2252 replies to this topic

[Zatnik]

Somewhat Fail.

I spent ages getting this to work, and had it rendering pretty pictures... There was just a few things to tweak... Finally, I managed to get the textures mapping in line (they were all off by just a tiiiny bit on the cockpit), so I hit render.



Um... Perfect!?

Kinda annoying, because I spent hours on this... but also freaking hilarious.

Even restarting from scratch I can't get anything to render non-pink.



Congratulations to those of you who managed to make this work.

[Ghogiel]

Zatnik, on 20 September 2013 - 07:21 AM, said:

Finally, I managed to get the textures mapping in line (they were all off by just a tiiiny bit on the cockpit), so I hit render.

This is because the static model for the CPLT isn't the one we see used in game, that'll be why the texture used for the in game model doesn't match up with it, if you notice the cockpit is really fat on that CPLT. The in game one is much thinner.

You could have just assembled the torso from the CGA files, all the pivots are correct if converted right, so just import it and all the pieces will be in the correct place, no fiddling around or assembly required.

Edited by Ghogiel, 20 September 2013 - 07:38 AM.

[Heffay]

Zatnik, on 20 September 2013 - 07:21 AM, said:

Somewhat Fail.

I spent ages getting this to work, and had it rendering pretty pictures... There was just a few things to tweak... Finally, I managed to get the textures mapping in line (they were all off by just a tiiiny bit on the cockpit), so I hit render.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the render. If I had that camo option for my Cat, I'd definitely be using something like that.

The pink means that the renderer was unable to find the texture you had assigned to the model. Double check the nodes where you assign the textures to make sure they are all properly set up. You might want to unassign the texture files and reassign them to make sure that it's looking at the right place.

Ghogiel, on 20 September 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

This is because the static model for the CPLT isn't the one we see used in game, that'll be why the texture used for the in game model doesn't match up with it, if you notice the cockpit is really fat on that CPLT. The in game one is much thinner.

I think it looks all fat because he's in perspective mode, not ortho.

[Ghogiel]

Heffay, on 20 September 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

I think it looks all fat because he's in perspective mode, not ortho.

Or he used the CGF static model which is different than the CGA files>

compare here>

[Heffay]

Ghogiel, on 20 September 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

Or he used the CGF static model which is different than the CGA files>

compare here>

I stand corrected.

[Zatnik]

Ghogiel, on 20 September 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

This is because the static model for the CPLT isn't the one we see used in game, that'll be why the texture used for the in game model doesn't match up with it, if you notice the cockpit is really fat on that CPLT. The in game one is much thinner.

You could have just assembled the torso from the CGA files, all the pivots are correct if converted right, so just import it and all the pieces will be in the correct place, no fiddling around or assembly required.

I see, I see! Now I know why the cockpit didn't fit. Maybe it's a two-seater >_>

Heffay, on 20 September 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the render. If I had that camo option for my Cat, I'd definitely be using something like that.

The pink means that the renderer was unable to find the texture you had assigned to the model. Double check the nodes where you assign the textures to make sure they are all properly set up. You might want to unassign the texture files and reassign them to make sure that it's looking at the right place.

I think it looks all fat because he's in perspective mode, not ortho.

I use Ortho for editing, and perspective for prettiness.

Ghogiel, on 20 September 2013 - 08:14 AM, said:

Or he used the CGF static model which is different than the CGA files>

compare here><image>

Heffay, thanks, that information means I can stop searching for some secret turn-everything-pink option. I tried everything with the textures, and eventually gave up. I went back a few hours later and it's ... working fine. No idea why.

Thanks for the help!

-Zatnik is-a-girl =)

[Heffay]

Why am I putting this here?



IT'S A SURPRISE!!! Stay tuned....

[Valcrow]

Heffay, on 07 October 2013 - 09:14 PM, said:

Why am I putting this here?
IT'S A SURPRISE!!! Stay tuned....

Lol that's awesome. You need to track the shot though!

[Heffay]

Valcrow, on 08 October 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

Lol that's awesome. You need to track the shot though!

I know, that's phase 2. So much more to do!

I should have done it first though, but there aren't a lot of good tracking points.

[Valcrow]

Heffay, on 08 October 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

I know, that's phase 2. So much more to do!

I should have done it first though, but there aren't a lot of good tracking points.

Looks like a 2D track, so you just need a few.. but ya, it's always tempting to do the fun stuff first.

[Heffay]

Valcrow, on 08 October 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

Looks like a 2D track, so you just need a few.. but ya, it's always tempting to do the fun stuff first.

Yah. Heck, they don't even need to be that accurate. Just enough to shake the camera around.

I need to get the workflow for that set though, because I'm going to have to do it a dozen more times anyway. Workflows are good. Here's my workflow for rigging a mech; I updated it when I did the Centurion, because I had a few bugs in the earlier on. I used to rewatch the whole freaking rigging video at cgcookie.com every time I wanted to redo it, and just skipped to the parts where I was having problems. This is so much easier!

Rigging a Mech workflow:

Spoiler

Creating vertex groups:
- It is important to follow the SAME naming convention as the rig. Makes linking them easy.
Create root bone (add -> armature). Rename Root.
In edit mode, duplicate. Drag to hips, rotate vertical. Name Hips.
Extrude Tip. Rename Torso.
Create shoulder bone by Duplicating torso bone (edit mode). move bone root to actuator. Name
Shoulder.L.
Extrude rest of arm. Rename each with .L extension.
Duplicate (edit mode) hip bone to make legs. Name Leg_upper.L, Leg_lower.L, Foot.L.
Duplicate foot, create toes. Standard is Toe_outer_1.L (closest to foot), Toe_outer_2.L (smallest toe)
- Use inner for inner toes, outer for outer toes, and rear/front for forward/rear facing toes.
- Set parents of inner toes to Foot.L instead of Leg_lower.L (edit mode, control P, keep offset)
Duplicate to Right side. Shift C to move cursor to origin. In edit mode, select all left side
components.
- Shift D (duplicate). Right click to release. Go to Armature (next to mode select), mirror
around X Local, right click.
- Rename by selecting all right bones, hit W, flip names
Set root bone to non deform
Parent rig to mech. Object mode: Click mech, shift right click armature. Ctrl-P, set with Empty Group
Verify parents set right. To fix, in edit mode select child, then parent, ctrl-P.
Setting up IK chains
Create IKs: Edit mode, lower arm bone, extrude tip straight back. (can use x axis mirror to do both
sides at same time)
- Alt-P to clear parent. Rename Arm_IK.L (and R).
- Make elbow IKs. From upper arm tip, extrude back. Alt-P to clear parent. Move behind mech a
ways.
- Repeat for foot and knee (Foot_IK.R/L, Knee_IK.L/R)
In pose mode, select IK bone, shift select target bone, shift I to add IK, set chain length to 2 for
Foot/Hand and 1 for knee/elbow
Make feet stay on ground by selecting foot bone, going to bone properties, and turning off inherit
rotation.
Make hip root bone:
- edit mode: select hip bone, shift D to duplicate, then Alt-F to switch directions
- select hip bone, then shift-click hip root bone, ctrl-P to parent, keep connected.
- select torso bone, turn off inherit rotation
Make torso follow hip
- Pose mode: Select hip bone, then torso bone, ctrl-shift-C, copy rotation.
- Go to torso bone constraints, set Space to local space (both) and check Offset.
Isolate the hands
- Pose mode: Select hands IK, ctrl-shift C, Child Of constraint (for influence). Set to
hips_root. (for Catapult, not necessary). Set inverse.
- Select hand bones, turn off inherit rotation.
Set up root bone
- Edit mode: select Hips_root, shift select root bone, ctrl-P, keep offset
- do with all IK bones too (select all IK, shift select root, ctrl-P, keep offset)
To adjust wonky rotation in bones: in edit mode, ctrl-R to rotate along axis.

[Tekadept]

You know you can export the armature out of the chr file right? and just tweak that a little bit to make it easier?

[Heffay]

Tekadept, on 08 October 2013 - 11:51 PM, said:

You know you can export the armature out of the chr file right? and just tweak that a little bit to make it easier?

Hmm... I did not know that, although I do remember seeing the armatures before (mechanic and catapult, if memory serves). I'm trying to import the spider .chr file by exporting it in Noesis to .obj file, but all it brings in is a triangle shape and no rig.

How were you able to do this? And I see in a chrparams file that there are a bunch of animations associated with it. Any luck importing those into Blender?

[Level1Firebolt]

My first model. The cataphract is one of the easier ones, since the model is already assembled; it just required clean up work to allow it to be a physical, real world model. It took me a great deal of time learning how to use all the programs, but once I got the hang of it the process went smoothly. I used shapeways.com to print the actual model that stands about 5 cm tall.



Thanks to sentinel for the motivation and tips!

[Valcrow]

Looks great! Though I'm sure once it's primed it'll look even better. The translucent seems like it's obscuring some of the details.
You gonna paint it?

[Level1Firebolt]

Thanks! Yeah, the camera angle is a bit off and doesn't show off the cockpit detail too well there.

I'm no painter, but after seeing that jenner of yours I think I might have to give it a try.

[Tekadept]

Heffay, on 09 October 2013 - 05:06 AM, said:

Hmm... I did not know that, although I do remember seeing the armatures before (mechanic and catapult, if memory serves). I'm trying to import the spider .chr file by exporting it in Noesis to .obj file, but all it brings in is a triangle shape and no rig.

How were you able to do this? And I see in a chrparams file that there are a bunch of animations associated with it. Any luck importing those into Blender?

I did a quick vid of part of me importing the shadowhawk files in, at the end I do the skeleton hopefully that helps you.



I havent got the animations in directly, but in cryengine SDK i export the animations to HTR file, then i do a script to do the animation in blender manually. it works pretty decent, I cant find a way to import the HTR file directly into blender though.

[Ransack]

Thank you for posting that video. Great work. I'm a novice at using blender, but I've been able to do ok by following this thread. I was able to keep up with everything that you did up to the data drop in excel. That's where I got horribly lost. I may figure it out at some point, thanks for the visual references.

Thank you everyone who has participated in this thread.

[Heffay]

Tekadept, that video was incredibly useful! I'm going to write a powershell script that will modify that file directly, so you don't have to cut & paste, find and replace like crazy. Should make the whole process take less than a second.

I don't like the bone structure that they have, but I guess if I ever want to use their animations, I better get used to it.

[Level1Firebolt]

That video will save so much work for the pre unassembled mechs! I didn't quite follow all the steps, though; is there any way you could describe what's going on in the video, either by text or voice over?