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FPSC Classic Product Chat / Sizing characters

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Belseth
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Joined: 16th Sep 2006
Location: USA, Phoenix, Arizona
Posted: 16th Sep 2006 21:39
I'm new to gaming but I've been running CG software for fifteen years. From Playmation/Animation Master to Lightwave to now Maya. Still trying to figure out importing characters and sets. I did manage to manually swap some image files and I was thrilled with the quality. Photo textures translate really well into the game engine. One thing I'm curious about is sizing characters? "A" how is that controlled and "B" how much control do you have? By that I mean is it possible to have very large characters that breach level heights? Not ceilings but if you have a say three story clear space can a character be sized to a height of two stories or more to the point two levels? Still digging around trying to find how to set properties on characters. There's the obvious defaults when you right click but I haven't found any other settings. Not really into code writing, light weight MEL is the best I can do. Just curious what's possible and where additional controls might be hidden? If there's text files I'm sure I can sort out how to modify them I just haven't found them yet. Back in the day I used to tweak Animation Master text files because it would refuse certain number combinations in texturing but I could manually enter them in the saved file.

Curious if anyone has considered doing a user based manual? As in a manual composed of user contributed commands and tutorials? Zbrush did something like this, the included manual is really sparce. A one stop shopping source for how to import animations, textures and sets would be a big help. Even a cheat sheet telling where things are hidden and how best to access and modify them would be huge.
electric chihuahua
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Posted: 16th Sep 2006 22:19
Hi

Sizing characters is handled in the FPE file I believe. Interestingly, the first released character set was scaled larger than the items included with FPSCreator. All had to be changed manually. As far as setting the scale of imported items I could'nt say. Probably need to bring one in and compare it's scale to something existing. I'm still learning about all this myself. Lot's of info has been posted on the forums to address theses things. Most have been collected for you at the top of the forums.
Hope this was helpful.
Belseth
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Location: USA, Phoenix, Arizona
Posted: 16th Sep 2006 23:50
Thanks so much! That did the trick. In answer to the question yes you can in fact make giant characters. Too much fun. They won't show up in the game if they exceed ceiling clearance but that and 20 levels in height seem the only restriction. I just needed to know what file to open in the text editor. I have been cruising the forums and do searches but a lot of people use nondescript headings so searches can be tough and there are thousands of postings. I always go there first but some times you have to ask.

Thanks again!
Belseth
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Location: USA, Phoenix, Arizona
Posted: 17th Sep 2006 00:01
One issue I'm finding is the bigger they are the harder they are to kill with weapons. Is there a hit area that needs to be adjusted as well? I looked and didn't see anything in the file. Also I tried shooting lower and that did nothing. I'm wondering if the strength increase proportionally with the scaling? If so it'd be easy enough to tweak those settings.
uman
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Posted: 17th Sep 2006 00:12
To apply a scaling to a model inside FPSC you need to open its .fpe script file and insert your scale parameters.

Some entities script files such as characters will aready have such info existing so you only need find it and change it appropiately.

Open a script file in notepad and look for the scale setting command.

If one does not exist you need to enter one in the section which has the orientation info.

Scaling is controlled/set like so :

scale = 80

Equalling 80% of models original size so from that you can work out what you need do.

The best way to scale models when in a model editor is to take a simple single deault wall entity from FPSC - copy it and open in your modeller - as FPSC works on a square tile based system you can use this model as a scaling tool for measurement and set up your modellers grid size to match. Save your new file and then use this file as a scale template.

Once you get a grid set up in your modeller to match FPSC Room sizes you are away. Yes.

That and the combination of scaling in script should be all you will ever need for scaling purposes.



"I am and forever will be your friend"
Belseth
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Location: USA, Phoenix, Arizona
Posted: 17th Sep 2006 00:16
Well I dropped the health level and that seemed to work the first time but the next time I fired up the test game it went back to being hard to hit or kill the oversized characters. On the flip side if you down scale them they are easy to hit and pretty hysterical. I dropped some zombies down to half size so it was a room full of pymgy zombies with the oversized AI. Nice to see it's so flexsible. Not sure what's up with the oversized characters though. I attached a capture of the room with oversized and under sized characters.

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Belseth
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Posted: 17th Sep 2006 00:42
I am finding also over scaling the models seems to screw up the AI. They no longer attack. I've been playing with the view height and cone size but no dice so far. Also oversized models tend to be able to at times run through walls. That may also be something that can be tweaked in the AI. The small scale ones are bizarre. I found that when they go into a crouch they'll at times actually hop up onto a window frame before they crouch. Hard not to laugh. I did try down scaling an attacker and it also couldn't see to attack. The funny thing is when I went into a crouch it could attack. Definately seems to be a function of coneheight and coneangle. I'm assuming those are the characters range of vision and eyeline.
electric chihuahua
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Posted: 17th Sep 2006 01:56
They do look hilarious. Giving me an idea to add to my horror contest entry.
bond1
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Posted: 17th Sep 2006 02:45
Scaling a character in the fpe does work, but can lead to unpredictable results in-game, with collision detection and other stuff, as been posted here.

Better to keep the character's scale in the fpe around 80-120%. For larger characters its better to export them from a 3d modeller at the size you intend to use them in-game.

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"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://hyrumark.zftp.com/FPSC/hyrumarkfpsc.htm
uman
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Posted: 17th Sep 2006 03:13 Edited at: 17th Sep 2006 03:17
As Bond1 has said.

In fact any large scale model can cause collision probs in many engines as has again been discussed at these and many other forums.

Scale and using it excessively can affect and be affected by many things - remember that a large object will automatically have physics attributes applied to it the by FPSC when first imported or placed in a level and this also can have an impact on behaviours. You may need play around with these auto Physics settings in some instances.

There are many issues affected by scaling that could impact though most of them will have been discused previously and a user will by discovery find their own solutions to issues if its at all possible.

In the case of Characters of course the Collision box itself may be impared by large size scaling of a Character. The Character itself may physically change in size but I am not sure how the engine then handles the collision boundary for that situaton - it may not be able to accommodate a variable adjustment significant enough to allow for credible collision detection?

Because of this engine registering of collision for hits from weapons may also be affected.

As most things in FPSC are relative and tied in to the single tile concept and scale then - objects of vastly larger or smaller proportions may well cause all kinds of problems. Some will some wont.

If you cant shoot a tall street lamp to death for instance it wont matter much - but an enemy is another matter.

Trial and error is your best friend.



"I am and forever will be your friend"
Belseth
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Joined: 16th Sep 2006
Location: USA, Phoenix, Arizona
Posted: 17th Sep 2006 03:47
I just spent a couple of hours playing with the defaults. 300 units is the max height but like an earlier post said after about 120 things get dicey and after 200 they can't be shot at all. As soon as I figure out importing models I'll try scaling them outside the software. Just playing with where the limits are. The smaller characters work fairly well except the attacking is a bit problematic. You can get some amusing results upping the Tavor to 1000 and shooting a half scale character. They flip end over end and fly half a dozen times their length through the air.

It's in no way critical if over sized characters don't work but I was curious. Nice to see smaller scale ones work okay. Definately amusing having dozens of miniature zombies running around.

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