Animating

[Konyak-2 0]

Since I'm left hanging without authorization codes (night night BIS ) I've been reading this forum over and over and I see many things that trouble me. My first concearn is that we have something called Oxygen "light".. If you are on a diet, this is good, but if it´s beer, which is the second most important thing after oxygen, then it´s bad

So we can't edit the models they made, that´s fair, no problem there. But, can we make animations, such as the Scud launcher's "erection" ? And can we make a new character and put in animation for his movements?

To those of you who have the codes, what happenes if you load a character? Are there animation keys? Frames? Some of my models need animations, such as the loading ramps on my Antonov (yeah, the big one).

Konyak

[WKK Gimbal 0]

I've not seen anything labeled "animate" yet... It's also a concern for tank tracks and such... right?

[Airwolf 50]

and helicopter blades.

[suma 8]

You do not need for any animation support for rotor blades, tank tracks and things like this. All of this is animated by OFP engine - you just need to use selection names so that it will recognize what parts should be animated and how.

There is no skeletal or keyframe animation in the tools you have (O2 Light Edition). The main limitation is you are not able to create new animations for people (or new animation for SCUD laucher).

[PiNs_Da_Smoka 0]

Any specific reason why you didn't include animation capabilities in this "light" version. I think it would of been a smart move to include something like this. To be honest, i was looking forward to making some new animations for the soldiers. Would there be anyway for you guys to patch the "light" version to include this in the future?

[Peiper 0]

I think they will let us pay again lol

[VipHeart 0]

Although I must admit that I've been disapointed by the lacking animation support, I'm now agreeing with SUMA.

I experiemented a lot with OË› the last night, and most of the things we want to make can be achieved via the "proxy" functions (things like turrets, blades, tires and so on..).

Regarding animation I understand why Suma and the others don't want to let us messing around with it. Creating models is one thing, creating total new character animations is something different - we could really mess up the game with that!!!

I also wanted to make new animations - but I think in Resistance they will add animation for what I'm looking forward: PISTOLS  

Now reagrding new or modified characters:

I think it's possible to create new character models, as it seems to me that the skelatal system is attachted to the several groups of the character mesh (arm, leg, etc..). So we just need to create a mesh with the same structure, maybe build on an original mesh. I think the vertices will be moved by the skelatal system correctly then!

[suma 8]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (PiNs_Da_Smoka @ April 25 2002,10:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Any specific reason why you didn't include animation capabilities in this "light" version.<span id='postcolor'>

We removed some advanced functions (including animation support) that are not necessary for most modeling tasks. This way we hope everyone will be happy: you, OFP mod makers, because you will receive the official tools, and we, because we invested a lot of work into creating the tools, we consider them quite precisious and we do not feel like releasing the best of what we have done.

By the way: creating animations is very difficult task, much more difficult that modelling. We have full MC studio here and several people are doing this.

[Peiper 0]

If there is any hope to get the full capacity after you stopped the work with OFP, it`s ok and I think we all have to learn a lot of stuff with OË› and for now it`s enough

[Konyak-2 0]

Suma, many of us are making helicopters with counterrotating rotors. Will O2Light allow that kind of animation? I'm quite upset about not being able to animate the cargo ramps and other things like that, but I am concearned about the prior.

Konyak

[Airwolf 50]

Will it allow us to animate gear on a helicopter? My helicopter uses retractable gear, would the chopper gear use the same animation as the a-10 or thr su-25?

[Tau Hammerhead 0]

i am quite looking forward to trying to make or someone making a new ship seeming as the LST is not fully functionable e.g. guns,movement,walking round.

also a futuristic mod.

[Desert Eagle 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Suma @ April 25 2002,10:16)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">All of this is animated by OFP engine - you just need to use selection names so that it will recognize what parts should be animated and how.<span id='postcolor'>

Suma, what are that selections names?

And is there any way to create realistic pistol then?

[WKK Gimbal 0]

I had hoped to fix Angelina's knees. She walks like a dock-loader!

[PiNs_Da_Smoka 0]

I really would like to know jsut exactly the process of animating in OFP. Just to see how tough it is. I'm not asking for a step-by-step tutorial or anything. Just a little overview. Cause i remember seeing some pics of OXY before, and it looked like the character animations were done with keyframes. Or is it that you have to implement it into the game somehow, like hardcoding it or something. Just curious as why it is so "difficult". Danke.....

[suma 8]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Konyak-2 @ April 25 2002,15:04)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Suma, many of us are making helicopters with counterrotating rotors.  Will O2Light allow that kind of animation?  <span id='postcolor'>

Yes, you can do this easily - rotor rotation speed and orientation is defined in vehicle config. We have already used in for some choppers - maybe you notice Chinook has two rotors, each of them rotating in different direction?

[suma 8]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Will it allow us to animate gear on a helicopter?<span id='postcolor'>

No. Even if you would be able to define the animation, program would not use it, as it does not support this feature on helicopters (which can be easily seen on Mi24 Hind).

We are preparing much more flexible approach for this type of animation for Resistance - it will allow you to do this kind of stuff with algorithmical animation described in config, therefore you will be able to use it easily with O2 LE.

[suma 8]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (PiNs_Da_Smoka @ April 26 2002,09:22)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I really would like to know jsut exactly the process of animating in OFP. Just to see how tough it is. I'm not asking for a step-by-step tutorial or anything. Just a little overview.<span id='postcolor'>

I am sorry, but I am unable to provide you even "little overview", as writing it would take too much time. If you want to know something about complexity of MC animation processing in OFP, check CfgMoves config section - this should give you a little insight how things are done.

[Konyak-2 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">We are preparing much more flexible approach for this type of animation for Resistance - it will allow you to do this kind of stuff with algorithmical animation described in config, therefore you will be able to use it easily with O2 LE.<span id='postcolor'>

So in other words, we will be able to make scripted animations when the Resistance upgrade comes out in June. This is fantastic news. This kind of animation would cover the kind that I am looking for, I.E. launch platforms, loading bays and so on. Only thing we can't do is make a walking animation. Is that right?

One more thing. Someone observed that there seems to be some information regarding skeletal deforming for each of the vertices in the character models, and that perhaps we could modify the character mesh and it would retain the animation. This wouldn't hurt you as the quality of the movements would be the same, but we could make Vietnamese, Arab or other characters that many Mods would benefit from. They'd just all run the same, that's ok

Can you confirm any of this?

Thanks,

Konyak

[suma 8]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">One more thing. Someone observed that there seems to be some information regarding skeletal deforming for each of the vertices in the character models, and that perhaps we could modify the character mesh and it would retain the animation. This wouldn't hurt you as the quality of the movements would be the same, but we could make Vietnamese, Arab or other characters that many Mods would benefit from. <span id='postcolor'>

Yes, you can do this. See also this thread.