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Flying creatures and animations

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:56 am
by machf
I've been thinking about the animated pteranodons and seagulls after reading the spitter development thread...
Have you tried making a single mesh for them (merging the various meshes into one), with all the positions, and using textures with opacity maps for the animations, so that for a certain frame only one 'position' is visible in the whole mesh? I mean, instead of having to attach the various meshes with magnets or CEntityAttached...

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 7:26 pm
by chronzerg
Theoretically it should work.

Re: Flying creatures and animations

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2006 10:03 pm
by Rebel
machf wrote:I've been thinking about the animated pteranodons and seagulls after reading the spitter development thread...
Have you tried making a single mesh for them (merging the various meshes into one), with all the positions, and using textures with opacity maps for the animations, so that for a certain frame only one 'position' is visible in the whole mesh? I mean, instead of having to attach the various meshes with magnets or CEntityAttached...
No, but probably something worth experimenting with --

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 5:26 am
by machf
Well, after all this time, I finally gave it a try today. Here's what I did with the TC Isle seagull:

Image

And here you can see the results:

http://community.webshots.com/video/3001959900053045384

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:14 am
by hppav
:o Pretty.

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:04 am
by Draconisaurus
Duuude!!!! That's fraking awesome. I bet the tres devs had no idea they could do this stuff with their engine... it just amazes me. We'll we'll certainly have to take advantage of this in JPDS... ;) Machf is there any way you could send me files related to this (for use in JPDS)? (actually your new dino level itself might be nice to have.. would rather have that than spend time DLing all the new dinos seperately and importing them.. plus I've heard lots of complaints of texture issues and such so yeah..)

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:00 pm
by machf
That kind of animation is pretty simple, anybody can do it (in fact, it's a pretty old technique). I fear if you keep asking me to send you additional stuff, you'll never get to finish JPDS... :wink: Are you sure you need seagulls there?

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:21 pm
by Draconisaurus
Well they might be pretty darn nice for the Visitors Lodge location.. or for the *ermm#@!%@#* island, for that matter. What we really need in JPDS1 is a circling TLW pteranodon (looks diff from the JP/// pteras, and play a diff. roll in our story), plus I had some ideas for certain arthropodic creatures around the island... heh well I was just thinking if I had the seagull example right in the level itself, it wouldn't be hard at all to replicate it for other things.. ;)

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:46 pm
by machf
Well, the only important difference with the original TC Isle seagull is that I combined four meshes into one and made a different texture (4x the original one) and four different sets of opacity maps, and used those to make an animated texture (making four copies of the texture, each with a different opacity map). That way, only one wing position is visible at a time. Just what I had in mind from the beginning.

Not sure if a flapping Pteranodon is too feasible, the seagull is low poly enough to quadruplicate the mesh and keep it under the limit. Besides, did Pteranodons actually flap their wings, or did they just glide with wings extended?

Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 6:46 pm
by Rebel
Machf, I just fiddled with this and came up with a version, though I
have a feeling yours (your version) may be different. Think I'll p.m.
you my file so we can compare notes.

Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:45 pm
by Draconisaurus
.....Rebel actually spent some time trespasser modding??? :o :|

Let us know how it goes! ;)

Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:37 pm
by Rebel
Say, who gave you permission to stop working on JPDS? Get back
to work!

:mrgreen: