54 réponses à ce sujet

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Blowing Flags released!  http://www.nexusmods...ter2/mods/904/?

 

 

 

 

 

 

//I'm trying to create a blowing flag using garment maker and wind in 3ds, then converting the animation into keys.  After I've done this, exportron doesn't want to export the animation.  I get a small 5kb and 6 kb for the skeleton and IDLE GR2 files so obviously not much data there and the flag remains unanimated in the toolset.  I'm using the "Simple Object Export" obsidian tutorial vid like I have done many times before. 

 

Can anyone think of a reason why this wouldn't work? 

[4760]

Do you get an error message? Is the skinning/rigging correct? More probably, before you export, did you select all the bones and attachment points? Or did you make sure the box to move to origin is unchecked?

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

No errors.

 

Move to Origin are all unchecked.  There are no bones, just keyframing the mesh.  Like in the Obsidian Exportron tutorial vid I mentioned.  If you don't have those, they are here:  http://www.rwscreati....php?f=18&t=837

 

Everything is as it should be.  I just exported a wooden blowing sign perfectly fine (although not simulated with just a handful of custoim keys), just the flag doesn't want to work.  Is there perhaps a limit to the number of keys exportron can handle?  There are a lot for this flag after i generated them with about 500 verteces individually keyed.

 

You can see in the pic below all the keys.  + it's 400 frames long...  Maybe I'll shorten it up to 100 or 200 frames, this was more of an experiment just to test if it would work, before I create a looping animation.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Anyone with some ideas?  I really would love to see some realistic blowing flags/banners etc in the game from low, moderate and extreme wind effects.  As well as add several different castle flag types.  I just think it adds so much atmosphere when you get a sense of wind in an area.

I bumped this model down to 170 tris and made a 165 frame looping animation, yet still no luck on the export.

Anyway, would someone else be willing to give this a whirl?  I can send the 3ds file and textures your way to whoever wants to try.  You'd be my hero if you could get it working IG.

Here's a vid of the flag (click pic below), it loops halfway through the video. You can see a slight jump, but it is harly noticeable I think.  Turned out much better than I thought the loop would, can pretty much call it seamless. Also forgot to turn on the normal in the vid, but it looks like the pic below with it on.
And ya I was working on my awesome rendering skillz as well, hence the fancy lighting.

But ya, if some exportron expert wants to try their hand at exporting and messing around with the model, let me know.

[Tchos]

Yeah, I've wished for some more blown cloth in the placeables, too, but I don't know anything about animation in NWN2.

[4760]

Anyway, would someone else be willing to give this a whirl?  I can send the 3ds file and textures your way to whoever wants to try.  You'd be my hero if you could get it working IG.

 

I can't promise I'll find how to make it work, but yes, I'd give it a try.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Awesome, that'd be great. I'll post the files when I get home tonight.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Here's the file, let me know if there are any issues. Good luck! I hope you can figure it out. If anyone else want's to have a go at it, by all means have at her.

Let me know if u need help with the 2da, animation placeables are a little different. I just copied the rowboat entry and replaced the file names.

Here you go: https://www.dropbox....lowing Flag.rar

[Dann-J]

You could probably get away with an animated texture visual effect for this sort of thing - although probably only for flags in the distance. The animated placeable would be better up close though.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

True enough, but ya 3d makes a world of difference. Ill have to look into the 2d method if we can't get this to work then at least. Or at least try some other method of animation. Maybe try my hand at a non simulated animation, although not nearly as dynamic in the end... we'll see. we need blowing flags and banners tho for sure!

[Dann-J]

There are vertical banners in the game that wave leisurely back and forth, but nothing to indicate stronger winds (except for some of the more hyperactive speedtrees).

 

The advantage of the animated model is that you can clone it multiple times and easily give each copy a new diffuse texture. Whereas you'd have to generate new animated textures for each 2D visual effect, since it's not simply a matter of slapping a static image over them. Plus the model can support a bumpmap and a tintmap.

[4760]

It looks nice within Max, but remains static in the toolset or in game. But I see there are no animations based on rotations, scaling or moving: does this way of animating (by deforming the mesh) work? From the video tutorials, I think the placeables are animated by changing the model position or size, but not its structure.

 

To check this, I started from a different placeable, added a few rotations, a few changes in scale, some moves of the pivot point: after export, it worked as expected. I then added some deformations of the mesh (without bones and skinning, just changing some vertices positions): this time, no change in the animation (i.e. the rotations were still working, but the deformations were not taken into account).

 

The problem is I can't be too positive, as rotations, scaling and moves on your flag don't work either. I remember I once had this problem because I resized the .mdb (because it was way too big for NWN2), and the .gr2 stopped working. I undid the changes, the .gr2 restarted working.

 

Anyway, I'm still looking for a solution...

[4760]

The problem is I can't be too positive, as rotations, scaling and moves on your flag don't work either.

 

Bad news  . I had a typo in the .gr2 file, no surprise it couldn't play any animation. The result is: adding a few rotations, scaling changes, moves of the pivot point directly in the time line and exporting the corresponding animation file only showed the rotations, scaling and moves changes. No deformation of the mesh appeared.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Gah, I never even thought it would be due to the fact it is all just mesh deformation and not any changes to the object's pivot point itself. Well then the only thing I can think of is convert it to a creature somehow, although I guess it would need to be rigged and skinned and I don't suppose the animation can be transferred on to any type of rigging. My 3DS skills are limited, but still doesn't sound promising.

Plus if it was a creature there'd be the pain of walked helpers to get it into position...

fun lol

[Dann-J]

Once you get it working as an animated creature, you can create a model VFX out of it that can be placed anywhere without the need for any walkmesh. That's how I created my flying wyvern effect.

 

The advantage of the model VFX is that you don't have to modify any 2DAs to get it working in the game. The only downside is that you won't be able to interact with flags directly like you could with a creature or a placeable (although you can use invisible collision boxes/balls to do so indirectly).

[Rolo Kipp]

<sneaking through...>

 

Keeping in mind my NwN1 foundation, Animesh in Aurora can only handle 1,000 keys, so ten key frames for 100 verts or 100 keyframes for 10 verts :-P You can do amazing things with animating textures, but you have that total key limit.

 

A better way for the animation you're looking at would be to skinmesh the flag to some waving bones, which has far more freedom... but I'm really jealous of your expotron.

 

Just wanted to say that :-P

 

Still don't have my Max 8 working... :-(

 

<...a capture the flag game>

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Once you get it working as an animated creature, you can create a model VFX out of it that can be placed anywhere without the need for any walkmesh. That's how I created my flying wyvern effect.
 
The advantage of the model VFX is that you don't have to modify any 2DAs to get it working in the game. The only downside is that you won't be able to interact with flags directly like you could with a creature or a placeable (although you can use invisible collision boxes/balls to do so indirectly).

Excellent, the model VFX is definitely the perfect solution.

BTW, wow on the Wyvern mod! I never saw that one before. I'll definitly check it out and throw it into our PW!

 

 

I'm just hoping I can do the wind simulation to a rigged flag and the bones react accordingly...     Otherwise, I'll do my best to animate it myself.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Well, I figured out a way to rig up the animation.  Basically I created 2 identical meshes.  One fully animated and one not.  I rigged up the one that is not with stretchable bones, then every 5 frames I keyframe the rigged mesh and snap all the bones to the corrisponding vertices of the animated mesh.  Rinse and repeat.  It is actually quite a lot of work with 50 bones (went high to get more fluid motion), but there is progress at least.. 

[Dann-J]

I tried the animated texture approach, but it seems there's no way to create it as a non-model VFX without the flag being translucent. Plus it's 2D, so it disappears completely when you look at it edge-on. It also looks weird from a distance, since the game engine seems to smear the texture frames together into a blurry mess (it might be the lower-resolution mipmaps).

 

It looks like a 3D animated model is the certainly the best approach. I'm looking forward to seeing this in action.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Hmm interesting, well thanks for giving it a go. I finally finished animating the rigged flag which turned out pretty good I think.  It was a very tedious process (bleh) but made it to the end.  Now, to get it into the engine!  Off to bed for now though, but here's a vid of the rigged mesh fully animated.  
Not bad, but I think we need something a little more turbulent next.   
 
I'd like to make one of these swallowtail flags as well:

[Dann-J]

The animated model looks great so far.

 

You could turn the existing flag into a swallowtail flag by using the alpha channel of the diffuse texture to make certain parts invisible. That way a single animated model could be cloned and turned into all sorts of flags. I'm already imagining a ragged pirate flag, torn at the edges with a couple of arrow holes in it.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Yea, the ragged pirate flag was first on my texture list.    I was just thinking the swallowtail could make for some interesting wind effects if it were it's own model.  But, perhaps different blow rates for this model would be most useful to start.
 
 
Anyway, before I get that far I have ran into issues getting it to show up in the game.  Ive exported the mesh, skeleton and animation(s) and nothing shows up when I change a creature to the flag appearance. 
 
I'm not sure on how many of the different animations are required so I just copy and pasted the idle several times and renamed them to the following that you can see in the screen below.  I'm hoping I can get away with just the idle animation for it to show up IG, but to be safe I made all the one's you can see in the file below for now.  Can I get away with just one idle animation file?
 
 
Each of my bones are uniquely named and the root bone is named c_IADCFTflag01_skel with the mesh c_IADCFTflag01_cl_body01.  Everything here: http://www.rwscreati....php?f=18&t=724 was followed to a tee and I triple checked my exportron settings, which I have used plenty before. 
 
Here's my appearance.2da: https://www.dropbox..../appearance.2DA.  My entry is the last.
 
Everything here I assume is fine...


So yea, a little baffled.  I'm assuming it's 2da related, but all I did was copy and paste the horse entry, so I assume it should at least show up.

[4760]

I'm not sure on how many of the different animations are required so I just copy and pasted the idle several times and renamed them to the following that you can see in the screen below.  I'm hoping I can get away with just the idle animation for it to show up IG, but to be safe I made all the one's you can see in the file below for now.  Can I get away with just one idle animation file?

 

Yes, maybe two (c_IADCFTflag01_IDLE.gr2 and c_IADCFTflag01_UNA_IDLE.gr2), along with c_IADCFTflag01_skel.gr2 should be enough (at least, it works for me.)

 

 

Anyway, before I get that far I have ran into issues getting it to show up in the game.  Ive exported the mesh, skeleton and animation(s) and nothing shows up when I change a creature to the flag appearance. 

 

 I'm assuming it's 2da related, but all I did was copy and paste the horse entry, so I assume it should at least show up.

 

 

I would confirm, as it looks like you don't have the same structure in your appearance.2da as in mine: I can't see any column titled AnimationSpeed. To make things clearer, here below is what you 2da shows:

  LABEL STRING_REF BodyType Segments NWN2_Scale_X NWN2_Scale_Y NWN2_Scale_Z NWN2_Model_Body NWN2_Model_Helm NWN2_Model_Head NWN2_Model_Hair NWN2_Head_Skeleton   5001 Blowing_Flag Blowing_Flag 1 0 1 1 1 c_IADCFTflag01 c_IADCFTflag01 **** **** **** c_IADCFTflag01_skel

 

and here what I guess it should contain:

  LABEL STRING_REF BodyType Segments NWN2_Scale_X NWN2_Scale_Y NWN2_Scale_Z AnimationSpeed NWN2_Model_Body NWN2_Model_Helm NWN2_Model_Head NWN2_Model_Hair NWN2_Head_Skeleton 5001 Blowing_Flag Blowing_Flag 1 0 1 1 1                      1 c_IADCFTflag01 c_IADCFTflag01 **** **** c_IADCFTflag01_skel

 

If everything else appears correctly, I guess the engine uses default values when it can't find the column. In this case, maybe try changing BASE by ****.

 

Something else to check first though: what happens if you change (in the properties, in the absolute position line) the Z value from 0 to 2 or 3? Maybe the pivot point has been "reset to 0" in the skel export?

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

OK I added the AnimationSpeed column as you suggested with a value of 1, no idea why that was missing, but this is the 2da from our PW so who knows.  That change didn't do anything, however.  I'm not sure where this "BASE" header is though you are suggesting.  

 

Also, whay properties are you talking about?  The object properties in 3ds?  If so, I can't find an "absolute position" line.

 

 

Here are some quick textures I did in Gimp, the crests I just puled from the web.   Nothing with alpha transparency yet, but the pirate flag is next on the list along with a swallowtail.

[PJ156]

Very Nice indeed it will add a real feeling of movement to an area. Combined with sound it will add another dimension.

I love the different design of flag. Would we be able to apply our own design as we might on a painting?

If it is too lively though will it look incongruous with the other items in the area. Wind strength wise I think you have about nailed it?

PJ