What've you skoped lately?

[Podmark]

It's really interesting reading the thought process and challenges on making these, SA. They are coming out great!

[WyldFyre]

That explains it really well. I might have to play with this if I can get some time. I presume that you can take a kf and set the position of the node on the character to see the effect of the kf? That way you can see the kf in action? This opens some possibilities.

[SickAlice]

TY. And yeah it is, also again it's much simpler than it seems and it only becomes difficult when you, which I keep doing make it more complicated. Rotation on a single axis point can be messy and usually you want your calculator out for that. Also the game engine has issues rendering that stuff, if you can it's better to use to rotating animated texture trick. But just for anims this is handy. Just look at the character.nif as the doll you are posing. Your keyframe is then telling the bones to move to those positions from the idle position (depending on skopes it will otherwise be the same in the character.nif and keyframes).

And not sure on the meaning WyldFyre here but if you mean once you put the variables in the keyframe and saved it you will see it in CTool and the game. This also aside being able to make animations that aren't available adds the big advantage of avoid the signature mismatch issue. For those who don't what that is is nifs are assigned a signature at creation that is shared by the keyframes. I say think of it as DNA where DNA tells your brain what is part of your body and what is a foreign entity. This is baked in and I see this a lot when people do keyframe swaps but don't check the work in game, the signature doesn't match you will not be able to use that animation in game at all, it won't even show up as a selection. When I said "legacy" I mean a nif is legacy to an older nif, usually the author notes it in the text file included with the work. Legacy to male_basic, legacy to Taskmaster for examples. A legacy nif will share the signature of it's ancestors and thus be able use it's animations. Otherwise it can't. The fast track in swapping is to swap everything to the older nif and keyframe set. So for example everything to male_basic_effects as opposed to some later released work. Taskmaster is particularly fussy in this. The only grandchild I ever found of it is INK's Exodus and only place you can find area animations that work for it are there. But the easier route then is to take the TM animations and put them on male_basic and old keyframes instead and avoid all of it together. So the advantage becomes that you are making the animation from the legacy keyframe itself thus it will already have a signature match and is guaranteed to work in game.

In the end, something I read one day or another Nifskope can do anything and then it's a matter of whether a game engine allows that feature because it is actually the original Character Studio files for 3ds Max broken down and put back together. Aside importing and saving Max 4 files of course it's all done in a different order is all.

Anyways, I'll be back to this late tonight but more likely tomorrow. I'm contending with this job today, this would be the stump I'm droning about right here.

[mac402]

@SickAlice: Very true what you wrote regarding the keyframes. Let me say it's really considerate of you that you think about potential skopers and want to go an extra mile and make things even easier by arranging the controller entries like that. Such details ultimately save a lot of time in the future.

By the way I wonder why do most meshes don't have skin partitions. These are needed for to avoid ghosting effect when you spawn more than one instance of a character on the map. Yet, even for meshes specifically made for the second game, rarely they come with skin partitions. It's not really a problem because those can be generated with 1 click with tools like Pyffi or just Nifskope, but I was wondering is there a specific reason for not including that.

[BentonGrey]

Yeah, I actually gave most of mine away a few years ago too (I regret it now), but I kept those guys.  I had a LOT that had been in my parents' attic since I was a boy. 

Wow, that is astonishing.  I had absolutely no idea you could do that.  Great work, man!

Good luck in your battle with the stump! 

As for the Turtle Power mod, I must have deleted the patch, but it shouldn't really be necessary anymore.  However, it looks like I don't have the Blimp in that build.  Nonetheless, I've uploaded the Blimp, Technodrome, and Krang for your perusal. 
https://www.mediafire.com/file/pq8j8b6otg53ebh/turtle_blimp.zip/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/bg3ag5k0yryhkly/technodrome.zip/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/ql10kp10yit4lbn/TMNT_Krang.zip/file

[SickAlice]

I don't regret it really. I travelled a lot, that's a given and things are hard to take with. And these kids had nothing, I would see them in ratty t-shirts and what not. I have them it all, even the collector figures, the comics, my video games and systems. You know I imagine that was a big day for them and that's worth it, more than the nostalgia I lug around.

Awesome on the files, ty. There's not much I'll change my formula for the Technodrome tank but I always like seeing how anyone did a thing to get ideas. I have the Krang already, someone is hosting that on a backup file site. I'd always given thought to that one too, I wanted the challenge of making Krang move separately inside the android body. But as it is I'm trying to touch on things that haven't been as much, like April of course which is coming along well. I still think about doing just an individual thing and/or him in the little walker. I just like that visual of course. But priorities, complete Turtles that look like their counterparts, the wagon, technodrome, some other vehicles I'm keeping as a surprise though I already gave away the Cheapskate now, April is still in the que, Leatherhead, Metalhead, Slash gets a redux and the new Turtle body opens up Tokka if I want to do it and then I few other characters in the works I'm leaving as a surprise. For right now my focus is on the vehicles and to finish them I need to finish the Turtles that go with them of course.

Ah that stump. It's dug out all the way, my head was actually inside the Earth for awhile and I was calling myself The Earthworm. I finally just got the laundry folded and dishes done after all this, there's fireworks going off so I know I won't sleep soon. Boy am I in pain from this one though. I'm getting to old to be underneath a pine tree stump with a spade I think. And unfortunately the main root is the size of the trunk itself and it goes all the to Hoboken so I am going to have be clever in the morning about pulling this out. I had the thought that I just blow it up, it's the 4th and I don't think anyone would notice. Or demand the raccoons do it considering I feed them and they already dig up my garden and front lawn lol.

@mac402: Thanks. I think about skopers all the time but more and in anything I've made in the past few years I think about skinners. I think how can make this easy for someone who only does textures to work with, or conceive of a way they can pull something off they normally couldn't? And always now I think what anyone will make with it because really short of displaying in CTool that's any of this stuff we make is going to end up used for. I mean it's all about whether you make someone smile or it does anything for them, for me it's just part of my regimen to help me through hard times same as sculpting and painting was when I was a child.

I don't much about spawning. Maps and scripting are very weak areas for me short of just making stock content to use for them. But I think get the meaning and yeah, I mean there are a lot of features of Nif they just ducked out of that there wasn't a solid reason not to have. I can get somethings they did to make it so players could do custom stuff and rather quickly or at least why they thought to do it the way they did as opposed to how games that are not meant for customization or set up (Knight Rider again, all the features Nif can use are in it whether they are used or not and it's from the same era, in fact the sequels are in sync in the same exact years). CTool for example but more the ingame counterpart in the character editor. Why? Why have a preview tool that renders the object differently than in game and further why more something in game that has less of a memory cap than the rest of the game (loading a certain number of texture directories in a row for example results in a crash)? Why not finish enabling the alpha feature in the first game? And second game they exploited much more features, in fact there's some stuff I'm still trying to figure out like Bacchite's built in weighted particle emitter for example, yet, so many features that could have been put in just for the heck of it are just not accessible. Were they in a rush? I know they rushed through some textures and models, I've pulled some and corrected them because the mapping was wrong and I know they never completed the Ladder object properties for example. And I know those things tend to happen when trying meet a deadline and get the product put out shipped to the vendors. So that's all I have but it would be great of those functions were in the engine for us to use considering they could be and existed at the time.

[SickAlice]

Yeah my work day turned out to be hell and lasted until sundown. I did get an hour (couldn't sleep, firework noise) for this and got over every hump regarding weapon keyframes and holstered placement which is awesome of course. Always expect resistance of course and I got away with none on a single Turtle here so that's sweet. Boy does my body hurt though, I'm not often grateful for rain forcing me to take a day but I smiled at the dark clouds this morning already.

[BentonGrey]

Haha, should have waited and blown the stump up today like you considered--or put those freeloader raccoons to work!  Glad you made so much progress!  I hope you enjoy a day to recover.

Yeah, I think there are a lot of signs of hurried and unfinished work in  .  We've got visual bugs in some of the art assets, missing knockback from thrown objects, tons of stuff.

[SickAlice]

Well a mom brought baby kits to see me, actually she tried to bring them in my house so I guess it all shakes out. She also killed a squirrel and put it my welcome mat for me. Thanks?

There is, and I mean it's not like it doesn't happen. Or in cases just a big glitchfest (Lego Marvel Superheroes 2, good heavens is that a mess). But the typically argument is it was an old era game. While that may effect it's graphics limitations, PSX era for the first game and cusp of PS2 for the second, it was not limited by what could be done again displayed by other games using the same exact engine at the time (I endlessly suggest getting Knight Rider 2 and looking inside the game nifs/kfs, a lot of neat stuff to learn there). Nor was it being designed for a home system counterpart for that matter, rather it moved along games like Unreal Tournament and Quake at the same time that were directly intended for PC's. So there isn't a great excuse for some of it and deadline is really the only thing that tracks. Or company order. Like we chatted about TMNT Legends before. A lot of the "mistakes" were not mistakes in that, they were according to artist done because his boss was way too demanding and put him in a bad position thus his output was hinky. The only reason I think about it is of course understanding what I can and can't do here and also I'm always looking to see if there is a possible way to patch that issue/update it. I think there is in some cases though I also think it requires coding knowledge, knowledge of Netimmerse and probably the right tools for it. I know that was the case in Activision's Marvel based games or at least as much as Tommyboy taught us back in the day.

So positive front and on topic I cleared all animation hurdles late last night, fireworks and gun shots on the lake kept me awake again. Leonardo's weapon attacks will end up taking a bit of work and time, not too bad though. Mike's are still going to be the most work since I'm making all them from scratch and recreating those exaggerated spinning nunchaku moves. Don's and Raphs just fall into place on their own fortunately, Gren already beat me to the punch thankfully. Else I started moving then and made the variation weapon models for different nifs last night and completed all of the nunchaku's, will probably finish everything else by night fall here again with the work called on rain. Really it will be August soon enough, I'm starting to consider we might not even have a Summer here?

[deanjo2000]

Doesn?t grens Chaka Kahn have nunchaku animations? Would that help? 

[SickAlice]

Why would need help figuring out a thing I just did and explained how for a page straight including screenshots of the process and a tutorial? I was saying I have a lot of tedious work to put into the keyframes, days worth actually.

And anyways yes and no, I already explained exactly why here those won't work. I did the same he did which was use weighted weapons. That works for a simple cylinder rope but it doesn't work for chain links. They need to be static so they won't bend and breath, I made them for kicks and can't overstate how awful that looks. The normal method for chains is to animate each individual link. You can find it on the Century nif and some of the Ghost Riders. That is a lot more work to do manually as well if you've seen them that animation bogs down the game engine badly. My method is using a single piece, no models either, just flat planes and creating the illusion of links using alpha channel stencils. This keeps it all flush and is much easier to animate. I took apart most of the Ninja Turtle games that exist and even the modern ones use a method like that. More of them do not have animated spinning weapons at all though, rather a flat circle with an FX spiral on it. I'm going for look though and wanted the weapons to be visible. Also the look isn't reality based which Gren's Chaka Khan very much are, and singular. The Turtles have more of a jacked up fantasy/cartoon look to their animations, especially Mike. Else Chaka Khan is not uniform to male basic. I would have to ditch every single thing in trade just to have about three single use animations and nothing else. Unless you're making Bruce Lee but want him to have no complex martial arts moves and just be able to spin a nunchaku that nif isn't of much use. It's pretty exclusive to how that character looks and moves alone.

[deanjo2000]

Well it was only a suggestion and might of saved you time. It depends how thorough you wanted to be and obviously that?s very. Your doing a very good job so just do what you know, I?m not up on creating kf?s or modelling so ignore anything I say

[SickAlice]

Only way is hard work of course. And I got that. But I don't want to. I want to make fresh animations that are compatible with all the male basics for people to use for whatever they want. I know more wild nunchaku animations have been on peoples request list for awhile so I'm giving it a shot. But mostly since you say all you need to know is when I mean work I mean a lot of math. Cartesian. Over and over and over and over. It's not the fun part of this is all. I like making models and textures. And doing research on this things. Like I learned all about katana tsuba's today for example. Anyways this is the start of what I have going on add the screenshots I put up earlier. It needs polishing, like I have to go through the relaxed positions and the striking ones but I already worked out the basic coordinates so figuring it out isn't a thing, just glaring at the screen and punching numbers through the night. I find a a funky music album helps.

[BentonGrey]

Wow, that's looking really awesome!

[oktokels]

Fantastic, great work, looks incredible !!!
I can see the hard work you have put into this and I can only say congratulations 

[deanjo2000]

That looks amazing  seriously it?s just beautiful.

[hmarrs]

WOW!!!
It looks so Fluid.

[Podmark]

Go ninja go ninja go!
Mike's looking great!

[BentonGrey]

Go ninja go ninja go!
Mike's looking great!

[SickAlice]

TY. I'm critical of it myself but again it's at a WIP stage only in this shot and needs a lot of work put into it to make it right. I am pleased though because I've been thinking about this exact one for years now and what the right way to do it would be and I'm having success. Nothing worse then having this big idea and you have to toss it in the trash can. But thanks. I completed a few weapons for them now and worked out exactly where all their positions have to be. Sorry about the screenshot, the white background plus the refl on the metal obscure some of the chains such but I think you know what's supposed to be here. I should have put a backdrop in it but I thought of it too late. There's going to be couple more, I just had to finish these exact ones for measurements, placements and palettes that are going to happen next. I am glad to have gotten through this part though too and also with little resistance, I maybe had to remake four of them. But now my Turtle boys are armed and dangerous(ly hungry for pizza) so all is well and I can move on to the next stage.

[Podmark]

So many weapons!

[BentonGrey]

Wow!  The variety and detail is astounding, SA!  These are going to be your magnum opus, I think.

And I know EXACTLY what you mean about grand ideas going in the trash...haha, I can't tell you how many times I've had to scrap this or that big idea for an adventure or a scene in a mod.

[SickAlice]

The aforementioned retomutating animation. My baby turtle was real cute too. But I gained the pizza eating one so I guess it shakes out. And TY. I dunno, I think Lady Death will be my zenith, I put years into that idea and it's massive, just a big loot crate for skopers and nothing else. I intended for it to be the MOTU stuff but I think I'll produce better with TMNT since I know that like the back of my hand as it was my happy place as a child. Okay it still is. I just watched Secret Of The Ooze last night again to take my thoughts off some stress and back pain.

Oh yeah I forgot, long night and not feeling that well right now but some of those are wrong and some of you may have noticed. That's on purpose, this is just a set-up stage and I need to look at things a certain way right now. Like the IDW chucks for example are not supposed to have a guard on the bottom of the handles and once they end up in their nif they won't. That piece has an alpha channel attached that deletes it so they look like average rounded chucks as they should. Since it isn't in the Nif (I did something unorthodox and put all of the models in a single Nif for this photoshoot) it doesn't have a Controller to dictate it yet. Also of note all these may not show up at all. I'm doing them in advance to get color schemes down ahead of time for other stuff. I'm also doing some in advance whether I end using them or not because some of these are very hard to manually put in the needed position. Specifically the chucks. I have to make several takes. A held in each hand that's in a different position, a holstered in four different positions, a swung and slung piece for each hand, two for rotating pieces, one shared for ranged spinning throws. And they have different positions and most are annoyingly weird. Moving the chains in particular to those positions get rough. So easy enough I decided it just save me a whole ton of trouble if I thought about any potential chuck model and made every one in advance so I can position them now at the same time, save them and just import them later if I need them. Even if I end up not using them. Like I made his test tube chucks after I posted this. I mostly don't think I'll end making that Invisible Man variant but just in case since it will be a big chore to try and do it later.

[hmarrs]

Can't wait to see it...
Amazing work.

[SickAlice]

Ty, can't wait to finish it among other uploads I have in the que (Lady Death and She-Ra both need me to finish a single animation for each, it appears I left my present self notes about that). I'm at holstered weapon placement now, this a boring part. Two days worth of sessions in held up by breathing problems. It's all manual and takes a lot of steady handwork to line everything up exactly before making a model to import. The characters aren't very gracious here either. I found there's two base holster types, behind the belt itself and between the shell via the original cartoon and outside the shell in a character specific holster piece via the Playmates figures. Every version of them to come will derive from one or the other. In the case of Mike and Raph this deviates a lot as designers tried to improve the visual. Sometimes they are on the carapace, sometimes the plastron. Something behind the belt, sometimes in a holster piece. Raphs also move in position and angles over different versions typically moving away from the crotch and to the outside of the thighs pointing backward toward the carapace eventually. Leo and Don will otherwise almost always follow the Playmates design. So a lot of careful placement on my end and a sore wrist then. An interesting one I found, already finished this one thankfully is the grappling hook (Turtle Line) Mike ends up using in the cartoon is holstered behind the belt on his right side between the carapace and the plastron and then rests against the abdomen. It also folds up which is pretty cool. I think that's a good design they should have used it more often, and highlighted it more in the cartoon for that matter (the animator just forgets to even draw it half the time and Mike pulls it out from nowhere). It would resolved the issue with the sais early and made Mike a little more fluid to animate.

[detourne_me]

Wow...  these are gonna be amazing meshes SA!  I noticed some black and white weapons...  that means we are getting the Mirage titles, too? Will they all have red headbands?

[SickAlice]

Both DM. Colored, I decided to go with Full Color, it seems to be what they used the most. Then B&W for those Nifs alternate. It took me awhile but I settled on a duotone/pulp noir technique I wanted to use for the effect. Finished all weapon placement an hour ago (it stormed all day and I'm sick so I had a lot of free time), the chuck placement is up next which as I said is the most work there. Then I move on the making the body variations for the Nifs. The big round legs for the ones need it of course and shaped heads. After I'll polish the keyframe sets and put it all together. Seriously the things I do just to figure the correct distance between the party wagons seat and steering wheel.

[hmarrs]

Beautiful flawless and smooth Slick A

Oh And @detourne
I just recently seen all your work on all those Rigged Meshes
On a Thread Wow!!!
That's alot alot of work...
Rigging takes so much time..
I dont know if people know...I know bcse I did a few back in the day...

Work came out awesome as well..
Some are just beautiful.

Thank you guys so much for caring enough to keep FF fresh!!!

[SickAlice]

Ty. I love working this stuff really but something about this community. It's like this forum just stayed nice.

[windblown]

wow! just... wow!! The Turtles and their accessories are awesome, and that nunchaku animation is perfect. Looking forward to seeing more!