New animation

[Syd]

@wolfie: yes this vid inspirate me to test it, but my defender .cmp ist not the same

this vid is the E3 2001 trailer, so i think it was a beta

but i open the thread because i want to know HOW i can add animations in the cmp

[Wolfie]

now how did u do this?

and yes…im curios about this aswell

ohh and…i experimented a little with no results…just usual FL

[Guest]

Definately beta. For a start the Omega 13 system is in the video which wasn’t used, some of the other nebulas don’t exist and that planet texture is also not used that you can see. The depot model still has letters on it as well. Planetscape backgrounds were different, and wtf is with the FL disco? I don’t even think Juni was Juni back then either. Shame they removed some of the good stuff and left us with half a game, but there you go

[Syd]

@Wolfie:

now how did u do this?

and yes…im curios about this aswell

ohh and…i experimented a little with no results…just usual FL

for testing i only replace the “sc_open baydoor” and add “sc_extend wing”

[Wolfie]

i did…just didnt work

EDIT: typing mistake

[Syd]

@Wolfie:

i did…just didnt work

EDIT: typing mistake

it only work for Crusader and valkyre, on the other ships the animation is deleted

[Wolfie]

yes…i know…i did it on valkyrie but it didnt work…because of typing mistake

i had sv instead of sc

[Wolfie]

btw…do some1 know how to make the CMP animations?

[OPR8R]

well ive a basic idea of how it does work…. i cant go into details as i never did it before and dont have the time to do tests atm

but from what i see the animations are pretty simple
via UTF you can definy which objects should interact
parent = root
child = component
for every wing you have 2 nodes which describe their starting state and the end state
so in the end you need to create a ship with 2 components and 4 animation nodes

animations are being run in a simple way by setting different coodinates describing which “path” the animation should go

to draw a simple picture of how it does/might work:
take 2 needles… stick them in a piece of wood… connect them with a cord… and now take one needle and stick it into a different place on the wood
et voila an animation -> the cord was your moving component (wing)

hope you get the picture… thats how animations work
simple, effective, not that much time consuming, a bit primitive (imho)

[Syd]

yes, but in which section stand the position?

[BBalazs]

Now all it needs is some further thinking and we are getting close to baydoors on custom ships

[Bejaymac]

First off you need to add a Joint to the CMP, no Joint = no animation, you then need to attach it to it’s “Parent” and assign the “Child”, this is the component in the CMP you want to animate, yes we are talking multiple component CMPs something most of you don’t want to know about. After that you have to get the Joints orientation right, then set it’s rotation coordinates, this sets the plane that joint will work in, then you have to set how far the joint will “open” during the animation.
None of this can be done in Milkshape as the CMP exporter doesn’t export joints, so your left with UTF_Edit, I think v3 will allow you to edit the rev & pris data nodes. This leaves you with 2 nodes still to add, they are the “header” & “frames”, this is where custom animations fall flat, as I have no idea how to replicate the data in these nodes, I know roughly whats in them, just not how their coded. Frames is just that “frames”, a bit like frames in a movie, for a smoothish animation you need 25 frames for each second of the animation, the “header” is the instuctions on how to join it all together.

This is the rev data for br_elite, the “origin” is the location on the model that the joint is attached to, the “Rotation Matrix” is how you set the rotation coordinates, don’t ask how to work that out as it was a lot of trial & error on my part (I suck at maths), “Axis Rotate” is the orientation of the joint, and “Angle(Radians)” is how far the joint “opens”.

PS that’s v4 of UTF_Edit, I think it’s still classed as a beta, meaning I doubt if it’s publicly available for general use yet, :-[ sorry for teasing everyone with it

[Dark_Angel]

Good work guys, I hope you can find a way to unlock animations,
And I also have that version of the UTF editor,
Or I did anyway >.<

[OPR8R]

ill see if i can create a new animation this weekend

[Syd]

i have it on defender!
i´ll make a vid

[Wolfie]

hurry!! I WANNA SEE! ;D

[Syd]

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=JWVr4RjKLFY

[Bejaymac]

let me guess ::) you copied the nodes from the crusader and put them into the defender, easy enough to do, but still leaves you with finding a trigger to use it properly rather than replacing the baydoor animation.

[Syd]

@Bejaymac:

let me guess ::) you copied the nodes from the crusader and put them into the defender, easy enough to do, but still leaves you with finding a trigger to use it properly rather than replacing the baydoor animation.

ok you meen it is easy?
copy the crusader ani to defender and test it!
It wont work

it´s more than copy&paste, but its easy
and later i´ll test to make it with a hotkey, but it have time

PS: of curse i have copied the nodes of the crusader and edit tham for Defender

[Bejaymac]

;D Did the same thing back in February with the rheinland battleships baydoor animation, I transfered it to a custom base I was working on, I’d already worked out the coordinates for the “origin” in the “rev” data, it just took a lot of trial & error to get the orientation & Rotation Matrix lined up properly.