23 réponses à ce sujet

[Vaalyah]

Hello everybody! I am starting to learn some things for modding the game. I've seen there is a huge list of pre-existing animations. I would like to know:
1) if there is a way to add custom animations and, in case, if someone has already done it.
2) if there is a way to make two NPCs interact in contact (ie: A takes B's hand; A pushes B aside; A and B dance together...)
3) if there is a way to "tie" animations (ie: combining already existing animations to create something new)
Thank you  

[BigfootNZ]

1. Yes easily enough, unlike NWN1 the animations are exported into their own self contained files so making new ones arent so hard from what  I understand, you'll have to import a skeleton file in Max for the model you want to add a custom animation to. Although you have to call them specifically in scripts for them to show up in game. nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/PlayCustomAnimation

2. yes with lots of planning, testing and work... personally I wouldnt bother all sorts of things could impact getting it gelling properly ingame.

3. No idea, but if you open up the animation files in max with Expotron you can easily customise the existing animations, not sure about combining them since its all down to what you can do and what you know how to do in Max.

[Hellfire_RWS]

Vaalyah wrote...

Hello everybody! I am starting to learn some things for modding the game. I've seen there is a huge list of pre-existing animations. I would like to know:
1) if there is a way to add custom animations and, in case, if someone has already done it.

Yes, animations can be made fairly easily if you ahve the right tools. Qk recreated all the player skeletons in CAT v3. these require 3DS Max v8 Sp. 3, a Copy of Cat 3, and the Exportron plugin.  I have already released new swimming animations to the vault and have finished Fly /Levitate.

2) if there is a way to make two NPCs interact in contact (ie: A takes B's hand; A pushes B aside; A and B dance together...)

I am sure there is but as Bigfoot said, it would probably take a bit of tinkering and time to get it right.
I suggest you talk to Kemo the head of the Haven PW, I think he has done this kind of thing.

3) if there is a way to "tie" animations (ie: combining already existing animations to create something new)
Thank you  

Again I would talk to Kemo about doing PC interaction animations he has the most expierence to my knowledge.

As far as importing and reusing existing NWN2 animations. this can't be done as far as I know. Exportron is just an exporter, and the best importer is Tazpn which doesn't support animation import.

Modifié par Hellfire_RWS, 07 octobre 2010 - 03:38 .

[Vaalyah]

1) Thank you very much

2) I haven't understood more than 3 words, but again, thank you very much :-D

3) now, it is time for getting more clarifications. Prepare yourselves!



@Bigfoot: Thank you for the link! Unfortunately, I don't have 3D max :-(



@ Hellfire: here I have to be completely shameless. Since I don't have 3D Max, I don't know how to use it, I don't have the time for learning it (even if I would like very much) and most of all... I suppose it actually costs a kidney and half a liver :-D in case could you help me in creating some animations? Nothing of incredibly complicated or long. Please, let me know if you could ever be helpful in the future!

Who is "Kemo"? And how can I contact him?





Oh, guys, the more I learn, the more I discover that I would not be able to do all by myself. I really need help. I am learning the toolset, scripting, cut-scenes, dialogues, maps... But I simply don't have enough time to learn everything related to modding the game :-(

Desperation is putting its hands over me :_(

[-Semper-]

i've got a question too: all the animations like walk, fight, death, idle and so on are at place and the movement is controlled via the engine. but what is with special animations along a path? like a flying dragon starting from a hill and landing in front of the player, or character rolling down a hill, or a custom running animation while drawing the sword for a cutscene and so on. how do create such animations which needed out of place movement? will this path automatically processed in relation to the root in max or is it impossible within the nwn2 engine?

Modifié par -Semper-, 07 octobre 2010 - 04:24 .

[Shallina]

You have to focus !!!!



Become a custom content creator, or a module creator.



If you choose to become a module creator just use the existing stuff.



Beeing a custom content creator+ a module creator isn't impossible but twice as long !!!!



There is al ready many many many custom content, if you wanna be a module creator you have to limit yourself to the existing stuff. The Vault has so many buried treasur only waiting to be used !

[Vaalyah]

@Shallina: not a problem... what about giving to me as a Xmas gift a good CC creator? :-D that would be extremely useful!

I really need two damn stupid animations. Nothing dramatic, they're just basic things, but I really need them :_(

[Nightwoe]

3DS Max v8 Sp. 3 for $3,000? eh, not in my budget, dedicated though I am. Improvising and scouring the Vault will have to be enough. Thank you for the information, all.

[Nightwoe]

@ Vaalyah, next semester I might get access to an animation software, but I don't know for sure and if I do, I don't know what one it will be. I'll ask the animations instructer

[Vaalyah]

That could be an interesting option that need to be investigated ;-)

Meanwhile, I am still here doing puppy eyes O.O to whoever could be interested in creating animations!

[Hellfire_RWS]

what animations are you talking about? I already have a list of very basic animations planned that DNO will probably help me with, If i ever get him the skeletons.



Those include

Chopping wood

Chopping trees

Sweeping with a broom

Hands and knees scrubbing floor

Raking

Digging with a shovel

Mining with a pick

etc.

[Vaalyah]

I am wrinting a PM! Don't worry, you will hear from me soon :-D

[BigfootNZ]

-Semper- wrote...

i've got a question too: all the animations like walk, fight, death, idle and so on are at place and the movement is controlled via the engine. but what is with special animations along a path? like a flying dragon starting from a hill and landing in front of the player, or character rolling down a hill, or a custom running animation while drawing the sword for a cutscene and so on. how do create such animations which needed out of place movement? will this path automatically processed in relation to the root in max or is it impossible within the nwn2 engine?

There a little tricky, but im sure their possible... the root or 0,0,0 local world co-ordinates of the 'character' is what is used in relation to the models actual ingame location. You place your ingame model in the toolset at say 10,10,0 .... but the models mesh is animated to do a running jump over a few meters, the model plays this animation and looks like its moving forward  but that is only the 3d mesh and skeleton moving forward in its local space, and in reality the 'character' hasnt moved beyond it initial position of 10,10,0.

You'd have to set up an animation that has the dragon leap up and fly a specific distance you would then jump the npc to the location it appeared to land, once the animation is done (ie during the course of the animation the dragon is infact still on the hill, then once its done you 'Jump' the dragon to the spot its animation showed it landing in... which can be fraught with issues with timing and then things like ingame tweening of animations which I dont know much about with NWN2, NWN1 had tweening but you could force it to ignore this on an animation).

NWN1's appear and disappear animations where very usefull for this sort of thing... you could have your dragon leap into the air despawn then respawn where you want it with a Appear animation having it crash down wings flapping  on the ground... NWN2 doesnt have the appear and disappear animations which is a pitty... then again they might still be in their somewhere but it would take fudging animation file prefixs to find it through hit and miss.

Also i kinda take it back what ive said about Granny... its actually rather easier than i expected, ive avoided animations due to it, but fiddling around yesterday it seems to work quite well... export mesh or bone models that are animated as skeleton file, export all animated meshs as animation file... export everything as MDB.

Edit:- hey Hellfire with the levitation animations do you make the levitator untargetable ingame through scripting?... since the Z axis is non existant?

Modifié par BigfootNZ, 09 octobre 2010 - 10:29 .

[Vaalyah]

What what what, the Z axis doesn't exist? But in the previous example you were referring to a 3 coordinate system, so... there's something strange... o_O

[-Semper-]

BigfootNZ wrote...

There a little tricky, but im sure their possible... the root or 0,0,0 local world co-ordinates of the 'character' is what is used in relation to the models actual ingame location. You place your ingame model in the toolset at say 10,10,0 .... but the models mesh is animated to do a running jump over a few meters, the model plays this animation and looks like its moving forward  but that is only the 3d mesh and skeleton moving forward in its local space, and in reality the 'character' hasnt moved beyond it initial position of 10,10,0.

You'd have to set up an animation that has the dragon leap up and fly a specific distance you would then jump the npc to the location it appeared to land, once the animation is done (ie during the course of the animation the dragon is infact still on the hill, then once its done you 'Jump' the dragon to the spot its animation showed it landing in...

if i am understanding this right than expotron exports the path of the animation too? like if i am moving the mesh within max 10m the animation will display the same way within nwn2 and moves the mesh the same distance? to stay with the flying dragon it works like this: i import the model into max, do the animation from the start to the flight and the landing postion. now if i am export the animation and fire a script ingame with my custom animation the dragon will start and fly along my predefined path, lands and now i have to jump the actual monster to the newly created spawn point to place it there. i could hide the spawning with a great cloud of dust or clever camera cuts.

the good thing is it sounds like custom animations alongside a path are difficult but doable. someone tested this or is it just assumption?

Vaalyah wrote...

What what what, the Z axis doesn't exist?
But in the previous example you were referring to a 3 coordinate
system, so... there's something strange... o_O

actually there is a z axis to work with else you could not lift models above the ground. the thing is it's not usable by the player because the walkmesh only works in a 2d array defined through the y and x axis, therefore you can't control the player along the z axis.

Modifié par -Semper-, 10 octobre 2010 - 02:17 .

[Vaalyah]

Thank you for the explanation!

[BigfootNZ]

-Semper- wrote...

actually there is a z axis to work with else you could not lift models above the ground. the thing is it's not usable by the player because the walkmesh only works in a 2d array defined through the y and x axis, therefore you can't control the player along the z axis.

Yeah tahts what i was meaning.

As to your first question you need to realise that a model in NWN2 has both local and world co-ordinates. The world Co-ordinates are where the ingame creature or placeable, vfx blueprint object is located within the area, the local co-ordinates are where the meshs verts, bones or a vfx's component partical bilboard etc parts are in relation to its 0,0,0 position. If I model a placeable that is a sphere and that sphere sits 10 feet along X from 0,0,0 inside 3dmax and i export it and then set a placeable inside the toolset to use that model for its appearance and I place a copy of this placeable at 0,0,0 in the areas map the spheres mesh will visually appear at 10,0,0 ingame but in reality the placeable is actually still at 0,0,0 and any interaction with it will center around its real world location in the areas map rather than around where the mesh appears to be.

If animating the dragon leaping and flying your only moving the dragons bones and mesh around relative to the models 0,0,0 local co-ords but ingame and in the toolset it hasnt moved from its original location on the hill... you have to time a scripted forced move of the creature or placeable to get it to now appear where its mesh appeared to end up just as the leap and fly animation ends.

Its complicated.

Opps i just realised you more or less got what i meant... Im a bit fuzzy headed today and not particullary with it sorry.

Modifié par BigfootNZ, 11 octobre 2010 - 10:48 .

[-Semper-]

BigfootNZ wrote...

Opps i just realised you more or less got what i meant... Im a bit fuzzy headed today and not particullary with it sorry.

yeah^^
it was just important for me to know that the path of the animation will be recognized by the engine. sounds like it is and that's very nice - especially for cutscene animations

dunno why obsidian never used custom cutscene animations but perhaps those manual scripting is just too time intensive.

[dunniteowl]

I think they just didn't consider it. They were pressed for time in their release and I think in the scramble, this was one of those ideas no one seemed to mention. Yeah, it does take longer to script in animation sets, but the upside is that you get so much more power and flexibility to do things that I always felt it would have been worth the investment.

dno

[Nightwoe]

I wish everyone that pushes out games would stop comitting to "EARLIEST RELEASE POSSABLE" and do the game right the first time.

[Vaalyah]

I second this. I don't have any problem in waiting 2 more months if the game is completed... fully!

[dunniteowl]

When it gets right down to it, time is money for some folks. I wonder if Bethesda had gotten roped into a corner on WoW for a release at X date, then stuck to it, if WoW would be so popular?

I wonder if Spore would have been as successful if it had been released a year and a half earlier? Anyone sill playing Spore? Anyone didn't buy it? (Me! I didn't buy it.)

What will the reaction be to the actual ultimate release of Duke Nukem Forever (given a Resurrection spell earlier this year and is back from the dead) ?



In any case, sometimes that's what we have to deal with. Short attention spans in the market (at least that's the perception of the marketing boys) and quarterly earnings reports in the boardroom take precedence over making sure the job is top notch and high quality all the way around.



However, this is about us now, people. So let's make sure that when anyone in the Community gets going, we give them the necessary support and encouragement we can and be willing to wait for it "when it's done."



dunniteowl

[nicethugbert]

Looky! I, myself, soiled again!!

Modifié par nicethugbert, 22 octobre 2010 - 12:51 .

[Vaalyah]

Wow, those are really good! :-o