Character Animations

[chocolate_chip_cookies]

I like the running animation. Looks impressive.
Kind of scary, I wouldn't want a super mutant running at me like that.

The only thing you might want to change is his height changes. I can see small movements down and up but you might want to add more definition


But looks great already

[Gob]

Hey I was thinking with all this 3D thing when you have two weapons in your both hands for example a Rifle and a Pistol, and you hold the rifle in your hands so instead of the rifle to dissapear it could appear on the players back and its holestered so to say and when you swich back to the rifle the pistol could appear near his waist. That would be soo fucking awesome!!!!

[Surf]

Hey I was thinking with all this 3D thing when you have two weapons in your both hands for example a Rifle and a Pistol, and you hold the rifle in your hands so instead of the rifle to dissapear it could appear on the players back and its holestered so to say and when you swich back to the rifle the pistol could appear near his waist. That would be soo fucking awesome!!!!

Karpov already did this.


@Jostisz: The Mutie looks awesome!

[Luther Blissett]

That running anim looks "just right" to me. It looks believable as an original. Excellent.

[NastyKhan]

What about FPS? I mean - original fallout animations seem to be less "smooth". (i think it can be easy checked how many frames goes for one second of it). Is there a way to make the new ones less smooth? Maybe some filters?

[Lizard]

Looks great, Jotisz! Could you add some slight sagging in his knee under his weight, when he lands on one foot? Would add "stomping" effect, i think.

[Luther Blissett]

What about FPS? I mean - original fallout animations seem to be less "smooth".

Can easily be done with in-game settings, or by adjusting the animation. Can fine tune that sort of thing at a later date, so I wouldn't think of it as a worry for now.

[Jotisz]

Thanks for feedback from everyone.
About the original animations they usually are limited in frames. Default run frm contains 10 frame its a bit similar to what chocolate_chip_cookies posted. The animation you seen contains 20 frame. From those there are about 8 keyframe.

[Karpov]

Hi guys. The original sprites have 10-15 fps, sometimes less, so it's hard to get the animation to look similar in higher fps. If we could see the original animation instead of the rendered sprites, it would be much easier to work with for sure. What I try to do is positioning manually those "new" frames that happen in the transition between the ones I had the sprite's reference for, using some real world references, to achieve a more natural motion.

I've been working on the walking cycle. It's by far the hardest animation to make, a true "critical to the groin"  , and I still can't get it right after all this time. I'll keep on trying
Also added two idle anims for the rifles. And a lot more flesh for the burst death.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVyjOZf40xE" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVyjOZf40xE</a>

By the way, Luther's skin is used in this video, really nice.

[Luther Blissett]

This is again looking really nice - though I never spotted anything wrong with the previous walk

[Opera]

It's looking very nice. Any chance to see it with the original FPS too?

[NastyKhan]

I dunno Karpov. Still too much FPS to me. I appreciate work already done, but it's still to smooth. Is there no way to just tick "set FPS: 8" somewhere in the software you're using? I know blender got that option. You know - the poses in frames don't have to be actually the same as poses in original sprite, you don't have to match that. But the total number of them counts.

[Lizard]

I think that looks good, as close as possible to original. You should stick to this one.

[Karpov]

You can set the fps from the config file, but it does not work for walking. The only way I can show you this animation with less fps is making my game run entirely at 10 fps.
 Cutting the fps when I export the animation would be exactly the same.
 The problem here is that the movement of the critter in the game is linear, and independent from any animation or model, so it does not change with the FPS cut parameter. If you set it to 10 fps, the character will move his feet at 10 fps, but the engine will drag him through the map at 30 fps or even more. For the rest of the animations, the FPS cut settings work perfectly fine.
 Again, the only thing that works is lagging your game on purpose, but of course, it becomes unplayable.

here is an old video where I compared 30 fps to 13 fps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unkIE09v1Dg

[Luther Blissett]

[...]Is there no way to just tick "set FPS: 8" somewhere in the software you're using?[...]

Yes - there's a config setting for it. Personally I think we should keep the animations at their full rate if possible, and use the config to lower them. It offers a lot more scope for adjusting and editing in future, and also will be useful for other future Fonline projects which may not wish to replicate the original sprite look so closely. There are however some problems with the frame skip, mentioned below.

These lines here will adjust the displayed frames:

Code: [Select]

# Simulation time-lapse graphic 3d models.
# Number of frames per second.
# If 0 - off, the animation will be played as smooth as possible
# When you turn on the optimal value - 10.
Animation3dFPS=0

# Smooth transitions in 3d graphics, the time in milliseconds.
# Applies only if Animation3dFPS = 0.
Animation3dSmoothTime =250
What I think Karpov has done is to use the sprites as reference frames for keyframes, divided across a higher framerate. The frames in between are generated by the software's own tweening.

Little frame sequence example :
|R--R--R--R--R--R--R--R--]
R = Reference frame / Keyframe, where the model has been matched to the position of an existing sprite.
- = in-between frames, which move in a linear manner between the keyframes on either side. These are generated automatically. For example if R1 has the arm at 90º and R2 has the arm at 120º, the arm will be placed at 100º and 110º in the two in-between frames.

In the example above, there are 24 frames, of which 8 will correspond to existing Fallout sprites. A potential problem with using the "frame skip" option in the settings is that the frames it displays may not be the actual reference frames, but the ones inbetween.

If you think of this (24 frames) :
|R--R--R--R--R--R--R--R--]

We want it to skip like this :
|RxxRxxRxxRxxRxxRxxRxxRxx]
Then it would show almost exactly as the original sprites did.

A problem is if it skips like this :
|xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-]
Then you end up with none of the original frames, but instead all the ones which are "not quite" the same. Additionally, because they're automatically generated, they probably look a bit weird.

If the total number of frames is not exactly divisible by the target frame number, things end up much worse. A target framerate of 8 or 12fps is likely to work much better with 24fps than with 25fps for example. It's a similar problem to what you get when trying to process video footage between PAL and NTSC, with the 25fps and 29.97fps.

I think what he's trying to do now is to manually correct the positions in the in-between frames. Due to the linear processing of the tweening (i.e. the "90º, 100º, 110º, 120º" example above) you will end up with quite an unnatural looking animation. It may be that something like "90º, 97º, 114º, 120º" (with an shallower ease-in and ease-out, and steep middle) would look much more effective. Of course, those adjustments are on every limb in 3 dimensions, so it's not quite as easy as I've described it.

Anyway, I'm actually happy with the animations as they are, at any fps they're shown at.

[edit] Karpov explained quicker and more concisely than me
Anyway, I see what the problem is that he's describing - that the position of the model will "slide" from hex to hex at full fps, regardless of what fps the legs are moving at.