What've you skoped lately?

[SickAlice]

This one is feral and unfortunately won't become an inside cat. I built a house for him and he visits. Not so much a stray. People get kittens and are people who have say have habits so they don't really raise them, hence why he doesn't know what litter is, and once they aren't kittens they abandon them. Happened in the other city in the desert where I hope to move back to where there are roaming litters of cats like this and I took care of them there as well that occupy blocks. I don't like the idea of people ditching animals like that so I'll keep food stocked and make shelters for them. My cat otherwise passed away in 2015 and I don't have the heart to have another full time.

[WyldFyre]

My cat otherwise passed away in 2015 and I don't have the heart to have another full time.

  I know that feeling. If we didn't have more than one, I'm not sure I would want another either. We both feel that way after losing our last dog several years ago. Part of me wants another, but part doesn't want to go through losing them.

[SickAlice]

Cats. People. It's just like that. He's feral anyway again. He can't be trained not destroy the place nor does he really want to stay inside.

A few values to add to the keyframes and I can release Doom. I screwed up and burned my hands badly. I thought it was a smart idea to clean the metal rain gutters in 110 F weather. My hands keep shaking and it made it hard to make straight lines on the textures. I think it looks pretty good all things considered. So probably upload it in a few days.

[SickAlice]

Oh and I suppose for need to know keyframes cape data does not contain scales. I never noticed this before but obviously they need to be there if you want animations other than just hanging/breathing. So that's three bones that need scales per animation. I kind of wish I would've noticed earlier. I've been working on a unified keyframe set for users to use to easily copy and past from and/or make new keys without having to do the tedious work and would have added all this.

*edit: Some keyframes have scales for cape top but they are set to zero which we do not want. Obviously I have not checked every keyframe set but like most flaws it is safe to assume this is legacy thus is found in most keyframe sets or at least going back to Taskmaster. Interesting though, yeah?

[DoctorRuina]

Cats! I live with 12 cats! 

[SickAlice]

I grew up with about that many. Mom's saw a litter and brought them all home. Mom's saw another and brought them all home. So on. Good deal really. I can't stand people that scoop up kittens just to have a toy and then ditch them once are big and not as squeaky. That's how the cats around here and the ones I take care of (and a skunk now too) came about. I've seen this pretty much along the whole tristate border. You can find roaming packs of cats on each block and park.

[WyldFyre]

It's the same here on the east coast. Feral cat colonies abound. People her though have started to catch and spay/neuter them. We actually have a cat rescue that will help defray the costs of this. My wife volunteers for them.

With regard to keyframes. I had long thought about a universal keyframe set. The sheer task of compiling it had kept me from trying. I knew certain bones were required for certain sets. Gren's Taskmaster sets and Tommy's versatile sets were the closest to "universal" I had seen. The capes indeed probably stretch back to the original mesh makers as most just copied IG's meshes but wrote a lot of their own keyframes.

[SickAlice]

South side of the Rockies is pretty bad too. Same situation sort of. People ditch em or pass away and the cats just ended up in the wild reproducing like crazy. I took care of a lot there. Though many meet with grim fates with all the eagles and mountain lions and such around. I dunno. I think pets are equal members of family and should be treated as such. Or at least if humanity is all that we have a responsibility to show it by taking good care of animals and each other for that matter where negligence just lowers us.

I have a fairly robust Taskmaster keyframe set built. Cordless I think? TM is a very early set. Yet it isn't compatible with a lot. I find, if I'm not too lazy the best way is to go to clean copy of the earliest set, so male_basic in this case and copy backward to it. That way most keys will work with it where often they won't with recent meshes and sets. But that TM will probably be my universal since I add so much to it. It's both my base for MOTU male characters and TMNT so I have a lot pumped into it. Might as well keep building on it imo.

Gambit 97 is up next now that Doom is done though. I was really impressed by the animations and want to replicate those spinning bo staff attacks on Ink and Gren's mesh and keyframe set.

[SickAlice]

Finished all Gambit's weapons. Getting the card prints to look exactly like the cartoon was a chore. I think I'm going to go in reverse order and make the animations before the body work here since that was the thing that really caught my eye.

[SickAlice]

I resolved the "sphere jaggles" problem today. If you look at the basketball on the left which is TB's you can see where the texture "bleeds" from the middle seam. This is known as jaggles. If you look at bald meshes you'll see the same problem. On a bald mesh where the texture is the same color it isn't too apparent. On say Spider-Man where a black line runs right over the seam then it is very apparent and ugly looking. I have some files and have been working on fixing a Spider-Man mesh for that matter. See how I resolved the matter by creating a seam made of actual faces instead of a normal seam.

Anyway a texturable basketball which will come with a future release is finished. I love making models of little common items and working out texturing ideas for them.

[SickAlice]

Gambit is coming along well. A lot of new parts for skopers to have fun with and I'm always trying to improve trench coat mapping. Good thing. I had to have surgery on the arm today so I'll have to take a break for awhile while it heals. Stitches won't come out for I think two weeks.

[WyldFyre]

Ouch. Sorry to hear about the surgery. Hope you have a speedy recovery. Gambit looks good.

The coats have always seemed a little wonky to me. Especially on the female meshes. The combination of low poly and the limitations of the engine seemed to make less than satisfying coated characters. Not quite as bad on the suits, but the trench coats never seemed quite "there".

[DoctorRuina]

Yes, I already noticed that the texture of the Sportsmaster basketball had that problem.

[SickAlice]

Again in TB's defense most 3d models of basketballs do. Even in older basketball games. Some things are hard to map and then again jaggles is a problem. Especially if the engine doesn't have the modern code to get around it like "locking" which is the case here. The head thing is important here of course because we spend a lot of time in game looking down at the top of a characters head as we do looking at their backside.

As far as coats check anything I've done after Fantomex. I think that was when I first started addressing. Fantomex has a remapped version of Ink's Gambit jacket. Psylocke, Custer and others a weighted to female version of it. After that point I kept trying to make new jackets with easier mapping for skinners. As of Doctor Stasis I felt I was getting closer. I also worked on weighting and keyframes there to be able to control the bottom of the trench via the cape bones.

This will be the case in Gambit '97. The mapping here now closely sticks to the same mapping for male_basic so skinners can just match them up. It will also help with weighting and when it's animated to keep the movements a bit more streamlined. But I am always after a certain minding skinners and trying to make things easier for them and I think I have it finally. You can of course see there is variations like the leisure suit jacket and crop top. Also a few other firsts aside a properly mapped basketball is a beignet and a durag (going to remodel and remap that today).

So I'm happy with it regardless in that I will providing a lot of new parts for skopers and skinners with this for Gren_male bodies. Of course I am working the animations and this time making FX. The cards are redone too as you can see and have the correct faces and if you looked at the backside they also have a backside like they should. Getting them to look just like the ones in this animated series was a bit of a task though, especially the face of the Queen of Hearts.

Anyway it's a fun one. I have the hair to do next obviously which I'm going to take my time on. Then polishing the textures and working the keyframe effects. I'm using an odd method to make the staff spin in those, something I used on the helicopter blades in Overdrive and hat blades in Luigi. Something again that's going to be easy for skopers and skinners to use for other projects.

But? To deal with the arm today. Of course there are only two Band-Aids left in the box. Dreading the cost these days speaking of there. On the bright side I got eye drops for a $1.19 and then after telling the skin and cancer doctor got professional grade ones for free. So it will even out.

[SickAlice]

Just typing it somehow since I can't find my OG post. I could not get Voice Packs to work (play in game) no matter what I tried on Steam Win 10x64. I noticed though they do work in the FFX Mappack. Not in the standard game nor FFX. I don't know what the difference is but that means whatever the problem is can be cross-referenced there.

Else I'm still on Gambit's hair. Taking my time because I want it to be accurate. And things just keep coming up. Damage to my hands and arms (healing nicely now). Doctor appointments for other stuff (two and half hours out right now). I was also helping with emergency relay during the storm and afterward assistance organization. Awful. Seeing some things I do not want in my mind. I hope the best for everyone who is either afflicted by this and/or has people who are.

[style]

This is a convo Benton and I had about Voice Packs and it helped me!

Now that I got y'all all here I have a question.... I'm re-adding voices to    because I messed up and lost them all, but one problem I'm having is adding the Ninja Turtles voices they are just not coming through and it frustrates me because I can hear all the voices in my VLC media player but not in game! Have y'all experienced anything like this? Please help the voices are sooo good and I really want to use them!  

Howdy Style, yeah, I have encountered that kind of thing.  My first guess is that they are in stereo, not mono, as the game won't read stereo voices.  Open them up in something like Audacity and see if they have one channel or two.  If two, just save as mono, and that should sort it out.

[DoctorRuina]

Yes, I noticed when I made some voices that sometimes some mp3s were not detected by the game and had to be converted again.

This is a convo Benton and I had about Voice Packs and it helped me!

Now that I got y'all all here I have a question.... I'm re-adding voices to    because I messed up and lost them all, but one problem I'm having is adding the Ninja Turtles voices they are just not coming through and it frustrates me because I can hear all the voices in my VLC media player but not in game! Have y'all experienced anything like this? Please help the voices are sooo good and I really want to use them!  

Howdy Style, yeah, I have encountered that kind of thing.  My first guess is that they are in stereo, not mono, as the game won't read stereo voices.  Open them up in something like Audacity and see if they have one channel or two.  If two, just save as mono, and that should sort it out.

[SickAlice]

They play in the Mappack though so they play.

[SickAlice]

Sorry for the long wait on Gambit. I got examined and x-rays. My pinky is pretty messed up. Something is going inside it and feels like I'm putting it in fire whenever I touch anything. So I'm very slow moving especially with clicking and pressing keys.

[WyldFyre]

No hurry. You take care of yourself. That sounds pretty painful. I hope it's not too serious.

[deanjo2000]

No rush for anything. Is it something you've had problems with before? or is it new

[cmdrkoenig67]

Hi SickAlice,

I hope your hand/pinky issue gets better soon, give your hand some rest.

Will you be releasing the new basketball 🏀 mesh
(which looks much better than the original mesh, btw) as a lone release too or as just part of a character mesh?

I hope you'll release it as a stand alone mesh, as well. This game could always use more object meshes.

BTW, if you do release it as a stand alone, could you include a bounding box?

Best,

Dana

[SickAlice]

Finished Gambit from X-Men 97's hair one handed. This was the hardest part short of maybe figuring out some of the animations. Yeah. No idea on the finger. Doctors appointment this afternoon to see what the deal is. Amazing what that little bundle of nerves can do. Not as bad as the tailbone but bad enough that I'm grinding my teeth and trying to elevate my voice all the time. Between other tasks of course. Upkeeping this house and mending the stray whom a neighbor appears to have shot with an air rifle. He's doing better by the way. Fortunately cats regenerate quickly if you can get them to stop scratching.

The basketball like the other ranged items will also be an FX which means the Core will already be set up for Map object if anyone wants to use it. Though since you asked I'll try and remember to also just convert the basketball to one and upload it to my page for that too.

Edit: doctor chopped up my finger which is now dressed seasonably as a mummy finger so it's a good thing I finished that model this morning.

[WyldFyre]

Ouch! That's a lot to go through for an accurate cosplay. (I kid). Hope it heals quickly.

Maybe you can use the mummy hand to curse the nasty neighbor.

Cats do have wonderous re-cooperative abilities!

[SickAlice]

Took my mummy cast off tonight. We'll see if we know anything on Wednesday. I mostly hate lacking coordination though having the big cast off helps since I can fold my finger into my hand and out the way. And mention here because it gets in the way of doing all this of course.

[SickAlice]

Finished all of Gambit's models save one that happens last. Moving on to trench coat and staff animations. This will be the first nif that I know of with trench animations. I toyed with jacket anims with Doctor Stasis. Most of the comic art called for the jacket to hang behind the legs but in some anims like the run, sit, fly and fall I made the lower have of the jacket move. In TAS like the comics Gambit's trench coat is dynamic and moves like a glider when he jumps and such vs wrapping around the legs like most of our trench coats do. So I'm studying the animations and matching up those movements. Likewise a spinning staff using an easy method.

[SickAlice]

Hi SickAlice,

I hope your hand/pinky issue gets better soon, give your hand some rest.

Will you be releasing the new basketball 🏀 mesh
(which looks much better than the original mesh, btw) as a lone release too or as just part of a character mesh?

I hope you'll release it as a stand alone mesh, as well. This game could always use more object meshes.

BTW, if you do release it as a stand alone, could you include a bounding box?

Best,

Dana

A standalone basketball with a bounding box map object is available over in the Releases section.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Oh cool... Thanks, SA!

Dana

[SickAlice]

Np. On Gambit's trench animations now. Then one more 3d model. Cleaning up the textures and finish the FX. A lot of stuff to juggle on my end of the screen where every time I try and relax and work this well? But it's in progress and will be released when it is. Sorry again for all these delays.

[SickAlice]

Starting the keyframe set over because I tried to race through it and didn't even listen to myself. It's sort of okay. I had done something where the cards and such would change to charged versions like in the cartoon but it ended up looking terrible in game.

https://www.freedomreborn.net/forums/index.php?topic=60453.0