What've you skoped lately?

eluvium · October 09, 2022, 02:25:27 AM

Quote from: BentonGrey on October 08, 2022, 07:48:33 PM
*Emerging briefly from under the weight of the semester* Style! It's so awesome to see you back in the saddle, and making COPS characters of all things! That is too cool! I'll need those for my (eventual) Saturday Morning Adventures mod! They all look great, especially Big Boss! *Re-buried under an avalanche of prep and grading*

I canhelp voice some of that for sure

style · January 12, 2023, 09:52:10 PM

Quote from: BentonGrey on October 03, 2017, 02:45:25 AM
I'm loving these, man! I can't believe (I'm saying that a lot these days!) I'm looking at Sgt. Slaughter and the his Renegades! Ha!

The Rattler looks great! I'm wondering what's bigger than a Hiss...hmm!

Sorry it took me 6 YEARS!!!! to answer this question

Randomdays · January 12, 2023, 11:07:05 PM

What else can you say to that?

style · January 13, 2023, 04:52:09 AM

Quote from: Randomdays on January 12, 2023, 11:07:05 PM

What else can you say to that?

You can say go BIGGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can play in Freedom Force everything you see here!

BentonGrey · January 15, 2023, 03:05:49 AM

Haha! Wow! Oh my gosh! I guess that answers the question I had about your message, Style, about whether you had those objects. These all look amazing! And I LOVE the image of you, me, and C6 with the toys. Hahaha, I almost didn't see that with everything else going on. Man, that's delightful! (I call Snake Eyes!)

By the way, I posted in the general forum, but in case you don't see it: your inbox is full!

SickAlice · January 24, 2023, 06:50:55 PM

Working on this gentleman. I loved INK's and C6's original and it represented the classic look well but didn't leave much for skinners so I'm working on something that one can adjust the cape and collar via the alpha channels. I'm also making new keyframes. The original were blaster and while he has those abilities, jack of all trades really, those aren't his typical movements. So I went with my dramatic villain stuff and added various direct and guns and such to it. And the ability to grin sometimes. Also I'm giving him alternate costume parts like the modern ones seen here. Figuring out how to make these parts work was a bit of a chore, like getting the long hair working with the collar or the shoulder pads perfect.

Edit: Getting through it with not too many hiccups. I had to correct the long hair. I forgot that already mapped models can't be extruded without remapping. Aside the body everything else is built from scratch and done to keep it as simple and low poly as possible.

WyldFyre · January 28, 2023, 11:25:30 PM

Looks really good. I like the variety.

SickAlice · January 29, 2023, 03:18:10 AM

@WyldFyre: Thanks. I like where it's going. I finished up the Age Of Apocalypse stuff (the braided hair was a bit of a chore) and went back and polished everything. I wanted the modern looks and I'm waiting on "Sinister 100" to come out since I have no idea what the backside of the costume looks like. Else I'm doing his suit as well but taking a breather to think it through so I don't make a bunch of mistakes. I made custom guns as well. They are as vanilla as it gets. I didn't want them to overwhelm the composition.

SickAlice · February 01, 2023, 05:48:58 PM

I worked out the suit parts for Sinister, bottom right. I still have to fine texture them of course but this went better then hoped with only one set back to work around.

WyldFyre · February 02, 2023, 12:01:47 AM

Looking good!

SickAlice · February 02, 2023, 12:24:25 AM

A capelet. That's what the short cape over the cloak which is over the suit is called. I learn odd things while making models.

cranlox · February 02, 2023, 01:19:43 AM

Some time ago I had asked Daglob for help to bring some characters from cars to freedomvs3R and that had been started. Finally, in a very simple way, I finished doing what I had achieved.
Some special moves could be made but I don't know anything about the keyframes issue.
By the way I ask for a tutorial?

Randomdays · February 02, 2023, 01:53:37 PM

SA - great work as always. It great when you put in that extra effort with all the alternate skins.

Cranlox - great imports - good work from you and DG

SickAlice · February 03, 2023, 03:51:24 PM

Ty. He's another trick one that doesn't have a lot of parts, just appears to where the parts, like the capes are controlled by the texture to make different capes. I'm working on the origin right now but having trouble with the folded collar. "What works on paper". The logistics of a short collar and somehow long hair not overlapping the collar isn't really coming together in 3d space. I have time to mess around anyways but it's a challenge to make work. Reminds me of working on the Spider-Mobile again where the logistics just would not work in RL with an actual dune buggy. In RL the engine would stick out through the back roll bar, the characters feet wouldn't have a place to be and so on.

I'm not sure what special moves means specifically here. I usually impose vehicles on ones that already have moves, like Val's Transformer alts. Anything beyond those ramming moves though I can tell you depending on how much you know of animations it is a lot of work and learning. I won't volunteer knowing how much would have to go into all of those. Imo I think having say cars with just basic moves works well enough for this game.

cranlox · February 04, 2023, 07:42:25 AM

If I quite agree that for this game the basic movements come to pass. I did some very simple effects for Filmore (making it briefly projectile repulsive using the audio from the song reflection of my life, it's pretty funny.) To give it a difference. I also saw that I can delay the projectile so that it is coordinated with the action of the vehicle when firing because at the beginning I was distant. I only tested it with Sarge. With Dablog we had started to make Actionman's father, but I only found the skin on my old hard drive, I'm going to see what kind of mesh it fits into.
Thank you for your attentive response SA.

SickAlice · February 04, 2023, 03:09:16 PM

I was thinking Spider-Mobile right away here as well. It just keeps coming up I guess. In that I made three custom animations. Guns/web shooters that popped out the hood. It can drive up walls (climbing animation). And the tires spin. For the web shooters it is the typical visibility trick, I host Windblowns basic tutorial on that on my linked site. It works though because I made the model and form fit the models for the animation. Same with the tires but it was a lot trickier, not basic stuff and it involved understanding plane coordinates and models with different scales. The wall trick is the standard turning the entire model 90 degrees used to convert a

nif to

. I have a tutorial link for that two and/or am going to write one up as part of my tutorial page later this year. But it was all tedious albeit basic stuff.

With what you have there, sixteen sets? Yeah it would be more work then you are going to want to put in for what would even come out of it. You'd probably have to make new models out of those depending on the desired animation and you would be putting endless hour into just making the animations themselves. Likely for a single animation one or two persons would ever use once by just looking at in CTool. It's just not worth it. Using an existing standard keyframe is well enough for anyone for anyone that would fire these up in game and actually make hero files and such for them, same as the Transformers themselves who don't really have the special moves as it were that they would normally in the cartoon series.

On a side note I figure out my folded collar, I just barely made it work. Now I have to finish up Sinister's animations speaking of. I'm on crunch time for getting the move together, I'll be travelling in a few weeks to the new house. Otherwise I am just waiting for the art for the Sins Of Sinister costume to drop so I can skin it. No idea yet what the back of the costume is supposed to look like at this point. The odd folded collar in question here. It's two toned and it needed to exist with several pieces: The longer braided here, the cape and the cape clip complete with disks and long drapes in the front. Somehow I get this thing to not overlap and at the same time only pick up the clavicle information while avoiding the shoulder/upper arm info next to it. I got it to work by being tricky and using some optical/perception tricks:

cranlox · February 05, 2023, 06:56:45 AM

Some house moves are really hard, good luck with that.

I continued with some semi-static characters like the cars that I had started with Daglob and taking into account the character and giving it a character's own voice (sorry I put it in Latin Spanish) I was quite satisfied with a Joomba of "Lilo and Stitch" that He drives his ship, the crew member Joomba is a hard modeled mesh without differentiating anything from his extremities, so the only option that he moves or moves and touches buttons on the ship remains in the imagination, but taking into account that Joomba is not a guy either. so active and a genius that he could sit still and operate his ship with voice commands it doesn't get so incoherent.
The game's generic beam shot looks broadly similar to that of the show's ship in the first season.
I put the legs to be able to put the wheels on the floor in order to fly.

SickAlice · February 05, 2023, 06:43:10 PM

I'm going through my animations for Sinister right now while doing laundry speaking of. I have carpel tunnel and it doesn't go well with customizing animations so I'm taking a break at this moment.

eluvium · February 06, 2023, 12:03:56 AM

take you time, heal up

SickAlice · February 06, 2023, 01:31:10 PM

RL life work no can do. I'm on a tight schedule. Okay, being honest it's my mother. She is difficult. She is also a hoarder. I spent most of this week going through the basement from Hell (sarcasm, I have done worse basements well doing community work and helping hoarders and addicts). I swear this woman kept every button, sewing needle, screw, nut, bolt and so forth she has every seen in her life and put it in a random spot in the basement or garage here. There's an old brass tuba down here for example. No one in this family plays a wind instrument and I have no clue where it came from or why. With their memories they of course do not either. But I sorted a big tuba with my time and a number of other heavy, smelly things regardless. I also did every single piece of laundry possible to do in this house after that of course lol.

This stuff I take my time more because my wrist just locks up and I can't use the mouse anymore. So I get much done as I can. I always have touch screen or pads for the event so I can at least do my banking with my pinky fingers while I wait. I did finish those keyframes yesterday though. Then I went back and decided I want some sword type animations in it if anything for skopers down the line so I'm hammering that out. I also am thinking I will want to make a nif that is posed in the sitting position so I can line up a chair map object. My mind wants to think Gren's sitting pose and Prof. X actually line up but...? Well I am not 100% on that. And my mind just says to me that it's wrong to have a character sit yet not have an actual chair for them to actually sit on I guess so I have to make the chair.

*Edit: Done around noon, wasn't all that bad. I also made a second pose/animation and a base for chairs. Now I just have to make a little wine glass for the second sitting animation.

SickAlice · February 08, 2023, 04:56:45 PM

I finished a single chair/throne. This will become a map object that will packed with the download. I made 4 different sit animations based on Gren's. The folder leg with wine glass as in the image before for a second, then doubles of all where the first set male basic capes hang over the back of a shorter chair that meets around the back of the neck and the second where the cape is folded in and the character sits on it (and illusion where the lower cape falls inside the chair models). This was tricky due to a lack of proper cape bones where there should be 4 sets to lines up with the bodies bones so the cape can bend correctly where our capes only have 2 sets, a high neck one and then two lower that reside around the pelvis.

Anyways so a chair is done for the folded animations based on the comics but I can't seem to settle on an idea for a shorter chair for the cape over chair animations. This was a rather difficult shape to figure out how to model btw.

eluvium · February 08, 2023, 06:07:03 PM

how hard would it be to transfer the sitting animation to other meshes

SickAlice · February 09, 2023, 06:45:33 AM

I'm making these ones so they can be transferred to any male basic nif. Originally it comes from Gren's Maximus which the only thing you need to add to a nif is the Mouth node which you copy and paste the branch into the Head node of the other nif.

I'm making a few animations here and there that will end up in a keyframe set. I'm trying to think of just very common movements that we don't have any animations for. Like sitting with a cape, riding bikes and motorcycles, eating, so on.

deanjo2000 · February 09, 2023, 08:56:59 AM

Doom will get his throne soon

WyldFyre · February 09, 2023, 11:24:37 AM

So awesome! If I can ever get time, there are so many things I want to play with.

Randomdays · February 09, 2023, 01:24:39 PM

Those will be neat - some will get more used than others, but more choices are always good.

Tommyboy already has his motorcycle swaps, but having someone actually having his legs move will riding a bike would be cool.

Some ideas - Going over meshes and kfs for my list, some non-standard kfs I've seen - rally, charge, grenade throw, bring the wrist up to face for a wrist comm.. More but I'd have to go and look

Maybe tapping the belt for a power up, or tapping the left chest for TNG emblem communicator. Even giving the Vulcan "live long and prosper" greeting. falling to knees. Is there an actual animation of Wonder Woman twirling her lasso out there? Thor spinning his hammer in front like a shield?

Tommyboy's social kfs with arguing, pointing, shaking head and others.

When I was working on bringing new animations in from other games, UO had a bunch of new ones, some I was able to get in some not. Different styles of idle, run and walk, a "riverdance" kind of looping dance step, reaching out with both hands in a "No!" gesture, grasping the throat and falling down from poison. waving, clapping saluting, "drunk idle" - weaving a bit (though "stunned" kind of already covers that)

SickAlice · February 09, 2023, 07:27:59 PM

The big idea is they are accessible for mb as well when it comes to sitting and such I am making the 3d models that line perfectly as templates. They will be static models so new works can just be imported where needed.

Most of those otherwise already exist and are common, RD or they are specific to a character. You can make them of course, not my thing either way. Mine are already done and no one else here said they weren't going to use them. I mean they did request them after all right in this thread of me so...

Podmark · February 09, 2023, 11:57:36 PM

Sinister on a throne is awesome.

eluvium · February 10, 2023, 12:54:01 AM

Quote from: SickAlice on February 09, 2023, 06:45:33 AM
I'm making these ones so they can be transferred to any male basic nif. Originally it comes from Gren's Maximus which the only thing you need to add to a nif is the Mouth node which you copy and paste the branch into the Head node of the other nif.

I'm making a few animations here and there that will end up in a keyframe set. I'm trying to think of just very common movements that we don't have any animations for. Like sitting with a cape, riding bikes and motorcycles, eating, so on.

I've done mocap work in the past, would it be rude of me to offer some suggestions, I've noticed could really add articulation to some simple basic movements like you said?

also the Mr. fantastic tvlite by tommyboy has quite a few cut scene animations, as does vx_clark kent

SickAlice · February 10, 2023, 01:05:36 AM

I did a generic throne for the regular cape. I figure that's easier to work with for people. Else I finished some weapons. I did the fish head spear in the last forty or so minutes, I'm okay with that.
And ty, Podmark.

eluvium

I'd be more interested in just reading about what mopac work entails and what it's like honestly. I know it won't be applicable to what I'm doing. This is as is stuff and all very simple stuff. I'm only making easy things for other users who don't know how to do a lot so they can just skope things together without doing any hard work.

As it is these nifs are very limited on the amount of bones we have to work with and I have to stay inside that constraint, same as staying inside a low poly limit for models I make. Hence why the cape is weird for example being that are only two bones in a cape. It's also why I can't use TVL stuff or do that Vulcan hand sign, because basic nifs do not have individual finger bones. There's just two for the thumb and then two for the "mitten" that encompasses all four fingers. Short of it is if I add bones other people couldn't use the keyframes for other basic skopes and such because those would lack those bones.

As above too, and I revised it because I realized I might have come off discouraging, the idea is to make animations that are not available. "The animation from Nif Keyframe X..." Right. That means it already exists so there isn't a point of making it again. Anyone can get that for example Thor spinning hammer, in fact I've used it myself and studied that to learn spinning weapons, or the belt press and grenade throw from Taskmaster. Or say Tommy's. People can just copy the keyframes from those since they already exist. I'm making basic poses that aren't available anywhere here, hence "eating" for example as I know there are no animation sets that have an eating animation.

The other side of it is animations that do exist but do not have a lined up model to go with. Like in this case, and I did a few more earlier, the chair/throne. The models I made are static and everything lines up perfectly with male basic models and those animations/poses. So users who do not know much about this stuff can just line up a model, say Dr. Doom's throne as deanjo2000 suggested, which I thought about myself, can just be imported right into the nif with Nifskope without Blender or Max or any weighting at all.

The short of the idea and everything I made for the past few years is these are "tool projects" that are really easy for new users to make whatever project they have in mind with. Again anyone who doesn't know how to work with keyframes themselves or how to work with Blender and Max. Just people who skope and make textures. So the idea is to always avoid any complexity with this stuff. If that helps to reason what I'm doing. And as RD not discourage you. Go ahead and make all that stuff. I look forward to seeing it. It seems there's some expectation though that I am asking a question or that I am going to do or make all these things? If so no, I won't. I'm confused as to where this is coming from actually. But again you guys free to make those keyframes if this is what you're saying to me.

- A trick and spinning weapons: Most low poly games do not actually use spinning models. The way is to program the animations to spin the object on it's center axis which can get both tricky and also look really bad. They instead a spinning texture. The trick for us is as follows =
* Animated texture: Knowing how to do this in a nif and of course it will spin, like Captain America shields do.
* Vanishing weapon: Knowing how to make a weapon appear and disappear. I host Windblown's tutorial on how to do this on my site.

It's that simple. You make an animated say circle with the weapon textured on it. Most game devs make this image look like it's spinning already, like in a cartoon when something spins very fast. Make the animated for the object which is attached to the hand of choice in the nif. Add that node/string name to the keyframes that you want the weapon to appear and you're done. Very little work to put in and little to figure out.

News:

What've you skoped lately?