Model Conversion Request

[NeuralStunner]

I saw someone made a GLM importer for Blender, but it's only useful for static models.

[ReX]

I corrected as much as I could manually but there was only so much that I could do.

I'd have to say that you've done a pretty good job of emulating the original behavior. Granted, that some of the finer details may be missing, but your version is still terrific. [Given your penchant for perfection, I know you'll disagree with my assessment.]

[Enjay]

Thanks. I can just about accept the walking sequence because it's better than I had before. Although it does irk me a little that it isn't as "real" feeling as the original. It looks OK in game but there is no "real physics" about it. ie the original appears to shift its weight properly from one leg to the the other as it walks whereas mine just stays inexplicably level. ...OK. yeah, it bothers me.

Unfortunately, I know that there is no way I will be able to recreate any of the nicer death animations. Think of the AT-ST that struggles to try and regain its balance on the logs before toppling in Return of the Jedi. There are a few animations along those lines. At the moment, I've gone for a much simpler "just blow the damned thing up" death animation.

[NeuralStunner]

"just blow the damned thing up"

Star Wars meets Monty Python?

[Enjay]

He's not the chosen one, the one who will bring balance to the force. He's a very naughty boy.


May as well show the state of the models that I've been messing around with over the last few months on the rare occasion that RL has given me a few spare moments. The walker droid features in this video but it also shows a bunch of other things that I've mentioned elsewhere including the Inquisitor that LWM made.



No idea what I'm going to do with them. The Strife based ones are (deliberately) not truly faithful to the original actors (though the Inquisitor is pretty close) and these are models of quite different styles so they won't sit well together in the same mod. I have still to do something with the ED209 model that Jitan sorted out for me (although it's nearly done) and the Doom3 sentry robot that Revilution converted for me.

[Blox]

That's some really cool stuff. A bit sad the animations are so choppy. (Mostly the last two in the row.) :[

[Nash]

Very cool Enjay! Especially love the detail you've given to some of the death sequences (even if the animation seems a little choppy).

Sadly, using models clearly reveals a flaw in the engine as far as using models for actors are concerned: the actors are snapped to only 8 directions while A_Chasing. This is one of the reasons why I decided against using models for my zombie project. It just looks silly.

(Of course you can get around this by bypassing A_Chase and writing your own chasing algorithm, be it at the DECORATE/ACS level or directly in the source... but that's too much work)

[Enjay]

The choppiness can sometimes be made quite a bit better with interpolation but you tend to find that interpolation helps out one area of the model but then messes up a bit of the animation elsewhere and I haven't managed to successfully interpolate one set of frames but leave others uninterpolated (eg by defining different model definitions for different states). I've noticed some choppiness in most GZDoom mods featuring moving model actors.

The directions thing that Nash mentions is also an issue and very obvious in some parts of the video. There's no easy way around that. The 45 degree snapping is standard Doom behaviour and will not change (I think I recall someone feature requesting it at some point) and, as Nash said, it's a lot of work to use SetActorAngle etc to effectively recreate your own actor walking code. I also wonder how successful that would be any way.

[ReX]

Holy Shitcakes, Batman! That's swell!
Each model is different from the other, and many of them seem appropriate for a DooM mod. The sounds are cools, and I love some of the death animations (e.g., the "twitching" of one of the parts when the model is down).

No idea what I'm going to do with them.

From what I've been told, you're a competent mapper. Heh. Go for it.

[Sarah]

Hey, ever considered releasing them as resources? Even if you don't want them used for other peoples projects, I'd be interested in looking at them from a construction angle. I'm not very competent with decorate or modeling so having some complete examples to study would be great!

[Enjay]

That might well be the way that I go with these if I can't think of anything else. Then you'll see how poly-wasteful I was with the crusaders.

[Sarah]

Happens. Last model I did absolutely refused to export to MD3 until the poly count was low enough. I never did a count but it was just a simple computer screen! Anyway, seeing how to animate MD3s would really help me out, there's this one robot I want to do.

[Enjay]

There are quite a few places on the model where I used techniques or pieces that had far more triangles than they really needed but at least I know that now. eg the exhaust pipes (or whatever they are) on the back are made out of 12 face hollow pipes with an outside edge, flat end and an inside edge. I could easily have got away with a simple 8 or even 6 face solid shape and mad it look hollow via the skin. The more you know I guess.

Animation is tricky and I'm not sure how much you will get from seeing an already animated MD3. Both of the programs that I used (Milkshape and Misfit3D) use skeletal animations as their main way to animate. With that type, you make a skeleton of "bones" with joints and then assign various vertices to the joints so that when you move the joint, the vertices associated with it move accordingly. Linking it all up with a skeleton means the joints (and therefore vertices) will tend to move appropriately relative to each other. However, when you export the model to an MD3, all the joint/bone information is lost and the model is just left with the skeletal animations converted to frame animations.

Frame animations are the type of animations where the vertices change from one frame to the next. Each vertex can be moved independently and there are no bones involved. Milkshape doesn't even let you edit frame animations and if you import an MD3 to Milkshape all the frames are lost (the model just takes the appearance of whatever the first frame looked like). Misfit does let you edit frames but once you have frame animations you are limited in what it allows you to do because it won't let you delete anything unless you first delete all the animations frames. I don't know why this is the case because even the old Quake/Quake2 editors allowed you to do that with their frame animations.

Also Milkshape's bone moving element is bugged. Things can start moving incorrectly relative to each other - eg when I tried to move a robot's leg, it not only swivelled at the hip but got longer too and eventually the toes had moved so much out of place that they were no longer connected to the foot.

So use Misfit right? Well, Misfit can "forget" which vertices are associated with which joint if you save and then reload your save. So it is safest to do a full skeleton rig and animate without saving at all. I have found a work around for the last point though... I think. I had a model that always lost some vertex associations on both its knees and hips when I saved it in Misfit format. However, still in Misfit, if I saved it in Milkshape format (which Misfit allows) the associations did not seem to break. I haven't tested it extensively but that might be some kind of solution.

Yes, animation is a pain.

[Zanieon]

Yes, animation is a pain.

Not so painfull, depends of the program, in Blender, animate is not so hard since he interpolates frames automatically, so you don't need make frame after frame, just 3 on 3 (make one pose, skip 3 frames, make another, the program will interpolate automatically), after this you just need fix the issues of the rigid interpolation.

Only because this interpolation, i had patience to make the custom Baron of Hell, Guardian, Gladiator, Gunner and Iron Maiden for Hunter's Moon, none of them have rip animations, all was maked by me.

But still, it's a hard work to do.

[Enjay]

I'd love to get into Blender a bit more since Leilellol showed me just a hint of what it can do with skin baking. It's obviously a very richly featured program. However, its interface is very unfamiliar to me and its learning curve is incredibly steep. Unfortunately I really don't have the time (or the internet connection speed) to sit down with a bunch of video tutorials ATM. Perhaps one day.

BTW, both Milkshape and Misfit3D allow you to set keyframes and have interpolated frames in between but, as I noted, they have other problems which makes their animation routines less than ideal.