User talk:Bobbysoon: Difference between revisions

User talk:Bobbysoon (view source)

Revision as of 00:50, 2 September 2009

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geyser's comments

EdT

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 That would be it's body, assuming the red thing on it's front is it's eye [[User:Bobbysoon|Bobbysoon]] 23:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
+Comments from geyser, by email: [[User:EdT|EdT]]
+Note that, during an animation, bones can only *rotate*
+with respect to each other, so parallel shift, like recoil
+or a retractable gun pod, can only be implemented in a
+rather hackish way (as a rotation with respect to a center
+that is very far away from the character's body parts). I'd
+rather suggest to forget about the chin-mounted cannon
+(which is an original invention by Seventeen Seconds,
+and doesn't really put the chainguns to shame at all).
+It may be useful to compensate for the Iron Demon's
+limited ability to rotate, but the point is moot in the
+absence of any animation at all. Forget it for now.
+As for the chainguns, I'd allow them to rotate on their
+long axis, just the way miniguns or Gatling guns do.
+Note that in the original concept the guns have three
+barrels each, as opposed to 17secs's rendition, and
+I think we should bring back that aspect of the model.
+I think it's too early to think of the weapons, anyway.
+There's plenty of stuff to do on the animation front.
+)
+Bobbysoon's comment on inconsistent units is relevant,
+but incorrect. Oni's world units are decimeters, and so is
+the output of OniSplit: centimeters have nothing to do with
+it. The problem is that early versions of the exporter got the
+the meaning of the "meter" factor wrong. This will be fixed.
+)
+I wouldn't spend any time on weapons right now. The Iron
+Demon is worthless unless it has a convincing walk/turn
+mechanism. And if he is essentially a stationary turret,
+then weapon attachment is a snap anyway (cf camera).
+Therefore I suggest you guys concentrate on the lower
+body animation (shifting weight from one leg to the other,
+walking, turning, stomping/kicking/shockwave attacks).
+The upper body can be kept rigid at this point, and its
+hierarchy is irrelevant. I'd keep it consistent with Oni's
+generic skeleton, though, because Neo is right about
+the weapon attachment: the bone index is determined
+based on a mere flag in ONCC settings. The position
+of the gun is snapped to the bone that has either the
+index 18 or 14: this is hardcoded, and the best way
+to ensure predictable behavior is to keep everything
+consistent with the generic hierarchy of body parts.
+Likewise, renaming bones is a bad idea, especially
+if it's only a matter of personal convenience. Point
+is, the modeling tool will sort siblings by name and
+this will affect their order in the COLLADA file, and
+this in turn will affect the order in which the bones
+are stored in Oni, hence, again, a possibly broken
+weapon attachment. Unless Bobbysoon is already
+quite confident with the rigging and animating of
+Oni's regular humanoids, I wouldn't advise him to
+seek out any customization at all; it just isn't fair.
+If he sticks to the usual bone names and hierarchy,
+everything should be fine.
+)
+I understand that Bobbysoon feels like modifying the
+hierarchy of the skeleton, but this can and must be
+avoided. The structure of the upper body is actually
+quite rigid, and the animations will be few, so it is
+quite possible (although not necessarily intuitive) to
+design an animation scheme that is consistent with
+the topology of Oni's generic "humanoid" skeleton.
+The relative placement of the body parts will require
+some creativity, as well as all the relative rotations,
+but modifying the hierarchy is right out of question,
+at least until Neo or I write up something definitive
+about weapon attachment and aiming screens: it
+is important to understand that the basic animating
+will involve aiming screens and turning animations;
+Bobbysoon should come to terms with this ASAP.
+Bottom line: keep the upper body rigid, and focus
+on the lower body. Start with weight-shifting from
+one leg to the other, because that will be the main
+ingredient of walking for a robot of that size (hence
+the massive feet), and also of aiming and turning.
+I might provide some illustrations of what I mean,
+but I have no clear idea of my free time right now.
+)
+Another thing that needs to be done is cosmetics.
+Seventeen Seconds's model has some non-planar
+quads that have been triangulated in inconsistent
+ways on the left and right side of the model: these
+should be fixed. More generally, normals will need
+some more work: they should be recomputed using
+hard edges where appropriate, and also angle-based
+weights for adjacent polygons, for a better look ^_^
+I know this is overly technical, but Bobbysoon may
+know what I'm talking about. I'm not sure 3DS Max
+supports angle-weighted normals; Mod Tool does.