Animating a rescue vehicle. - Page 2

HellaLouYaah · 01-21-2011, 01:53 PM

That's kinda a problem, I've found. You have to use collisionjoint in the qc, but the phys part has to be in the scene too, exported separately just on it's own(as one peice). Keep the bones/nulls in the scene, no other objects, and it needs parenting to the bone. Since you only will need a single moving phys hull, it should work. Two problems:

- I think whatever is parented to the bone, needs to be convex. So thats like the ragdoll models are made up of seperate phys hulls, each attached to different bones.
- For some reason the phys parts get stuck on the player, and the animation continues on. The engine doesn't like collisions on animations. Just look at the vehicle escapes in The Passing and Dead Center. The vehicle just passes through any left over infected. I think valve just uses trigger_hurt to kill anything in it's path before the vehicle reaches it.

Keldorn · 01-21-2011, 03:16 PM

yes I did notice a long trail of trigger_hurt brushes that lead from the escape vehicle in the finale maps. I could of sworn though I saw a boomer get stuck on the escape vehicle sometimes and started moving with vehicle in crash course. There must be a collision going on or a glitch with the infected getting stuck on the trigger hurt?

I noticed this sometimes too func_tracktrain method of moving something, if you attach a trigger hurt to a func train, sometimes it fails to work and the infected get stuck on the thing and move with it. I see in the console the warning. "Bone access not allowed!" or something like that.

I think what I'll do for the collision is just put some brushes around it with the invis metal texture, since i can't even seem to get the collision to work properly when its idle. That should work. I've learned enough now to just get the animation to work. Thats all that important. It won't matter if its not solid as it takes off. lol

shotgunefx · 01-21-2011, 04:15 PM

Very good info!

Keldorn · 01-22-2011, 11:18 AM

HellaLouYaah if you read this thread again, do you know how to break off the wheels from the vehicle into seperate meshes?

HellaLouYaah · 01-22-2011, 11:29 AM

Yep, you need to select all the polygons you want, axel, wheels etc., that you want as a separate object, then go to poly.mesh>extract polygons(delete). If you choose keep, it keeps the selected polys, so you would keep the original ones.

What I noticed is that valve uses multiple primitive objects to make models. To make the selection easier, choose some polys on the wheel for example, then in the top right go to select>grow selection. Then you can just middle click the "select" button again, and it will repeat the last selection that you chose from that drop-down(grow). So just keep growing the selection until you get what you want, or until it runs out of connected polys.

Oh yeah, polygon raycast is the best selection method, it's the "u" key. Also the help files are good in XSI too, for more shortcuts.

Keldorn · 01-23-2011, 10:06 PM

Thanks, If I could give you rep again I would.

Without your initial help I would of given up. Turning all wheels into separate meshes and animating them was a breeze!

I think I'm starting to like to this xsi program a lot. 3D modeling is not as scary as I thought. Or maby its just I'm comfortable now working in 3D space now from using hammer.

HellaLouYaah · 01-23-2011, 10:51 PM

Well, it's pretty surprising that you learned it so quick actually, but I'm glad I could help. I would love to see the final thing sometime, maybe post a link or something.

Keldorn · 01-24-2011, 01:50 AM

I noticed after enveloping it all and the merging all the objects, the finale thing , the animation works, but the model stretches larger larger.. Is that problem with weights?
Also the wheel are missing in hammer editor. Still not quite there yet as thought. lol

Edit;
Nevermind figured it out.

Animation test #2 with moving wheels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpRpcWVBC0A

Quote:

Well, it's pretty surprising that you learned it so quick actually, but I'm glad I could help. I would love to see the final thing sometime, maybe post a link or something.

Well the final animation thing will be in my campaign.
http://www.l4dmaps.com/details.php?file=7359

HellaLouYaah · 01-24-2011, 02:28 PM

That campaign looks really well done! I'll give it a go soon.

How did you do the sound for the humvee? Is it an ambient_generic, or in the qc file?

Keldorn · 01-24-2011, 03:28 PM

The sound is being played from the model with ae_cl_playsound. There is a whole page here on these.
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/w...imation_Events

But I saw this decompiled Crashcourse escape vehicle .QC file.
$attachment is also really interesting, in the escape vehicle they attach the pointview multiplayer camera, lights and everything to nulls in the model. In the video I have the window attached to a null/bone in the model. I would be so lost without decompiles to learn from. lol

Keldorn · 01-26-2011, 05:42 PM

Hey I hope you don't mind another question. But when I"m using the "S" key to Pan around and get close to the model. Sometimes it refuses to move closer, when that happens, it gets slower and more harder to to pan around and then I can only zoom out. Wondering what the heck is causing that. It seems to be mostly a problem when I have the VMF geometry imported onto the scene for reference that this issue ensues.

If hammer editor was like that it would drive me nuts. I can't believe this XSI tool has something annoying like that in it.
Is that some settings I have to disable or what?

HellaLouYaah · 01-26-2011, 07:49 PM

LOL, I know what you mean.. But, that's just something you get used to. You'll find the hotkeys are REALLY useful. For instance, 'F' will center the viewpoint in which the mouse in on whatever is selected (polygon/object/point etc). Shift-F will center all views, and 'R' will reset the view to default.

I would use the default display layout if you're not already.

Also make sure that you set the camera view to user from the drop-down in that view(like in hammer), not camera.

To make it easier, you can scale down the vmf geometry by 1/4, or 1/8 if you want, it can help. Then in the qc have $scale 4 or 8. There are lots of little tricks, just try stuff out, can't hurt (undo is really useful

).

You can change the grid size for each view, from the little eyeball symbol>visibility options>visual cues, or for all cameras from the display dropdown at the top.

Holding ctrl toggles any snapping options(grid/point/line etc.) for aligning. If you want to merge points, go to polymesh>weld points. That removes the overlapping polygon issues.

If you haven't noticed, using middle-click on a dropdown automatically chooses the last choice selected from it previously.

Btw, I dont mind the answering any questions if I can help.

Keldorn · 01-27-2011, 12:37 AM

It is a bit weird. I figured out how to get around it. By panning sideways holding hte R mouse button getting near it then scrolling in. Just strange, I dont get why they would make the camera like that. And that "Z" key which zooms. That just messes up the whole view make it looks like your seeing threw a glass bowl. That just seems useless and there just to throw you off.

Here is another animation I made with the L4D1 police car. I think you'll be surprised at its quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58skrZz7E4s

I'm getting a pretty good hang of this animating with the Nulls. Still don't understand the Direct3D Chains yet though. lol This car in the video has all x axis turning wheels and 2 front wheels can turn on the y Axis as well. (as you can see in the video), there is also a carriage/suspension on the car you can see the body of the car moving a bit. Specially when it hits the fence.
So you do have alot of experience with XSI? Thanks for you help a lot with that long post you wrote on the first page of the thread that helped alot.

HellaLouYaah · 01-27-2011, 09:05 AM

Wows, that does look really convicing, especially how the car bounces from the suspension. I was wondering if you were able to import properly or not. The problem with mine is when I'm decompiling, then import it into XSI, all the skeletal info is lost or placed incorrectly, as well as the whole model is shifted 90 degrees. I haven't looked into it too much, but maybe you have some suggestions.

As for XSI experience, I have used the same modtool 6 over five years ago for CS:S, and then I started back when I got L4D2. The animation I just figured out a couple months ago, I just never tried due to lack of tutorials.

Here's something I found that helped me make a rolling garage door.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yQua6SGf1A

Oh yeah, don't use the z key, I think it's for rendering with camera effects(FOV I guess).

Keldorn · 01-27-2011, 01:25 PM

I think the hardest part to make look convincing is turning the car. I never realized how quickly cars can turn 90 degrees with only the front wheel turning. When I kept doing it the back wheel kept sliding and it looked unnatural. I had to go on youtube and get reference videos of cars turning. lol

I was never able to learn anything from decompiled animated models, Unless there is some way to combine back the skeleton animation smd with the mesh smd. It appears to be useless, except for the gleaning info of the .Qc file.

01-21-2011, 01:53 PM
HellaLouYaah Join Date: Jan 2010 Reputation: 17 Posts: 130	That's kinda a problem, I've found. You have to use collisionjoint in the qc, but the phys part has to be in the scene too, exported separately just on it's own(as one peice). Keep the bones/nulls in the scene, no other objects, and it needs parenting to the bone. Since you only will need a single moving phys hull, it should work. Two problems: - I think whatever is parented to the bone, needs to be convex. So thats like the ragdoll models are made up of seperate phys hulls, each attached to different bones. - For some reason the phys parts get stuck on the player, and the animation continues on. The engine doesn't like collisions on animations. Just look at the vehicle escapes in The Passing and Dead Center. The vehicle just passes through any left over infected. I think valve just uses trigger_hurt to kill anything in it's path before the vehicle reaches it.

01-21-2011, 03:16 PM
Keldorn Join Date: Feb 2010 Reputation: 120 Posts: 2,110	yes I did notice a long trail of trigger_hurt brushes that lead from the escape vehicle in the finale maps. I could of sworn though I saw a boomer get stuck on the escape vehicle sometimes and started moving with vehicle in crash course. There must be a collision going on or a glitch with the infected getting stuck on the trigger hurt? I noticed this sometimes too func_tracktrain method of moving something, if you attach a trigger hurt to a func train, sometimes it fails to work and the infected get stuck on the thing and move with it. I see in the console the warning. "Bone access not allowed!" or something like that. I think what I'll do for the collision is just put some brushes around it with the invis metal texture, since i can't even seem to get the collision to work properly when its idle. That should work. I've learned enough now to just get the animation to work. Thats all that important. It won't matter if its not solid as it takes off. lol Last edited by Keldorn: 01-21-2011 at 03:29 PM.

01-21-2011, 04:15 PM
shotgunefx Join Date: Jan 2010 Reputation: 45 Posts: 1,004	Very good info!

01-22-2011, 11:18 AM
Keldorn Join Date: Feb 2010 Reputation: 120 Posts: 2,110	HellaLouYaah if you read this thread again, do you know how to break off the wheels from the vehicle into seperate meshes?

01-22-2011, 11:29 AM
HellaLouYaah Join Date: Jan 2010 Reputation: 17 Posts: 130	Yep, you need to select all the polygons you want, axel, wheels etc., that you want as a separate object, then go to poly.mesh>extract polygons(delete). If you choose keep, it keeps the selected polys, so you would keep the original ones. What I noticed is that valve uses multiple primitive objects to make models. To make the selection easier, choose some polys on the wheel for example, then in the top right go to select>grow selection. Then you can just middle click the "select" button again, and it will repeat the last selection that you chose from that drop-down(grow). So just keep growing the selection until you get what you want, or until it runs out of connected polys. Oh yeah, polygon raycast is the best selection method, it's the "u" key. Also the help files are good in XSI too, for more shortcuts. Last edited by HellaLouYaah: 01-22-2011 at 11:31 AM.

01-23-2011, 10:06 PM
Keldorn Join Date: Feb 2010 Reputation: 120 Posts: 2,110	Thanks, If I could give you rep again I would. Without your initial help I would of given up. Turning all wheels into separate meshes and animating them was a breeze! I think I'm starting to like to this xsi program a lot. 3D modeling is not as scary as I thought. Or maby its just I'm comfortable now working in 3D space now from using hammer. Last edited by Keldorn: 01-23-2011 at 10:09 PM.

01-23-2011, 10:51 PM
HellaLouYaah Join Date: Jan 2010 Reputation: 17 Posts: 130	Well, it's pretty surprising that you learned it so quick actually, but I'm glad I could help. I would love to see the final thing sometime, maybe post a link or something.

01-24-2011, 02:28 PM
HellaLouYaah Join Date: Jan 2010 Reputation: 17 Posts: 130	That campaign looks really well done! I'll give it a go soon. How did you do the sound for the humvee? Is it an ambient_generic, or in the qc file?

01-24-2011, 03:28 PM
Keldorn Join Date: Feb 2010 Reputation: 120 Posts: 2,110	The sound is being played from the model with ae_cl_playsound. There is a whole page here on these. http://developer.valvesoftware.com/w...imation_Events But I saw this decompiled Crashcourse escape vehicle .QC file. $attachment is also really interesting, in the escape vehicle they attach the pointview multiplayer camera, lights and everything to nulls in the model. In the video I have the window attached to a null/bone in the model. I would be so lost without decompiles to learn from. lol

01-26-2011, 05:42 PM
Keldorn Join Date: Feb 2010 Reputation: 120 Posts: 2,110	Hey I hope you don't mind another question. But when I"m using the "S" key to Pan around and get close to the model. Sometimes it refuses to move closer, when that happens, it gets slower and more harder to to pan around and then I can only zoom out. Wondering what the heck is causing that. It seems to be mostly a problem when I have the VMF geometry imported onto the scene for reference that this issue ensues. If hammer editor was like that it would drive me nuts. I can't believe this XSI tool has something annoying like that in it. Is that some settings I have to disable or what?

01-26-2011, 07:49 PM
HellaLouYaah Join Date: Jan 2010 Reputation: 17 Posts: 130	LOL, I know what you mean.. But, that's just something you get used to. You'll find the hotkeys are REALLY useful. For instance, 'F' will center the viewpoint in which the mouse in on whatever is selected (polygon/object/point etc). Shift-F will center all views, and 'R' will reset the view to default. I would use the default display layout if you're not already. Also make sure that you set the camera view to user from the drop-down in that view(like in hammer), not camera. To make it easier, you can scale down the vmf geometry by 1/4, or 1/8 if you want, it can help. Then in the qc have $scale 4 or 8. There are lots of little tricks, just try stuff out, can't hurt (undo is really useful ). You can change the grid size for each view, from the little eyeball symbol>visibility options>visual cues, or for all cameras from the display dropdown at the top. Holding ctrl toggles any snapping options(grid/point/line etc.) for aligning. If you want to merge points, go to polymesh>weld points. That removes the overlapping polygon issues. If you haven't noticed, using middle-click on a dropdown automatically chooses the last choice selected from it previously. Btw, I dont mind the answering any questions if I can help.

01-27-2011, 12:37 AM
Keldorn Join Date: Feb 2010 Reputation: 120 Posts: 2,110	It is a bit weird. I figured out how to get around it. By panning sideways holding hte R mouse button getting near it then scrolling in. Just strange, I dont get why they would make the camera like that. And that "Z" key which zooms. That just messes up the whole view make it looks like your seeing threw a glass bowl. That just seems useless and there just to throw you off. Here is another animation I made with the L4D1 police car. I think you'll be surprised at its quality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58skrZz7E4s I'm getting a pretty good hang of this animating with the Nulls. Still don't understand the Direct3D Chains yet though. lol This car in the video has all x axis turning wheels and 2 front wheels can turn on the y Axis as well. (as you can see in the video), there is also a carriage/suspension on the car you can see the body of the car moving a bit. Specially when it hits the fence. So you do have alot of experience with XSI? Thanks for you help a lot with that long post you wrote on the first page of the thread that helped alot. Last edited by Keldorn: 01-27-2011 at 12:45 AM.

01-27-2011, 09:05 AM
HellaLouYaah Join Date: Jan 2010 Reputation: 17 Posts: 130	Wows, that does look really convicing, especially how the car bounces from the suspension. I was wondering if you were able to import properly or not. The problem with mine is when I'm decompiling, then import it into XSI, all the skeletal info is lost or placed incorrectly, as well as the whole model is shifted 90 degrees. I haven't looked into it too much, but maybe you have some suggestions. As for XSI experience, I have used the same modtool 6 over five years ago for CS:S, and then I started back when I got L4D2. The animation I just figured out a couple months ago, I just never tried due to lack of tutorials. Here's something I found that helped me make a rolling garage door. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yQua6SGf1A Oh yeah, don't use the z key, I think it's for rendering with camera effects(FOV I guess). Last edited by HellaLouYaah: 01-27-2011 at 09:20 AM.

01-27-2011, 01:25 PM
Keldorn Join Date: Feb 2010 Reputation: 120 Posts: 2,110	I think the hardest part to make look convincing is turning the car. I never realized how quickly cars can turn 90 degrees with only the front wheel turning. When I kept doing it the back wheel kept sliding and it looked unnatural. I had to go on youtube and get reference videos of cars turning. lol I was never able to learn anything from decompiled animated models, Unless there is some way to combine back the skeleton animation smd with the mesh smd. It appears to be useless, except for the gleaning info of the .Qc file.