Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Improving the artwork in Warzone2100 - not for mod discussions
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Rman Virgil
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by Rman Virgil »

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I understand what you are saying I also understand the limitations of a lot of the playing community face as my PC is classed as a low end PC.
That's a very important consideration these days with the global economy in the tank & likely not seeing any real improvement as far as substantive new job creation till 2012. Not everyone can afford a Quad Core with several gigs of Ram and a SLI Mobo with parallel processing GIG GFX cards.

All together exciting work your doing there Berg & doing so within minimum HW considerations and the way WZ will likely function over the foreseeable future are challenges too that here must enter the mix of artistry.

This last much in the same way that architects are artists and a building a work of art. where form is in the service of function, and must come into being within a matrix of constraints from the inherent nature of various materials that can be used, to the budget, to city ordinance building codes in all the trades, to the plot of land's location, to whether the structure will be a Museum of Art, an institution of higher learning, an indoor shopping mall or an office building with some residence condos attached to luxury accommodations like an Olympic size pool, saunas and squash courts. (Sorry, got a bit carried away with the analogy. :P )


And I am particularly biased in my excitement over animation in units because I love Black Project's Scavenger Choppers and the only thing missing in bringing them to full life is prop-rotor animation GFX and SFX (which I already have)... see attached in game screen caps from my War School Map/Mod:


- RV 8)

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Berg
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by Berg »

Rman Virgil wrote:And I am particularly biased in my excitement over animation in units because I love Black Project's Scavenger Choppers and the only thing missing in bringing them to full life is prop-rotor animation GFX and SFX (which I already have)... see attached in game screen caps from my War School Map/Mod:
I want a chopper..

Ok how is that chopper built does it have propulsion pie like vtol use because if it does the code will support a moving blade when travelling and stationary when idle.

You may find you will need to change the rotor and blade texture positions so you can frame across your texture, I make models with pre planned texture page to make animating the pie file simpler. I can see the pie files and texture please?

If you need a win build or anything just let me know I am more then happy to help with advise, repo space or anything that is needed to further Warzone's graphics etc.

regards Berg
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MaNGusT
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by MaNGusT »

That was just an idea... I'm not the programmer...
I saw this method of texture animation in Warcraft 3, I don't think it so ram hungry.
another + into my idea is - we don't have any editors to make current texture animation, only editing a pie files.

my example -> http://www.filedropper.com/anim (video is uncompressed!) :)
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Rman Virgil
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

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Rman Virgil wrote:And I am particularly biased in my excitement over animation in units because I love Black Project's Scavenger Choppers and the only thing missing in bringing them to full life is prop-rotor animation GFX and SFX (which I already have)... see attached in game screen caps from my War School Map/Mod:
Berg wrote:I want a chopper..

Ok how is that chopper built does it have propulsion pie like vtol use because if it does the code will support a moving blade when travelling and stationary when idle.

You may find you will need to change the rotor and blade texture positions so you can frame across your texture, I make models with pre planned texture page to make animating the pie file simpler. I can see the pie files and texture please?

If you need a win build or anything just let me know I am more then happy to help with advise, repo space or anything that is needed to further Warzone's graphics etc.

regards Berg
It is made with just body.pie... 1 connector for a weapon & using stock page 7 textures. To give it prop & anim will require quite a bit more work. I'm focused on my Aqua SP ScavNex Project right now and am not going to use it till I get that project done and move on to my Aqua CAM Project - don't know exactly when that will be but, nonetheless, appreciate the offer of help when the time comes. :)

Attached is the exhelicopter.pie in a .zip archive if you wanna take a gander.

BP's full source files HERE

- Regards, RV 8)

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Berg
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by Berg »

Rman Virgil wrote:It is made with just body.pie... 1 connector for a weapon & using stock page 7 textures.
It will require a bit of a remake as you say.
Also using page 7 does not allow room for frames.
Well when you have done with your other project we hope to see the sky's of warzone filled with choppers.
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by Jorzi »

I don't think mangust wanted to belittle your work by saying the current animation system has no future. We know that this is propably the only correct way to do texture animation in warzone right now and you have achieved admirable results using it.

I think he posted his comment more as an explanation to why he has not bothered to try it out on his own models. Your computer might be low-end compared to today's standards, but considering that the game was originally made for machines like the ps1, any machine with a pentium 4 or higher processor and an actual graphics card can be considered high-end and would easily allow a more comfortable system. In theory, the current system can do whatever a multi-frame texture could do, but it takes much more work in order to use the texture space efficiently.

An animation system with separate frames could be optimised to not require much more memory while being easier to work with, since for most graphics cards many small textures work just as well as one big.
You could have one texture for the static parts and one for the animations and the number of frames would never be limited by texture size. Organizing of the uv-map would also be easier on the static texture.

This is of course just speculations about what an easier animation system would be like, since we are not coders but artists.
It is also our excuse to not try animating our models, it takes time and learning and our models need a new shading system anyway. Your efforts are appreciated, but we choose to put ours elsewhere...
ImageImage
-insert deep philosophical statement here-
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by Per »

That is enough with the personal attacks already.

[those posts were removed, they are not helpful to anyone. Do not do it again, we are here to help each other, not bash each others work. Constructive criticism is appreciated, anything else, isn't.] --moderator 7
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by Rman Virgil »

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Per wrote:That is enough with the personal attacks already.
Yes, indeed.

You all have different areas of interest, focus and aesthetic tastes - but all told, they serve the game's development and the enjoyment & learning of its fans.

We will disagree on matters of aesthetics more often than not but we can do so without the disagreeable & destructive ad hominem rhetoric.

There have been disagreements throughout recorded history (about 5000 years) about what constitutes "art". With a solid grounding in art history you know one thing for sure - there are no absolute criteria. Inherently, great artists change those criteria with every generations new art work. While some may see Michelangelo's Sistine Ceilings frescoes as high art and Pablo Picasso's Guernica as anything but .... the truth is they both are high art even as they are vastly different in both subject & in technique.

- RV 8)

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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by MetalWarrior95 »

Rman Virgil wrote:.

I understand what you are saying I also understand the limitations of a lot of the playing community face as my PC is classed as a low end PC.
That's a very important consideration these days with the global economy in the tank & likely not seeing any real improvement as far as substantive new job creation till 2012. Not everyone can afford a Quad Core with several gigs of Ram and a SLI Mobo with parallel processing GIG GFX cards.

All together exciting work your doing there Berg & doing so within minimum HW considerations and the way WZ will likely function over the foreseeable future are challenges too that here must enter the mix of artistry.

This last much in the same way that architects are artists and a building a work of art. where form is in the service of function, and must come into being within a matrix of constraints from the inherent nature of various materials that can be used, to the budget, to city ordinance building codes in all the trades, to the plot of land's location, to whether the structure will be a Museum of Art, an institution of higher learning, an indoor shopping mall or an office building with some residence condos attached to luxury accommodations like an Olympic size pool, saunas and squash courts. (Sorry, got a bit carried away with the analogy. :P )


And I am particularly biased in my excitement over animation in units because I love Black Project's Scavenger Choppers and the only thing missing in bringing them to full life is prop-rotor animation GFX and SFX (which I already have)... see attached in game screen caps from my War School Map/Mod:


- RV 8)

.
THis all is very good...but the turrets are too large...it should be like a 50cal or ordinary machinegun or somekind of redesing of minigun, i hate the look of warzone 2100 minigun,it dosent look like mini gun---
Il crush you!If i get crushed,il crush you twice stronger!!If you crush me again,then il blow up your PC!!
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by JDW »

MetalWarrior95 wrote:THis all is very good...but the turrets are too large...it should be like a 50cal or ordinary machinegun or somekind of redesing of minigun, i hate the look of warzone 2100 minigun,it dosent look like mini gun---
Hello MW95, :)

Where were you? It's been such a long time since you were around, Berg made something that you will like, remember your force field idea? It's kind of possible now. Berg is experimenting with animation and made electric fences for fun.
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=5311&start=60#p62281

And don't forget to test out Rman Virgil's map, it may even be the next campaign,
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4758

Stop playing MOHAA and play more WZ2100 :wink:
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Roux Le Corps
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by Roux Le Corps »

thats an epic fence ^_^ although i cant help but think the corner wall need a new look?
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by JDW »

Roux Le Corps wrote:thats an epic fence ^_^ although i cant help but think the corner wall need a new look?
These are just experimental concepts, Berg's main priority is working with developers on animation techniques. Everything else is just a by-product of the work that he's doing. But I'm sure he'll gladly guide anyone who's interested in playing with Tcmask animation. And I think he already has, read this entire thread from the beginning and you'll see his tips and instructions posted around. :)

Regards,
JDW
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by MetalWarrior95 »

Ok...its nice to see field fences,but i was thinking about field gates...maybe it would use trunks version of gate features...
The force field like slowly shuting down, from highest to lowest field projector...
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by JDW »

MetalWarrior95 wrote:Ok...its nice to see field fences,but i was thinking about field gates...maybe it would use trunks version of gate features...
The force field like slowly shuting down, from highest to lowest field projector...
Oh, well, it's just good to see amazing work going on :D
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Re: Tcmask, Animation and Models Info and Ideas

Post by Roux Le Corps »

amazing progress on the animations i do have to say ^_^ i wonder whats first on their hit-list for building anims? haha
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