Archangel35757

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"

I greatly dislike this chaulky, cartoony look... I was hoping for a more photo-real experience!

I thought they compiled a unique GLA for each cutscene animation, no? For example, the Alora and Jaden duel in Echo Base... I would think that it was all animated inside Softimage-- and then the Jaden and Alora animations were exported out as their own cutscene GLA and invoked by scripting, no?

@@AshuraDX -- are you applying an AO texture that is already baked into diffuse map while working in 3dsMax? You could also add the AO texture all by itself in the Diffuse Levels Map slot-- which is different than diffuse slot (if you use an Oren-Nayar-Blinn Shader. Then you can just assess the AO map inside Max before you combine it into diffuse map.

Can't cutscenes also involve NPC's that have their own GLA file? It's just scripting right?

I would rather you add a driver tag, no? It would be nice to have a few animations that play on the commander-- raise lid and lower lid, binocular search, maybe one death animation where he slumps over. Did you ever play Rebellion's WWII Sniper Elite? It had the best combat AI ever. Sometimes when a tank was blown up the wounded tank commander would open the cupola trying to escape but the flames would overcome him.

Spent a little time trying to model the Lacrimal Caruncles in the corners of her eyes. I'm not satisfied with them. But here's how they look now.

Seems to be bags or pouches.

I've done some research for this for my 3dsMax head rig controls. Eye and head movements are inter-related and complex... typically (when not staring) the eyes will lead the head as your eyes move to lock onto a new target-- as your eyes begin to reach their limit your head begins to rotate to compensate. In other sudden instances-- like a disturbance beyond your peripheral vision your head may turn rapidly with your eyes staying zeroed with respect to the head... and as the head approaches the look-at vector your eyes begin to lead the head. When you're searching within a very small cone you tend to search with your eyes. If the eye movement gets larger, you're more likely to turn your head in the direction you're looking. When you stare... you tend to keep your eyes zeroed and track with head movement. Then if your head/neck reaches a limit you'll continue to track with your eyes until your eyes hit their limit (this assumes you keep your body locked still). There's also something called Saccade movement of the eyes where they kind of randomly dart around in small increments about a constant look-at vector. I'm going from memory... since I don't have my notes.