Need an army of animators & animations

[General Barron 0]

I need some talented animators to work with me (or just give me their animations) on a little project. The idea is, I want to implement tons of new movement options to OFP. For example; reloading while moving, leaning left/right, shooting AT weapons from standing or prone, diving to the ground, jumping, etc.Most, if not all, of these can be done FROM THE KEYBOARD, without removing any of the default OFP controls.

However, these all will require a TON of animations. I've decided I DON'T want to take on a project of this magnitude by myself, especially when many of the animations are already done. I've noticed that while there are many talented animators out there, the knowledge of configs is sorely lacking. I suppose that is why this sort of thing hasn't been done much in the past (if at all). So please, all you animators out there; lets work together to make OFP even better!

General Barron

aw_barron@hotmail.com

For an extremely 'rough' (no anims, among other things) example of moving while you reload, grab this config.bin here:

http://www.ofpec.com/editors/ecfg/GB/runreload.zip

Just backup your old res/bin/config.bin, and replace it with this one.

[philcommando 0]

A very good initiative General. Perhaps those who are trying out the animations can post their names here? or even better share and do a simple tutorial to help others get started on animations? No fear about having weird animations polluting the ofp world cos in truth the ofp world is really big enuff for anything and everything. The more we create, the more choices we will have to select the kind of virtual world we wish to play in.  

[General Barron 0]

Quote[/b] ]or even better share and do a simple tutorial to help others get started on animations?

One of these days I'm going to make a good ofpanim tut... but that is the easy part. The hard part is making a tut on how to config the anims, especially since I don't have it all figured out myself yet.  

Anyway, here I've made a little list of what I hope we can accomplish. Comments are welcome:

New Movement Positions

 These are positions of movement (i.e. standing rifle, crouched AT, etc) that don't exist in the game, but could be added.

Standing AT Weapon

  Static

  Movement in all directions (walking)

  Reloading

  Dying

Prone AT Weapon

 Static (legs left/legs right)

 Movement in all directions (low priority)

 Reloading

 Dying

 Transitions between standing, crouched & prone w/o putting weapon on back

Crouched Movement

 Crouched walk in all directions (overwrites crouch to running movement)

 Shift+move will remain as is, for quick movement to standing running/sprinting

 Crouched grenade throw

Crouched Pistol Movement

 Same as crouched rifle

Moving with binoculars out

Pretty self-explainitory.

 

Free Keys

 "Free keys" are movements that can be changed without any loss of default movement options. For example, when prone, holding shift while moving in any direction except straight forward will result in the exact same animation as not holding shift. Therefore, these movements are "free"; meaning new movements could be added when you are holding shift, without losing any of the default movements. Below are some of the free keys, and my ideas on what to use for them. With pistols, the free keys are the same, except when standing (you run backwards faster when holding shift)

Shift + AT movement

  This currently includes only the default crouched AT movement, but would also include the new positions (standing and prone). For standing, this could mean a slow run in the direction (weapon disabled). I don't think faster movement should be available for crouch and prone, though I don't know what to use there.

Shift + Prone movement

  Left/right: barrel roll

  Not sure what to do with back or the diagonals...

Shift + crouched non-forward movement

  Already explained in the crouched movement section

Shift + standing non-forward movement (not applicable to pistols)

  Left/right: standing lean left/right

  Backwards: Jump forward, if possible

  Backward left/right: unsure....

Other Things to Add

Reloading while moving

  For rifles and pistols only

  New anims required for each movement direction

  Sprint reload anims should be LOWEST priority for realism & workload reasons (hard to reload while hauling ass)

  Reload time should be slightly longer than standing reload (or standing reload can be sped up)

Faster Non-Rifle Movement

  Running unarmed/with pistol should be as fast as with rifle

  No new anims required

Bug Fixes

  Unarmed women can't throw grenades

  Some others related to unarmed men I can't remember

[Wilco 944]

Hm..

I'm game, sure, though I do have school and may not have time to help out that much.

[renault 0]

Hello

Maybe I could help you, too.

Most anims I made, were just for personal use...

But I've got enough experience with them (despite of their configs   )

My ICQ number is 149667658

greetz renault

[stgn 39]

two things:

it sould not be part of some big MOD only 1.96 config and anims or what it takes to make it work.

The RES civil model should look as "good" as it does whit standard anims cause anims that might look good on the old model somtimes look shit on the new.

And good luck.

STGN

[General Barron 0]

Thanks for the offers to help, renault and Wilco. I just started school as well, so I'm short on time too, I'm afraid. But I'm determined to get these things into OFP eventually (despite the seeming lack if interest.... ). I guess if no one else replies to this thread, I'll have to start seeking out people directly.

@STGN

I totally agree that it shouldn't be part of a big mod. The way I plan to release it is like this: we make a pbo file that includes the animations, and a new cfgMoves class. Then, any addon or mod can make their units use the new movements by just putting a line in their config, and requiring that our pbo also be in the addons folder. We would also release a modified BIS config that changes the 'man' class to use our movements, so that one could still use the new movements without having to use a mod as well.

[canukausiuka 1]

Sounds like a great initiative. Although I cannot animate, I may can help a bit with the code, although I've found animation code to be some of the nastiest stuff BIS has (that, and the resource.cpp... eesh, thats some crazy stuff to look at). Let me know if you'd like me to help out, and either way, I really hope this comes to.

- Iuka

[Milkman 1]

You should really try to get Leaning animations and rolling while prone animations implemented too, possibly there is a way to bind them to unused keys?

[Lupus-WD- 0]

But I'm determined to get these things into OFP eventually (despite the seeming lack if interest.... ). I guess if no one else replies to this thread, I'll have to start seeking out people directly.

i dont think it's a lack of interest but there's not that many animators around, and maybe this thread was a little unnoticed too.

I talked about it with the animator in our mod team (OFrP) and he didn't even know about this project of yours but seems to be interested now

I'm sure it's going to be something big when it's released, carry on

[Badassdom 0]

looks like a good idea

hope it will be something

[Redkid Joker 0]

I think it's a good idea, I'm in

[scfan42 0]

Well I'm no animator, but I'm willing to help with configing if you need it.

I also have to ask, do you want an entirely new anim pack, since most people are pretty tired of the default BIS anims, and if so would you want to make new ones or use an existing one?

I also suggest adding a few more (4-5) dying anims, just to spice things up a bit.

And about crouching, I figure it's a bit hard to waddle and hold up a rifle at the same time, so would you want the gun up or down while people were moving while crouched?

[Sovietman 0]

Wonderful Idea!

I can't help but you have my full support!

Suggestion/Question:

Is it possible to make the Sight Aim mod (V key) like in Call of Duty? would be really great.

[General Barron 0]

Thanks for the replies, all. Glad to see there is some interest after all . Big thanks especially to those of you volunteering to help out with the project. Maybe in a couple weeks, when we gather enough people, we can get started planning/working on the project.

Quote[/b] ]You should really try to get Leaning animations and rolling while prone animations implemented too, possibly there is a way to bind them to unused keys?

Yeah, actually in my second post I cover this, though I'm sure I made no sense in that post. Anyway, you'll notice that pressing shift+sidestep does the exact same thing as just pressing sidestep (when holding a rifle). Therefore, we can make shift+sidestep into the 'lean' keys without any loss of original controls. Same applies to rolling when prone. There are actually a bunch of key combinations like this that are "free", as I was referring to them.

Quote[/b] ]Is it possible to make the Sight Aim mod (V key) like in Call of Duty? would be really great.

What is that? I don't play CoD, so you'll have to explain how it is different than the OFP aim/V key.

Quote[/b] ]I also have to ask, do you want an entirely new anim pack, since most people are pretty tired of the default BIS anims, and if so would you want to make new ones or use an existing one?

I also suggest adding a few more (4-5) dying anims, just to spice things up a bit.

I'm pretty tired of the BIS animations as well, but for now, I think we'll just work off of them. There are TONS of BIS animations, and to replace even some of them (say, just the rifle ones) would take a ton of work. I've tried some 'animation replacement' packages out there, and they tend to be.... incomplete; meaning, things like transitions between standing-prone, standing-crouched, running-prone, etc are often overlooked. Can't say I blame em though, because there really are a TON of animations to replace, when you add in all those transitional anims. Plus, the BIS anims generally aren't that bad. Since BIS used motion capture technology, their anims obviously are going to seem more lifelike than anything we can do on a computer.

But to repeat, the main problem is workload. I'd rather focus first on bringing in brand new movement options (like standing/prone AT weapon use, moving while reloading, etc), instead of trying to make what is already there prettier.

[sanctuary 19]

Interesting project, it will require a lot of animation work

While making this thread, as there is an unfortunate chance that those people with animation capacity would have not noticed the project you should contact personnally those animators that have already released some animations work for OFP.

As an example, you should try to contact this team this team , their leaning animation that can be seen in the ingame video is just awesome and would be a great addition to this project.

[tariq 0]

It's good to see that the need for some of these animations is getting more attention. OFP really needs a leaning animation like Hidden and Dangerous 2. How many times have I died in OFP because I had to expose my whole body in order to shoot around a corner. This animation alone will add greatly to the gameplay. It would be nice if you could work together with the Operation 85 team to add this feature to OFP.

[OFrP - Flashpointgamer 0]

Hello,

So I'm Flashpointgamer from OFrP team and my job is making custom anims like in OFrP vehicle pack or air pack.

Lupus informed me about the project. It is a good news if you can implement anims from keyboard control

I see 2 animators offer their help for this project, I think I can participate with us but like General Barron I'm short on time too with school and work.

Just for information, A website named "OFP-Anim Center" will be opened in a few time with any tutorials made by me. I hope it will be a good way to learn to community how to made anims and it will be the place where anims projects can be elaborated in future.

So, my MSN: Flashpointgamer59@hotmail.com or on IRC channel: #opf.fr @ quakenet server or AIM: OFrP Flash

Sorry for english language

[Sovietman 0]

so how is the project going? I hope, it isnt cancelled because we really need those BIS anims replaced!

[MiG 0]

I've used your config.bin with runreload function and it's just great job as usual but i've noticed little bug related (only test it in my machine) . If you press Ctrl and Esc to stop the game and then get back to game OFP will crash, don't understand exactly why.

[General Barron 0]

I've used your config.bin with runreload function and it's just great job as usual but i've noticed  little bug related (only test it in my machine) . If you press Ctrl and Esc to stop the game and then get back to game OFP will crash, don't understand exactly why.

Hmm... actually, I have no idea what Ctrl and Esc is supposed to do, so I don't know what to make of this.

Quote[/b] ]so how is the project going? I hope, it isnt cancelled because we really need those BIS anims replaced!

Well, it isn't cancelled, but it isn't being worked on either, ATM. Basically I'm practically failing all my classes, so I really shouldn't be doing OFP stuff. Hey, wait a minute, that means I shouldn't be posting on message boards either! Hopefully I'll start pulling a team together and organizing things over the holidays.

And BTW, this project isn't about replacing the BIS anims; it is about adding new movement options that aren't in the game already. Function over form, if you will.

[Homefry 0]

I've used your config.bin with runreload function and it's just great job as usual but i've noticed little bug related (only test it in my machine) . If you press Ctrl and Esc to stop the game and then get back to game OFP will crash, don't understand exactly why.

Hmm... actually, I have no idea what Ctrl and Esc is supposed to do, so I don't know what to make of this.

I use it like Alt-Tab, like pressing the windows key.

[MiG 0]

I use it like Alt-Tab, like pressing the windows key.

yes, it makes the same result as Ctrl Esc

[BraTTy 0]

Yes alt-tab brings you to next running program

ctrl-esc supposed to bring up task manager

I animate too,sorry I can't help with this project much.I am currently working on some animations .I am making an ASL interpreter for OFP.Kewl huh