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Thread for the advancement of JK2 animation abilitys!


Kinja

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I know this is not model related but since there is no official area for animation, I ask that we use this one thread for any and all shareing of knowledge of animation related stuff. I believe the future of this community depends on this. Cuase personally plugging in new models is only going to take this community so far. inorder for this community to survive we need the power to make real Total Conversions. And we cant do that without the ability to make custom animations. So Raven or Lucas if your listening, please help us out, your our only Hope!

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Well, James Monroe from Raven told us all we really need is 3DSM and Carcass to get animations into the game. You make the animations in 3DSM, export to XSI, and use Carcass to make the GLA. This would work for new skelaton and whole new animation files, say for an arena monster like MeLoN's reek.

 

Now if we wanna modify the existing humanoid.gla we either have to import it somehow with a GLA importer or get our hands on raw animation data in XSI form. I've heard Raven was going to arrange a release of the XSI animation data (something like 600MB) or possibly a GLA importer, either would probably work.

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600mb of animation data? wow..and i thought it was only 9:)

 

Im personally somewhat displeased at how LucasArts is handling the advancement of the mod community, companies like DE and Valve have done great job but sigh:\

 

a TC would be nice if the complete source were released

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3DSM is about 3 grand USD, but easily warez. XSI 2.0.1 is the alternative which costs a hell of a lot more and nearly impossible to warez.

 

Everything else you need comes with the JO editing tools (e.g. Carcass).

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Cool, even better if we don't need XSI:) But earlier you said this: "You make the animations in 3DSM, export to XSI, and use Carcass to make the GLA". Anyways, what I really need to do is to just make all new animations. I don't plan on using any of the pre existing animations as the TC Mod I want to do is not even set in the Star Wars Universe. So do we or do we not need XSI at some point or another to do this? Sorry, I just want to make sure.

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I have XSI 2.0.1.

 

My college major used to be computer and video imaging (3D modeling, etc.), and my grandpa financed my edumacation in every way...

 

It's a shame because I can't really use it right. And still, I hope we don't need it. It would be a crushing blow to the community or a strong temptation to pirate it.

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So... where is this up to? Does anyone have a definitive answer on what we will need to make new animations or when we are likely to figure this one out?

 

This thread seems to have ended with some unanswered questions and some people who had heard things but weren't sure.

 

So - what do we know for certain, based on what Raven has said, and when do we expect to know more?

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Originally posted by Kinja

I don't plan on using any of the pre existing animations as the TC Mod I want to do is not even set in the Star Wars Universe. So do we or do we not need XSI at some point or another to do this? Sorry, I just want to make sure.

 

Oh, you'll certantly need them. Running, walking, jumping, shooting, talking, all of those are excellent motion captured animations that would be extremely difficult to reproduce (especially the transition animations, those suck).

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For obvious financial reasons, people have to give up on the idea of motion capture animations. If anybody IS going to figure out a way to put original animations into a multiplayer model for jk2, then it will have to be done with plain old keyframe animation ... like the way it is in quake 3. Unless, of course, you're absurdly rich and can afford a few hours in a professional motion capture studio just to make a player model that will give you zero return on your investment ;)

 

Now, I'm no motion capture expert by any means, but I would assume that the only difference between "keyframe" animation and "motion capture" animation is that when somebody bases all their animation off of motion captured frames, then basically that IS keyframe animation, only every bone gets "keyed" in every frame ... instead of every 3,4, or 10 frames. That's just an assumtion though. In theory, I could be wrong. ;)

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Well, my lead animator has been a pro in the industry for atleast 3 yrs and is more than capable of doing the animations. You think you have to use mo-cap to do good animations? Hardly, besides think about what your saying. Look at it this way, even if our animator sucked that would be all the more reason why I would want all new animations. I mean it would look pretty funny if your like, walking all cool with your nice mocapped animations and then you start in with your crappy Keyframed animations for the Kung Fu. Anyways, this won't be the case, cause my homie is a very talented animator. Anyways, I appreciate the technical help Emon, but try and have a little faith in me. And BTW, I am a little worried about how or if we can do this, but its the codeing side that worries me because hey, I can't do that part of the mod. But trust me, the art side of this Mod is in good hands. So if it really is possible to do full on custom animations, then its no problem.

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Originally posted by Emon

600 MB for the raw animation data or something

 

I dont think that would be possable to release as people would take forever to download it. Also you will have to look at possabilitys if Raven were to sell 600MB of 2 years animation instead of giving it away for free.

 

If we want to expand the TC world we need to build on new weapons not JUST animations. Maybe some four legged characters as well.

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Motion capture isn't ideal either because the raw data you get from it still needs some fine-tuning. You can create equally good animations by keyframing them manually. You "just" need the skills, patience and time to learn it as with anything else.

 

Motion capture is used a lot for a large quantity of needed animations like for large crowds in movies where they don't want everybody to walk, run fight etc. the same way.

 

Is it possible to:

- Make animations of the skeleton in 3D Studio Max.

- Export is as XSI and compile a GLA of it in Carcass.

- Compile a finished XSI model in Carcass that uses the newly compiled GLA instead of the _humanoid.gla.

- In ModView you should be able to see if the model uses the new animation.

 

You could try this with a single, short and easy animation to see if it works. For instance the skeleton kicking itself in the head which is only 2 keyframes :)

 

Maybe I'll give that a shot this weekend.

 

Just wondering why you have to use Softimage but I'm probably missing some small & important detail :)

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I think you got the jist of it Anavel :D The one thing that we lack it the ability to modify and import existing animations in game. This is a damn shame :(

 

I noticed a post from the mapper over at Wired Lamp Studios stating that they may be looking soon to abandon JKII in favor of a game engine that's more flexible to work with. That would be unfortunate to say the least

 

Raven, (I hope somebody from them sees this) and Lucas Arts, you guys are sitting on a potential cash cow, but only if you guys explain to us how we can do our own animations. If WLS, one of the few highly orginized mod groups out there for this game, decides to bolt from JKII in favor of a more flexible, the rest of the community might not be that far behind.

 

heh, I'll stop my plea there, you guys have probly heard it before ;)

 

Toonces

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