199 réponses à ce sujet

[Nissa_Red]

 Two questions please (but before that, good job with your successful compiling, Draygoth!) :

1/ I probably have missed something (I should reread the thread), but what is the issue with the scaling (EDIT : just to be clear, yes, I can see that the elephants seem "smaller", is there something that prevents you from using a larger scale) ?

2/ You seem to say that there is virtually no lag while using the new mounts (by compiling them beforehand), which adds even more to their already high artistic value. This seems to be much better performance than the current NWN horses, which don't refrain from ostentatiously displaying their laggy behavior >.<.

I am probably questioning the obvious again here, but is there something equivalent that could be done for them ? I think that everything would have already been attempted, by either DLA or BW, but I prefer to understand rather than deeming myself satisfied with ignorance. Please bear with me while I am doing that.

Modifié par Nissa_Red, 23 mars 2013 - 04:28 .

[ShadowM]

Nice job Draygoth28 I love the new camel, a lot better then the old one. I finish integrating your custom mounts with all the humanoid monster so they can ride them thanks again. I suggest you test thing in a multi-player environment also for issue of lag. 1. From what I have looked into it he has to scale them to match up with bioware standard riding animations as best he can so we are limited with size with the models. 2. I believe this with the loading of the animations, I think I heard some people from bioware and DLA say this, if it a model issue maybe we can check into compiling them. I sorry if I wrong on any of these and I sure OTR and/or Draygoth28 will make it clearer.

[Draygoth28]

1/ I probably have missed something (I should reread the thread), but what is the issue with the scaling (EDIT : just to be clear, yes, I can see that the elephants seem "smaller", is there something that prevents you from using a larger scale) ?

The way I add mounts to the game, piggy backs the system already in place. So I am making two versions of each mount now. This allows me to set the model to a believable scale prior to mounting it. When the PC mounts the model I have no control on model size (Maybe if new Pheno types were done, this could be possible.) So the model defaults to the standard DLA horse scale which sometimes lead's to large critters. In this case the Elephant is smaller than I would have liked..

2/ You seem to say that there is virtually no lag while using the new mounts (by compiling them beforehand), which adds even more to their already high artistic value. This seems to be much better performance than the current NWN horses, which don't refrain from ostentatiously displaying their laggy behavior >.<.

I am saying that tested in single player mode with moderate placeables I have experienced slight hitching in heavey placeable areas but not freez up's or lag spikes. Appears to run same as DLA horses.

To answer your question ShadowM - I may have to have someone test this in multiplayer, after I have tweeked them a bit, to confirm whether or not they are ok. I think they will act the same, but again still testing ( crosses fingers).

Modifié par Draygoth28, 23 mars 2013 - 05:44 .

[Rolo Kipp]

<just a bit...>

As I understand it (haven't done the experiments I've been meaning to do), the DLA system applies the mount as a tail to a special mounted pheno. The mounted pheno puts the "tail node" in a certain spot that makes sense if it is roughly the size and shape of a horse (scaled to the race of the pheno).

To make Jumbo mounts, Ponderous Pachyderms and Massive Mammoths would require a new mounted pheno be animated specifically to put the rider up high with something massive between their thighs <*face-wing*>

What? It was there! <i am *not* going to encourage you!>

Heh. *smirk*

Anyway, I think the Massive Mount pheno is worthwhile, but until we have one, there's no good way to scale up mounts or to do neat things like wyverns ;-P

<...saddle-sore>

[Nissa_Red]

Thank you all, this time it's crystal clear.

About massive phenos, honestly, Draygoth's models look very good (and even beyond) to me. I am excited enough to get foxies and elephants in our game that I really couldn't care about their 100% anatomical correctness.

I was born with an unbounded imagination after all ^.^

PS : also, I will probably feel safer on the back of lil' jumbo rather than risking sea-sickness arms and legs clamped around the neck of its mother or father while moving around, but that's a not supposed-to-be-known secret . Anyway, two thumbs up everyone, especially to Draygoth. 

Modifié par Nissa_Red, 23 mars 2013 - 06:20 .

[Draygoth28]

Just another screen shot:

Modifié par Draygoth28, 23 mars 2013 - 08:22 .

[Draygoth28]

These are the cats so far:

Modifié par Draygoth28, 24 mars 2013 - 02:37 .

[Tarot Redhand]

Me-Wow. I like. I do not know if you are aware but there is a great series on the colouring of cats on deviantArt  The 2 most relevant, I think, are on the Big Cats and the Little Cats. The reason for including the link to the "Little" cats are that both the Cheetah and the Mountain Lion/Puma/Cougar/Catamount/Florida Lion/any of the other 20+ names for the same species are classed as little scientifically. As a side note the Puma/etc. is the largest cat that purrs, Big Cats roar instead.

TR (aka Mad Catter)

[Draygoth28]

Nice find, I like it and a good reference tool.
Thank you,

[Draygoth28]

I found the models had no animation before mounting. So I created an invisible Half-Orc and scaled it to size and tacked an elephant mount to it. I then added variables to make it mountable. To my surprise the animal has all basic animations, even simple attacks and can be mounted. Not sure who all know this, and was wanting to share info.


.

Modifié par Draygoth28, 24 mars 2013 - 04:30 .

[ShadowM]

I just wondering why you have two models of each? I have tested with just one model and have noticed no difference. Thanks

[OldTimeRadio]

@Draygoth - You're very welcome!

@Nissa_Red - Draygoth gave a good explanation to your questions but I just wanted to toss something out there that I don't really see mentioned all that much.  It has to do with the two paragraphs you wrote under point 2 here.  The animations for the horses are, for lack of a better term, "overanimated".  This is not meant as any kind of insult or pejorative. 

For just about every possible animation the player can play (so, like 150 or so anims), the horse usually has a set of animations too.  So whenever the player is doing something, so is the horse.  And the horse is usually doing something beautiful, complex, and very horse-like- quite an accomplisment for Ragnarok because anything equine, artistically, is usually considered pretty difficult to pull off.

But all those keyframes and animations for the horse really add up.  The kind of lag you speak about is probably most prevalent when the animations are loaded but I did some informal tests years ago that appear to confirm somethign that Ragnarok had mentioned- which is that the horses really push the lmits of what you can get into the game.

This is compounded by the fact that, for whatever reason, some of the horse animations made it into 1.69 without being compiled, including the two largest animation files for horses, h_ba_custom.mdl (6.1mb) and h_ba_med_weap.mdl (2.8mb), and these models have to be compiled on the fly by the game either when they're first being loaded onto something that uses them or when they're being re-loaded after NWN has unloaded them from the animation cache to save space.

Okay, I explain all that in order to make the assertion: The "lag" (of various sorts) that people identify with the horses doesn't really come from the fact that the horses are skinned, or from being mounts or anything else, other than the "weight" of those animations.  Even the shadow-casting geometry in there (so the horses have shadows) is ultra-low impact.

It's quite possible for someone to "prune" those animations down so the horses (which are real "showpieces" and made with single player in mind) play much, much better on persistent worlds.  It's also possible that a reasonably dedicated individual could devise a way to extrapolate adequate animations needed for most/all actions of a mount from the existing creature animations for any creature, albeit with some tweaking- mostly of the rootdummy.

[Nissa_Red]

@OTR

I understand. Once again thank you for taking the time to explain things like this so clearly each time (that even I manage to understand it).

Personally, I wouldn't want to go back to "simplified" horses. First, for me this would mean disrespect towards the work of Adam/Ragnarok. I'm assuming that if the animations were created in the way they were done, they were done with care. Everything that should not be there isn't, and everything that is there probably should be.

Next, it would take someone truly skilled (way more than I could be) to do it properly. Hacking & slashing through the work of someone else is one thing, creating from it or enhancing it is a whole another business, which in the animations field takes a good deal of experience, talent and of course time. Therefore, working directly on "optimizing" the keys seems a pretty... uh, hypothetical option to me.

How about "optimizing the super chain" one may wonder ? Well, while I could conceive that not everyone sees the need to have every "emote" animation available on mounts, for example, other people will disagree, and we will have the eternal question of "universal" resources coming back to the surface. It might be possible to somewhat simplify the chain, making mounts restricted to specific races or phenos, but I'll have to go back looking at how exactly the super-chain works before confirming this. I don't think it would yield spectacular results in any case.

As a builder, I can stand the 2 seconds lag that using horses imply. My players are used to it by now, I just have to be "careful". "Simpler" (pre-DLA) horses still exist in the CEP by the way, for any PW or builder that wish to use them.

However, I get what you're saying, and the point that particularly has my interest is the following :

This is compounded by the fact that, for whatever reason, some of the horse animations made it into 1.69 without being compiled, including the two largest animation files for horses, h_ba_custom.mdl (6.1mb) and h_ba_med_weap.mdl (2.8mb), and these models have to be compiled on the fly by the game either when they're first being loaded onto something that uses them or when they're being re-loaded after NWN has unloaded them from the animation cache to save space.

If I understood correctly what Draygoth currently does, all the mounts more or less benefit from the existing horse supermodels (their animations actually). Yet, it seems that Draygoth models load with no noticeable lag (or to a degree that satisfies their original creator, which I infer would probably satisfy most players or builders).

So I come with questions again (you're starting to know me now, yes ^.^) :

1/ (for Draygoth more specifically, I guess) do your models use a simplified animation super chain ? otherwise said, are some of the animations that the 1.69 horses use not used by your models, explaining that they seem to suffer less from "lag" ? I apologize for asking, since I could very well look this up on the vault directly.

2/ do we know if there is a reason that both the super-models you pointed out ("h_ba_custom" & "h_ba_med_weap") were not compiled by DLA/BW ? I assume it's technically possible with "nwnmdlcomp". I'm always very wary about what could seem obvious to me as a self-declared "amateur" when it comes to the work of specialists. Of course, nothing prevents us from trying that out at an individual scale (and that's all to your credit for giving us this new option, OTR, and I will try it sooner or later, being the curious cat that I am), but it would take some serious testing among the community, or better yet, feedback from Adam/Ragnarok or any other animation expert, to be sure that we wouldn't break anything for the long run.

Right now, I admit that it's very tempting to think that if Draygoth mounts behave nicely, looking equally good (same texture quality, poly count and such), there is no reason that we couldn't get the horsies to behave as well, without "tarnishing" the original work. It seems almost too good to be true though that BW/DLA simply "forgot" to compile these supermodels.

Modifié par Nissa_Red, 24 mars 2013 - 11:41 .

[Draygoth28]

I use the standard animation chain. I only setup the models to use the existing pheno type.

[Jenna WSI]

Finally, a camel model that looks good

Draygoth28 wrote...

If I can figure this out them I will be able to add several updated mounts to the game.

[Draygoth28]

I am still working on this, just trying to keep up with RL. I have many more mounts planned, but haven't tested them. I think I will be able to add a hipo, and a few variations of dogs just to name a couple. Here is a screen of my new Lizard, the texture is a placeholder (I hope - Cause I'm not very good with textures.)


Sorry ShadowM, just saw your question. The reason behind the two models was that I could create one at a normal size with other animations, when un mounted. That did not work out as I had hoped, so I will be using one model and scaling it.

Modifié par Draygoth28, 30 mars 2013 - 02:41 .

[Tarot Redhand]

As good as ever. One thing, is that a lizard or a salamander? Can't tell at the scale of the picture in the thread. If it's a lizard, the texture looks fine. If it's a salamander/newt, then I'd suggest something a bit darker.

TR

[Draygoth28]

Thank you, I am planning on a couple of varieties.

Modifié par Draygoth28, 30 mars 2013 - 05:18 .

[Draygoth28]

Just a screen of a Husky, Hyena, and re-textured Lizard. No sure if I made any improvement's to the Lizard.

Modifié par Draygoth28, 31 mars 2013 - 04:04 .

[Rolo Kipp]

 <offering a little...>

Two of the things I think characterizes lizard/salamander/reptile/amphibian skin are the scaly texture and the high-contrast color-shapes that generally take the form of medium center fading to light/dark and surrounded by contrasting dark/light, all set in medium.

Lizard skin

Salamander skin

Frog skin

For what it's worth :-)

<...contrast>

Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 31 mars 2013 - 04:16 .

[Tarot Redhand]

I have a couple of links to deviantArt stuff that may help you. The first is to a tutorial on frog and lizard heads. The thing is even if you ignore the subject, there are still some great shots on there. The other is to a page with a list of 124 links to scale related texture resources. One little correction to what Rolo said, Amphibians don't have scales.  Just to complicate matters further, some dinosaurs had feathers and some (not many fossils found though) had fur.

One question, any chance of a T-Rex rider () (hint this question is mostly tongue in cheek).

TR

Modifié par Tarot Redhand, 31 mars 2013 - 10:38 .

[Tarot Redhand]

 I came across something I forgot was there in my 2ed monstrous compendium for Spelljammer that I thought you might find interesting. Also in case you are beginning to think that just maybe there is nothing else to add to this collection, I have this picture for you.



It's called a Great Swan and they're raised exclusively by elves. If one bird isn't enough, there's always the black variant that might be of use for drow and another which is all white except for the head and neck (but I've no idea who would use such a thing).

TR

[henesua]

I'd like to see flying mounts too.

[Draygoth28]

Not sure how to get the wings to animate for flying mounts. Just a heads up after several months of working on this (off and on). I am finally ready to call it done. I have added a few more mounts, but am not planning to release a stand alone hak. i would like for these to go into the next project Q update. I am sure i will continue to add more as time goes on, so ideas,sugestions and criticism is always welcome.

[henesua]

Your work is Project Q worthy. I look forward to seeing it in the next release.

As far as flying mounts go, aren't there mountable pegasus' out there that could be used as a model to follow? I've never used them but I have seen screenshots for Andarian's Sanctum modules. I would think that to do the wing animation (if these work right for the pegasus) there might be a way to super to them (if you were doing a similar creature like a hippogriff) or otherwise use them as a guide.

If you are done with wrangling over that I understand, but your models are such high quality I hope that you at least make a few non-mountable giant birds that look like they could be mounted. That would enable us at least to create the illusion of long distance travel on the backs of giant eagles. Summon the giant eagle with harness. Enable conversation for travel options. Select option and jump to distant location with bird.