Archangel35757

Would be nice to add proper Shader support and rend2 (normal maps). Also, IIRC... ModView supports playing supporting sounds for a character using the animevents.cfg file. If we add facial wrinkle (normal) maps (for mo-better facial expressions) then it would be nice to add support for a "face_event.cfg" (similar to animevent.cfg but it tells engine to use an animated normal map in sync with a facial expression animation).

No worries... yes, my facial rig bones will be in the main humanoid skeleton. As much as possible I will re-use SoF2 bones-- if they're in the right place... so as to try and minimize the bone count. We would then export the selected facial bones, face_always, cranium to its own GLA that will contain the visemes and facial expressions. Like I said earlier it seemed Raven was planning to use the current tail bones to refine deformations in the tunic? But I think they should be moved to femur like in the article-- to keep buttocks from collapsing. Also, now would be the time to consider fixing the off-centeredness of the SoF2 face bones... center them about face_always/cranium-- unless we don't want to break compatibility with SoF2??? When I finalize the placement of the new facial bones-- I will send them to you so you can incorporate them into your CAT rig ( Including its maxscript GUI Interface).

@@eezstreet -- when you say Hit Indicators... are you referring to the character hit-map? Like in SoF2 where they use that to trigger certain animations? E.g., shot in arm, subject grabs/nurses arm... or shot in leg-- subject walks/hobbles with limp... that kind of stuff would add more realism IMO.

As requested... A lot of the smaller polygon's along the centerline of the head will be reduced from 4 to 2 rows after I merge the two "symmetry halves"...

Maybe have it blink while charging, and then go solid when ready?

Here's a brief update... I've been re-working eye area-- it's getting closer to what I want. I also did a quick hack at eyelashes just to see how they would make the eyes look better. They're not the final lashes. I plan to work more on her this evening after work...

you can't have a "model_root" dummy helper in your scene-- because the exporter creates this helper. He could try "export selected" and have only skeleton_root, mesh_root, and their children selected.

I think 2 or 3 Transdoshans would be a great addition-- but I think they should not all be wearing similar flightsuits. Other species that I'd suggest adding might be: Chiss Kubaz Duros Zabraks Might look better to have some female species as well. I think some aliens (perhaps the Duros?) should be "innocent" nuetral bystanders caught in the cross-fire (taking cover behind broken tables, etc.). The females should scream and flee... just a few thoughts.

Rather than record your computer monitor-- you can use "Animation Preview" to create an AVI for your WIP anims.

Good to hear. Remember that the game's GLM characters are scaled to 0.64 (64%). So when you import a GLM into 3dsMax you need to rescale it by a factor of 1.5625 to get back to original 100%.

Adding new facial bones seems to be a duplication of effort to what I'm working on, no? Are you only adding existing SoF2 facial bones (that were omitted from JO/JA)? Tail bones do serve a purpose-- to keep the buttocks from collapsing during certain animations... they are fix-up bones. They just decided not to use them. Look at a male or female model in ModView and you will see numerous frames where the buttocks collapse. I'll scan in a 3D World article for the technique I will be using for tail bones in my rig. Raven seems to have intended to use this technique-- but their bone placement seems more intended for tunic/coat tails-- rather than the buttocks, because their tail bone transforms are not co-located with the femurYZ bones as shown in the above screenshot. Looking at the JA root.xsi the following mesh object is weighted to the tail bones: hips_belt I'm not really sure what they were intending... Maybe I'm taking what you're saying completely wrong-- but it sounds like you're trying to dictate to me where my facial bones should go... when I picked up this facial rig challenge, no? In my opinion you should only use the JO/JA bones and leave new facial bones (other than SoF2 bones) to the facial rig. I guess I will cease plugin development and get back to my rig. It would be nice if we could all coordinate on this rather than work independently from one another. :/

I asked because he said he was making new facial bones and keeping the old ones....

So basically you are using the JO skeleton? Is it from the Max8 skeleton I uploaded? Also, are you going to use the facial bones I setup for the Jan Ors head rig? Or are you just going to do your own thing? My plan was to setup a female and male humanoid facial rig-- since there may need to be differences in some of the bone layout.

Please read the appropriate sections of your 3ds max help docs on setting keys and turning off certain keyable options. Search on animation concepts and key filters. Use key filters to disable keying Scale Controllers.

Did you put animation keys on the Scale transform? You should not... Bezier scale controllers give you that cubic error. Scale controller can only be linear-- but you should have no need to put keys on scale controllers.

Uncheck absolute texture paths. Also make sure that no 3ds Max objects have spaces in their names-- if they do... replace the spaces with underscores. Also a vertex can only be weighted/influenced by 4 bones. If you want to export animations... then you need to check that box. Keys should exist on root pose (frame 0).

Here's another link: http://www.iryoku.com/wrinkles/ ...seems to be a lot out there on using normal maps for wrinkles in conjunction with facial animation-- would be awesome to do this in OpenJK/rend2.

I just downloaded this PDF by AMD on animated normal maps for wrinkles-- thus could also be used for faking cloth wrinkles I suppose. http://www.chrisoat.com/papers/Chapter4-Oat-Animated_Wrinkle_Maps.pdf

I need to go back and re-read that chapter... for the exact methodology. Could the normal maps be tied to the facial expression? To be qued to play when that facial expression is played?

No... all I need are normal maps to accentuate the facial expression using a bone-based rig-- no morphing/vertex animation needed. This method/technique is explained in Jason Osipa's "Stop Staring..." facial animation book. Check this out:

You can use the DirectX Shader in 3dsMax to see the results of your normal map.

Just a question (not specifically rd-rend2 related)... but here goes-- can Ghoul2 player models/NPCs have "Shader" LODs... so that in lower LODs you might drop a certain Shader stage so as to reduce computations? Just wondering... maybe someone can edumacate me. Second question-- can we have animated normal maps??? For example-- I'd like to make various wrinkle maps to use in conjunction with facial expressions/animations. So when a specific facial expression is made it is enhanced by the associated wrinkle maps (e.g., brow furrow, eye squint, crows feet, etc.). In 3dsMax the process is known... and I seem to recall reading about an 8-frame animated texture/shader in the Q3 Shader manual-- but is this achievable? And how would I do this with ShaderED and rend2 ???

I plan to work on this Sunday... so I hope to have the eyes and more finished.

Maybe make the windows have a little frost around perimeter?

Hard to tell on my cell... but looks like the Hoth variant needs more "frosting"