Horse

[Mamon]

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for reading this thread. I'm not posting here to show off my work so much, but rather to ask the community for help in a little project of mine, something that will make GR that much more interesting At the moment I have two problems to complete this;

1. How to properly skin this beast?

It is mainly simple shapes edited to the proper proportions. When I UVW unwrap certain parts, the texture clashes with the texture on another part. Any ideas how to get around this? I haven't been able to look at it in-game mainly because of;

2. How to get this thing in game as a truck?

My idea is for it to be tagged as a truck with a driver and a passenger. The driver is to be a low-poly, alpha-channeled invisible CHR, and the passenger looks like the horse-rider and can shoot, like the tangos on the back of pickups in DS. Mainly my problem here is I have no idea what helper points to put in 3DSM, and where to put them. I've tried reading tutorials but it just makes me

3. I'm mainly interested in these two at the moment, and I'm working with someone on how to get the legs "moving", even though I'm pretty sure I'll have to ask for help on that here too. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please don't hesitate to post.

Obviously I'm not a master model maker, and my knowledge of 3DSM and tagging is limited, but I hope that with all the talent present here I will be able to complete this project for the whole community to enjoy.

[SnowFella]

I guess I could always give you a hand in cleaning that model up somewhat, ought to be pretty easy to texture once you have turned into one single mesh instead of the body being atleast 3 or 4 separate meshes.

Just send it over and I'll see what I can do

[Stewy]

Wow - how cool is that!

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

[BornToKill]

Hmmm interesting idea, you know you'll have to edit the default sounds for your truck, otherwise your horse is gonna sound like it's got a 200 horse powered diesel engine rumbling in it's stomach.

Also you'll need to animate it's legs in 3dsm and somehow get it to use those ANM. file when it moves.

Smoke at the hooves should look ok as long as you detach the hooves as wheels and tag them accordingly.

Let me know if you figure out setting up ANM files in GR as i am working on summit that requires ANM files.Can animate in 3dsm ok but don't know anything about how GR uses the ANM files.

[Mamon]

Yeah I don't want my horse to sound like a school bus

My options as far as animating the legs have been whittled down to one really;

In place of modeled legs, make four squares where the legs would be with alpha-channeled animated textures showing just the horse legs in a gallop. I don't even think that uses any animation really, just cycles between images. Which means from in front it'll be invisible, but I can't think of anyway around it.

Anyone have any ideas of how to get around this, maybe even setup an animation so the legs actually move?

[BornToKill]

I dont know how animations are pulled from the motion folder in GR, I think you'd have to create new animations for the truck wheels,which file/s this is i don't know.

Try this first (make a backup of your horse first)

To animate the legs in 3dsm is easy. goto you side view of the horse.

(make sure you have the bottom of leg detached as a mesh).

Click Time configuration (underneath the play button) and change the length to 40( this can be as many frames as you like)

select hierachy and select affect pivot point, and move it to the knee joint.

click animate button and move the slider to say 10.click rotate and rotate the leg slightly(it should pivot at the knee).move slider to 20 and rotate leg back. goto 30 and rotate leg in opposite direction as first. 40 return leg back.

click animate again and red light should go off. press play and you should see your simple animation.

GR uses Linear animations so in your track view(under Graph editors), find your leg object and open the tree (little +sign) until you see Tranform.You should see Position,Rotation,Scale.

click on Position, then on the track view menu bar find Assign Contoller(green triangle with a black arrow) and select Linear Position and make it default.

Do same for Rotation and Scale.

Then still in the track view (if using max 4) you should see a "Parameter curve out of range" button (3 from the right of Assign Contoller, it's a little graph icon)

With Position selected click this "Parameter curve...." button and select both buttons under loop.

Do same for Rotaion and Scale.

This enables the animation to be looped in GR.

Once you got hang of animating Try this it may or maynot work:-

Start affresh with your backup file.

Make sure you Horse is looking down the X axis ( ie its nose the same way as the x axis arrow) and it feet are at 0 on the Z axis.

Create a helper point at 0,0,0 on the x,y,z, axis and call it O (capital o)

Create a helper point where your seat on horse is call it ^seat1

Create a helper point where your man jumps off, call it ^eject1

Create a 4 helper points in middle of each leg and tag them as ^leftwheel#anchor or ^rightwheel#anchor (#=0 for front legs, 1 for rear).

Group all these with your horses body(not bottom of legs( they become the wheels) and call this Group <n><body>HorseBody.

If you create a helper point at the FrontLeft knee joint and call it O (capital o) and group your knee mesh with that helper point and call it <n><dyn><leftwheel0>.

Animate it as you wish.When you finished animating always make sure the play/frames bar is back on the left hand side at zero frame.Remember to Loop each leg object under Parameter curve out of range.

Goto the Mapeditor (you should have this installed into 3dsm from the GR plugins).

Click the Objects Tab and click the "starts Disabled" hopefully your legs will only move when the horse moves.

Repeat all this for the other legs/wheels, the rear legs are 1's ie RearRight leg would be grouped with it helper point as <n><dyn><rightwheel1>

Finally you need a helper point at 0,0,0 on the X,Y,Z axis called O (capital o).

You should now have five groups now and a Helper point.

Try exporting this as a .pob file into your Model Folder of your new mod.

check here for .pob export settings

http://www.ghostrecon.net/html/exportsettingstut.htm

Create a new vehicle in Igor using your exported model and let me know what happens.

You may need to group the 5 groups and the helper as <n>Horse but my animated chopper exported fine ungrouped.

Any Probs let me know.

Regards

BornToKill_TAW.

Edited May 7, 2004 by BornToKill_TAW

[Mamon]

Well, that seems like an awful lot. I'm not expert but I'll try it, and no doubt I'll be here with questions. I don't know how GR uses actual animations or if it will allow new animations, but I do know the tires on vehicles don't really "animate" but rather rotate on a helper point thats placed in the middle of the tire.

[BornToKill]

If they rotate on a helper point in the center of the wheel then it's either an animation set up in 3dsm or an RSB animation.I'm assuming its animated in 3dsm like Tracks on a tank are, as Tracks can't be rsb animated.

You can use 3 animation types Rotation ( ie a wheel turning) Position ( ie your horses legs moving) or Scale (ie like your characters bodies expand and shrink to simulate breathing).

Any probs and i'll try help buddy, but remember your doing stuff out of the realm of the original GR scope, so don't expect brilliant result.

[SnowFella]

I know for a fact that the tracks on a vehicle like the tanks in GR is using an animated .rsb for it's movement, I know this because the CV9040C model I did has its tracks moving that way.

And as far as I know it's the entire geometry of the wheels that gets rotated around its helper point, just as a turret gets rotated around its central helper point. And for a turret to rotate there is no need for any animation to be done in 3dsm.

Only animations that needs to be done in 3dsm for vehicles are either openable doors or damage animations.

Snow

[Lancer]

Mamon try and track down Harntrox. I think he, or one of his team, made a dog that walked! I think Wolfsong was also involved. It was awhile back over on the Platoon that I saw this.

[SnowFella]

Yup, they indeed made that. But unfortunately it was tagged just like Chems Starship Troopers buggs, its a character not a vehicle.

[DonMiguel]

yeah, as a character you can do it so it walks around, but you can't mount/dismount the thing. .anm files are used when set as destruction animations (i.e. crashing heli's, ect). You could animate those areas within the model, but then they would be persistent. The only idea laid out that sounds workable as a vehicle type would be the 2D "sprite" legs.

There is another tagging group thats not talked about in GR. It's a dog group used in the dog_bark.pob. That particular .pob is a map object type, but as with other GR engine dynamics, those might be usable in a vehicle type. I've never tried, but its there. I had considered using it for a horse or dinosaurs (Jurassic Park mod) or such. It's got different leg segments, a tail segment for wagging, a tongue for panting, ears, neck, ect. Just open the file into a Text/Hex editor (I prefer Ultra Edit).

maybe that'll help

[Mamon]

From what I understand, I think the best course of action is the 2d sprite animation for legs. I'll try my best to get a grasp on the dog_bark idea, but I have a feeling the other way is the surest way(remember way back Snowfella ) Ought to cut down on the poly count too

Thanks everyone for the input. As soon as it's practical for me I'll get to work on it and surely come back with problems/questions

[snared_gambit]

From what I understand, I think the best course of action is the 2d sprite animation for legs. I'll try my best to get a grasp on the dog_bark idea, but I have a feeling the other way is the surest way(remember way back Snowfella ) Ought to cut down on the poly count too

Thanks everyone for the input. As soon as it's practical for me I'll get to work on it and surely come back with problems/questions

You could tag the horse as a .chr, and then have a person tagged as an attachment. If you got creative, you could have the horse carrying the actual gun, which could be invisible or something.

[sleeper]

Personally, I think its all a bit too much work to end up with a broken horse in the end. It would be cool to see of course. I would weigh the actual playability factor and the amount of work its going to take though. Having something like an unkillable horse or even an unkillable actor on a horse may be a hindrance to gameplay. Its a great idea but I think this mod can stand quite well on its own two legs as it is, that is, without the extra two legs .

[Mamon]

A human rider as an attachment wouldn't be able to be shot Yeah, I've been debating it but horses were such an important aspect that I don't want to overlook it if I can avoid it! I think I'll be able to get it to work in the end but I know it's going to be a whole lot more work than I can even imagine at the moment.

[Mamon]

I haven't had time to put in serious work but I whipped up a poorly done .pob just to see if it would fit in game, and this is what came out

I think texturing this is going to be hard...thanks for the updated model Snowfella

Edited May 9, 2004 by Mamon

[Chems]

Why dont you do it like the bugs from Star ship troopers, Model the horse and the rider on it, and then when they are shot they would die. Its not hard to do.

[Chems]

Yup, they indeed made that. But unfortunately it was tagged just like Chems Starship Troopers buggs, its a character not a vehicle.

Ah,

well whats wrong with it been a CHR?? I mean sure people cant get on it, but this way they would move and all.

[Mamon]

I want the player to be able to get on it and ride around. And I'm not nearly that skilled

[Mamon]

You know, I've been thinking about this idea more and more. I have some questions about a horse as CHR. Say I make a horse and rider all in one CHR and animate it properly and everything...would I still be able to have normal human actors as well...what I mean is...say I want for PlayerCompany Rifleman are to be regular humans on foot..support are horses+man...sniper is human again...could that be possible? I just don't know how the SST idea works if it takes over all movement or what not...could I come to you Chems for assistance? My lack of knowledge shows that I'll need it

[Ryan243]

say I want for PlayerCompany Rifleman are to be regular humans on foot..support are horses+man...sniper is human again...could that be possible?

I don't see why not. They're seperate files.

Might be interesting seeing a horse go prone though.

[Mamon]

Yeah...I'll have to figure all these things out first.

[DonMiguel]

yeah, was a .chr you're gonna run into problems.

A) I'd be able to kill the rider by leg shooting the horse. adjusting the combatmodel .xml won't help either, cause it's gonna adjust it for everyone. Doing armor leveling won't do much good either, cause there isn't armor levels for legs (by default, never tried doing it manually though).

B) many animations are not going to work. Going prone is gonna be possible, and it'll look horrible. You could restrict that by forcing an AT type, but that might not be an option for gameplay to be achieved. Crouch and death animations will also be funky.

C) eye height. As far as I know, the camera won't change height on the horse. I remember this being an issue when Ravenmouth and I did the ED-209 mod.

D) stationary gun manning. That's gonna be quite a sight

I'm certainly not trying to shoot the idea down, but if you're looking to do this with some level of realism then I don't think .chr is gonna do it for you. You'd have to accept alot of "bads". It really comes down to how many of those "bads" you're willing to accept for the project. The definate advantage to .chr is it'd be controllable.

[Mamon]

Damn, you're right I suppose. Back to the old horse truck idea