Animating archive at Daikon Forge

Archive for the 'Animating' Category

New Vendors On The Way, and a Distraction

Apr
26
2008 in Product Updates, Animating and C:SI.

I’ve mentioned that there is an update to the Taketori coming, and that it’s just waiting for confirmation from a few testers that I haven’t totally botched it up. With that new update pending, and the thought that I would once again have to run all around the grid updating vendors (for maybe the thirtieth time in the last eighteen months), I decided it was high time to get networked vendors in place.

So, I went and deleted all of the in-world Taketori vendors, intending to replace them in short order with networked vendors. Only, it didn’t turn out that way. I ran out of steam (did I mention I’m sick?) and ended up just leaving the situation with no in-world Taketori vendors.

I still have a bit of testing on the network vendor scripts that I want to test before going live, and I want to make sure that I plan well enough to not code myself into a corner, because I’m always at the Second Life group limit maximum due to having vendors in various places and would like to be able to make a secure networked commission vendor that I can just give to store owners without having to "drop a group to join a group" to drop a vendor.

And as if that weren’t bad enough, I got side-tracked by a post by Abu Nasu on the Second Life forums (registration required) about how he’d built a custom rig for creating Second Life animations in 3ds Max.

One of the tools that I used when making the Taketori is XSI Mod Tool, a free version of the SoftImage XSI 3D modelling and animation program specifically targeted at independent and hobbyist-level game makers that I’d used to create some "proof-of-concept" games for the XBox 360 in my previous job.

One of the nice things about Mod Tool is that it has way better support for custom character rigs and better animation tools than either Poser or DAZ, and I had already created an adequate rig that I wanted to use for creating C:SI weapon animations, but had given up on before finishing the export plugin because of a lack of time and the fact that I already had tools for that job.

Abu’s success has got me fired up on that idea again, and despite my previous protestations that I hate doing animations and did not want to have to make any more in the immediate future, I’ve decided to revisit that project and see if I can actually get it done this time. If I ever do manage to finish the project, it could (hopefully) mean that creating animations will be a little less painful in the future, and perhaps I’ll be less reluctant to work on them :)

We will see what we see when we see it, I may not get any farther this time than I did last time, but it will be a fun thing to work on that I hope will help me with future C:SI weapons.

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Progress Update : Taketori Katana

Apr
03
2008 in Testing, Animating, products, C:SI and Second Life.

39 Comments

Just wanted to talk a little about the progress on the new sword, which has been "under development" for far too long…

This sword has taken me far longer than any previous weapon I’ve made, for a number of reasons. Probably foremost is the fact that I’ve just not had the time to devote to getting it done faster, but other reasons include the fact that I had decided that this new weapon absolutely required new animations.

Since I made the Wave Katana I’ve learned quite a bit about creating Second Life® animations, and I felt that I could do a far better job this time around. Previously I had tried to give a more "real-life" feel to my animations, which were inspired by my own real-life study of kenjutsu, but the animations I ended up with didn’t really convey the dynamism that such simplistic and direct movements have when performed by a real-life master such as my former instructors (or this guy).

This time around, I thought that it would be good to exaggerate the movements and make them more "Hollywood-style", which I hoped would convey more of a feeling of power and speed. While I still have a great deal to learn about animating and am far from an expert (hey, animations are hard to do well), I’m fairly pleased with the anims I’ve got this time around, and it’s very gratifying to me to be receiving so many compliments on them.

Another thing I’ve done this time around is spend a great deal of time playing with the control code, perhaps even too much time. I’ve tried a few other melee combat systems in Second Life, and while C:SI is already the most dynamic and responsive in my opinion, I just really wanted to try out some ideas to see if I could get a more consistent responsiveness profile across a wider range of sim conditions. It’s still kind of unproven whether I’ve achieved anything worthwhile in this area, but those people who are beta testing have good things to say for the most part.

Making most of the weapon out of sculpted prims didn’t help it get done any faster either, of course. This sword was my opportunity to really see where I can go with Second Life’s new sculpted prim type, and although I’m far from an expert 3D modeller, I think I’ve managed to do a few things on this sword that I’m pretty proud of.

So what’s left before I can put it on the market? There are several things that still need to be done, here’s what comes to mind right away:

CRITICAL ISSUES/TASKS

Fix the "kick bug". Linden Lab has thus far not been helpful in resolving the issue with Havok 4 breaking the push on kicks, so I guess we’ll need to explore this ourselves to make up for the lack of assistance or relevant information.
Figure out just what I’m going to use for the special attack on this blade. I’ve had several ideas banging around in my brain, it’s time to settle on one of them and get it done.
The customization code needs to be heavily tweaked for this new weapon, and it’s possible I’ll have to redo some textures to make them more "colorizable".
Create an update server. This is pretty easy, but is necessary before putting anything out.

"NICE TO HAVE" FEATURES

I would like to be able to resolve the problems with the block-rolls and moving slashes, and have made some progress in this area.
Better drawing/sheathing animations. The ones for the Wave are just not good enough, but it’s not absolutely necessary to do this, could change them in a future update.
I would love to do a new product box. Mine are the plainest in C:SI, and I’d love to do something more imaginative than what I have, but again this is not a "must have".
I’m sure there are at least another 50 things I can put here, but it’s taken me too long to write this post and my RL boss just called

This is probably a good time for me to point out that the prototype that people have been using is NOT an update to the Wave, but rather is the anims and scripts for the new sword in a Wave body just to make it quicker and easier to get a prototype out to testers. The final product will be an entirely NEW sword and new product, not an update to the Wave. I’ve had some people recently buy a Wave thinking that they are seeing my testers using an update about to be released, and it’s an entirely different product.

I have moved the existing scripts and animations over to the new sword and sheath builds this morning, and everything appears to be working correctly. Those of you who are beta-testing the prototype and are providing me with regular feedback can expect to receive a new sword sometime in the very near future.

It’s coming, I promise

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New Sword : Quick Update

Feb
17
2008 in Animating, Scripting, C:SI, Daikon Forge and Second Life.

Closed

I know I’ve been promising a Wave update to all my impatient customers, but the last two days spent on animations and script for the new sword have been so productive that I didn’t want to switch gears. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not so great at animating, so when I’m actually making progress I don’t like to interrupt it if I can help it.

In any case, I just finished the last of the core combat animations for the new sword. There’s surely going to be some more tweaking necessary on the ones I have now, but the basic work is done on that.

I do still have to create an animation for the special attack, but I find those to be easier to make because the time constraints on them are not so tight: You don’t have to make a semi-believable attack squeeze into half a second or less worth of animation

Since tomorrow is a holiday, I’ll have another whole day of not being interrupted by billable work to package up the Wave update and hopefully get that out so that I can get onto the last stages of the new weapon.

On a related side note, I’ve started the modeling work on two new weapons, something a little different than a katana this time. I’m not going to say much about what they are at this stage because I’m just as likely to change my mind as I am to finish them, but suffice it to say that I’m playing with some new weapon ideas.

Popularity: 32% [?]

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DAZ|Studio Plugin : Export to Second Life

Feb
16
2008 in Animating and Second Life.

4 Comments

While I do own a copy of Poser, the "recommended" program for creating Second Life® animations, I strongly prefer DAZ|Studio. It’s easier for me, and while not as feature-packed as Poser, it works well enough for what I need to do. DAZ|Studio is free, is compatible with most Poser content, and is frequently updated.

It also supports the creation of plugins using a variant of JavaScript, so I’ve been able to extend it to add functionality that I’ve needed. One of those plugins is an exporter that creates .bvh files that are compatible with Second Life® While DAZ|Studio has a .bvh exporter built-in, and they’ve made a good attempt at making it SL-compatible, it’s still just not quite right, so I made an exporter that did what I needed.

Because of the fact that I’ve answered questions about both DAZ|Studio and my export plugin on the SL™ Forums and in-world a number of times, I decided today to throw together a page that gives basic instructions on how to install and use the plugin. That page is at http://www.daikonforge.com/webtab/dazstudio-plugins/, and can also be reached via the "DAZ|Studio Plugins" tab at the top of this website.

The instructions are probably not very well written or as clear as I’d like, but hopefully they will serve as a good enough starting point to enable those who wish to try using DAZ to create Second Life® animations to successfully get their work in-world.

Popularity: 28% [?]

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