The Undead Mod

[charon productions 10]

Hey Charon ! Thank you for your answer, this makes a lot of sense now.

Why is 0.9 not downloadable ?

So you're going for Arma 3 only ? Not Arma 2 ? (I have pre-bought A3 anyway)

0.9 was a dead-end and at that time i didn't find enough time to finish the implementation.

I will release Undead2 for Arma2 before Arma3 comes out otherwise all those hundreds of hours of development time of Undead2 would

have been for nothing. I am always not 100% satisfied with the versions, but at the end of the day it's just minor details when compared

with the whole product.

Arma3 version is also in the works, but turns out to be more tedious than i thought due to the new characters skeleton and the resulting animation incompatibilities

as well as the config structure having changed. But so far it looks good.

[goodfella66 11]

That is awesome that you are making it for both games. As for the never 100% satisfied, I feel ya. I am composer of the music of the mod "Game of Thrones " for Mount and Blade, and like you, i'm never entirely satisfied with my creations.

Anyway, again, thank you for your hard work.

Really looking forward Undead 2.

[skr 1]

Any news about the mission, SKR ?

Soon... I have some things to do, so i didnt managed it yet. Sry.

[menjoo 10]

0.9 was a dead-end and at that time i didn't find enough time to finish the implementation.

I will release Undead2 for Arma2 before Arma3 comes out otherwise all those hundreds of hours of development time of Undead2 would

have been for nothing. I am always not 100% satisfied with the versions, but at the end of the day it's just minor details when compared

with the whole product.

Arma3 version is also in the works, but turns out to be more tedious than i thought due to the new characters skeleton and the resulting animation incompatibilities

as well as the config structure having changed. But so far it looks good.

Awesome! Cant wait for it.

One question: For the Arma 3 mod, would it be possible to have the zeds only hunt you if they hear/see/smell you? That would make for some great sneaking scenarios where you are unarmed at first and such. Anyway, keep up the good work!

[charon productions 10]

Awesome! Cant wait for it.

One question: For the Arma 3 mod, would it be possible to have the zeds only hunt you if they hear/see/smell you? That would make for some great sneaking scenarios where you are unarmed at first and such. Anyway, keep up the good work!

The undead react to line of sight and gunfire. Smelling would be an abstraction, but it is implemented in a way that the migration patterns are leading the undead to locations that contain humans and make them stay in such locations and search for the humans. So you could say that they 'smell' the humans.

The "Undead2-framework" seems to run pretty good under Arma3 so far in the first tests by the way.

[menjoo 10]

The undead react to line of sight and gunfire. Smelling would be an abstraction, but it is implemented in a way that the migration patterns are leading the undead to locations that contain humans and make them stay in such locations and search for the humans. So you could say that they 'smell' the humans.

The "Undead2-framework" seems to run pretty good under Arma3 so far in the first tests by the way.

I see. I was under the impression that they "magically" knew your position. How far can they hear gunfire/surpressed fire then?

I guess I have to do some testing tonight. :) Also, I found a script for Arma 3 that allows for silent take downs (stealth kills). Maybe you could incorporate something like that in to the mod too, i.e. tied to a weapon (hatchet, club etc) in your inventory. That would be really cool.

[goodfella66 11]

Thanks for keeping in touch, Charon. We love your mod. I am making a huge mission using the undead mod, the Emita Island, a nuclear explosion and a helicopter extraction, this is so epic.

The only problem is with large numbers of infected, they tend to go crazy but I don't mind, it's so much fun !

[charon productions 10]

I see. I was under the impression that they "magically" knew your position. How far can they hear gunfire/surpressed fire then?

I guess I have to do some testing tonight. :) Also, I found a script for Arma 3 that allows for silent take downs (stealth kills). Maybe you could incorporate something like that in to the mod too, i.e. tied to a weapon (hatchet, club etc) in your inventory. That would be really cool.

I could implement a very 'realistic' hearing, but it would unnecessarily waste precious CPU power.

Even BI did it that way, so that their eventhandlers only go to about 75meters (which is far too low, but what to do)

I could hang eventhandlers on every armed unit in the map that would then notify the undead module about who fired where, but that would

create an enormous overhead in intense fights for every single shot fired for a small feature that would be nice to have in a more realistic way.

CPU cycles are too precious for that.

[menjoo 10]

I could implement a very 'realistic' hearing, but it would unnecessarily waste precious CPU power.

Even BI did it that way, so that their eventhandlers only go to about 75meters (which is far too low, but what to do)

I could hang eventhandlers on every armed unit in the map that would then notify the undead module about who fired where, but that would

create an enormous overhead in intense fights for every single shot fired for a small feature that would be nice to have in a more realistic way.

CPU cycles are too precious for that.

Of course. Thanks for explaining it tough! :)

[charon productions 10]

I thought about that again and i tend to come up with generic approaches first that should cover all circumstances or all units for that matter (programmer's mind hehe).

In this case it is not necessary to have all units notify the observer, so for a single player scenario, there is actually only a bit of processing on the player's fired eventhandler

needed which is 1 piece of script compared to hundreds like i initially thought. For multiplayer it would be the amount of players which in most cases isn't that high.

So basically a unit firing a weapon far away from the player won't be seen by the player anyway, that's why it's negligible.

Edited April 4, 2013 by Charon Productions

[goodfella66 11]

Hey Charon maybe you can help me on this one : In my SP mission, I would like my player to be able to return as a zombie if I get killed. How Can I do that ? It's not a problem if it doesnt have the same skin model as my "human" character, I'd just want to respawn where I died as a zombie/infected and join the horde. Is there a way to do that ?

[charon productions 10]

Hey Charon maybe you can help me on this one : In my SP mission, I would like my player to be able to return as a zombie if I get killed. How Can I do that ? It's not a problem if it doesnt have the same skin model as my "human" character, I'd just want to respawn where I died as a zombie/infected and join the horde. Is there a way to do that ?

Wait for Undead2 ;)

Well, i must admit that i am not fully aware of the function span of the last released version anymore, but i am quite sure that this is not easily doable in that version.

Try setting on your player the following variables in the player's variable namespace:

player setVariable ["CHN_UNDEAD_IS_UNDEAD",true];
player setVariable ["CHN_UNDEAD_IS_HUMAN",false];
player setvariable ["CHN_UNDEAD_INFTYPE","INFECTED"];

You still won`t be able to attack anything because i believe the weapon system was only introduced in V0.9, but at least you will be attacked and not hunted down by the other undead.

Also you need to join a group of side resistance.

[goodfella66 11]

Wait for Undead2 ;)

:yay:

Ahhhh this V2 is gonna be awesome !!

Okay mate, I'll try that. Thanks for your answer. If it doesn't work, it doesn't really mattern my mission is almost done anyway, it was just another little extra ;)

[Leaulux 2]

Thanks for keeping in touch, Charon. We love your mod. I am making a huge mission using the undead mod, the Emita Island, a nuclear explosion and a helicopter extraction, this is so epic.

The only problem is with large numbers of infected, they tend to go crazy but I don't mind, it's so much fun !

Hey! That's my favorite map for the Undead Mod lol. I love using the Leon Kennedy character from Resident Evil and pretending that it is Raccoon City. In the past, I made a mission where when Civilians would be attacked by Undead, they would "Call 9-1-1" (Triggers that activated Police Forces when Civilians detected Indepedent)

It was cool seeing the Police race to their vehicles and head out of the police station and over time, you could fly over the city and see the Officers attempting to stem the outbreak and control their checkpoints along with SWAT Reinforcements. After they would be overrun, I would have the Military come in and set up a Quarantine Zone or sometimes an "escape mission" with a nuclear explosion. :cool:

Ahhh great times, my PC suffered so much lol.

[goodfella66 11]

Yeah as I don't want too much addons in addition to the Undead Mod (because i'll be hosting some online games for ppl to join) I'm not using any Swat or special unit (not that I wouldn't like to), I'm just making a huge mission, playing as a civilian with no gear, having to scavenge for weapons, food, drink and items, with an infected breakout going on, civilians running for their lives, some police officers getting overwhelmed quickly.

I have also made the airfield a restricted area where the military shoot everyone at sight (they have their own zombie spawn close to the airfield so they are already busy and eventually get overwhelmed too), on the castle area i've made a group of survivors fighting for their lives (I have not decided if they will be hostile or if they will join the player who meets them). Antidotes will be guarded by the military and can also randomly appear in hospitals or on Scientist bodies..

After 45 minutes of survival, a message radio appears telling the area will be nuke within a minute, then it happens.

If you survived, i've ended the mission with a helicopter extraction after the nuke radiations are no longer present. So much fun making this mission, but also it's soooo long to make :p especially the random loot spawning (I do it one by one :p)

[Guest]

Will there be scarier texture skins for the UndeadMod 2? And will there be new zombie animations and sounds?

[charon productions 10]

Will there be scarier texture skins for the UndeadMod 2? And will there be new zombie animations and sounds?

No new textures for Undead 2.

New textures (logically) for Undead3.

No new sounds or animations for Undead2.

New animations for Undead3, IF

BI are able to release a correctly(!) aligned and complete FBX

after what they have already released for demonstration purposes.

Edited April 6, 2013 by Charon Productions

[icewindo 29]

New animations for Undead3, IF

BI are able to release a correctly(!) aligned and complete FBX

after what they have already released for demonstration purposes.

So there's no chance the current fbx can be used for anims as it's not rigged/incomplete? Is it rigged at all? Think Vespa said sth. like this on the release.

I've lately tried out teacups maya rtm setup for ArmA1 though and it worked great for A2. Beats ofpanim by miles. May even for A3, as the selections still exist and you can port a2 units easily to a3.

[charon productions 10]

So there's no chance the current fbx can be used for anims as it's not rigged/incomplete? Is it rigged at all? Think Vespa said sth. like this on the release.

I've lately tried out teacups maya rtm setup for ArmA1 though and it worked great for A2. Beats ofpanim by miles. May even for A3, as the selections still exist and you can port a2 units easily to a3.

I had the chance to see it imported to motionbuilder by an animator that i know and it showed a geometry warning that both arm rolls' are like 2.5 degrees off roll-axis.

In a thread on this forum i also read a statement from one developer that said that you can't animate anything with the provided fbx sufficiently, but i might have misunderstood that.

Gotta say that i did not have enough time to go through 3ds then to o2 to see the alignment during an animation that way.

I am not a big fan of single frame posing animations in o2, so any more easy method is preferred.

[icewindo 29]

I had the chance to see it imported to motionbuilder by an animator that i know and it showed a geometry warning that both arm rolls' are like 2.5 degrees off roll-axis.

In a thread on this forum i also read a statement from one developer that said that you can't animate anything with the provided fbx sufficiently, but i might have misunderstood that.

Gotta say that i did not have enough time to go through 3ds then to o2 to see the alignment during an animation that way.

I am not a big fan of single frame posing animations in o2, so any more easy method is preferred.

Yeah I think vespa said that you couldn't use these for anims - if you can you should give the maya script/template a try. I put it into a trial and it works great. There are several axis + selection points defined and if e.g. you bend the spine selection, all other part move accordingly in a natural way.

e.g. this crappy animation took me really 5min in maya - would have taken ~2h in ofpanim+o2

http://www.mediafire.com/?51m1xn4evmy5d7c

[Guest]

No new textures for Undead 2.

New textures (logically) for Undead3.

No new sounds or animations for Undead2.

That's too bad, you did an amazing job with the animation and textures last time, would have been interesting to see what you could have done with it this time around.

Lastly, is the teleporting and sometimes occasional nonreactive zombie issue been fixed? Will the zombies be more aggressive when they are in site of hearing coming after you to kill you?

Might have discussed this before, but a gun shot drawing some of them to your position would be cool. Biggest thing I hated from the last mod was that sometimes they would just stand there, even if you shot them. Didn't happen all the time, but when it did it was annoying, the only thing that kinda prevented this was giving the zombies an endless patrol script in a certain to get them moving and searching for an enemy so they could be more reactive and even then they would sometimes run right passed me and not attack unless I really f--ked with them lol.

Overall I just want the zombies to be reactive and no teleporting. Even with the bugs it's still the best mod I've used for Arma 2.

[charon productions 10]

That's too bad, you did an amazing job with the animation and textures last time, would have been interesting to see what you could have done with it this time around.

Lastly, is the teleporting and sometimes occasional nonreactive zombie issue been fixed? Will the zombies be more aggressive when they are in site of hearing coming after you to kill you?

Might have discussed this before, but a gun shot drawing some of them to your position would be cool. Biggest thing I hated from the last mod was that sometimes they would just stand there, even if you shot them. Didn't happen all the time, but when it did it was annoying, the only thing that kinda prevented this was giving the zombies an endless patrol script in a certain to get them moving and searching for an enemy so they could be more reactive and even then they would sometimes run right passed me and not attack unless I really f--ked with them lol.

Overall I just want the zombies to be reactive and no teleporting. Even with the bugs it's still the best mod I've used for Arma 2.

Teleporting as in an undead warping away 50 meters, that doesn't occur anymore.

But since the main collision issues are related to how the arma engine handles animated objects, there is still collision issues for Undead2 that i can't fix from my side.

Undead3 units have a better collision handling probably due to physx, but since the animation engine is to a great extent the same as in Arma2, there is the same

ghosting going on when you animate a model, so undead that run after a target can still sometimes penetrate fences or low height objects.

I haven't tested yet if the Arma3 mirco fsm's also hang themselves up, when they are issued too many move commands. That was the main reason for those

inactive units in undead mod.

[Leaulux 2]

I've been messing around with that breakthrough that SKR made in the past where you could use the Undead Mod in ARMA 3. (with a lot of bugs though!)

The ragdolls really are fantastic, and running over the zombies and having an vision of the Undead Mod 3 makes me feel tingly inside :o

[synnr 3]

I am desperate to for an updated undead mod to test in Arma 3!! I've built a number of persistent multiplayer missions for my gaming group using Undead Mod and they are after me for something to play in Arma 3 because it does close range combat so much better.

Here is a link to one of my vids

[charon productions 10]

I am desperate to for an updated undead mod to test in Arma 3!! I've built a number of persistent multiplayer missions for my gaming group using Undead Mod and they are after me for something to play in Arma 3 because it does close range combat so much better.

Here is a link to one of my vids

When arma3 will be released with all the final units in their final texturing, then it's time to create the undead units.

At the moment i have, after many hundreds of tests, come up with a way to suppress ghosting through walls.

Unfortunately, when i then made a high unit count test in a town, i had to observe that Arma3 performs way worse than Arma2.

The reason is one or a combination of the following:

- Arma3 is certainly more resource hungry even at vanilla state, because of physx and improved graphics

and therefore has less CPU cycles to provide for mod scripts.

- The developers have way more scripts running already on the engine side to make their life easier (understandable)

and updates to the AI behaviour more easy to do.

I believe that Arma3 just puts more strain on the CPU than Arma2 did and therefore scripts will run slower on the same machine.

Had the developers chosen C++ DLLs with full control over game assets as a possible option to include for mods rather than an interpreter-language (java),

time critical mods could maybe work way better, but they didn't wanna go through the hassle to seal that tight of hacking options.

At the present moment i have not had access to any examples of java-integration into Arma3, but i doubt that that will make a significant speed difference.

Maybe in the organization of containers using lists rather than arrays, but that will have to be seen.

So while undead2 can be ported to Arma3, the performance is not not the same. My development machine CPU is between minimal and medium spec, not sure if i should

aim at this running smooth only with a medium to high spec machine.

A possible solution would be to strip all features and have them just move around town without any real undead-AI, but that would somehow defy what

makes undead so great. Just tested it with 50 undead in a location with everything switched off except running after the player and it was also performing very poorly.

That leads to the conclusion that generally putting a high amount of units on a map slows the cpu down much more than it did in Arma2 (all with the same machine for comparison of course).

Even though undead2 was already highly optimized on the script level, i will look into further ways

to optimize.So more optimal than optimal ...

EDIT: Using a new technique that i developed for TroopMon3, i just managed to majorly improve the pursuit behaviour of the undead, which was exhibiting the most observable script lag.

So this is good news, because slight delays in all other scripts like migration scripts or similar are acceptable, because they are not time critical.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Charon Productions