Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / vote advanced animation for new expansion

Author
Message
The admiral
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2002
Location:
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 07:21
Link
Hello guys im sure you all know that one of the biggest problems with making games in dbpro is the limitations of the animation system. Well tgc said that if there was enough support from the forums for an expansion which would allow multiple animations, blending of animations layers and all other animation related stuff then they would consider making it. I know there is one made by a third party but there is no longer support for it and I beleive tgc could do a better job so if you want advanced animation control and im speaking 3d here then post your support for the idea this will allow us to produce games that are of a higher quality and easier to.

The admiral
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Uncle Sam
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Jul 2005
Location: West Coast, USA
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 07:30
Link
Yes.

Uncle Sam
Nvidia Geforce 7600 GS 256MB PCIEx, 2.66 GHZ Pentium 4 proccessor, 768MB RAM
Need particles? Click here!
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Cash Curtis II
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 08:09
Link
Yeah, sure. A TGC supported bone based animation system would be awesome. I'd buy it.

However, you can effectively blend animations with the current system.


Come see the WIP!
Back to top
Profile PM
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 11:06 Edited at: 6th Aug 2006 11:07
Link
Yes. This is essential. More power. More control. I hate the current animation system. For me it is one of the worst areas of DBP. I'm constantly having to limit myself to interior animations because the animation system is so limiting.

Back to top
Profile PM
dark coder
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Oct 2002
Location: Japan
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 11:10
Link
I too think that animation is one of the remaining totally overlooked areas of dbp, so many plugin ideas i can think of tho, be kinda stupid having 20various plugins covering every neiche possible, but i guess its possible.

Hallowed are the ori.
Back to top
Profile PM Email
AlbertoT
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th Aug 2005
Location:
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 11:18
Link
Yes along with scene management (BSP or Octrees)

Alberto
Back to top
Profile PM
adr
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st May 2003
Location: Job Centre
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 12:57
Link
I guess I was fortunate to have bought Monster's Advanced Animation plugin before he cranked up the price to $100!

I'll buy TGCs version in a snap.

[center]
But you see, I have the will of the warrior. Therefore, the battle is already over. The winner? Me!
Back to top
Profile PM Website
bosskeith
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 5th Dec 2005
Location:
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 13:30
Link
if monetary limits would allow such a thing i would also be interested in such a beast.

Ink all over the screen...and dang it! Signature still does not show.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Diggsey
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Apr 2006
Location: On this web page.
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 16:46
Link
ME TOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

There are three types of people, those that can count and those that can't.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Freddix
AGK Developer
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Sep 2002
Location: France
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 16:47
Link
same here :p

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
DVader
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 28th Jan 2004
Location:
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 17:26
Link
Possibly, depends what it will entail really. If you mean an editor that would allow you to add bones etc to your models ready for use in DB using mesh deformation. With an easy to use animation system then yes. I think a lot of people struggle with this sort of thing and would welcome an integrated way of achieving good animation without any of the complications.

Check out Project Desert Storm

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=83458&b=8
Back to top
Profile PM Website
jasonhtml
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Mar 2004
Location: OC, California, USA
Posted: 6th Aug 2006 18:32
Link
hey, how about an advanced animation plugin that comes with an animation editor? that would be awsome


Thread: http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=78971&b=8&p=0
*New Website Coming Soon*
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
The admiral
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2002
Location:
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 00:02
Link
Well I suppose its up to you guys what features you want but keep voting the more we have the better.

The admiral
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
adr
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st May 2003
Location: Job Centre
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 00:48
Link
I'm tempted to look into this more closely - a DBPro based solution would be good; an editor, a file format, the works - all written in DBPro (or DBPro DLLs). Unfortunately, I understand the maths involved in converting Quaternion rotations into "local limb" style rotations are beyond most mortals.

Since I find it impossible to write and complete games, maybe toolsets should be my niche

[center]
But you see, I have the will of the warrior. Therefore, the battle is already over. The winner? Me!
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 00:59
Link
If you came up with a working and user-friendly animator and file format that worked well, it would bring a tear to my eye.

Back to top
Profile PM
Uncle Sam
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Jul 2005
Location: West Coast, USA
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 02:25
Link
Quote: "I'll buy TGCs version in a snap."
\

What do you mean buy? TGC has sqeezed anough cash out of us. It should be free. There are so many enhancements. Think of Game Maker, just $20 and so far you own it and any future updates or addons without having to buy enhancements, which are "cheap" because they should come free. Once we buy DB Pro, the extras should be free.

Anyways, that was my "$60".

Uncle Sam
Nvidia Geforce 7600 GS 256MB PCIEx, 2.66 GHZ Pentium 4 proccessor, 768MB RAM
Need particles? Click here!
Back to top
Profile PM Email
The admiral
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2002
Location:
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 02:34
Link
Well they have to make money some how and they have given us all the advertised features now these extras you must pay for.

The admiral
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Ron Erickson
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Dec 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 03:36
Link
I have been wanting to do an animation addon for DBpro a long time now. I've done *some* work on creating one, but I can't dedicate myself to it until AFTER my 3D Character Maker is released.
If no one else has done anything by the time I am ready, I'll definately be creating something.


Quote: "What do you mean buy? TGC has sqeezed anough cash out of us. It should be free. There are so many enhancements. Think of Game Maker, just $20 and so far you own it and any future updates or addons without having to buy enhancements, which are "cheap" because they should come free. Once we buy DB Pro, the extras should be free.

Anyways, that was my "$60". "


I couldn't disagree more. Do you really think TGC could sustain itself without any new products? If they could not sustain themselves, then there would be NO support for DBpro at all. Most of the "addons" for DBpro have been created by it's community, not TGC. You get what you pay for

EZrotate!
TextureMax!
3D Character Maker!
Back to top
Profile PM Email
adr
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st May 2003
Location: Job Centre
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 11:28 Edited at: 7th Aug 2006 11:30
Link
Quote: "If they could not sustain themselves, then there would be NO support for DBpro at all. "


Of course, one alternative way of ensuring a decent income is to develop some kind of gradated licensing model But, we all know what happens when people see the word "license".

Quote: "I have been wanting to do an animation addon for DBpro a long time now. I've done *some* work on creating one, but I can't dedicate myself to it until AFTER my 3D Character Maker is released."


Unfortunately, I don't think the current climate would welcome another pay-for plugin. Don't take this the wrong way, but I bet you'd plan on charging for yours. Perhaps rightly so - something tells me your solution would be to parse in the Quaternion animation format and do something clever. I'm gonna go in for some kinda hack. If I did manage to do something, I'll be adopting a wussy "donate-ware" model. Even if I don't get very far, I'm looking forward to learning about making a real plugin.

[center]
But you see, I have the will of the warrior. Therefore, the battle is already over. The winner? Me!
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Cash Curtis II
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 11:35 Edited at: 7th Aug 2006 11:36
Link
TGCs stuff is useful and affordable. I've got functionality that mimics professional systems, in a format that I can easily use. I have no problem paying for that functionality in bits and pieces. Nobody ever said game making should be free. Lots of people think it should be, for some reason.

I'll buy any plug-in that will speed my development time. Why not? It's like the greatest team effort in history - TGC takes care of the nasty internal bits, and all I have to do is cleverly tie everything together, and supply my own good media. It's still programming, and really no different than having another coder working on those parts for me. Nothing good in life is free, and most certainly not game making.

Besides, those plug-ins are optional. Anyone can code their own systems - lightmapping, AI, particles, etc. So, nobody really has a right to complain. These are just options available to us.


Come see the WIP!
Back to top
Profile PM
Hepy
20
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 16th Apr 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 11:35
Link
you got my vote anyway, i think it's a great idea.
Hepy

Hepy
Back to top
Profile PM
Syncaidius
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Mar 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 12:25
Link
You got my vote too, I hope it goes ahead and TGC make this plugin.

I would pay (at max) about £20.00 for something like this.

WORLD - A free World editor, capable of creating the most complex of worlds (including physics, skies, water, shaders, terrain editing and more). Best of all, it's FREE!
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 12:34
Link
If TGC were to produce an animation based product, I'd want a very stripped down version at a cheap price. There is no need for all the bells and whistles. If people want a simple animation solution, they can use the existing command set. Otherwise, just open it up a little more and allow the people with more advanced animations aims to get a little more low-level. Then just charge £5 for it or something.

There's no need to make an animation program when things like Milkshape work perfectly well. We just need a more powerful command set. Ya know, the ability to load in a bunch of animations, and set specific limbs to specific animation frames, or interpolations between frames. That'd be it. These commands would probably give us all the power we need:

SET OBJECT FRAME objID, animationFrame
SET OBJECT INTERPOLATED FRAME objID, startFrame, endFrame, interpolation
SET LIMB FRAME objID, limbID, animationFrame
SET LIMB INTERPOLATED FRAME objID, startFrame, endFrame, interpolation

Where interpolation is a value between 0 and 1 which describes the blend position between those frames.

Then the people who just want a simple animation solution and dont really get the complexities can stick with the original commands, and those of us who want more power can manually control animation frames and blends ourselves and literally do (almost) anything we want with those 4 commands.

And that's like, less than a days work for Mike or Lee I would imagine, as most of the code would already be in place. It'd just require some shuffling about and suddenly, good looking complex animation systems would suddenly be possible.

It quite frustrating knowing its so easy and how much I could do with it, yet it's not there at the moment.

Back to top
Profile PM
Ron Erickson
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Dec 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 12:52
Link
Quote: "Unfortunately, I don't think the current climate would welcome another pay-for plugin."

Actually, I think most people would welcome another pay for plugin if it was worthy of the price.

Quote: "Don't take this the wrong way, but I bet you'd plan on charging for yours."

In this case, your right. I would. I'd release it under TGC to make it an official addon. If you create something that does the job, I'd suggest you do the same. I know I would buy it. TGC would get their portion of the sale which is all helpful to the future of DBpro. You are compensated for your work which is helpful to keeping your plugin updated.
Are you are at all trying to infer that I haven't done my share of free things? I hope not. Although I do sell two products through TGC (soon to be three once my "3D Character Maker" is done ), there are loads of people using the FREE version of EZrotate. I also created the Tokamak physics addon for DBpro (the 1st physics addon for DBpro ). I haven't released anything free lately (besides the help that I try to give whenever I can), but that is because I have spent the last year and a half working on my current application. Anyway, I'm not offended by you saying that. I'm just trying to say that I do try to do my share of free things.

Quote: "Perhaps rightly so - something tells me your solution would be to parse in the Quaternion animation format and do something clever. I'm gonna go in for some kinda hack."

I have a couple ideas in mind actually. In the end, I think what I would do is make something that allows a user to load up their model in an application and export animations into a custom file format. Those animation files could then be loaded bak into DBpro and applied to the model.

Quote: "If I did manage to do something, I'll be adopting a wussy "donate-ware" model. Even if I don't get very far, I'm looking forward to learning about making a real plugin."

Good luck to you. If you create something nice, I'll use it (and donate). If you are unable to do this then I definately will once the window opens for me.

Ron

EZrotate!
TextureMax!
3D Character Maker!
Back to top
Profile PM Email
adr
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st May 2003
Location: Job Centre
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 14:15 Edited at: 7th Aug 2006 14:20
Link
@WOLF
Quote: "Are you are at all trying to infer that I haven't done my share of free things?"

Unfortunately, there's no delicate way of saying "I bet you'd charge for it" without that translating to "you money grabbing bastard". I'm aware of how much work this would take to get it done properly. Like I said, I'm not even gonna try to do it properly - I don't have the patience I personally don't mind paying for stuff that I want. I've got enough disposable income to be able to part with £20 or so, but I've been watching the DarkPhysics discussions quite closely, and there are so many cheap people on the forum, I would've thought a pay-for plugin would've ruffled a few feathers. I'd welcome you spending time on a plugin ... it'll be rock solid and feature rich.

Quote: "I also created the Tokamak physics addon for DBpro"

I'm very aware of your charity work. If you look in your paypal receipts, you'll see I made a contribution back in the day

@Fallout

So your suggesting that we have absolute ultimate control over how each limb is animated? So your code would be effectively saying:
Legs - run through frames 0-20
Arms - run through frames 40-50
And that'd be your layered animation? Hmm... you're right you know - do a very simple job, but do it very well. I like it. Infact, it would be super ultra cool+ if the commands obeyed the bone hierarchy. So, rather than me having to go through each limb and tell them to animate, I'd just have to tell the Shoulders to animate, for example, and the arms would follow.

The only thing I want now is spline interpolated animation, native to DBPro. I asked Lee for it for P4 (back when Upgrades were called Patches ) and he said he'll think about it ...

[center]
But you see, I have the will of the warrior. Therefore, the battle is already over. The winner? Me!
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Ron Erickson
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Dec 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 14:31
Link
Quote: "Unfortunately, there's no delicate way of saying "I bet you'd charge for it" without that translating to "you money grabbing bastard"....

I'm very aware of your charity work. If you look in your paypal receipts, you'll see I made a contribution back in the day"


adr,
Sorry if I came off as being a little defensive. I didn't think you were accusing me of being a "money grabbing bastard", but I wanted to be sure
Actually, now that you mention it, I do remember your donation to the Tokamak wrapper.

Good luck with this adr. If you have any questions about rotation, feel free to ask. I'll do what I can. As I said before, if you are unable to complete something with this, then I'll be more than happy to take over the reigns as soon as time permits.

Ron

EZrotate!
TextureMax!
3D Character Maker!
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 14:59
Link
Quote: "
Legs - run through frames 0-20
Arms - run through frames 40-50
And that'd be your layered animation?
"


Yeah, something like that. I'm trying to think of a quick implementation that TGC could do without too much trouble. The code is already in place to perform a transformation on a limb based on animation data, so I'm sure it must be possible to change set object frame code to set limb frame code and only transform one limb. And similarly, they have interpolation code in place to smoothly move from one frame to another, so instead of having it all automatic, why not just allow us to specify the interpolation point between two frames and not automatically blend from the start to end point?

I mean, at the moment I'm trying to get my characters arm to do a push animation for opening doors etc. This is impossible to get right, because I want my character to be able to push while running, or side stepping, or standing still. So I have to be able to blend two animations together. At the moment I'm using manual limb positioning commands to simulate a push animation, and then I can run that in conjunction with any animation. It works, sort of, but the rotate limb command just adds your manual rotation to the animation rotation. So my manually coded arm movement looks different everytime because my character could be partially through a run animation, or standing still etc.

Give me the facility to control animations and I would just run the push animation on the shoulder, elbow and wrist limbs of the character, leaving the rest of the body to do whatever its doing.

At the moment, I can't do any of that. It's so frustrating when you're trying to make a polished game and your character has to throw a physical fit like a mental patient, making everything look tacky because we're missing a few simple lower level commands, most of which almost already exist in another form.

Back to top
Profile PM
Julius Caesar
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 14th Apr 2006
Location:
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 15:01 Edited at: 7th Aug 2006 15:02
Link
Hey, I'd buy an animation thing, if it meant you could make completely native animations in DB Pro. Like load in a load of objects and set them as limbs and then set a couple of keyframes and make DB do the animating for you... I'd buy that, then you could just make anything without being an expert moddeler!

Bouncing Physics... How do?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Van B
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 15:05
Link
For what I use, CharacterFX, I could make my own internal version, in fact that's what I plan to do, which will allow me to add the stuff that I actually need. Like when animating a walking animation - it shouldn't be thousands of pounds worth of software that lets you see the opposite frame.

CFX let's me rotate bones and offset them - if I added a widget to a limb that let me offset and rotate, well it'd be the same thing, exactly. Using interpolation I'll mimic the animation system, but also give the benefits, like layered animations, frame transitions, ragdolls, even have the character move in relation to the animation, so no more moving forward constantly and looping an animation, it'd be more like tracking feet to see how they are moving in relation to the ground. Conditional animating too, like animate someone running then jumping and stopping - you might want it to loop a few frames until the character hits the floor, then start the landing animation. Considering the work involved in coding animations into your engine too, it would be great to have it all in a nice editor system then be able to just set a mode or movement direction.

Ragdolls is a biggie for me, I just can't shake the opinion that traditional DBPro animation is counter productive for it - I'd much rather have a model set to a pose internally, then have ragdolls take over with the characters movements taken into account. Even using ragdolling and limb limits while animating would be cool - you might want to have it record a ragdoll fall-over, then let you manually edit the character standing up again. There's a lot that could be done with an internal system, and really with a rigged model you have all of CFX's functionality - and CFX could arguably produce commercial quality animations.

Aegrescit medendo
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Julius Caesar
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 14th Apr 2006
Location:
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 15:18
Link
@ Van B, is Char FX good? and does it need to have an object with bones imported or can you just use a mesh and animate it?

Bouncing Physics... How do?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Van B
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 15:48
Link
CFX comes complete with rigging features, like you'd import a .3DS file of your character mesh, then draw a skeleton for him and assign it's vertices to bones.

Takes a bit of sussing out, but it's very easy to get stuck into - and it exports .X files that DBPro just laps up - when set to linear animation mode, you basically have a WYSIWYG animator for DBPro for like £20. Knowing what I know I'd happily pay triple that for it.

But my comments were about the actual animation technology, keyframes and limb angle based animation is only possible once you have a boned mesh - so CFX is fairly vital for DBPro IMO, no matter what you intend to do. I made a moth, with a solid and a soft wing section, wobbly belly, it moves like a real moth, and it took about 1 hour in total, modelling, texturing, animating, exporting... It's simple and quick once you know what your doing with it - packages like 3DS Max are a lot more complex, and a lot more time consuming IMO - defeats the purpose of spending money on them, any money you spend in indi development needs to justify itself with the time it saves you.

Aegrescit medendo
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Fallout
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 16:17
Link
Nobody actually buys 3DS max though. We all know that, yet people are happy to say that's what they use. I agree that they are usually bloated for what you require of them as well. I find Milkshape and Ultimate Unwrap 3D do everything I need for modelling, UV-mapping and animation.

Back to top
Profile PM
Euphoria
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st Feb 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 18:19
Link
No from me..

Well actually its a yes, but I would like to see some of the fundemental problems of DBP sorted first (docs & debugger).

As a newcomer, learning DBP has been 'painful' and 'frustrating'. With up to date docs and a working debugger this would have been enjoyable.
Back to top
Profile PM Email
adr
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st May 2003
Location: Job Centre
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 18:48 Edited at: 7th Aug 2006 18:48
Link
Quote: "you might want to have it record a ragdoll fall-over, then let you manually edit the character standing up again."

PaceMaker supports this - it has an IK/Ragdoll Recorder, which converts IK generated movements into an animation.
Quote: "CFX let's me rotate bones and offset them - if I added a widget to a limb that let me offset and rotate, well it'd be the same thing, exactly."

Limb rotations and positions are always relative to the current animation frame. So, when you ask for those stats it's always 0,0,0, etc. Unless you're saying you can glue an object to the animated limb and the glued object returns correct angles... hmmm...

I think it needs to be clear what we're after here. No-one's asking for a fully fledged replacement for CharacterFX, or 3DSMax. All we're after is a couple of extra commands to bring DBPro up to speed. Using fallout's suggestions, it's not even worthy of being a separate plugin - just 4 extra commands.

[center]
But you see, I have the will of the warrior. Therefore, the battle is already over. The winner? Me!
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Van B
Moderator
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 19:19
Link
Thing is, I'm talking about completely animating the character, like the animation would not be stored in the .X file, so all the limbs would be static, and adjusting them would animate them as if it was a standard .X animation.

For example, you could leave the top half of a body, and just animate the legs with CFX or whatever, then offset the arms and head to suit different weapons in a little editor in DBPro, then when you rotate the limbs to match and loop the animation it would move in the set pose. Did that with OIE, even had the arms raise up and down to aim and the waist turn by a set tolerance.

Aegrescit medendo
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Cash Curtis II
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 19:28
Link
I imagine that it would work just like Monster's Advanced Animation plug-in. Which is really what everyone is talking about. I suppose that it's just too expensive now. And the support is rather poor.

Anyway, you have a Milkshape skeleton. You rig the model up the the skeleton. You have to do it just perfectly right or it will flip out.

You load the plain, unanimated model into DBP. Then you initialize the animation system, and load the separate animation files. They're .mob files. Each one contains the animation data for the skeleton. You can load as many as you want. You can also export your own animations from Milkshape.

The nice thing is that one single MOB file will animate any number of models that have been rigged with the system. You can combine animations, and they're all blended from one to another.

It looks very nice, and DBP handles them better than a bunch of big animated models. DBP starts to melt down if you load a keyframe animated model that's too big, but you have have a ton of MOB files loaded no problem at all.

I haven't used it yet because all of my models are keyframe animated, and rigging up another model is hard. I really want to use it, and I one day will if I model my own characters. It would be easier to rig than to actually animate them.


Come see the WIP!
Back to top
Profile PM
Glenn Carter
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Mar 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 23:09
Link
I was also thinking the other day that something like this would be good. I would've been interested in buying Monster's one, if the price wasn't ludicrous.

This gets my vote.

Glenn Carter
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Chenak
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 13th Sep 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 7th Aug 2006 23:16
Link
Even if you buy the monster AA plugin, you won't get it. Even before he turned to conning his customer service was terrible.

A new animation plugin would be fantastic. I'd definately like to see a new one so i can delete his plugin from my hard drive forever.
Back to top
Profile PM
The admiral
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2002
Location:
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 00:42
Link
Yeah the key thing is that if i want my character to run and also swing a sword I should be able to do this just an example and it looks like many people would support the idea but keep voting the more we get the more likely it will come to fruition.

The admiral
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Xenocythe
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th May 2005
Location: You Essay.
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 00:47
Link
Yes, but ony if its free. Actually, it would be really really great if you added it to the next (or later) update of DBPro.

Applyby has Flies in his Eyes.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
SageTech
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Dec 2004
Location: Orlando, Florida
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 01:03
Link
Indeed, this is something I've been hoping to buy for quite a while now. I really don't see the need for an animation program, with PaceMaker, FragMotion, and CFX it hardly seems needed. What I think is vital however is a new command set for animations, I mean there's no way you could make multiple animations in dbpro without creating your own system, and that's a shame because these days I see that as an absolute must for any game. What Im hoping for is something along the lines of what Fallout mentioned. I.E:

Extract Animation from file
Apply Animation to Limb

That way you can animate a walk cycle AND have the player fire a gun at the same time with hardly any work at all.

Back by unpopular demand!
Battle Legacy has gone MMORPG! Nah, Im just kidding. But seriously, check the WIP

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Bmad6
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 25th Aug 2005
Location: Virginia, United States
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 04:02
Link
One addition to what sagetech and fallout have said:

You should have a flag somewhere when you apply an animation to a limb, where 0 means it will only animate the selected limb, and 1 means it will also apply to all child limbs.

Your signature has been erased by a mod.
Assuming that it really was erased by a mod, and not dapaintballer:
Thanks! (I'm sure dapaintballer changed it to something about gay port again...)
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
SageTech
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Dec 2004
Location: Orlando, Florida
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 04:14
Link
I agree, that would save a lot of hassle assigning to each limb, but doesn't take away the power to set an animation to each limb if for some reason you want to. Cheers to that.

Back by unpopular demand!
Battle Legacy has gone MMORPG! Nah, Im just kidding. But seriously, check the WIP

Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
abe
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 6th Feb 2006
Location:
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 04:48 Edited at: 8th Aug 2006 05:13
Link
without advanced animation?
a product that tells to be professional?

Quote: "tgc said that IF there was enough support from the forums for an expansion which would allow multiple animations, blending of animations layers and all other animation related stuff then they would consider making it"


IF... THEN...

there isn't anything professional in this answer,for God's sake!
it seems joke!
Back to top
Profile PM
Cash Curtis II
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 05:48 Edited at: 8th Aug 2006 05:48
Link
Rigging a model to a skeleton is the only method that really makes sense. Applying animations to limbs really doesn't. A model can have a hundred limbs, and creating a scrited animation would be a nightmare.

And, like Fallout said, more comprehensive interpolation commands.


Come see the WIP!
Back to top
Profile PM
Bmad6
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 25th Aug 2005
Location: Virginia, United States
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 06:29
Link
I agree with Cash, bones are the way to go.

And, possibly an editor for creating these bone structures? Or, maybe, add something to the DBO file format so that it can have boned animations added, and someone in the community can then create the editor for it?

Your signature has been erased by a mod.
Assuming that it really was erased by a mod, and not dapaintballer:
Thanks! (I'm sure dapaintballer changed it to something about gay port again...)
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Cash Curtis II
19
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Apr 2005
Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 09:16
Link
Well, you can do it in Milkshape
I say that because there's really no sense in creating an editor when there's an editor more than capable of handling it. And most everyone has Milkshape already.

We just need a plugin, like Monster's. Except, it needs to have a tutorial included, and the original skeleton, all rigged up. His is a great plugin, but he gives it out as though everyone already knows how to rig models up.

And of course, cheaper.


Come see the WIP!
Back to top
Profile PM
The admiral
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 29th Aug 2002
Location:
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 09:47
Link
I did contact tgc abe and they told me to make a post on the forums if I wanted to see it happen they would then look at the post and see the response if there was enough support for the idea they would consider it.

The admiral
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Steve J
18
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Apr 2006
Location: Vancouver, Washington
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 09:53
Link
I want it

http://www.milkpaton.com/
http://phoenixophelia.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
adr
21
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 21st May 2003
Location: Job Centre
Posted: 8th Aug 2006 13:02 Edited at: 8th Aug 2006 13:19
Link
The problem with something like 'Apply Animation to Limb' is that it's application specific. You cannot realistically 'Extract Animation' and then 'Apply Animation to Limb' because the two models could be totally different. You need to make a skeletal animation in milkshape, perfect it, and then rig it to each character. You need to do that. What we want is a way of blending animations, and as far as I can see, Fallout's suggestion makes the most sense in terms of doing something very low level. You could create any number of crazy ass applications from those 4 simple commands.

There's a a difference between TGC wiping your ass for you (DarkPhysics) and providing some very simple commands which they could knock up in a fraction of the time.

--- EDIT

Oh yeah, I did some investigating last night (thanks to Benjamin for pointing me in the right direction) and it looks like you can only interrogate DBPro's internals through the DBPro functions. So getting a limb's rotation through a DLL would be no different than getting it through the get limb angle x command, or whatever. So - there needs to be some serious jiggery pokery in discovering limb's local angles.

[center]
But you see, I have the will of the warrior. Therefore, the battle is already over. The winner? Me!
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2024-06-03 15:54:01
Your offset time is: 2024-06-03 15:54:01