Home » MODDING HQ 1.13 » v1.13 General Development Talk » [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #281656]
|
Tue, 31 May 2011 16:12
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Quote:Would be cool if they were created in MakeHuman so that we can have beefier/skinnier/taller/shorter/whatever versions with little modification needed.
That is not as good idea as you might think. Take a look at that female model and see how little actual body shows compared to clothes and gear: only arms, head was generated in Facegen. Making different builds wont THAT hard, you can give impression of bigger character by zooming camera and editing mesh a bit to make it more muscular.
Quote:Really great work Taro, these are excellent results, keep up the good work!! Let me know if you need anything.
As I said, I would need original open door animations for all angles. Could you guys send them to me? To be honest I dont want to spend whole day figuring out how to deal with those, while I should be setting up cameras and getting animations right.
Quote:1) I would reconsider to make boots, belt, gloves and that stuff brown (very dark brown if you wish). You may have problems with displaying pure black in the game.
From what I can see, on that wiki page, nearly black textures are fine, look at the gun. If they cause troubles I can easily recolor those parts.
Quote:2) If you will need someone who knows how JA animation->code system works, lemme know.
Yes very much so, if we figure out how to quickly and efficiently make new JA2 animations then we may be in for some small revolution here .
Quote:3) 40 frames may be too much. You should check the STIs and count how many frames are used for open doors. If I remember correctly, there is a limit of 100 frames (per angle) for animations, but I am not entirely sure at this moment. I am also unsure if you can adjust the delay between frames.
Im aware of that, but the beauty here lies in fact that blender renders EVRY frame, so you get 40 separate images like those two I showed. This means you can freely select with ones you will use to create animation sprites.
EDIT: HUZZAH! I found a nice little setting that makes gun posing MUCH easier, now it can be set to keep its own rotation so if you set it straight it can be moved, but keep the angles. I also found that you can make hitboxes in blender, I need to learn more, but this also could make animating easier.
Here is my testing pose.
[Updated on: Tue, 31 May 2011 18:11] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #281726]
|
Wed, 01 June 2011 02:09
|
|
Sandro |
|
Messages:420
Registered:November 2008 Location: Mars |
|
|
TaroQuote:1) I would reconsider to make boots, belt, gloves and that stuff brown (very dark brown if you wish). You may have problems with displaying pure black in the game.
From what I can see, on that wiki page, nearly black textures are fine, look at the gun. If they cause troubles I can easily recolor those parts.
Ok, but recoloring might be problematic if we find a problem after you made some load of animations. I must say I liked the brown used in the vanilla more.
TaroQuote:2) If you will need someone who knows how JA animation->code system works, lemme know.
Yes very much so, if we figure out how to quickly and efficiently make new JA2 animations then we may be in for some small revolution here .
I already figured that some time ago actually. That's also why I am especially interested in this. I have coded some features which I.. well.. just need new animations for to be created.
TaroQuote:3) 40 frames may be too much. You should check the STIs and count how many frames are used for open doors. If I remember correctly, there is a limit of 100 frames (per angle) for animations, but I am not entirely sure at this moment. I am also unsure if you can adjust the delay between frames.
Im aware of that, but the beauty here lies in fact that blender renders EVRY frame, so you get 40 separate images like those two I showed. This means you can freely select with ones you will use to create animation sprites.
Yes, I know. Just mentioning that you will probably need to select the frames to use after.
Btw here is the Dragon Unpacker. After installation, just open "anims.slf" located in "data" folder, then extract all you need.
Dragon Unpacker
If you need only the open door anim for female at this moment, here it is:
Open Door Female
Report message to a moderator
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #281728]
|
Wed, 01 June 2011 02:40
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Quote:Ok, but recoloring might be problematic if we find a problem after you made some load of animations. I must say I liked the brown used in the vanilla more.
Thats why we need to test it out carefully using simple animation. Once we confirm that everything is fine then we can start making replacement for all old animations. So everyone is welcome to use that sample I provided.
Quote:I already figured that some time ago actually. That's also why I am especially interested in this. I have coded some features which I.. well.. just need new animations for to be created.
Unfortunatly if we do manage to get those new animations working first thing would be replacement of ALL old animations. However Im not saying this cant be done. Once we iron out the kinks I will release .blend file with instructions how to animate those models, its not that hard thanks to skeleton I set up.
Quote:Yes, I know. Just mentioning that you will probably need to select the frames to use after.
This isnt problem at all, they are all numbered and stamped with name and frame number. Current stamp is barely visible as I forgot to change color settings, can be easily corrected. Its better to have more frames then you need then less. After all you can always select with ones to use, however if you are missing some then you have very little options.
[Updated on: Wed, 01 June 2011 02:41] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #281769]
|
Wed, 01 June 2011 13:48
|
|
Kazuya |
|
Messages:208
Registered:January 2009 |
|
|
TaroI did some testing and black stuff can stay, STI edit dosent show any troubles with that.
That's not what I am worried about. The thing is, that the game engine on some instances decides to use pure black as a placeholder for full transparency, so those pixels are not drawn in the game. I encountered this problem when I made a new face and used pure black as background. An instance where this is important, is the snow effect, which the game puts over the face of the mercenaries, when you call them on the AIM page. The game draws the snow effect, shows it and draws the face picture over it. But when the background is pure black, the game will not draw it over the snow effect, leaving artefacts on the screen. The face looks still fine in STI Edit and setting the colour key doesn't help.
Report message to a moderator
|
Sergeant 1st Class
|
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #281811]
|
Wed, 01 June 2011 18:34
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Ok here is another try, I recolored black stuff to brown and i changed background color to pure white.
A little tip for editing, if you are using photoshop then when you open image double click on background layer to turn it into normal one. Then use rectangle selection to select model, then invert selection (CTRL+SHIFT+I)and remove unneeded stuff. after that use magic wand tool to select remaining white background around the model and delete it. This way you will have only model to work with without any extra colors.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1gwypg
[Updated on: Wed, 01 June 2011 18:34] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #281833]
|
Wed, 01 June 2011 20:01
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Could you post results? Im actually interested how does it look.
Also I think I know what causes troubles with hair, for some reason mesh I used is rather wonky, I may need to remake that one. Also shadows may cause change of color, that in turn stops hair color from fitting the palette, I may need to add another lamp to light hair.
[Updated on: Wed, 01 June 2011 20:04] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #282060]
|
Fri, 03 June 2011 00:48
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Ok, Right now I cannot work on new stuff so I will leave this to you guys to find all the kinks to be ironed out, so once Im back to modeling in 2 day I can swoop down and fix them all in one go.
BTW: I was just thinking, it would be cool if we, somehow, managed to create and "overlay" for tactical screen that would display graphics using 3D engine. It could be something that you put "on top" of JA 2. So it will only display graphics while all the interface remains in JA2. This way we could have nice graphics (still in isometric view) without changing anything in JA2. The trick is how we would tell our "graphic overlay" what is happening in JA2? Maps could interpreted rather easily, yet still stuff like explosions could change them. Bigger issue would be all that dynamic content. I dont know if JA2 has some internal log where it saves ALL of the stuff that is happening (merc1 move grid 0611 or something like that).
Just a concept I thought up, just wanted to share with it.
[Updated on: Fri, 03 June 2011 05:26] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #282433]
|
Mon, 06 June 2011 08:11
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
I decided to leave out shadows for now, first is that I cant get it working properly, I need to get angle better. Second thing is that I would need to put something under the model, and this means it will get light from lamps and it will have different shades with may make cropping a bit harder. Also I dont know how to make "solid" shadows, but Im still learning blender.
Boots were supposed to be brown, I guess shadows made them black, but we discussed before that they shouldnt be pure black as it may cause problems.
From what I know to import animation to jagged alliance you need separate files that are imported into STI edit as frames.
Right now we are trying to get things straight, so there is lots of mishaps and mistakes and lots of by hand editing. However once we get everything running I guess that we could try to automate whole process.
And least but not least, many thanks for that presentation, it nicely shows a how my animation compares to the one form JA2. Personally Im very pleased how this turned out, now female character looks like armed merc.
Now the question is: how it will work in JA2, will colors and stuff will be fine?
[Updated on: Mon, 06 June 2011 08:15] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #282444]
|
Mon, 06 June 2011 11:06
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Thanks Kazuya!
So, I dont see any wonky colors or bits of body disappearing. It seems that we managed to fix that issue with hair. Unless Im missing something.
I guess now we need to figure out how to properly make shadows.
BTW: Was the size and everything fine? Or I still need to do something to make it easier to work with new animations?
[Updated on: Mon, 06 June 2011 11:09] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #282449]
|
Mon, 06 June 2011 11:54
|
|
Kazuya |
|
Messages:208
Registered:January 2009 |
|
|
If you watch the video on fullscreen, you might notice that a few pixel are wrong. the left side of scopes hair for example has some red in it. However, there is nothing that can't be fixed. I'm working on a script, that will automate at least a big chunk of the converting process. I can easily check the pictures for the right colours and adjust them. I wouldn't try to get the scale right from within your rendering process for various reason. First, it is easier for me to scale down than to scale up. Remember, that we are doing pixel art here and not conventional image conversion. Small pixel pictures tend to blur when scaling up. Scaling down usually works better and it is a lot easier to remove a line of pixels, than to create a new one. Second, if we are going to create zoom effects, as some users have suggested, it would be easier to recreate larger versions, if the base pictures are already large. Otherwise you would have to rerender them.
What I'd like to know is how you exactly create the animations in Blender and how you render them. I have Blender myself, but I never managed to do more than morphing the cube. If you could show how you do this, I could check if there could be something tweaked.
Report message to a moderator
|
Sergeant 1st Class
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #282456]
|
Mon, 06 June 2011 12:53
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Quote:If you watch the video on fullscreen, you might notice that a few pixel are wrong. the left side of scopes hair for example has some red in it.
Hmm, I guess now I need to seriously work on fixing the lighting. The hair problem may be caused by wonky shadows, as I replaced old hair in version 3. I think some extra lamps will do the trick
Quote:I'm working on a script, that will automate at least a big chunk of the converting process.
Excelent, I cannot help much in coding, but if its some graphical question I may be of use.
Quote:I wouldn't try to get the scale right from within your rendering process for various reason.
Ok, no problem at all I will just change camera zoom and we are set, I just wanted to see if it make things easier.
Quote:I examined the original animations and I've come to the conclusion, that the original sprites all get a soft light effect from the bottom right. This means, that the shadows in the original animation are not real shadows. At least not from a light source. I think they were done with a projection technique. The 3d model is projected on a 2d sourface on a different angle, all colours changed to the shadow colour and then the actual sprite is attached to the sprite shadow.
I can easily achieve shadows, but they WILL need editing then, unless I figure something out.
Quote:What I'd like to know is how you exactly create the animations in Blender and how you render them. I have Blender myself, but I never managed to do more than morphing the cube. If you could show how you do this, I could check if there could be something tweaked.
I suggest you watching these videos, they contain all the basics of blender, including animations.
This video contains all the information you need to create good skeletons.
I created skeleton using those tutorials, since I added constrains actually posing my model isnt that hard. Once I get lighting right I will upload that model, just in case.
Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #282502]
|
Mon, 06 June 2011 18:27
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Hmm everything is sharp for me, maybe its upload's fault? Anyway I rendered 45 angle only, check it out and see if its fine.
EDIT: WAIT! You are right, something is off because of that square, I will need to see what is happening.
EDIT 2: Nah, false alarm, just turn off AA for magic wand and everything is fine.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/r3vhtc
[Updated on: Mon, 06 June 2011 18:32] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #282553]
|
Tue, 07 June 2011 06:16
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Ok, does new version work correctly? I would like to make standing, with nothing in hand, animation, it will allow to look at it all the time so you can spot mistakes. How is it called in sti file?
BTW: I think we will need to write a script so we can render all 8 directions in one go, for now you need to rotate spotlight and camera manually.
[Updated on: Tue, 07 June 2011 06:16] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
|
|
Re: [IDEA] Using 3D models to create animations sprites[message #283002]
|
Fri, 10 June 2011 19:00
|
|
Taro_M |
|
Messages:292
Registered:November 2008 |
|
|
Ok, lads i decided to upload what I have right now. You can do some testing in using the animation in blender and see what I was doing. I ONLY want to put it here, so in case of problems all the work wont simply vanish. Im still working on how to improving and automate render process, but I got into territory where stuff is damn complicated.
THIS IS NOT FINISHED MODEL!!!
http://www.mediafire.com/?o6ajwqq6sakrsef
[Updated on: Fri, 10 June 2011 19:01] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
|
Master Sergeant
|
|
|
|
|
|
Goto Forum:
Current Time: Sat Apr 20 08:14:18 GMT+3 2024
Total time taken to generate the page: 0.02502 seconds
|