Weapon Animation (Multi Object vs. MD2)

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nicolasc
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Weapon Animation (Multi Object vs. MD2)

Post by nicolasc » Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:03 am

Hi all

Yesterday, I started one really ambitious weapon animation project: the idea is to have a multi barrel gun with independent animation for each barrel. To to the this, those barrel will have a telescopic retraction as a recoil reaction (i.e the barrel composes of multi parts).

The Idea:
At firing a barrel retracts, and it takes a *grand cycle* to return to the starting position. But the the other barrels will fire after a *minor cycle*. I probably easier to understand with numbers. And I am doing the easy example..

3 barrel gun
minor cycle .5 (sec) --> grand cycle 3 * .5 = 1.5
retraction time .5, expansion time 1.0

Thus far I've been using a subdivided model.

Using the animation3D class, I bumped into some problems, as thus far only one shooting animation has been defined, and I need at least 2 animation types (one for each part of the barrel). So far the animation does not understand superposing the same animation done differently on 2 model parts...

Using a pure MD2 animation is out of question, As firing just one barrel (while the animation is basically "continuous" fire), imposes already a special case, two barrel should be manageable. Or looking at the larger picture, with n barrel, the animation of a n-1 salvo is easy, but anything below gets very messy. And before I forget it, the entire problem is cyclic. The case differentiation will take some n^2 cases with n barrels...

My question now is, is there an *easy* way to create an hybrid model animation. using md2 animation for the barrels themselves, and a3D to combine the entire thing...

cheers
nico
BOFH Excuse #212: Of course is doesn't work. We've performed a software upgrade.

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beni
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Post by beni » Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:45 pm

I don't really see the problem with the separate models. Can't you just have a look at the helicopter or hover class and do the same with that weapon, only when the weapon is fired though.
Probably my memory of these classes are outdated, but there the movement of the model pieces was hard coded with the absCoord() function of PNode.
Also the weapon classes aren't so cool, so it may be impossible to do it.

You can also use md2 for each barrel seperately. But I don't think that's cool... Should be able though. I will have a look on the classes and figure out, what could help you.
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nicolasc
Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
Posts: 258
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Post by nicolasc » Thu Dec 21, 2006 1:10 pm

I don't have an opinion about MD2... but ATM I am about to drop it...

But what gives my a bigger headache, is the rebuild of the weapon class, by putting emissionPoint, and animation into (multidimesional) arrays..

Emission point should become a arrays (size # barrels) containing all EPs
animation (esp for shooting) an 2dim array (barrels * barrel-segments), containing all animations...

I means basically rewriting the entire weapon class, and updating all weapons we have... And an easy way to create multi animated weapon afterwards...

cheers
nico
BOFH Excuse #212: Of course is doesn't work. We've performed a software upgrade.

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