Rendering infantry units

[Deleted]

Jul 29, 2013 1:24:28 GMT 1 Major Pain said:

Quick reply...

I use 1.8 meters for the height of a soldier.   This is approximately 6 foot.   This might be a bit taller for some soldiers but suits the purpose.   If you use 2 meters, then the soldier is too tall.

Like other BK 3D models... Soldiers do not have a shadow layer.   The shadow is added by the game engine.  

2D buildings and objects must have the shadow layer, which is added within the exported file.


I hope this helps

MP

OK, maybe the shadows must be done individually, but I am not completely convinced about how the frames have to be taken, I mean, depending on how the camera and the zoom are set up, frames are exported in a bigger or smaller size, with one angle or another...

[Major Pain]

You are correct about what size the model or image is.   It will be rescaled in the xx.tga file.  



Look in the BK Resource Kit at the infantry frames.   There are no shadows.  

But when you run the soldier through the RESEDITOR.... 


They magically appears...



Just like in the game.


Don't make it harder than you need to... you'll kill too many brain cells...  

[Deleted]

Jul 29, 2013 20:16:30 GMT 1 Major Pain said:

You are correct about what size the model or image is.   It will be rescaled in the xx.tga file.  



Look in the BK Resource Kit at the infantry frames.   There are no shadows.  

But when you run the soldier through the RESEDITOR.... 


They magically appears...



Just like in the game.


Don't make it harder than you need to... you'll kill too many brain cells...  

If you check out carefully the .tga files in the Resource Kit you'll see their Alpha Channel has got shadows (delete the selection and you'll see, I don't know how that's done).

[Major Pain]

Duh...

Well I looked at my 'work' backup hard drive from my laptop...  

Yep... you're correct.  

That is what I get for not looking back at it before I open my mouth.

That shadow you are seeing is created in a separate layer when it is rendered.   As subtle as it is... the sun is overhead slightly from behind and to the left.  You'll need to set the light in MAYA as a constant.

You need to set the light around 65-70 degrees  x -45 or +315 degrees.   65-70 degrees is about the view from overhead...  -45 or 315  is the degrees of the sun... or light.   The 'up' direction is 360 or zero degrees.   To the left -45 = 315 degrees.   You'll have to render set the shadow color, white or light purple, then change that layer to gray scale.  Save these as .psp then merge layers into .tga after shadow layer is GSd.   That is the missing step.

I can't get into MAYA at the moment on this laptop... so I can't advise how to set everything.

It's been a while since I worked on those...  funny how you forget those little things...   might be why I hate infantry builds.


EDIT:   I could actually feel the brain cells screaming as they died...

[Deleted]

Jul 29, 2013 21:47:16 GMT 1 Major Pain said:

Duh...

Well I looked at my 'work' backup hard drive from my laptop...  

Yep... you're correct.  

That is what I get for not looking back at it before I open my mouth.

That shadow you are seeing is created in a separate layer when it is rendered.   As subtle as it is... the sun is overhead slightly from behind and to the left.  You'll need to set the light in MAYA as a constant.

You need to set the light around 65-70 degrees  x -45 or +315 degrees.   65-70 degrees is about the view from overhead...  -45 or 315  is the degrees of the sun... or light.   The 'up' direction is 360 or zero degrees.   To the left -45 = 315 degrees.   You'll have to render set the shadow color, white or light purple, then change that layer to gray scale.  Save these as .psp then merge layers into .tga after shadow layer is GSd.   That is the missing step.

I can't get into MAYA at the moment on this laptop... so I can't advise how to set everything.

It's been a while since I worked on those...  funny how you forget those little things...   might be why I hate infantry builds.


EDIT:   I could actually feel the brain cells screaming as they died...

Ok, it's late here, let me check it tomorrow morning and I'll let you know. It seems complicated to me as well...

Cee yha tomorow (excuse me, any spelling mistake is caused by the death of some brain cells).

[Deleted]

Thanks for your explanation, Major. Now I only need a soldier with bones so that I can animate it in Maya... sir?

BTW - I managed to contact tgd: He has become a father (his son is 15 months old) and works as an engineer. Here's his explanation about this subject:

"Well, about how to create a soldier in BK, it is very hard.
I can see that you already can make models and skins, the next step is to set 8 cameras on 8 directions
and adjust the lens to get proper size, to do this, there is not any secret skills, just try many times, by comparing
with the original spirits in the game. and of cause you need to animate the model for needed pauses first and render
each pause only.

About the shadows, I do not know how to create them by rendering, I modified the rendered pictures by hand
for only one soldier, most of my soldiers have not shadows, this is why I have not release them.

One more thing, if you can write C programs you can make a program to name the rendered pictures and send
them to proper folders as what the reseditor dose. this will save much time."

[Major Pain]

Hmmm

The issue is using MAYA with a Boned model with animations.   Been there and failed.   That is why I use 3D MAX and NifSkope.   The difference in NifSkope is you must mark the animation frames before hand, then change the model direction for the single camera.

You can of course create a soldier or rebuild on with a hybrid joint system, Shoulders, Elbows, Hip, and knees.   You can assign animations to those, but the process would be very complicated.  Each joint would require rotation and elevation/depression, much like Turrets and GunCarriages.  

My original soldier had these and the plan was to animate the crew in the Priest when loading and firing.   Well the size of the crew in polys was about twice the size of the base model... running right at 1.6 mb completed.   Each soldiers used the same animation sequences, moving arms, one soldier moved sideways to grab a shell to load.  In MAYA, it looked great.   In BK it crashed.   The tanks viewer would not load the model due to the sheer size.  I originally thought the size cause the issue, but since then many of my 3D models have sizes well over 1 mb.... so something else caused it.

The animations were much like the install and uninstall animations on artillery, but they only worked during loading and firing in that case.   The animation sequences pretty much pushed the limits of what BK could handle, but in the end, I scrapped that project since I could not make it work.

Another issue is the animation frames are finite.  I'm afraid you would run out of the allotted frames before you defined every motion.  On my model I used it all just for the death and load/fire.   That did not include any leg motions, and only limited arm and body motions.

If you have not looked at NifSkope, you should.   It will expand your knowledge base pretty quick.   I'll supply a model if you choose to take my advice.   I have several that you can use from the box, or you can reskin as you like.

[Major Pain]

The image shows an example of building a new soldier.   Notice NifSkope is open in the lower left.   I use NifSkope to display the soldier and the animation sequence.

This example illustrates the soldier running in the RightDown position.   I cut this to 7 frames, instead of the normal 9 or 10.

First we have to build the Sprite Sheet from the various Animation Frames.  After we build the SS, we remove the background, which I set within NifSkope.   Black is the default, but I chose Magnetta since it is traditionally used for background transparencies.

The smaller .tga in the upper left is the original BK US Rifleman.  Since the Source xx.tga files are 64 x 64 pixels, we'll need to rescale the SS before we try to create the individual xx.tga frames.   You might notice that the two Infantry Sprite Sheets are at 50% of Scale, so you can understand how much you will need to Scale down the Sheet.

Once we begin to create the Individual Sprite Frames (xx.tga)... we simply Open a Blank 64 x 64 pixel image file.   Then we copy the Soldier Animation Frame from the Sprite Sheet, and copy it to the Blank canvas.   Since they need to all fall into a specific region of the canvas, I usually create a 'Framer Layer' that has a background color, but the placement location is transparent.   If I need any other guides, they are added to the Framer Layer.  Once all of these Frames are completed, I can check the soldier in the RESEDITOR to see if he lines up correctly.   In this particular case, the soldier will bob up and down slightly as he runs.   Also notice that the rifle will move, slightly swaying left and right as well as up and down.

This particular soldier would not be one I would use to complete a BK Soldier.  It lacks the crawling and throwing animations.   Although, it does have the death and shoot animations, as well as the fidget frames.
 

[Deleted]

Nevertheless, I like this soldiermodel a lot! I hope you all find a way to create new infantry! It would be such an improvement!

[Major Pain]

Thanks


I should have mentioned that the Soldier is one I worked on for CIV IV.    

Model was created in 3D Max, refined and animations added in Blender.

EDIT:   I see that Kevin did sound off on my posts...

I see ya dude....

[Deleted]

civ IV? never played it, but improved infantry would still be nice. Is it not a possability to rework the existing ones to more detail? Like compress to higher res?

Ps: @mp: what means your last edit?

[Deleted]

I haven't forgotten this topic, Major. I'll provide an answer as soon as possible.

[Major Pain]

@kevin:   work on what you need to... no hurry.    I'm down at the moment anyway and can't really do much to add to conversation.

@vo:  I saw Kevin hiding when I posted...   he "LIKED" my last post and I caught him.  

The CIV IV soldiers are very detailed as you can see in the image I posted.   The problem is scaling them to about 1.8 meters or thereabouts.   Once they are scaled down, they still lose much of that detail.   Pixels can only handle so much so a good amount of coupling occurs.  Coupling or quadding is when 4 pixels are reduced to 1 when rescaling.   The new color generally will be the darker of the 4, sometimes it will be a blend of two darker prominent colors.

In CIV IV and similar games that allow zoom and rotate, it was necessary to create 3D soldiers.   BKII uses 3D soldiers but they are a bit different than Civ IV and Civ V.   I explored BKII somewhat and looked at the Soldier models.  They were created using Granny, yet another 3D model software, by RADGAMETOOLS.   My experience with Granny was within CIV V.   Most model builders aftermarket use Blender due to the cost.

The soldier I used in my post was built with 3D Max, by AutoDesk, same folks that own MAYA.  The forward progress of 3D people and animations have moved at lightning speed and can be found everywhere.   Many late released MOVIES like AVATAR incorporated Granny and 3D Max depended heavily for the animations and graphics.   They have become much more than cartoonish, but almost so realistic, you have trouble at times seeing the difference between real and HisRes Graphics.

Sadly, BK is limited by the game engine and original purpose.   We must remember that the BK project began in 2001.  In terms of the computer age, that was a lifetime ago.  With the first BETA release in 2002, early players comments are not too much different than today.  They marveled at the graphics and game play.  The AI was way before it's time and in many ways has not been topped.   The Open-Source programming at the time was unheard of  in the gaming industry.  Many game companies at first followed Nivals lead, but we are finding that trend moving back to Closed Source games once again.

For example, Firaxis provided many tools for CIV IV, but as of now, very few for CIV V.   Their intent mostly is driven by aftermarket releases and lost revenue if modders release as good of work as Sid Meirer.  With the next Civ V Addon coming out soon, once again the modder is left to his own devices.   Since I worked on projects going back to CIV II, the road has now come full circle.  I saw the same from the developers of 7K and Settlers Series.  I might add... the MODDERS in CIV V have prevailed somewhat by developing their own tools to MOD the game.   And yes, they can now create new 3D people with animations.  The file system was not too different from CIV IV so the code cracking started as soon as it was released.  The 3-D people were the most significant change to the game by the way they were created and animated.  But gamers always find a way to get past many obstacles.

Since NIVAL long abandoned the BK Series, it is up to us (the players) to continue to push BK as far as we can.   If I could ever gain permission to rework the code, we could move the bar a lot further and much faster.  But I get the sense from recent comments coming from NIVAL....  they may very well pick this Series back up.   War Games have never enjoyed the success and interest they do as now.   Since BK put NIVAL into the BIG BOY catagory, it makes sense for them to come back to it.  We can hope.

We must understand how the game industry changes and determines their future projects.   It seems the Developers are in a period of which they do not respond to their customers.   They get it in their Development Teams Mindset that they know what the customers want, or if they create a new project, the sales will follow.   That has not been working for most lately,  look at SIMS lately.  Sometimes they can exploit a Series too much, but at some point the sales are so low that the project fails.   Today's artist are paid for work generated that is accepted than what they actually deliver.   This is a painful way to make a living.  The days of the huge development teams have given way to the E-Artist.  They work mostly at home and send their work in on a schedule.  That has been my experience on 3 projects in the last 3 years.  Most of the business is conducted by phone or email... sometimes by IM or Boards.

As for BK soldiers... we are still stuck with Sprites.  There is just no way to introduce 3D soldiers and animations to our favorite game.  For those that really want to see that, BK II or perhaps another game is out there.  Unfortunately.

MP

[Deleted]

Thanks for your understanding

Aug 3, 2013 23:15:12 GMT 1 Major Pain said:

@kevin:   work on what you need to... no hurry.    I'm down at the moment anyway and can't really do much to add to conversation.