User talk:Bobbysoon

Iron Demon creation related

I see, in the Second Oni Trailer, @1:25, the Iron Demon has a weapon variant on it's right arm. How do we do this?

--Bobbysoon 20:53, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Just attach the barrel to the arm. No need to worry about the weapon varients, as the demon probably won't use a real gun. As I said below, a dummy weapon will be the way to go. I'll do all of the particle work. Gumby 21:45, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Rather than guess, I'll let someone more knowledgeable answer the modeling questions. I don't know of the Iron Demon appearing anywhere else beyond what is found on the Iron Demon page. I'm pretty sure there's no video of it, at the very least (unless you count this fan product). As to the Iron Demon's secondary weapon, it seems to be the early Scram Cannon that Konoko is using at 1:05 and 1:54. It might make more sense to have an alternate-firing mode that uses built-in rocket launchers on the arms, rather than trying to reproduce the gun they tacked somewhat strangely onto the model in the trailer. As to how to give the ID distinct weapons and cordon them off from the weapons that other characters can cycle through (and vice versa), that's a good question I hadn't thought of, but I know EdT was looking into the weapon side of things.... --Iritscen 20:44, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

perhaps we could improve upon it's wielding of a weapon, such as an aesthetically appealing port/clamp, if built-in and not dropping weapons aren't possible --Bobbysoon 21:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you're going to be the trailblazer in this area of Oni Modding. :-) I have limited experience with 3D models, so I don't know if the hierarchy can be changed, but my guess is that you can't. The Oni engine is probably expecting a certain parent child relationship with each of the body parts. As regards the names, I suppose you could make a quick test of a current model, change the part names and see what happens. EdT

You should be able to rename the bones, the names are used by OniSplit only to ensure that the children of a bone have the same order as in the original Oni skeleton. As for changing the hierarchy, hmm, that should work in theory, after all that's why TRIA exists. However in practice the engine might use hard coded bone indices. For example I have no idea how the engine knows which bone to attach a weapon to, it's not like in TRIA or somewhere else there's a flags that tells "this is the right hand". Neo

If all else fails, we can use particle based attacks. We could have up to six different attacks (P, K, J+P, J+K, C+P, C+K), or more if we utilized the combo system sneakily, so its not a huge problem. Recoil would be accomplished with a custom attack animation. These "weapons" would be completely built in though. I'm not sure how we would accomplish aiming though. The other possibility is to give it a dummy weapon and give the recoil animations particle attacks. We would be limited to two aiming attacks and two non aiming attacks though. (Using primary fire, secondary fire, jump, and crouch). We can burn those bridges when we come to them I suppose. When I get home I'll have to test out some AI behavior. Also, an image of the bone structure you are using might be nice. Having extra bones for a "vulnerable" part or retractable weapon would be cool. Gumby 14:19, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Vulnerable parts might also be doable with 3D particles. --Iritscen 16:03, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Negatory. The only way to do it is with a seperate eye\head bone. Gumby 21:40, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• pelvis
  • thighs
    • boots
      • feet
  • body
    • cannons
      • cannon barrels
    • gunpod arm
      • gunpod
        • gunpod barrel
• remaining nodes:4, or 5 - I don't think the gunpod really needs recoil action

I found out how to render new textures from the old ones! Yay! Usefull when re-grouping mesh parts --Bobbysoon 21:36, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. Might I suggest an actual head so it can turn and look at things? Gumby 21:40, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

That would be it's body, assuming the red thing on it's front is it's eye Bobbysoon 23:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

For proof that the torso's also the "head", or face, see the collage of Lorraine's face portraits here. :-3 --Iritscen 02:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It appears to be rotated. So then, the eye is it's head --Bobbysoon 01:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments from geyser, by email to 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.

2) 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.

3) 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.

4) 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.

5) 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." -- EdT

Were you taking notes, Bobbysoon? There will be a test later :0) Anyway, I just wanted to throw some thoughts out there:

• Let's not forget the unused walking sounds for the Iron Demon once we have an animation: [1].
• I think the Iron Demon definitely needs an additional weapon beyond the chainguns. We have to think ahead about that now, as it will affect the model. I propose a heat-seeking missile pod on the back, pointing upward. This would prevent the battle from becoming a simple game of "stay out of the ID's line of sight" and throw a wild card out there once in a while for Konoko to deal with. Assuming we can train the AI to use it correctly.
• Has anyone given thought to the fact that the two guns are parallel to each other? This means that aiming at a point in-between the guns is impossible unless the arms can turn inward and outward. More obviously, the arms also need upward-downward range, in case Konoko is fighting it from a walkway like in the trailer.

All that being said, I agree with geyser that walking should probably be the priority. --Iritscen 02:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

• The eye will be it's head then. Sounds good to me. I'll model it a sphere, unless it should be uv animated? Is that possible?

• I think I've fixed it's geometry errors, but we'll see

• How does this look? Gatling That added some polys. Now it's at 3004 triangles, 1615 verts

• ColladaMAX has an option to export normals. I got a basic idea of what they're about - I think I'd need to calculate them somehow (i think i've seen a script for this) after applying smoothing groups. I'm not too great with the smoothing though.

• I'll use the default structure and names. Point taken about the skeletal structure, especially after noticing the shoulders are linked to the neck D=.

• the TRAS aiming screen closely resembles a section of Halo's model_animations tag. This in Oni is like this in Halo, which I've done.

  If I recall correctly, there were 2 types of aiming/looking overlays. Referring to that information in application to a particular type yielded undesired results - axis reversals. So I wonder just how similar these engines are. Some of the provided mapping of halo's engine may be useful with oni.

• could ai weapon systems be attached to the ID? Or devices? I'm guessing the Deadly Brain was a device. A similar device (in function, not form of course) would be interesting

• If at all possible, but probably infeasable, I thought it might be interesting to have the chin pod be a lasor that paints a dot, which the rockets home in on. Could a projectile impact (the painted dot) spawn a character of a 3rd team? The missile pod would be a 4th team, out to get only the 3rd team.

• having the cannons be attached characters could also solve the parallel barrels problem. Not that it's a problem if the rounds are explosive!

--Bobbysoon 01:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• There's no capacity in Oni for animated UV maps AFAIK, although animated textures are possible (but on people? not totally sure).
• The gatlings look great to me. The polys/verts sound fine.
• geyser's point 5 is rather nitpicky, so if it's labor-intensive, don't knock yourself out worrying about normals on a model with such minimalist texturing, it can't be that noticeable of a difference, can it?
• Sorry, I didn't get your question about an AI being attached to the ID; I mean, it will definitely have some AI profile or else it won't do anything, but beyond that, you lost me.
• The laser sounds tricky, but fake characters may not even be needed to pull it off; Oni's particle system is probably the most sophisticated part of the engine, so perhaps the laser dot particle can attract the missile particle. However, in terms of gameplay, it seems that it would defeat the purpose of the homing missile if the ID had to face a location to aim a missile there. Then we're back to just staying out of its sights all the time. Well, that's my opinion, anyway.

--Iritscen 02:57, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• I mean, characters attached to a character, like attaching several TCTF characters to Konoko, that would engage enemies around her, independent of her targeting.
• Then scrolling text in this green LED display might be possible. --Bobbysoon

• Animated textures are possible on characters. Ask 'dox. :)
• Laser dot would be kind of meh. I could make one, but you wouldn't be able to see it. We'll see when I get home. But I can do guided missles, don't worry ^_^.
• On the guns not aiming at the same place: don't worry. We can aim to the left and the right using the targeting vectors of the ONWC, for each weapon mode. Please, don't worry about making the weapons. Just give me a spec of whatever you want them to do, and I can make it. Also, look in the comic, and see what weapons the Demon uses there. *sigh* I'll have to do up a railgun weapon sometime here, to fight this bastard. :P
• Also, we can have an extending gun pod, using attached particles. ^_^
• I wish I was home now, I want to work on this. I probably won't be able to respond for another week, when I get home, unfortunately. Gumby 02:25, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

• Re: what weapon will be used against the Iron Demon... [2] ^_^
• "look in the comic, and see what weapons the Demon uses there". You really don't want to know. Do you? Okay, here, don't say I didn't warn you. Konoko then magically turns her pistol into a rocket launcher on page 3 of issue 2 and does this. At least they got that last part right. --Iritscen 03:03, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Loser and I had a chat and came up with a tentative plan for the ID's weapons:

• What weapons will the mech have?

• The chainguns, obviously. Per a chat with EdT, we should be able to give the ID infinite ammo to we don't have to worry about reloading.
• Homing missile launcher. Keeps Konoko on her toes even when she isn't in the ID's sights.
• Gas grenade launcher. For when the mech does not have a line of sight to the enemy but knows where they are hiding and wants to smoke them out. The gas is toxic enough that you won't want to hang around if a 'nade gets lobbed next to the thing you're hiding behind.
• Flamethrower. A close- or mid-range attack if the player lets the ID get too close, or stupidly charges the ID to get inside the range of its chainguns.
• Tesla discharge field. Another close-range attack (for story purposes it could be a defense against people who would try to get into the mech). Used alternatingly in place of flamethrower or else at even closer distances. Forms a sphere of electricity around the mech.

• Where will the weapons be on the mech?

• Chainguns are a "duh", but what about the other weapons? (Edit: Actually, Loser brought up the idea of making the barrels PAR3s attached to the model, so they can rotate when they fire, is that doable?)
• The homing missile launcher could be mounted on the back of the ID, pointing up (could be a simple hole in the existing model's upper back) because it would allow firing in all directions, and also, it would simply look cool for the missile to fire up, and come arcing down to chase Konoko around corners as she runs.
• The chin gun (is it still there?) could be altered to look like it can fire gas grenades.
• The flamethrower should be placed low on the body, since flames rise. Perhaps we can use the holes in the leg plates for this. By simply adding hoses that attach from the back of the holes to the feet, we would demonstrate where the fuel comes from (incredibly crude sample illustration).
• The electric field doesn't need to be based in some physical aspect of the model (but personally I wonder what that cylinder attached to its back with warning stripes does...) :-3 --Iritscen 21:30, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I've made the chainguns the wrists, centered to spin. The wrists are the large forarms. The biceps are the arm-axis under the shield, and the shoulders are the shields over the arms, which are linked to the neck, 'cause that's how I found it...

Some recoil can occur with the whole arm kicking back 5 degrees or so

I did drop the gunpod, but I'm expecting to rework the model and textures again for such accommodations

I've made TRBS and TXMPs. Next, an idle animation

• What's the simplest way to get this in-game?
• What's with the %2Fs in the names? I see in the xml those names imply folders. are those necessary?
• Maybe I should just upload the dae and tga and let you guys get it in game properly

So close:

EDIT Removed old screenshot showing Iron Demon partly in the ground. Error in TRAM data.

EdT

He's sitting on his root node. It's feet are at ground level in 3dsworld - is it like that because it doesn't have an idle animation? Or is that because was I wrong about the neck.shoulders linkage? I'm only 90% positive about that one

Sorry, I'll get you a replacement dae with correct texture names soon as 3ds doesn't crash when I export dae DX

Re-rendering those textures really did a number on them, didn't it? --Bobbysoon 03:57, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Bobbysoon,

Corrected TRAM heights (well its still slightly off the ground but I ran out of time):

Here is a package for your Iron Demon, there is a read me with instructions: http://edt.oni2.net/temp/Iron_Demon_Package.zip

Don't worry about the names of the textures, I took care of that. I have included idle, run, walk animations. All of them have no rotation of the body parts, so the Iron Demon moves as a single object. So currently, the ID will follow you around and if you shapeshift to the ID you can move around.

Great job on the Iron Demon.

EdT

I guess the next step is to get a walking animation made, eh? --Iritscen 15:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)