A Challenge and Suggestion To Each of You

[Iverian Prey]

Why must everyone find some fundamental reason to combat my threads everytime I post?

I post to inspire people and get brains turning.

Not to have everyone throw in my face RP or what we're here for. Lol.

I'm well aware, as are all of us, however I tell you, the "technical aspects" have been brought up for reasons people left, like or not. And besides skinning and Sai's great mapping, I don't see much "Sabers" and "animations" going on here.

So, this thread is to try and help that.

Don't like it?

Don't post.

Lol. It's just a thought.

[Delmi N'jork]

I would like to say that yes, ultimately we are here for RP. But people often forget that the little "gadgets" can enhance the RP and make it a lot more fun. Keep that in mind.

[Vantus]

Why must everyone find some fundamental reason to combat my threads everytime I post?

Posting suggestions is always Hit and Miss Iverian, you ought to know that by now. What's important is that a person should learn to take criticism when it unevitably happens. Never make a suggestion thread expecting to get 100% approval. Most of the points here are not to counter your enthusiasm to benefit JEDI Iverian, but to dispell the idea that JEDI's toy's are the only way to keep its members from leaving.

Further to that, some people have also made mention to activity-drops due to these occupations which, as a skinner, I know about all too well.

besides skinning and Sai's great mapping, I don't see much <.....> and "animations" going on here.

As for animations, I say again:

"It's down to Soh to decide on animations. Not us."

I'd rather see JKA's own animations brought into RPMod rather than have amateur and buggy animations brought in and feeling that we must accept them simply to be polite.
As stuck-up as it may sound, if a buggy animation is introduced because we feel bad for the amount of effort put in to make it, it will just never be used and will have been nothing but a big waste of time.


- Vantus

[Soh Raun]

As for animations, I say again:

"It's down to Soh to decide on animations. Not us."

While that is true, since 0.4.3 the emotes are no longer hard-coded in RPMod but configured in a file stored on the server. It is therefore possible and easier for community members to step up and propose new animations (particularly BaseJKA ones) without requiring work on my side, beyond uploading a file on the server.

[Vantus]

It is therefore possible and easier for community members to step up and propose new animations (particularly BaseJKA ones) without requiring work on my side, beyond uploading a file on the server.

Best.
News.
Ever.

Well seeing as it no longer requires hard-coding, that DOES open doors.
I'm still not in huge support of custom animations but am DEFINITELY up for having base JKA ones brought in.

How are these coded Soh? As in, how are they assigned commands in this file? (/emsit2 /emsit3 /emdeath2 etc.)

Is it a matter of simply parring-up animation tags with an assigned command?

Furthermore, is there a limit?


*EDIT*

I'll be willing to take on the job of writing these in to save any current member of JEDI taking time off the server to do it. If it's as easy as it sounds, it shouldn't take me long to go through the base JKA animations.

[Soh Raun]

How are these coded Soh? As in, how are they assigned commands in this file? (/emsit2 /emsit3 /emdeath2 etc.)

Is it a matter of simply parring-up animation tags with an assigned command?

Furthermore, is there a limit?

You will find the current emotes.dat file (renamed .txt for ease of consultation) here:

emotes.txt

(5.67 KiB) Downloaded 38 times

Usage instructions and limits are detailed at the top of the file.

For new animations (not BaseJKA ones), the BOTH_CIN_1 to BOTH_CIN_50 keys are available for use in JKA MP.

[Vantus]

Right, that looks simple enough. I'll get to work on it tonight.
So long as there are no unforseen issues, I should have it ready shortly.

Thanks Soh.

[Iverian Prey]

I'm just glad the thread found use after all.

[Liezl Myrin]

Please add more emotes that you can actually move around with like crossing arms and walking at the same time please. .

And I believe the new sitting emotes need their height measures to be fixed?

[Aslyn Denethorn]

Damn good work on the new emotes so far, Vantus!

[Jason Vi'Duo]

I just noticed the Emotes you posted, Amazing work Vantus, Keep it up.

[Vantus]

Please add more emotes that you can actually move around with like crossing arms and walking at the same time please. .

A person can walk with their arms folded by triggering /emwait while already moving as can many animations such as /ematease and /emcomm to achieve the main desired walking animations.

The problem with "real" moving emotes is that there is no way to code propulsion.
As in, you can't press a key and then see the character move forward like /rpautomove.

So in essense, you would trigger the animation and proceed to "moonwalk" on the spot. Your character will not move forward at variable speeds.
Further to that, some animations look buggy when walking forward or backwards as either the torso bends awkwardly or the legs look wrong.
(as an example, using the existing "come here" hand signal emote when walking will bend the torso awkwardly.)

I wanted to include animations like cartwheels and backflips but sadly animations alone do not cause the model to move across an axis, it remains still while animating a move that should cause them to move from their current floor mark.
On top of that, the animation returns to it's source mark after it has finished. So if you were to include an animation that had the model move several paces to the side, it would instantly warp back to the starting position once the animation was finished. Using "Offset" can also cause undesirable glitches such as getting stuck in walls and floors.

And I believe the new sitting emotes need their height measures to be fixed?

I've also noticed sitting errors due to the ZOffet command. As Soh and Aayla have seen, it's difficult to get exactly right. The problem is more with sitting too far forward or too far back, rather than height which is sadly not somethig we can rectify perfectly with an "Offset" command.
Soh also informed me that JEDI's default "/emsit" is a special case. It's the only sit animation that did not require Offset comands.


I'll continue to work on bringing in more Base JKA animations if given the opportunity but it requires a lot of Soh's time uploading and refreshing files. There is no way to test these animations on a solo game and i'm not prepared to ask Soh to give me RPmod.

[Liezl Myrin]

A person can walk with their arms folded by triggering /emwait while already moving as can many animations such as /ematease and /emcomm to achieve the main desired walking animations.

There are possibly a few more that are similar to the ones above like

/emathink =similar to emcomm, but right hand touching the chin
/emacrossarms =arms crossed in front

I'm not sure what else is possible, but I have seen those two work. The more the merrier?

[Vantus]

/emathink =similar to emcomm, but right hand touching the chin
/emacrossarms =arms crossed in front

/emcomm can be used for scratching a chin, coughing, laughing. These new emotes only serve as a way to enhance visuals, not to replace the traditional ::Action:: commands. There are very few emotes that can only be used for one purpose.

In regards to Adding more animations, I was only adding animations that exist in JKA's animation.cfg list.

I'm quite certain the ones you've mentioned above are JK2 animations.

JK2 animations are not a part of JKA's animation list and would therefore need to be ported over. On top of that, I believe the skeletons of models have changed from JK2 to JKA which is why some JK2 skins do not work in JKA and vice versa. This will cause animation glitches if tried in JKA. They would need specific tweaking from a modder.

I'm sure there are some clever people out there that will scoff and say "that's not true, it's simple", but seeing as it has yet to be seen or done, I suspect it might be tougher than people think.


The best way to go about this is:

1) does the animation appear to be a "walking" animation when I play it in Modview?
2) Does it require the model to move left or right or up and down (like jumping animations and flips)
3) Does it end at a different location from where it stars with no return sequence?

If the answer is "yes" to any of the above, then it will be unsuitable for implementation.


Half of the battle is knowing what already exists in JKA.
Once people are aware of the limits and that some animations just don't exist in JKA, people can start pitching the animations they concoct in their minds to an experienced animator to tailor.

But that's out of my field.
Hope that clears a few questions up!

[Zeak Dystiny]

Crossarms is definitely around there... somewhere as I've seen one of the models using it in the JKA SP cutscenes. Nice to see some more animations available though, thanks.