[WIP]Mermaids

[thomas00126]

well this is an interesting turn of events

[wishnot4]

Hold up.  I'm not 100% on board for this.  I'm a rigger, who happens to have some skills that most don't.  But I have my own projects to work on - a lot of them - and that many animations is more than a little ridiculous for one person to do.  I'm not trying to sound wishy/washy here, this is just a major undertaking.  I'm only considering helping out, not saying I will.  I'm not an animator.  I want this to be perfectly understood.  I can make impressive things(just check out the gorgon race for an example) but I have my limits.  And a list of mods longer than my arm to work on.  Giving you my skeleton rig for the custom tail bones is the most likely thing I can do, anything else is still up in the air.

[firepower02]

The thing is, if you make a new skeleton for the mermaid, it will need a whole new set of animations. Just like last time, you sent me a new skeleton, the current mermaid animation I have won't work with it.

 

The purpose of a new skeleton for the mermaid is to make the tail portion more flexible. What we have right now, the tail only bends in the knee area.

 

If you can make a new skeleton for the mermaid, yes, please use the current tail we have, and make it available for every body type, and xpmse as base.

But this means the current incomplete animation we have right now won't work with them, is that right? We're going to need new animations, and it's the thing that has always been missing.

 

What do you mean vanilla animations I'm wanting to change for mermaids? The mermaids won't use vanilla animations because vanilla animations are meant for humanoids with feet. The mermaids have tails, and they are using custom animations for movements. If you download and play the mod you would know what animations are missing, when they suddenly stand up on their tail, that's the vanilla animation, and that's what's missing.

[wishnot4]

What I mean by vanilla animations is, I've only ever successfully made animations that were replacers.  i.e. they had the same name as the vanilla animations.  This is because I've never been able to get behavior stuff to work.  There is a possible technique that might allow the legs to move the tail and have a open body type(meaning any body wanted to use).  But the animations would probably not look very good.  So, you're right, it would need all new animations. As I've stated, I can make animations, but I'm very subpar at them.  Plus, I do have a very long list of projects I'm already helping out with.  Just to name a few, Beasts of Tamriel, Sea of Spirits, Witches' Festival, The Gorgon Race, the Tsaesci race, the Lamia race, a possible wereshark mod(this is a branch off of BoT), and hopefully the centaur race.  And that's only half of them.  And my team is a very small team.  I do all the rigging, some of the animations, the TRI file work, and much more. So, I'm not sure what all work I can do for you at any given moment.  Also, I believe the mod team leader is also planning on a mermaid mod.  Though, his is very different.  First off, he's wanting to base the look off of one of the very old lore images(from one of the earliest games).  And he's planning a bubble ring or something(not sure) for when they are on land. 

 

No, you're right,  I haven't played the mod yet.  Actually, I'm not really interested in mermaids.  I just like rigging stuff.  For example, I have now 90% functioning centaur.  Player character centaur, that is.  I haven't made more than the basic walk animation yet because I don't know how to do the animation race exclusivity.  I understand your dilemma.  I've tried to find animators too because I'm not very good at it.  Though, something I've learned from my centaur race, I can combine the animations of one creature with the animations of another(that's how I made the walk animation for the centaur.  I merged the horse walking with the human walking). That is a possible way to work the mermaids.  But what creature would the fish half of the mermaid be?  If I could make the skeleton rig be a combination between the humanoid skeleton and that of a swimming creature, then I could stream line the animations.  That would cut down the time needed to make each animation(because I would in effect be using the game's already existing animations to make new ones.)  I don't know.  It still has a pretty big issue, what creature to use?  I can't think of any that moves they way you've all described in the posts.  I'll tell you point blank, I can make a fancy rig for you.  The tail would have great flexibility, and I should even be able to give it HDT physics.  But the animations all depends on what you want.  If you've got a creature in mind to be the fish half, I can probably knock a bunch of animations out for you no sweat.  If you're waning a completely custom fish half, that will need a lot of custom animations, that takes time. It's as simple as that.

[firepower02]

The closest vanilla creature that would have animation like the fish part of the mermaid is the horker, minus the horker's hind legs, so just the horker's tail part.

 

The animations have the same file name with the vanilla, they just have a different behavior file. So if ever you make mermaid animations, just name them the same.

 

so what you are saying is, make the mermaid use animations of human for the upper half, and the tail part uses the horker. Is this possible? I'd like to see how it looks.

[wishnot4]

I haven't made the rig yet.  But for the centaur rig I've got right now, it looks good when combine the horse animation with the human animation.  I could hook up a rig that uses the horker tail and the human skeleton together.  I'm not 100% how good the animations would look, I've always thought the horkers moved too awkward for a mermaid.  But I guess for the land movements, it would match up okay.

[firepower02]

ok can you upload it here?

we actually have a few land movement animations for the mermaid with xpmse skeleton. does that mean it wont be used anymore if you make a new skeleton?

btw, about the mermaid mesh we have, there's a seam at the neck and wrist, will you be able to fix it? and the tail part wasn't rigged perfectly, can you re rig it to one leg?

and what did you say about adding hdt?

[wishnot4]

First, I haven't made the rig yet.  I can, and it wouldn't take long, but I haven't done it yet because there are somethings I need to know first.  I'll list them at the end.  Second, no, if I make a new rig(one that would give more movement to the tail) all the animations would have to be redone.  Third, my rig technique would fix the seam issue, no problem.  Fourth, I could possibly re-rig the tail with the current skeleton, but it still wouldn't have the best movements.  This would mean that you wouldn't have to redo all the animations though.  Fifth, I have been able to add HDT physics to my current tails(Gorgon/Tsaesci) with the new rig.  It still has a few issues(haven't quiet figured out what xml settings for the physics to work best).  I'm pretty sure that with a new tail I could add HDT easily.  With the current rig, not certain. 

 

Okay, now the things I need to know before making a rig.  Does your animation exclusivity technique also work for the Skeleton.hkx file?  The reason I ask is, currently all playable races use the same skeleton.hkx file.  This is not as big a problem if you want a completely custom rig or if you want to just tweak the existing rig.  But if you are wanting the horker tail/humanoid rig, which is the one that would have a more streamlined animation creations, we would need some way to make the mermaids use their own skeleton.hkx.  It's possible that I could make the rig with the horker tail and not mess up the other races, but it's just as possible that it would break them.  This is one of the reasons I haven't finished the centaur rig.  I can make it, but as of the moment, to make the centaur human half be in the right position, I would have to break all the other races.  I'm still tinkering with the centaur rig, so there is still a possibility that I'll figure away around this.  But as of the moment, a race exclusive skeleton.hkx file would be needed for a merged skeleton.

[firepower02]

Hi, I don't think I'm using a different skeleton from the other races. The mermaids use the same skeleton whatever the other humanoids race use.  I'm only using new defaultmale and defaultfemale files with different extension name. This is what gives them a different folder path for animations that is exclusive to them. Do you want it to use an exclusive skeleton.hkx? I can try and take a look for you.

[wishnot4]

No need I have learned how to make custom Havok project. My centaur is working now. I could do the same for the mermaid but it still means a huge list of animations. Since I have a ton to make for the centaur I can't really see myself making them for the mermaid as well. But I can teach you how to merge animations so you could work with the human\horker rig we discussed.

[Sairai]

i love mermaid but be carefull with mod with ske or too many error

[firepower02]

Well actually, what the mermaid needs is a new set of animation, not a custom rig. Neither of us can do animations. I'm still waiting for someone to make the missing animations. I'd like to see your centaur, he would make a good mount.

[Mister X]

So it's still WIP state? I ask because I've stumbled upon an image, that gives an idea for some (lore) integration mechanic:

 

 

 

Maybe it's a magical experiment, where a mage tried to create some kind of symbiotic fish, to be able to dive deeper ...

[Halstrom]

So it's still WIP state? I ask because I've stumbled upon an image, that gives an idea for some (lore) integration mechanic:

 

 

 

Maybe it's a magical experiment, where a mage tried to create some kind of symbiotic fish, to be able to dive deeper ...

No pic for me

[Mister X]

Ok, got it from Rule34

[wishnot4]

Well actually, what the mermaid needs is a new set of animation, not a custom rig. Neither of us can do animations. I'm still waiting for someone to make the missing animations. I'd like to see your centaur, he would make a good mount.

I couldn't animate (still barely can) when I started out.  I just sat down and taught myself. It's actually not as hard as you might think.  At least editing existing animations.  I can't make original animations very well. I'm planning to make a tutorial for the custom bones for new creatures.  Truth is, if you have 3ds max 2010 and HCT 2010.2 it's extremely easy to make a custom skeleton. So easy in fact that I could hardly believe it.  Because I'd learned how to make my skeleton in the xml, which is not easy, I was floored by the fact that I put in so much work for something that should have taken like 10-15 minutes.

 

By the way, you can see an example image of our centaur walking down a pier.  Once I finish the set of 1h animations I'm working on, we will make a better demo video. Also, the reason I suggested the new rig for the mermaids was to fix the neck seam issue you all talked about.  With my rig design the player can use any body type they want and therefore there wouldn't be a neck seam.  But since this is your project, that is completely up to you.

[HyperonicX]

 

Well actually, what the mermaid needs is a new set of animation, not a custom rig. Neither of us can do animations. I'm still waiting for someone to make the missing animations. I'd like to see your centaur, he would make a good mount.

I couldn't animate (still barely can) when I started out.  I just sat down and taught myself. It's actually not as hard as you might think.  At least editing existing animations.  I can't make original animations very well. I'm planning to make a tutorial for the custom bones for new creatures.  Truth is, if you have 3ds max 2010 and HCT 2010.2 it's extremely easy to make a custom skeleton. So easy in fact that I could hardly believe it.  Because I'd learned how to make my skeleton in the xml, which is not easy, I was floored by the fact that I put in so much work for something that should have taken like 10-15 minutes.

 

By the way, you can see an example image of our centaur walking down a pier.  Once I finish the set of 1h animations I'm working on, we will make a better demo video. Also, the reason I suggested the new rig for the mermaids was to fix the neck seam issue you all talked about.  With my rig design the player can use any body type they want and therefore there wouldn't be a neck seam.  But since this is your project, that is completely up to you.

 

 

Personally, I think it's a great idea. Having a rig like that would help the mod a whole lot.

 

If anything, it would help cut problems down by a bunch, leaving others to work on textures and anything else that needs doing.

 

[mantaman]

 

Well actually, what the mermaid needs is a new set of animation, not a custom rig. Neither of us can do animations. I'm still waiting for someone to make the missing animations. I'd like to see your centaur, he would make a good mount.

I couldn't animate (still barely can) when I started out.  I just sat down and taught myself. It's actually not as hard as you might think.  At least editing existing animations.  I can't make original animations very well. I'm planning to make a tutorial for the custom bones for new creatures.  Truth is, if you have 3ds max 2010 and HCT 2010.2 it's extremely easy to make a custom skeleton. So easy in fact that I could hardly believe it.  Because I'd learned how to make my skeleton in the xml, which is not easy, I was floored by the fact that I put in so much work for something that should have taken like 10-15 minutes.

 

By the way, you can see an example image of our centaur walking down a pier.  Once I finish the set of 1h animations I'm working on, we will make a better demo video. Also, the reason I suggested the new rig for the mermaids was to fix the neck seam issue you all talked about.  With my rig design the player can use any body type they want and therefore there wouldn't be a neck seam.  But since this is your project, that is completely up to you.

 

 

 

maan, this guy has a bretty good tutorial on tweakin animations, which can really help

[wishnot4]

 

 

Well actually, what the mermaid needs is a new set of animation, not a custom rig. Neither of us can do animations. I'm still waiting for someone to make the missing animations. I'd like to see your centaur, he would make a good mount.

I couldn't animate (still barely can) when I started out.  I just sat down and taught myself. It's actually not as hard as you might think.  At least editing existing animations.  I can't make original animations very well. I'm planning to make a tutorial for the custom bones for new creatures.  Truth is, if you have 3ds max 2010 and HCT 2010.2 it's extremely easy to make a custom skeleton. So easy in fact that I could hardly believe it.  Because I'd learned how to make my skeleton in the xml, which is not easy, I was floored by the fact that I put in so much work for something that should have taken like 10-15 minutes.

 

By the way, you can see an example image of our centaur walking down a pier.  Once I finish the set of 1h animations I'm working on, we will make a better demo video. Also, the reason I suggested the new rig for the mermaids was to fix the neck seam issue you all talked about.  With my rig design the player can use any body type they want and therefore there wouldn't be a neck seam.  But since this is your project, that is completely up to you.

 

 

Personally, I think it's a great idea. Having a rig like that would help the mod a whole lot.

 

If anything, it would help cut problems down by a bunch, leaving others to work on textures and anything else that needs doing.

 

 

While I agree that a new rig would be good for the mod, there is the big hurtle of having to create new animations for it. 

[HyperonicX]

 

 

 

Well actually, what the mermaid needs is a new set of animation, not a custom rig. Neither of us can do animations. I'm still waiting for someone to make the missing animations. I'd like to see your centaur, he would make a good mount.

I couldn't animate (still barely can) when I started out.  I just sat down and taught myself. It's actually not as hard as you might think.  At least editing existing animations.  I can't make original animations very well. I'm planning to make a tutorial for the custom bones for new creatures.  Truth is, if you have 3ds max 2010 and HCT 2010.2 it's extremely easy to make a custom skeleton. So easy in fact that I could hardly believe it.  Because I'd learned how to make my skeleton in the xml, which is not easy, I was floored by the fact that I put in so much work for something that should have taken like 10-15 minutes.

 

By the way, you can see an example image of our centaur walking down a pier.  Once I finish the set of 1h animations I'm working on, we will make a better demo video. Also, the reason I suggested the new rig for the mermaids was to fix the neck seam issue you all talked about.  With my rig design the player can use any body type they want and therefore there wouldn't be a neck seam.  But since this is your project, that is completely up to you.

 

 

Personally, I think it's a great idea. Having a rig like that would help the mod a whole lot.

 

If anything, it would help cut problems down by a bunch, leaving others to work on textures and anything else that needs doing.

 

 

While I agree that a new rig would be good for the mod, there is the big hurtle of having to create new animations for it. 

 

 

Good point. But I figured that it would be a lot easier with the rig.

 

Then again I know nothing about animating and modelling and whatnot, so I can talk! XD!

 

[firepower02]

It desperately needs animators. Hopefully we can find one skilled animator and has interest in mermaids, probly very hard to find.

[Threeshades]

i wish i had the know how and time.

 

i think if i had any proficiency with the software i should be able to make decent animations.

[mantaman]

so how dead is this?

[HyperonicX]

so how dead is this?

 

Well, seeing as how the doctors haven't yet quoted a time of death, I'd say it's barely kicking.

[wishnot4]

My team has been discussing the mermaid race.  We are very likely to pick it up eventually, but since we have a large list of projects, centaurs being the most time consuming, no idea when we'll get started.  We will most likely use the human/horker rig idea mentioned in an earlier post.  I'm currently down to the last 12 one hand animations, once that's out of the way, we will probably be releasing an alpha version of our centaur mod.