to a much smaller file size but it probably is due to compression or possibly a setting I was using. Best to use what loads fastest and since we're not counting Mb anymore with how large HDD's are the size is a non issue. @@eezstreet what about the progressive option question above? I don't ever remember using it or seeing what difference it made. I just used standard jpg for anything that didn't use transparency.

The .JPG format is widely used for anything that doesn't use transparency because it's a smaller file size and uncompressed. The differences with .PNG and .TGA is that .PNG is a compressed format which leads to smaller file size but possibly increasing the load times as the game takes more time to read if I remember right. These formats support an alpha channel which is needed to achieve certain effects with certain shader types. @@eezstreet would know more. I think I remember him going over the pros and cons of using PNG versus TGA, I always thought that PNG was nice because it could do all the same things as TGA but had a much smaller file size but in the days of TB hard drives it probably doesn't matter much.

As far as Rey and who she is, her parents are in ep7 and this is confirmed info, some people have guessed it but no one at disney is saying who's right but they are there and you'll find out who when 8 comes out.

This new trilogy isn't going to follow the same theme as the 6 before it, the 6 films before it were all about the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. The other characters are just there to give more depth to the story. The only characters that are in all 6 of the original films are Anakin, Obi-Wan and the droids. The problem with this new trilogy I foresee is that it's going to be a different person writing each one which may make for some odd points that don't quite match up. TFA wasn't as terrible as you suggest @@Cerez but it definitely isn't better than the originals, it's mostly a nolstalgia trip for people like me who remember the original originals. Rogue one was good, the story didn't contradict anything and I like how they didn't tamper with things like they did in TFA. I mean TFA changed lightsaber sounds FFS. I'm surprised you like the CW series so much when literally none of it matches up with the movies. The 2d animated version made by Genndy Tartakovsky did a WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better job of filling the gap between episode 2 and 3.

Holy cow Maya's interface is super cluttered and bloated. I would like to see though a dotXSI 3.x plugin made just to give people more options but I don't think they even offer the PLE version anymore which is why Autodesk is just going down the shitter.

How do you expect to make 4 arms work? Someone would have to make custom animations for him.

Yeah, the standard walk had this but I guess I never did it for the crouch, I've fixed that. I'm making notes on all the swings needed and how the naming works for them, I've got the games acronyms for the swings figured out.

Yeah, I didn't think about the spine until just now. Your confusing terms, the null skeleton is just that, you guys don't have my actual rig. I need to know if I need to change the local transforms of any of the bones in the spine to make the character look and bend over properly when the crosshairs are aimed at the floor. I'm using a shadow rig, the nulls are just a game skeleton that accepts the plotted fcurves on export. There is a another skeleton laid over that with full IK and controls that the nulls are bound to. I wouldn't export an actual SI skeleton, the IK chain heirarchy doesn't match up with the simple FK parent/child chains that JA uses. This is why I said using the CS biped as your actual bones is dumb and using it as a shadow rig would let you add controllers to the CS biped if you wanted. I'm still not interested in using any JA base animations, there is enough recycled content around, don't need any more, I want to actually make something.

What do you mean? Rotation in the hips? At full stride the hips should twist in the opposite direction of the torso but the way you word it makes it sound like they should twist in the same direction when my hips don't do that. Yes, I act out my animations before and as I'm making them LOL.

I've been thinking of going back but the thing is I want to come up with a collision setup to fully automate the motions of the flaps. The upper body twists with each step, I could increase it.

Can you give a list of the orientations, I may not have the spine bones oriented correctly.

I actually have a model that is UV mapped that I made with no textures. It's kinda old and I feel like it could be better.

I'm taking this list and making a animation.cfg file using these with the _humanoid.gla so I can get an idea of what each one is and making my own notes. I left out the running animations. I've got all of the core but the strafe which shouldn't take long, a few blocks, some force powers which aren't listed, the legs are quick and easy and I'll be starting on the swings soon. I think a lot of these are also "blend" animations that reference frames that are used in the core swing sequences so that makes the list a little shorter. I'm not sure what to do about the "special" or kata move, I personally never liked them and would rather them be removed from the game but it's your call. The only use they have is when some dummy comes into a server, uses it because it's how he beat the SP game but quickly realizes how open it leaves them as they're taken apart by a regular MP player.

They are limited, and bones are just part of what you can do to make a custom rig, mine include IK chains, nulls, curves, implicit objects and polymeshes. I've seen custom rigs in 3DS Max that make those preset bipeds look like FK animation in Dragon. You forget, I used to use max, I know all about the CS bipeds, I used to use Keshire's that he made that was a shadow rig with the JA skeleton as dummy objects that received the plotted motions. The Max 4 or 5 (I can't remember which) file is probably floating around the net somewhere but I may have in on another HDD. To the second part after the quote, well duh. There isn't a single bit of animation on my null skeletons, they just receive the plotted motions from shadowing the rig on export. If the CS biped can't get a good result without animating the nulls that the model is weighed to that will be the game skeleton then it isn't a very good solution. Using the biped as the game exported skeleton is what's not going to work that great. You wont get the local transform values you need and the heirarchy of the biped I'm almost certain varies from the hierarchy the game uses for say a player model. A custom NPC you can arrange the bones however you want but rearranging the biped I'm almost certain will keep it from working the way it was meant to.

I don't see how using shadow rigs is limiting, you just simply pose constrain the nulls to the biped then plot the animation on export. Every 3d forum I visit game artists use shadow rigs, I'm sorry but saying it's the less ideal solution is flat out wrong. When using custom custom rigs especially you can arrange the hierarchy how you need to get the rig to move in ways that require animating fewer controllers and automating certain movements. For instance, moving the hip controller should NOT move the entire character like it would by just simply moving the game skeleton hip object. It should however let the character crouch because the feet controls are NOT child to the hips or any of the leg bones but under a move all control. My rigs also do NOT have the same local orientation as the FK game skeleton nulls, in SI we use the constraint compensation option to allow the driven target to retain it's local transforms rather than inheriting them from the driving source. This is how I was able to fix the issue with the AT-ST's feet, I simply removed the pose constraint on the talus bones, removed the envelope, rotated the bone, redid the envelope, applied a pose constraint and exported plotting the same animations with no need to touch anything else. It literally was a super quick fix.

I must have forgotten to update the AT-ST file, it shouldn't crash in base JK2 when shooting at it, I fixed that by adding more LOD's since the game computes weapon collision by using the lowest detail LOD. I'll update the file.

Yeah, when it comes to games you never want to directly weigh a character to a biped rig, you'll only limit yourself with how you can arrange the hierarchy so that it can work in game otherwise you'll have problems. You also lose a lot of control and freedom over how the rig drives the character.

I'm just trying to solve the finger controls, I might just make a synoptic view that has a bunch of buttons to put the hands in different poses as well as maybe some sliders that control individual finger curl.

Cool stuff going on in here, I'll try to have that revised rig ready for you possibly the start of next week.