At least I think I've done this almost every year (although the animals I ask for may differ a bit), for the past 5-6 years (I can't recall), but I have asked a few times...Please, can somebody make...
A big rat (dog-sized, that can attack the heroes) - Animations don't have to be much, walk, run, 1-2 idles (so they can be a bit different, maybe like one looking around, another eating something on the ground or scratching), dodge, 1-2 melee and a fall? THANK YOU, Random Days!
A big bat (ditto on the attacking the heroes thing) - anims- fly/walk/run (all flying anims), idle (hanging from the rafters?), 1-2 melee and fall...Although for the walk anim, if you've ever seen a bat walking on it's wings and legs...Creeeeepy! THANK YOU, BEVO!
A rabbit/bunny/hare...With flying attack anims? LOL! THANK YOU, Random Days!
A frog/toad (the meshes in the game have no keyframes and a giant frog/toad would be cool, right)?
Giant beetle (keys could be based on FF's ant_soldier meshes' animations?...Maybe with add-ons, like horns to make it into stag beetles, rhinoceros beetles, etc...) THANK YOU...Uh..Me!
Lizards (like a Gila Monster, Komodo Dragon or something)?
An Alligator/Crocodile...All he would need to make them different is a hexable head, right?
A pig/wild boar (why not?...Attacking wildlife is always fun)?
A bull or perhaps a hexable cow (wth a hexable udder, different types of horns, etc...)...Useful for rampaging cattle or a D&D Gorgon?
I think that's it for the moment...Thanks.
Dana
As I've done before, I will chime in and add my request for these meshes also.
Bump for the baby animals!
Hey look at this...I Skoped him (he just doesn't have any real flying animation, unfortunately)...
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/cmdrkoenig67/beetle_antsoldier_Skope.jpg)
I Skoped two different beetles...One on the ant_worker and one on ant_soldier (the one above is on ant_soldier)...I digging the ant_soldier Skope more, since he has a ranged animation and a better idle. Oh...And I hope to add in some horns and such to allow him to be hexed into various types of beetles (stag, rhinoceros, etc...)
Dana
Very nice. Any chance you're versed enough on keyframes to make a ranged anim for a bombardier? Would it be possible to take anything from the second Brood mesh for flying?
Quote from: Panther_Gunn on July 01, 2010, 05:17:47 PM
Very nice. Any chance you're versed enough on keyframes to make a ranged anim for a bombardier? Would it be possible to take anything from the second Brood mesh for flying?
PG, I have no idea how to do that...LOL. It would have to be somebody else who adds those keys in.
Dana
Edit: I looked at the Brood and Brood_queen meshes I have, PG...And neither has actually wing-flapping flying animation (they just float like the ant animations, which is all they seem to have)...Is there some other brood mesh with actual flapping wings?
EDIT: I found it...Ink's version 2...Very nice...I still don't think I'd be able to add the keys in, though.
Nice beetle dude.
Youre pretty good at monsters I notice.
Any chance of you doing a big spider? Id love to have one of those. I know theres another one form way back, but maybe you could do a new one, since the beetle turned out nicely. Like, say, slapping more legs on the ant mesh and going from there.
No spiders in my list of Skopes-to-do, Scorp...I doubt I could get extra legs to work on a mesh...I have enough problems just pasting pieces onto meshes..LOL!
I did try a scorpion, but it didn't work very well.
Dana
Bearded in Lair has a big spider in one of his Yahoo groups. It's very pretty...
OOOOOO! I love these bugs. I already can think of many uses for bugs.
I wonder if the Mojo mesh could be skoped into a scorpion? It already has 6 legs and a tail.
Could the Brood mesh be used to make a giant scorpion mesh?
Quote from: Xenolith on July 01, 2010, 07:41:53 PM
OOOOOO! I love these bugs. I already can think of many uses for bugs.
I wonder if the Mojo mesh could be skoped into a scorpion? It already has 6 legs and a tail.
The Mojo mesh was the one I was trying to use to make a scorpion Skope...I was unsuccessful.
Dana
Bump again?
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on June 05, 2010, 07:40:01 PM
A big rat (dog-sized, that can attack the heroes) - Animations don't have to be much, walk, run, 1-2 idles (so they can be a bit different, maybe like one looking around, another eating something on the ground or scratching), dodge, 1-2 melee and a fall.
Buttercup: What about the R.O.U.S.es?
Dread Pirate Westley: Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.
Quote from: Kenn on August 02, 2010, 12:33:33 PM
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on June 05, 2010, 07:40:01 PM
A big rat (dog-sized, that can attack the heroes) - Animations don't have to be much, walk, run, 1-2 idles (so they can be a bit different, maybe like one looking around, another eating something on the ground or scratching), dodge, 1-2 melee and a fall.
Buttercup: What about the R.O.U.S.es?
Dread Pirate Westley: Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.
Famous Last Words...
LOL!
Dana
More animals, please?
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on June 05, 2010, 07:40:01 PM
A big rat (dog-sized, that can attack the heroes) - Animations don't have to be much, walk, run, 1-2 idles (so they can be a bit different, maybe like one looking around, another eating something on the ground or scratching), dodge, 1-2 melee and a fall?
Buttercup: What about the R.O.U.S.es?
Westley: Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on June 05, 2010, 07:40:01 PM
An Alligator/Crocodile...All he would need to make them different is a hexable head, right?
Depends on how pedantic someone is. I'm not sure if the average person could say what the difference in head shape is between a crocodile and an alligator or a caiman (crocs heads are more V shaped, not U shaped). Gharial heads are very funky though. In practice I wouldn't want to be close enough to there heads to look. So, a lot could be done just by skinning (gators are typically darker than crocs).
The way the teeth look is different between 'gators and crocs. However, anyone who pauses long enough to get a good look is lunch, so...
Bump again for the beasts...
An updated list:
Giant rat
rabbit/bunny/hare (with Monty Python-like flying attack?)
lizard
Alligator/crocodile
frog/toad
bull/cow
pig/wild boar
A scorpion (since I can't seem to Skope one together)
More dinosaurs...Like Triceratops, brontosaurus and/or Stegosaurus?
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on August 18, 2011, 05:11:00 AMMore dinosaurs...Like Triceratops, brontosaurus and/or Stegosaurus?
This may be a very silly and uninformed question (since I really haven't looked or paid attention), but did Val do any of those as Transformers versions?
I only requested these dinosaurs, because Val's Dinobots are robot dinosaurs (and great ones, at that)...But they're not actual dinosaurs. There is no way they can be skinned to look like flesh and blood dinos.
Dana
I'll add my voice to this again, because I just did a Manimal scope and he needs more animals to turn into.
I certainly understand that animal meshes aren't easy to make and/or animate. Perhaps some new meshes could be made to re-use some of the current quadruped meshes keyframes (like Val's big_cat or Anguirus meshes or Gren's Lockjaw and wolf meshes)? I don't know exactly how that whole thing really works.
Dana
i wonder if you couldn't take val's transformers and skope new flesh and blood shapes on them? speaking of robots, (segueing) do you still have the jocasta voice pack by black rider?
has anyone ever tried skoping a human onto animal keyframes or vice versa?
Quote from: bearded on August 19, 2011, 01:37:10 AM
i wonder if you couldn't take val's transformers and skope new flesh and blood shapes on them?
Perhaps, but I don't know.
Quote from: bearded on August 19, 2011, 01:37:10 AM
speaking of robots, (segueing) do you still have the jocasta voice pack by black rider?
I have a Jocasta VP made by Prize Racer. Is that the one you mean, B?
Quote from: bearded on August 19, 2011, 01:37:10 AM
has anyone ever tried skoping a human onto animal keyframes or vice versa?
That sounds interesting!
Dana
yes, prize racer! i would love to have that.
i wonder what it would look like if you skoped one of the animals onto a humanoid biped?
I sent you a PM, B.
Dana :D
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on August 19, 2011, 03:44:01 AM
I sent you a PM, B.
Dana :D
Um... hey... while you're at it, could you send it to lonespaceranger@gmail.com, too?
LOL...I'll just post a link here (temporarily), DG
Dana
<link removed>
I have something that might help, But I don't know enough to work with it myself.
Looking at the FF entry in Wikipedia, they have a list of other games using the same engine and one of them was Zoo Tycoon 2, which I have with all expansions.
Breaking open one of the data files, I pulled the entry for the Nile Crocodile out. It has 4 main skins in dds format - normal, dirty, sick, sick AND dirty, plus smaller skins for the teeth and spines.
The main flies appear to be a set of 3; Adult_M.nif, Adult_M.bfm and Adult_M.xml.
The xml file looks like this (if it helps);
- <Graph name="CrocodileNile_Adult_M">
- <node name="Stand">
- <table>
<Stand_Idle />
</table>
<edge anim="Stand_2Walk" node="Walk" />
</node>
- <node name="Walk">
- <table>
<Walk_Ahead />
<Walk_TurnL30 />
<Walk_TurnR30 />
</table>
<edge anim="Walk_2Stand" node="Stand" />
</node>
</Graph>
Instead of a keyframe.kf file, there are a seperate pair of files for each animation, IE eat_idle_bf and eat_idle.txtkeys
There are also about 25 or so sound files in wav format for it.
Total size is 170 files at about 10 megs. It looks like each animal is set up in the same way.
If anybody can work with this, it could really open up animals, as besides the main game with about 40 or so animals, there are 4 expansion packs - marine life, extinct creatures including dinosaurs, endangered species and african wild life.
If anybody is interested, let me know and I can zip up the folder and send it your way.
I'm also going to look at a couple of other games mentioned as having the same engine to see how they're set up and maybe imported somehow - the Wildlife Zoo series and the Empire Earth series.
If that works as seamlessly as it sounds like it might, I think that could be the biggest find for the game since FFX.
Yeah....let's get someone with the necessary skills to check this out!
small info update - opened up the main nif with nifscope fine. It shows the skinned croc body with skeleton inside.
Also checked out the Wildlife Zoo and Empire Earth 2 games, but these are using cab files and it looks like I'll have to install them to open them up.
Here is a link to some figures for Empire Earth 3. I was looking for some desert figures and this got me started looking around in the first place. I like these and they look like they would fit with FF.
http://thejes.us/Siteremake/middleeastern.htm
update 2 - treid to open it with FF1 character viewer and won't work - I don't have FFVTTR loaded right now, so don't know what it would do there or how nifconverter would treat it.
The rar'd up file is about 3.5 megs so I can send it easily to anyone interested.
Going out to dinner soon, but I'll check before I go and when I get back to see if anyone needs it sent
I wonder if the individual keyframes could be combined into one file? This would be amazing, if it will work.
Those middle eastern warriors look amazing (and they look like they might be low-poly, which is good)...they'd go great with the map I'm making...Heh-heh.
Dana
the Empire Earth games play from a view simular to FF, with tons of units moving around and fighting. Each game has units going from prehisory up to the future - with 100s of different unit types including ships and planes.
I've checked some more with Zoo Tycoon 2 and it looks like the buildings in game are also nifs. It might be possible to use them and the staff/visitors as well. If the buildings in Empire Earth could be used that would be sensational
I agree, Randomdays.
Dana
can you send me one animal? I'll see what I can do. beardinlair@aol.com
One Nile Crocodile on its way.
another update.
Going through Empire Earth 1, It has a nice included editor for making your own maps, placing units and buildings/trees,etc as well as making your own scenarios. The skins for everything are available, but the models are converted from 3ds to a special type of file that can't be worked with without the developers tools. The poly count/details on the the units is low enough to make this no big loss, but I had hoped some of the buildings could be worked with.
Empire Earth 2 is much easier to work with, after digging up some info on the web. All game items - units, buildings, scenery, vehicles are nifs, zipped up in a large file and with a ".nifcache" extention instead of just ".nif". Nif scope opens them fine though.
the textures are also stored in a large zip in 2 types. A strange file with a ".pcpatch" extension and a normal file with a ".texcache" extension. From what I read, the pcpatch file is about 1x1000 pixels and of unknown use. nifscope will convert the texcache file into a dds, and converting it again to tga skins the nif in nifscope. So far I've converted/ viewed a German Nobleman and a camel mounted bedouin.
Detailed for the Nobleman wasn't all that good, but the bedouin looked allright with a photo skin face.
animation this time is done in groups of single action kf files. IE the nobleman has 6 different kf files - 2 idle, attack,dead, jog and walk. I tried attaching one to the nif, but got this error "couldn't find the animation's root node ()"
I don't know much about maps, but since the map items are static, I'm thinking that buildings and environmental items ought to convert over easily. I can grab a building mesh and skin and send it to Dana or anyone who wants to check it out.
If anyone wants to check out the Zoo Tycoon 2 test croc or the 2 test EE2 units, let me know.
EE1 came out in 2001, EE2 in 2005 and EE3 in 2007.Hopefully EE3 is modable enough to extract the meshes as it looks like it has the best graphics (though the worst gameplay). Going to check that out next.
If anybody has any of these other games, they also use the same engine and might have some useful resources ;
Sif Meier's Railroads, Pirates! and Civ 4 - lots of possiblities from trains, ships, buildings
Star Trek Bridge Commander - TNG game, maybe some Trek models
Axis and Allies - WW2 game
yes.
i can do it.
am able to import the croc, and import the bones. i will have to make custom animations, and create the animation text for each animal. so, choose amongst yourselves which one you want me to do next. am working on croc now, as proof of concept.
That's great BIL. Are the animation files provided any use at all?
Also, size - are they close to being correct for FF or do they have to corrected, and poly count - how is it compared to FF?
For EE2, I installed FFVTTR since it wasn't on the hard drive. I renamed the nif for FFVTTR and set up a standard skin folder and put it in character viewer and it showed up fine. The camel riding nomad for EE2 has 2 seperate skins, one for the rider and one for the camel, which should make reskinning easier. Renamed one of the idle.kf files provided and still getting an error.
EE3 IS setup like EE2 for file setup, but the 2 units I extracted looked different in nifscope. The nomad in EE3 has a camel figure, a seperate shield next to it, and a seperate rider next to the shield. They skinned just fine, but haven't had a chance to see how they look in character viewer. Hopefully they combine or can be combined somehow. Kf's are set up like in EE2
I can send them to BIL or anyone who wants to take a shot at tem when I get home.
Wikipedia has a complete list of all animals in Zoo Tycoon 2. Right now I've got the camel riding nomad and a german noble put together from EE2 and 2 different nomad rider types from EE3. Since I've gotten the hang of setting them up now, it wouldn't take long to set up more though. I saw that ZT2 had things like bears, triceratops and giant bullfrogs in various expansions.
ok, good progress on the croc. i was able to import the bip from the nif, and then import the kf from the raptor, to work from. the only stumbling block, and i can't figure out why yet, is the physiqued croc got paper thin, x y and z. it looks like a japanese folded paper art. but, the animations work! that dang raptor almost works for the anims i need, all i have to do is lean him forward a bit.
i don't know about size yet. that might be the reason he got all skinny.
the reason i couldn't use the free fish is they are very high poly. when i try to optimize them down, the verts for physiquing are all crazy all over the place.
Well, this is still fantastic news. That stinks about the fish Bearded, but thanks for trying. RD, did you say something about marine animals? If they've got any fish, those would be RIDICULOUSLY useful to me.
:EDIT: Looking over the roster for the marine expansion, this is my wishlist=
-Great White
-Bottlenose Dolphin
-Orca
-Pacific Walrus (for Tusky!)
-Blue Marlin
You all piqued my interest, so I started playing around with city objects form Civ4 (as well as some that users have ported from EE). And Randomdays was right... those nif's and textures just go right in, and can be placed on a map using ffedit once you get a template set up. The only thing they lack is a destruction version. If people are willing to accept the old FF version of destruction (ie. the flat plane wall with destruction texture as opposed to a true 3D inner building) then it shouldn't be too big of a deal to chop them up.
Right now I just have the basic ZT2 istalled, but I can easily install the expansions and grab some fish. The only thing I would be worried about is the expansions upgraded the graphics so I'm not sure about poly count.
Is there anything in nifscope or other program that will give you a polycount for an object?
Not sure about EE3 yet, but I know EE2 has a few ambient creatures running around for hunting/fishing and just for looks, and I know I saw a whale.
Goggles, for Civ 4, wasn't sure about the polycount on the units as they're not too big on the map. How do they look? For the buildings, I'll have to look, but I think that they might have a damaged mesh/skin for EE2
Awesome news Goggles! We are so very sorely lacking in buildings! RD, please do check out the fish for me. I've been after them for ages. :D
Even an fx like a school of fish swimming around would be cool (kind of like the pigeons and crows).
Dana
Quote from: cmdrkoenig67 on August 23, 2011, 02:35:21 AM
Even an fx like a school of fish swimming around would be cool (kind of like the pigeons and crows).
Dana
This is true, but I definitely want Aquaman to be able to summon some finny friends using the appropriate attribute. :D
Will do when I get home. Will probably start a new thread on this in Meshes to get some more attention.
In between Civ 4 and EE2 and EE3, that should add a ton of buildings, western, oriental, arabic, middleages, and on and on. Since each game covers thousands of years history and the entire world, it should really make for some good looking maps. Sid Meier's games, if they can be opened up, would add tons of new stuff as well. I'm thinking that besides ships and trains, there might be cars, trucks, scenery and of course, pirates!
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/beardedinlair/files/testing%20area/ (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/beardedinlair/files/testing%20area/)
far from complete on the animations. really, only idle works. and run, sort of.
i phsyiqued it, and tested, now i will work on the animations. should be good by tomorrow night. uploaded so ppl can see that it works!
Thanks a lot Bearded. I put him in the danger room and he seemed about the right size.
I put the camel mounted nomad from EE2 in but got mixed results. He appears normal in the character creator, but in the rumble room he's pretty small and all I can see is the skinned camel, not the rider. My attempts at screenshots failed.. I'll have to try again later.
I have a feeling the EE2 meshes will all be small, while the ZT2 meshes will be about the right size.
The EE3 nomad doesn't work at all for the game, though it appeared skinned in nifscope, although spread out.
I'm getting ready to send some buildings to Dana and hopefully he can take some screenshots and post.
He's looking very promising, Beard...Great work! Thanks for the contribution of the mesh too, Randomdays. I'm very excited!
I have a few animation suggestions, you may consider, Bearded...His flying animation could be a swim animation, and for melees he could have a bite (of course), a head smack (a sort of uppercut, but with his head striking upward) and a tail slap?
Dana
Grab and roll...
That's a good one, DG...I forgot they do that with their prey.
Dana
Depending on what their .kf files have available we might just be able to cobble something useful together out of the existent animations. I know for Aquaman's finny friends they won't really need to be able to do too terribly much.
I don't know if this will help Bearded or not, but this is a wiki for modding ZT2. Maybe he can use it to see how they exported the kfs and import them back in.
http://zt2modding.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Tutorials
Edit - reading further (farther?) it looks like we're out of luck with ZT2 at least, and will have to do any kfs from scratch
http://zt2modding.wikia.com/wiki/.bf
Just a little more FYI on the buildings. The can be placed in the game relatively easily, however characters can walk through them. Building don't necessarily need a bounding box, but I tried adding one anyway. Didn't help. One or two of the buildings I tried appear to be slightly more physical, but still suffered from the issue of not being target-able by melee attacks.
It's all very weird.
The structure of each nif was very similar, but slightly different among them. I going on the assumption that Civ4 and the like were a bit more forgiving with the nif format than FF is. Im gonna try loading each one into blender, and then exporting back again using the FF export settings to see if that somehow sets the nif properties correctly for the FF games.
To be Continued...