@Amen Moses: You can purchase 3D animations on most 3D model stores and rig different models to them. You can also export animations from one model to another provided you rerig them. Rigging is key here and quite a pain for a beginner so have some coffee ready.



I know what you are getting here and I don't think this will work...at all. Unless you laserscan a 3D object it should be barely possible to get the results you'd want, let alone LowPoly. I've seen such software before and the results where usually beyond terrible. Maybe it has advanced by now, so I don't know for sure. Feel free to try and if you do, please let us know how it went.



-Wolf

Is this the program you're using? The video looks promising at making 3 D models but I've never used it myself

http://store.steampowered.com/app/438450

No, mine is called Strata Foto 3D Lite, runs on my Mac and I've used it to create small static models but wouldn't know how to even start trying to rig them for animating.

You can specify the number of triangles in the mesh and the size of the texture map. The resulting meshes look ok but I'm no expert.

Here's a good learning video for an addon for blender to put a skeleton on the two legged character pretty easy. They also have a lot of the other tutorials to teach you the movements. You might also try maximo's web site that will Rigg your character for you and you can also add animations. I messed with it a little bit while trying to do my character. In the long run, it's probably best to learn the old fashioned way though

https://www.mixamo.com/auto-rigger



By the way, your new models look great harry! Excellent dinosaurs!

Oke update:

This time a smaller dino, the compy....



Harry

Daww! is that a compsognhatus?

Edit:

Yes it is! It helps to read sometimes.

Really cool!!



-Wolf

I reckon that one would be striped or spotted. Probably had feathers too.

@AmenMoses: I don't think Harry is going for absolute scientific accuracy here.

@HarryWever: Now that you have modeled many similar head structures, you could add some kinda water creature. You'd only need the head to pop up! It would make a great ambush enemy. Like in this piece of 70s awesomness:





-Wolf

yeah i love the idea...very cool...
hmmmm

and about the compy..dino's give a bit of artist freedom.. its never accurate, over the years things change..and what we know about dino's..

Smallg worked hard, for new scripts. that they attack in a pack, also the raptors.. and the trex..and that they also attack each other.
very cool..
I hope to show more soon..

Harry

Thinking in compsognhatus, days ago was looking jurassic park movie.
Fantastic as usually Harry!, and please keep up the artist freedom, you allows real life, deal with reality.

3com

So this is my first attempt with Strato Foto 3D with a toy Brachy that happened to be lying around.

I didn't quite get the focusing right in a few images and I just accepted all the default setting (plus didn't calibrate my lenses or get the lighting quite as even as I'd like) but the resulting mesh doesn't look that bad.

I'd love to see something from the Brachiosauridae or Sauropoda families.

Something like the Brachiosaur or Diplodocus would be awesome

I have the brachio allready finished, but the problem is the size... GG can not handle large creatures.
Gg give a 80 unit height physics capsule , ( according to Lee) larger then that and the entity is not visible anymore,
And in my opinion it is to small now.. a brachio needs to be real large..
smallg tried hard to make it work as set character=0 but then there are other problems. it falls over when Climbing a hill or flips over when you push it etc etc..to many problems.
So no brachio, or a smaller one , or it has to wait until the engine supports it..

Harry

What about really long enemies? Like a diplodocus? He'd not be higher than the T-Rex but very long.



-Wolf

That is a idea.. i can test that with the brachio, and lower the head and neck .. more to the front... maybe thats possible then

Harry

How about instead of one large character, chop it up into several pieces, maybe have legs and body in one and tail and neck separate. You would have to make sure that the points where they join are 'anchored' so it is easier to work out the offsets to use when positioning them and make sure that no gaps can be seen between them.

My lifts script which I posted a while back uses 8 separate entities to make the lift and places them at runtime to make it look like one object, the processing would be similar for a multi-piece animated character although the math would be a little more complicated.

Let me expand on this a bit

Have the 'body and legs' be a character, within the Lua script for this have a list of anchor points (as offsets from the position of the main part), per animation start frame, for the neck and tail. The neck and tail parts are not characters just active entities with separatee animations of their own, the Lua script for the neck and tail simply checks the frame of the main character, looks up the offsets, does a bit of math to work out the angular orientation then places the neck and tail in the correct position relative to the body.

The big advantage of this is you can have the head an tail parts animate separately from the body.

Some clever texturing would be needed at the join points to hide them though.

oke..

major update reagrds to the scripting..
Smallg made fantastic new scripts forr all the dino's.
Packhunting, choose the prey, you can place the dino's solo, and with waypoints..
Triceratops fighting together.
you can place for example 3 raptors, and you can set in the script.. packhunting=3
so if you place two, no packhunting but they act normal with idle attack etc
if you place three the they attack the larger prey,
many settings in the script, with clear commenting from smallg what it does. and what you can do..
and this for all the dino's this far... The T-rex, triceratop, Raptors, compy.
i am working on a Spinosuarus, so that one will also get such a script..

its to much to show in one video... so i hope you see what is all possible with this scripts...
and soon a better video..
And as Always a huge thank you to smallg for these scripts..



Harry

@AmenMoses

Sounds like it would work but to be honest I would not want a model so complex to setup myself ..
I would rather just hold out till Lee make adjustments for this ?

indeed, not worth it and wouldnt be accepted into the store afaik so best to just stick with a smaller one... it's still a decent size imo.
hope we will see some Jurassic park based WIPs soon

Hi all,

this is the brachio i had to make smaller..see pic..
i will put it in the store, but it is not as big as i would like to.
so buyers beware of that..



the next i am working on is the Spinosaurus:




Still al lot of work, like skinning and bones.. but getting there slowly

Harry

Tried another one, this time with lens calibration and better lighting.

Shows promise I think.

aaargggg.

sometimes, i hate windows....
today i was working on the bones of the spinosaurus. well. windows was also updating..
And you guess.. everything hangs and stops responding.. so i have to start over...grrr

Harry

@AmenMoses

Please create your own Dino thread in " Free Models and Media "
This is " 3rd Party Models and Media " So users can show their WIP usually for the store.
Its great to take part in the discussion and comment on what's being created for the store but not really cool hijacking a thread with free content which doesn't belong in this section anyway ..

"Want to show off your WIP media? ... or need help creating media for GameGuru? Then this is where you'll want to be."

Apparently not!

But this is harrywever's works in progress page so posting your works in progress on his page seems a little disrespectful. If you're trying to get help or advice from harry why not send him a PM instead? He's a nice guy, I'm sure he'd give you some input. what synchromesh was saying isnt unreasonable or something to be offended by. I like where your dinosaur is going, I'd be interested in seeing your wip page if you decide to make one

Awesome! Harry.

3com

No its not ....
I do not find it acceptable for someone to start posting their own media in someone else's WIP thread in fact I find it quite rude.


Of course you can in your own WIP thread.


You haven't actually asked for any that I can see your just posting your work here ..

I thought it was explicit in my very first post, i.e. (aimed at those with the requisite knowledge, mainly but not explicitly, the OP) is it possible to take a static model made by a certain process and animate it. I then attached examples of said process so that those with requisite knowledge could examine them and assess whether this is a viable prospect or not. They are not a WIP, nor 'free media' but simply an example (related to the thread by virtue of being dinosaurs) of the output of said process.

I very much doubt I will ever put any 3D models on the store as I find the whole process baffling and can't understand why it is so, seemingly intentionally, over complicated. Mind you I expect others feel the same way about 2d sprite manipulation or AI logic or Lua scripting but that is the beauty of being here, we can all contribute where we have expertise and hopefully in a collective way make life easier for those who would like to create games.

The only thing explicit is a question was about animations regarding certain software which Wolf answered ... If no one else replied then you can assume they do not know ... Certainly no one requested you post models to take a look .... Even if they did I would have recommended you starting your own thread

Rather than argue I suggest you create your own thread requesting help and giving full details of your software ..You can then post your models there and get full attention from whoever has the knowledge to help which would be more sensible than posting in someone else's WIP ..

Apologies Harry .., Once this is sorted I will then tidy up your thread ..

no problem Synchromesh.

and AmenMoses..

If you need help, just start a thread, and i or others are alway's willing to help.
or pm me.. no problem..i only work with 3ds max and fragmotion, but there are a whole lot of others that are using blender ot wings 3d.

Harry

@AmenMoses:
Firstly to animate an object depends on the 3d software that you use that is capable of doing such a task.

Mostly this is not just one discipline, it involves several and has a steep learning curve and lots of trial and error till YOU find a work flow and programs to make it happen.

First step is getting the model and getting it textured. (you have done that). Polygon limit for one object is 20,000 polies, over that and strange things start to happen.

Acquire a model program with animation capabilities. Fragmotion, 3ds max, Truespace 3d, or any number of others that are available. (no body can help you if they dont know which program you use.)

Second step is to learn how to add bones to the mesh to drive the animations you want. Usually take a month or so to learn this and put it to practice.
It is called rigging.

Third step is to learn how to attach said bones to the mesh you want animated. Weighting the verticies to the bones in such a way to achieve the mesh not stretching in a non intended way. You will need to work at this as you may have to rotate joint to see the stretching effect on the mesh and to see if it is acceptable. Any 1 verticies can only be pulled and stretched from no more then 3 bones

Fourth step is to learn how to animate said bones and record the Key frames so you have them for export. This usually takes another month of trial and error till you become somewhat proficient at it. If you are not going to wright your own script, then you must conform your animations to what is being used in a script. You can look at the last section of an FPE file for a character and see how they setup the frames to match the script calls.

Finally you will have to get the whole thing into Game Guru. You can not use the model importer as it does not consider what animations you are using. So you will need a model program capable of exporting an animated direct x file. You will have to setup the FPE file and script to match your needs.
Most reliable programs are Fragmotion and 3ds Max and Blender. You will need to research other programs for such capabilities.

Then you will need to test it in Game Guru and make any adjustments to make it function for you.
There is not magic way to make it happen but your own desire to get it done.

So with that said, can you please start a WIP progress thread of your own, then I will transfer your post in this thread to your OWN WIP thread. There you can ask all the question you want and post your work.

You will still need to find a model program first that you can deal with to get all the above task complete before you can even start the above tasks.

Thank you.


@Harry:
Fabulous work as always, your skills are developing greatly.

your work is awesome
don't know what else to say

Thank you..

update for the spinosaurus.. working now on the anims.. i've got idle, attack. eating and walking..
So a lot more anims to go , but it is a start...
see video:



Harry

Incredible !!
Such smooth animations ..... Its an amazing collection

Damn it Harry - you are good! lol

I don't know what coffee you are drinking but I want some - Incredible work m8.

Reliquia....

@Harry

Why is it so many complain that characters should be fbx and .X is a real pain ?
You seem to create them with perfect ease and very fast ....

Hi synchromesh..
I don't know ... i make them and animate them.. then i save it as fbx.. to combine all the anims...
The only step for GG is to import the saved fbx and then save it as X file.. so i also don't see the problem.
its for me only one step more. thats it..


Harry

I have rally strange issues with the T-Rex. It looks like a polygonal clusterf* and keeps spinning around when I place it, instead of killing the player properly

That spinosaurus is simply brilliant!

A update about the spinosaurus.
its been awhile after my surgery, but finally can go further with the dino..

I add some animations , like hit anim, and one dead.. still need some extra dead anims..


video:



Harry

Nice to see you back, Harry - Spinosaurus is looking good.

Welcome back.

Yah Welcome back Harry!
Nice skin and animation here.

3com

Spinosaurus is available in the store now...


Harry

All of the dino's are unavailable for now..
after the update many things like the dead are not playing anymore.

Harry

Yeah, since the last update, I have found on some models that animantions are super fast, and when lightmapped or adding specular won't work, and have not been able to find a work around yet.

Reliquia....

well with the help of smallg.. all of the dino's are available again and working..
there is a small change in the update..
it had to do with the exit part in the script.. CharacterControlLimbo(e) in the exit(e) part
Thank you smallg


Harry

Hello

I was wondering if I have the pack already will the update be automatic or are you going to make the update as a download to those who already have the pack?

if all goes well. the update should be automatic.
today i updated the store.. if you choose in the GG editor\ download store items.. the updated ones downloads then..

Tomorrow i make a pack.. for if people want all the dino's with some discount..
Harry

Just incredible work !!
Any plans for others Harry ?