R Soul on 31/12/2007 at 18:47
That can be done using modifiers:
Inline Image:
http://www.anim8or.com/manual/images/modifiers.gifBut with several different curves it's quite hard to get all the angles right (the radius is altered by the position of the modifier relative to the model). While the modifier is like in the screenshot, the angle can be changed, but for another modifier to be tested, the previous one has to be merged with the model. So only one angle/position can be tested at a time.
Schwaa2 on 31/12/2007 at 23:10
I've hacked some stuff that way too. Bend the first angle, detach the polys, bend the second angle, detach polys, bend again.
Then realign segments and weld the verts. Slight pain but it works.
I've gotten lazy in my uv mapping and usually try to split models up into easy to map parts. Align thier uvs so they don't overlap. Reconnet all pieces and give a final uv mapping tweak to fill up the space as best as possible.
Vogelfrei on 25/1/2008 at 22:01
Would it be possible to import/copy a lot of AIs (meaning, like, around 400) into Anim8or and join them together to one single object? It doesn't matter if they loose detail for they'll stay in mere darkness and not appear extensively. I don't want them to be AIs either, just a crowd you can't reach anyway.
Extra: Would it be possible to animate the crowd despite that? Make them wave their arms at you, some of them jump up, in a looping pattern - what is the difference to a moving grandfather clock and how much more difficult could it be?
sterlino on 25/1/2008 at 22:31
Quote Posted by Vogelfrei
Would it be possible to import/copy a
lot of AIs (meaning, like, around 400) into Anim8or and join them together to one single object? It doesn't matter if they loose detail for they'll stay in mere darkness and not appear extensively. I don't want them to be AIs either, just a crowd you can't reach anyway.
Extra: Would it be possible to animate the crowd despite that? Make them wave their arms at you, some of them jump up, in a looping pattern - what is the difference to a moving grandfather clock and how much more difficult could it be?
this is the most dangerous thing i ever heard until now.. please don't do it...or you will cause an infarct to Dromed ! :cheeky:
Why don't you try to create a lot of conversations in game instead ? It would be more simple.
But Honestly i thing that 400 is really too much... :nono:
Or may be you can create some fake AI models with only arms moving and jumping... but i'm not sure about a good result.. :sweat:
Better if those people model would be a 2 dimensions model... a lot of less work..
at what distance they would be visible by the player ? it is important to know that before beginin with every approach to the problem.
Vogelfrei on 25/1/2008 at 23:01
Thanks for the warning. =D
Creating a crowdy atmosphere through sounds won't do, those people have to be visible. I was almost sure that so many would be too many, although DromEd did surprisingly not jump in my face when I tried around 50 AIs on it (made the game a bit slow, though, and some of them sometimes vanish, the usual stuff).
2D might actually be a workaround. Haven't thought of that. I can't quite imagine how it will look like, at the moment, have 2D-objects been used in a mission yet?
The player will see them from the front, a litthe above the crowd. He won't be able to get near or walk around them but might get exactly behind them at some times. Even an animated "crowd"-texture looks, well, not all too bad. If all fails, I'll stick with it, do some editing and try to sweep the rest under the rug. But right now it has only four frames and does not really fit into a thievy setting, so I'm thinking of something else.
Also, I don't exactly care for DromEd's health anymore since what it did to mine. Too bad they might be intersected in this particular case. :nono:
R Soul on 25/1/2008 at 23:05
There is an object poly limit of around 1500. If you had 400 AI as one object, you'd be limited to between 3 and 4 polys for each person.
If you had 8 objects with 50 people each, each person could have 30 polys.
I just made very crude outline of a person (2D, and top half only) and it used 33 polys. I think 650 is the sort of polycount a normal AI has. In other words, you'd lose a lot of detail, so it would probably only look acceptable to the player if they were quite far away, which might defeat the purpose.
If you split it up int 8 objects, each very close to the 1500 poly limit, and a maximum of 4 of those were visible on screen from any view, you'd still have around 6000 object polys on screen. Now the dark engine can cope with more object polys than terrain polys, but I'm sure there's a limit.
Schwaa2 on 26/1/2008 at 16:36
Actually most T2 Ai were closer to 1,000 polys. T1 Ai were probably between 650-800.
You could always delete all the faces on the back sides of AI and cut their polys in half. Of course you'd have to limit the player to a front only view.
Then joint 3-4 in a group to save object count (only 125 objects on screen at once)
Animating would be a pain. You could do 1 way mainly. save the models in keyframes. Hand low, hand a little higher...until their hand reaches top, then reverse the frames. You can use as many frames as you want by making the object die at the end of every 6 frames and being replaced with an object that contains the next 6 frames...
I released a 'broken lights demo' available at The Circle. The shutters object works that way with 4 objects. Closed, Opening, Open and Closing. It needs to be frobbed to start it's cycle to open and frobbed again to close but you could just set the Tweq to On and it will start animated.
This is basically how torches and rats are animated, they only use 4-5 models (keyframes each) though so they don't have to 'die' to go on to the next 5-6 keyframes.
I'd probably make one model with 4-5 AI. 3 males 2 females kindof thing. Animate and save the key frames (I've learned that you can give them a skin modifier in Max, not sure about anim8or, pose all the frames. Then delete the 'skin' modifier at each frame and export the model in that pose).
Then you can change each AI skin to a different one in Dromed. That way you have one set of AI objects and you can swap skins on each AI seperately and make a wide range of AI in the stands without having a million models.
The grandfather clock has joints, their rotation is set in Tweq. But you can only have 5-6 joints per object and if you jointed arms or heads this way it might be very noticeable. But it would take one object file, the keyframes mentioned above take a seperate object file for each keyframe.
Using models would be better than actual AI because they don't think, so they wouldn't slow down performance as much.
Vogelfrei on 28/1/2008 at 22:25
Well. Playing around with anim8or the weekend made me realize that even if I was actually able to handle the program (learning which I've been pushing off for a while now) it would be more work than I expected. Not that I knew what to expect. =D
I guess I'll set the idea aside, then.
Thanks everybody, for admonition and advice. I'd liked to try but it's probably not worth it, especially since there's not much time. Lowering ambient light and hiding more than showing will hopefully do the trick instead. The real important things are going on elsewhere, anyway.
Zontik on 22/2/2008 at 08:55
How to set texture parameters in Material editor to make texture half-transparent (like glasses is French door)? I've tried almost everything.
Nielsen74 on 22/2/2008 at 09:24
Play around with the Trans setting in the Material Editor, 1 is non-transparent, 0.5 is half-transparent and 0.0 total-transparent, I find that a setting of 0.3 to 0.6 is a good for glass! but it depends on the type off glass you are looking for, for a window 0.6 might be good and for a crystal wineglass 0.3 might work better, but just play around till you get a transparenty you like ;)
