Crew animation & 3d models.

[MGR1]

Has anyone figured out roughly how these interact?

I remember that Keltos tried some alterations to the crew 3d figures for his I-Boat mod, but ended up with crazy mesh syndrome.

Reading through the animation thread in the SH3 forum has got me thinking.

It'd be great if you could alter/import the 3d models for the crew to give greater variety and to cater for other nationalities (Russian & Japanese for starters) without the mesh doing weird and wonderful things!

Mike.

[Jan Kyster]

You mean something like this? http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//sho...d.php?t=175980

[MGR1]

Hi Jan,

Not really - I know adding extra crew is relatively easy, using existing animations as a basis.

What I mean is making physical alterations to the model, like Captain Cox did to the Officers hat.

At the moment, we've only got USN or Kreigsmarine uniforms for the crew and I think it would be great if we could change the models to represent other navies.

IIRC, the main issue is that any alteration to the 3d model doesn't show correctly ingame as it seems to alter geometry between the mesh and how the animations work. As a result the mesh goes haywire.

I was wondering if anyone has any idea how the 3d models and the animations affect each other?

Mike.

[iambecomelife]

I also need help with this for my WWI mod. I tried adding a new cap but it crashed the game, even though it had worked in SHIII. If anyone knows how CaptCox made his hat, that would be extremely helpful.

[skwasjer]

The problem is there is no way to import crew animations. Crew anims rely on bone transforms, and this is the only part of the DAT-format I only managed to crack for about 60%. So we're out of luck I guess...

There have been some succesfull attempts iirc, you could try replacing some parts of the model making sure you keep the model similar to the original you replace, but this is very tricky, because the bone animation can't be changed, so if the new model is off, it will not animate properly

You can try alternative routes like mesh anims, but this is very heavy on gpu and not controllable with the controllers/walkthrough that Ducimus created...

[MGR1]

OK, I'm going to show my ignorence here - "bone transforms"?

I take it that from the sound of it, these are built directly into the models and that is what causes the main problem?

What about something like the lifebelt that's in there as well?

It's only a singleton and doesn't appear to animate in any way.

I've managed to get it to appear on the guncrews ala Ducimus' getting the M1 helmets to appear as well.

Problem is, the crew models podgy gut sticks through it!

Is it possible to alter that into a proper "Mae West" type shape without any affect?

Mike.

[MGR1]

Okay-doke,

Got some screens to show what I mean:










The area round the collar isn't too bad, but the life vests could do with a bit of puffing out to compensate for the rain coat and the figures' bodies.

Mike.

Things like that are fairly easy to modify.
They use a different animation to work with the Crew.

As skwasjer pointed out?
The animations in SH4 work differently then in SH3.
He did not have time to finish figureing out the whole animations for SH4.
I'm still trying to finish figureing them out.

[skwasjer]

Originally Posted by MGR1

OK, I'm going to show my ignorence here - "bone transforms"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_animation

But this is specifically for the SH4-crew anims, the more interactive ones (controlled by SMC).