Archangel35757

Why remove the tailbones??? Why not just use them in your cloak or for backside tunic or tabbards??? Seems like they would be handy when a character is riding a vehicle or sitting down...

nothing much really... a simple, flat, large terrain... to allow for a fighter fly-by (doesn't matter which kind)... Also make a multiple rocket launcher or surface-to-air missile launcher brush model... we'll use the ROFF's for the fighter's animated flightpath, as well as to animate launcher system tracking the aircraft and then have a missile launching out of its casing and intercepting the fighter. Maybe, use the Camera ROFF too for a "bullet-cam" view... I believe the Camera NoteTracks are appended automatically to an existing ROFF file by the game code... based on the camera parameters you script in Icarus... best I can tell. So it'd be good to verify that hypothesis. Or if you have something else you'd like to do I'm open to suggestions.

Update: Making good progress with the ROFF exporter... I've gotten all the class methods finished-- except for the two methods to write the binary and ASCII output files. I hope to have them complete in a couple of days... then we should be ready to beta test. We need to start working on a test map-- I want to create the ROFF's with Max5 as a reference proof case.

Barabels have a tail, no?

Bothan?

Not sure... MD3 is a binary file format-- maybe one of the more-experienced programmers can help you... I guess it would be too simple that somewhere you are inserting a space in quotes " " in the function that writes the file path/name???

Update: Making progress... I have the code for the export dialog finished, as well as some class methods for the exporter. Still working on the heart of the code for the export process. I hope to have an Alpha version soon for testing.

While working on the ROFF exporter I may have stumbled upon why the progress dialog hangs... ...there is a feature/property of the dialog that can be set TRUE/FALSE in the visual studio resource editor to prevent OS from sending an idle message ( WM_ENTERIDLE) to the dialog window when it is active. The progress dialog has this "no idle message" set to FALSE... and I'm thinking it should be TRUE. I'll Do a quick recompile as soon as I can and send to @@DT85 and @@Psyk0Sith to verify.

@@Lancer and @@mrwonko -- a hypothetical question: When you are creating a complex script using multiple ROF files, either in a cinematic cutscene or background events going on in a map, where the brush objects that depend on ROFs may animate at different times-- would it be better if all ROFs in that level have the same starting/end animation frames where they would all start playing at same time (with some objects staying still until you reach their true anim start) ...OR would it be best if each object's ROF started animating immediately and the Icarus script controls the global start time in the map?

Below is an updated dialog adding the option to export a specific animation range. The "Segment Range" section will be disabled unless the user checks the "Export Segment" box. For those folks that have experience with ROFs, can you think of any more export options?

@@Lancer @@DT85 -- What about having an export option for a custom animation range start/end??? For when you might only want to export a portion of a much larger animation??? Only thing the user will need to ensure entity is not moving until his custom start frame...

Not a whole lot of options... but can anyone think of anything that I may have missed? ...it will always export a binary .ROF file (for each object)-- and will automatically handle export of selected objects or all scene objects that have the origin shader applied:

Xycaleth has increased the max number of ROFFs to 128 per level.

@@Xycaleth @@eezstreet and any other OpenJK coder... Is there any reason that we cannot bump up the number of allowed ROFs in a level??? It is artificially capped at 32 ( as defined in g_ROFF.h ) What would be a good number? 64, 128, 256... etc.

I have too much on my plate already. Keep up the great work!

You should make an NPC version with custom facial bones that fit it perfectly.

Hey just for fun would you post a pic with all the facial bones overlaying your head?

How will the facial bones drive this? Just weight to a select few?

Then maybe I can understand it. Which c++ files govern the in-game facial animations that get played when a sound plays on VOICE Channel?

@@eezstreet -- there are a number of scripts, tools, and plugins that do this inside 3dsMax. We can make a "mouth area" animation for all of the standard visemes (see http://aidreams.co.uk/forum/index.php?page=Visemes_-_for_Character_Animation ) and map the phonemes to the visemes. Doesn't the game already do this? But it only uses a few visemes? As for facial expressions to go along with speech... that's pretty complicated. Perhaps we could modify the ROFF system code and existing game lip-sync code to achieve all of the above. ROFF files can already process and use sound files. And we could add a new notetrack type called "expression" and then you would place expression notetrack keys along the sound file animation inside 3dsMax or Blender to play the facial expressions. Then in-game you'd check for facial expressions in the ROFF and play the facial expression animation as the sound plays. Only thing now is that ROFF sounds only play on CHANNEL BODY so that would need a slight modification to play on VOICE channel. What do you guys think of that?

I like this last idea of a complex bone face rig... I was planning to do just that. We can create a complete library of visemes to be used with the lip-synch autoformatting the visemes to the sound file. What about modifying/using the lip-sync code from the game? We would need to have a facial pose library for facial expressions that the user would need to manually set against the soundtrack.

@@DT85 -- you asked for a ROFF tutorial so I dug this up from my old computer... Perhaps also check the web link on the Internet Wayback Machine.

But you can read C++ code... no?

@@mrwonko and/or @@eezstreet and/or @@Xycaleth -- I've quickly taken a look at the cg_camera.h and cg_camera.cpp files in the cgame folder to investigate the camera ROFF noteTrack properties therein. It seems to me that this code and the ROFF callbacks somehow automatically appends the camera ROFF noteTracks to an existing ROFF file... rather than being a noteTrack that a user would create inside 3ds Max (or Blender) like an "effect" or "sound" notetrack. Am I seeing this correctly? So I'm asking if Camera ROFF notetracks are automatically handled by the game's code and whatever normal Icarus camera scripting one would do? Should my 3ds Max ROFF exporter be able to create and export camera notetracks as well??? Or would this conflict with what this game code is doing? Thanks! :unsure:

Ok... so I'm trying to verify the actual format for the noteTracks that can be used in ROFF files. Basically, in 3ds Max you use the NoteTrack feature to add sound and effects files to your ROFF. Sounds always play on CHAN_BODY. An example of what you would enter into the NoteTrack is shown below: "sound sound/world/drone6.wav" And for an efx notetrack you would enter: "effect effects/explosion1.efx 0+0+64 0-0-1" My understanding of the 0+0+64 represents an offset from the object's origin of where you want the effect to originate on the object and the 0-0-1 is a unit vector relative to the object for the direction you want the effect to play... in the above example this explosion will be offset 64 units in the z-axis and is directed along the z-axis unit vector. @@mrwonko has pointed me to the cgame camera files that deal with ROFF Note Tracks For animating a camera along a ROFF defined path. So I am studying those now.