Zygoptera on 9/6/2007 at 00:08
Good point. Since I've now joined the appropriate forums I'll see if I can upload them there, as well as some other motions I made which may be useful (mainly reworking of 'pistol' shot animations- may be useful for cyborg drones).
[Edit: should be on the ftp now, ..\misc\MotionStuff]
ZylonBane on 9/6/2007 at 03:31
Quote Posted by Zygoptera
New motions are... a little difficult to make. Pretty much the only way to do it is to take existing motions and try to adapt them.
How are motions defined, anyway? Is it keyframe-based?
icemann on 9/6/2007 at 07:38
Looks great, even if it only had the famous "first area" of med that we`ve seen in 1000 remakes so far (not meaning that as a stab against the remake).
The bots seemed ALOT more powerful than the SS1 equivalents + they didn`t do the "activation" noise I remember em doing in SS1. Besides that, what has been done looks great.
Have hybrids been done yet? I remember seeing a basic model of one a long time ago.
Nameless Voice on 9/6/2007 at 08:02
I don't think there's what I would call an actually 'good' model for the mutants. There seems to be one here, but it looks very low-poly (looks like a reskinned SS1 model).
Monster sounds aren't done yet. I'm not sure how they would be done, since SS2 AIs are a lot more intelligent and have a lot more sound broadcasts than SS1 AIs did.
There were no enemies placed in the rest of the map, and the areas around doors are a bit messed up throughout the level, but the geometry is all there and fully textured. Most of the machinsy, such a switches, lifts, control panels, etc. are't implemented, though.
ZB: Motions are frame-based skeletal animations. The animations do tween between frames, so I guess that would count as 'keyframe based', though in that case every frame would be considered a keyframe.
ZylonBane on 9/6/2007 at 13:33
Thanks, that's kind of what I figured. And yes, keyframe would be the applicable term, since the engine generates the in-between frames at runtime. I should play around with the motion editor one of these days, sounds like an interesting challenge.
Nameless Voice on 9/6/2007 at 13:42
I suppose that's one thing that you could call it.
The editor, and Shadowspawn's tools for creating a new motion database, are included in the (
http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php/topic,387.0.html) ShockEd Toolkit. One thing which isn't included, however, and which should be, is (
http://www.whoopdedo.org:80/projects.php?misc#MotPython) Telliamed's motion <-> .csv file converter. I haven't experimented with it much myself, but it seems like it would be a much better way to make motions, especially considering that it can handle motions for creature types that Weyoun's editor doesn't support (e.g. spiders).
RocketMan on 9/6/2007 at 15:43
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Thanks, that's kind of what I figured. And yes, keyframe would be the applicable term, since the engine generates the in-between frames at runtime. I should play around with the motion editor one of these days, sounds like an interesting challenge.
I knew a guy who made several new motions with this tool. He gave me a brief lesson on how to use it, and when I read the readme, things became even more clear. Its more of a time consuming task than difficult I'd say but there are some commands in the latest version that can cut your time down quite a bit if you're efficient with them.
Nameless Voice on 9/6/2007 at 16:01
It's mostly a matter of adjusting the motion slightly, compiling the database, going ingame to check it out, adjusting it a little more... and repeating.
The later versions of the editor support automatic tweening between two selected frames, though I can't help but think that you could do better if you used Telliamed's tool to convert the motion to a .csv file and used some simple calculations in Excel to do the tweening.
Back on topic: one thing that I think CCP really needs is someone to make a list of all the things that need to be done in order to complete Medical. Preferably someone who knows SS1 very well - I don't. As heretical as it sounds, I only finally played it a year or so back, and have only played it all the way through once. I'm only helping out with CCP because no one else seems to be.
icemann on 9/6/2007 at 16:35
Easiest way is to have dromed running in one box, and SS1 via dosbox on a second one.
I did that to assist the project many years back.
Nameless Voice on 9/6/2007 at 16:46
(
http://tsshp.sourceforge.net/) ShockHack (TSSHP) is also extremely useful (especially since it runs in a window), though it has an unfortunate habit of crashing if you try to look at certain area. I used it almost exclusively as reference when I was texturing Medical.
