Daedalus' Forums

Hi,

New to the forum. Rather looking forward to seeing where this project goes.

Out of curiosity, how far are you guys from being able to import custom animations or replacing existing ones? A quick search seems to suggest there are still some problems (like Quasimodo Venus)? I ask because the facial animation in Bloodlines is still superior to most contemporary games, but some of the body animation hasn't really aged as well...

It's not really my area; atrblizzard can probably help you more for this question.

We do have animations working for some of the models; however, atrblizzard got them working after converting the original choreography files.

I don't know how well things would go changing the animations, but given we're recompiling the models (after decompiling them), animations intact, it's definately possible.

Quasimodo Venus?

Does she really look like Quasimodo? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGzw5WLJ9Qs

The model Venus like most of the npc's has animations modeled specifically for conversation dialogs.

The more interesting animations are housed in the shared models. All of these models share a common skeleton. Anyone that is adept at using a modeling program can create animations using this shared skeleton. All commercial modeling programs come with retargeting logic for this very purpose. The npc's can include these animations via the $includemodel qc file option.

I was referring to the "Converting Bloodlines models to Source" thread with exploded Venus model. I guess you guys have made some progress since then.

So what exactly is the process for getting an animation from say Maya or Softimage to this shared model. Aside from editing qc files, don't you need an export plugin? Will the standard HL2 format do?


... by the way, the BBcode on the forum seems to be slightly broken. I can't get [url] to work.

Import the shared skeleton reference mesh as an .smd file using any importer that understands Valve's "smd" format. Create or grab an animation(e.g., .bvh animation). Retarget the animation to the reference mesh and then export the animation as an .smd file using any exporter that understands Valve's "smd" format. Update the .qc file and recompile the shared model.

You then need to code an event for a npc that will use this animation or use an existing event. For example, if you create a new dance animation, you will need to use the same event coding that exists in the .qc file to replace an existing dance animation.

Since none of the Troika Entities have been reverse engineered and coded into any of the Valve engines, you can only view your new animation in Valve's hlmv program. Unfortunately you will not be able to view the animation in the game.

Ok. Thanks for the clarification.