Create units with OpenFX

[A Viking Yeti]

*GASP*... Anything but the... Help MENU! Oh well, maybe I'll find some miracle option and all my worries will disappear... Or I could just move the joints myself but... That'd take work .

Thanks anyway, if I can just get those two problems fixed, then I can animate, yay! And then comes the palette... *sigh*

EDIT: I'm finally finished with the model and skeleton... Whew... I had to redo the skeleton for the legs and tail ( ), but as I was going through I found it MUCH easier than the first time... Lesson here, save your work (a lot), practice practice practice, and finally... VISIT CIVFANATICS A LOT! I now have the full model and skeleton, and I'll hopefully start animating tomorrow.

Anyway, anyone have any idea (or guess) as to when the rest of this tutorial will be made/posted. I am very earger to see exactly how he animates foot units (not that it does my specific model any help).

EDIT #2: I was just setting up the template (you know, for tomorrow ), and before I saved it let me pose the model, afterward if I pressed "V" or selected the vertex tool, it told me "Robot manipulation is not possible". Can someone please help me?

 

[muffins]

Hmm, I'll try. Also, another question if it's not too much trouble ? I have two models with (obviously) seperate skeletons, how do I put them together? Thanks for all the help, by the way...

EDIT: For some reason the rotation thing won't work. I have all the verticies assigned to the proper bone, but when I rotate the model, and then view it (via reposition joints), they're in the same place .

The skeleton will only follow the model of you rotate the model in Skeleton > Pose.

 

[muffins]

EDIT #2: I was just setting up the template (you know, for tomorrow ), and before I saved it let me pose the model, afterward if I pressed "V" or selected the vertex tool, it told me "Robot manipulation is not possible". Can someone please help me?

You can only pose a 'Robot' in a 'Costume' Keyframe.

In a similar fashion, you can only move something in a 'Postion' keyframe, rotate it in a 'Rotation' keyframe and can only scale it in a 'Size' Keyframe.

To see the keyframes for any given object/robot/light/camera etc, press 'A' (Actor) select your robot or model and the Keyframes should appear as below (as long as you've got the option to see them in the view menu ticked )

I might post my own tutorial giving people a complete step-by-step guide to making units. There are a lot of little things to learn

 

[The Great Apple]

Have you got enough frames there Muffins?

A quick question about shattering models - is there a special button, or do you have to manually split the model (I want lots of bits flying everywhere )

 

[muffins]

Have you got enough frames there Muffins?

A quick question about shattering models - is there a special button, or do you have to manually split the model (I want lots of bits flying everywhere )

I animate everything on one strip.

Shattering doesn't always work for all models. In designer select your objects/model and Click Actions > Seperate Polygons. Sometimes that works fine and sometimes it really does "seperate" the polygons in your model You shouldn't see any change in your model (save before you try)

In the animator you then select your model and click Edit > Special Effect and select the Explode special effect. You've then got several options on how your model gets 'shattered'

EDIT: I can't remember but you might have to be in a costume keyframe to see the "Special Effect" entry in the Edit menu

It doesn't always work or always work correctly so try with a simple shape first

 

[Neomega]

well, thats all for now, I hope. I'll animate it as a unit later. For now I got what I needed to contiune, a tech chooser icon.

 

[A Viking Yeti]

I actually have an animation going! [dance] But it's really hard to get 'em to move realistically . At least that comes down to practice... Thanks for all the help everyone .

BTW: That looks great Neomega, can hardly wait to see it finished...

 

[Dease]

OpenFX hates me again while it will let me insert more than 1 model/robot it only renders halfway and then I get an error all my other animation still work render fine same with the presets that came with the 40mb version (they have >1 model/robot) I'll attach an image of what I'm saying, any ideas???
EDIT: I think it MAY have something to do with the fact that the OpenGL Renderer ("normal" renderer works fine)can'r find the appropriate .exe file (RENDERERGL.EXE IIRC) does anyone else have this problem?

 

[muffins]

OpenFX hates me again while it will let me insert more than 1 model/robot it only renders halfway and then I get an error all my other animation still work render fine same with the presets that came with the 40mb version (they have >1 model/robot) I'll attach an image of what I'm saying, any ideas???
EDIT: I think it MAY have something to do with the fact that the OpenGL Renderer ("normal" renderer works fine)can'r find the appropriate .exe file (RENDERERGL.EXE IIRC) does anyone else have this problem?

I remember I had a similar problem with one of my tanks. It turned out to be a texture in an object that I had appear later in the animation and Render always crashed as soon as it tried to render it. I solved it by deleteing all the maps/textures and then re-applying them.

I think I had two maps of the same name - each on a different model.

 

[muffins]

That is one seriously cool space dock, Neomega

Can't wait to see the final unit!

 

[Neomega]

That is one seriously cool space dock, Neomega

Can't wait to see the final unit!

I am thinking of making the default have a ship docked, and the cranes moving, slowest speed possible, 60 frame animation, and for fidget, having the ship leave, in 20 frames, the dock is empty for 20 frames, and then "a" ship, (curiously looking like the ship that was just there) comes back for the last 20 frames.

But for now, I am going back to work on all the icons for my tech tree, (about 66% done)

 

[muffins]

I am thinking of making the default have a ship docked, and the cranes moving, slowest speed possible, 60 frame animation, and for fidget, having the ship leave, in 20 frames, the dock is empty for 20 frames, and then "a" ship, (curiously looking like the ship that was just there) comes back for the last 20 frames.

But for now, I am going back to work on all the icons for my tech tree, (about 66% done)

I strongly recomend that you don't give your animations 60 frames If you give your animations 20 frames each then you risk going over Civfanatics 3mb upload limit. My warhounds use between 16 to 24 frames in each animation and each zip was 2.8mb

If you're worried about animation speed then don't ... you can change the animation speed in FLICster and view it before you export the civ-flic

Kinboat usually uses 16 frames an animation and his stuff is the best

 

[Mr. Will]

SKELETONS ARE EVIL!!!

Can someone give a complete walkthrough on how to build a simple skeleton? I keep trying to build them through the hiearchy but can't see anything happening, and nothing at all happens when I pose things, even if I update the viewer thing. Do I put the joints in the hiearchy and then try to build them or vice-versa? I'm sorry for asking so many questions but I've tried to figure it out myself quite a few times.

Also, is there an easier way to do the palette than clicking every single color in your unit?

Thanks all, you've been very helpful.

 

[Neomega]

I strongly recomend that you don't give your animations 60 frames If you give your animations 20 frames each then you risk going over Civfanatics 3mb upload limit. My warhounds use between 16 to 24 frames in each animation and each zip was 2.8mb

If you're worried about animation speed then don't ... you can change the animation speed in FLICster and view it before you export the civ-flic

Kinboat usually uses 16 frames an animation and his stuff is the best

Well, since it would be part of the mod, there is no upload limit.

I know, but a sixty frame animation at slowest speed would make the fidget apper like a default. perhaps only 5 frames should be spent on take-off and landing. A nice thing about .FLCs is they optimize animations, so a 10 frame default is alot smaller, (because of little movement, therefore little pixel change) than a 10 frame death (alot of movement, twisting, explosions maybe, and lots of different pixels)

I think a sixty frame at super slow speed lasts for 2 minutes. That means the Space dock would appear empty for about 1.75 minutes during it's "fidget" animation.

 

[A Viking Yeti]

TO Neomega: Cool idea, big file though. I look forward to seeing the results, and downloading the mod (well, not the "downloading", but the mod ).

TO Mr. Will: I make my skeleton in the hierarchy menu, then you select all the verticies that will be controled by that bone and select the proper bone in the hierarchy menu, then click the attach button in the hierarchy menu and all the verticies should then be assigned to that particular bone. Save, and pose (if needed). After you're happy with the skeleton and associated model, you can save and import i tas a robot for animation in the animator.

 

[muffins]

A nice thing about .FLCs is they optimize animations, so a 10 frame default is alot smaller, (because of little movement, therefore little pixel change) than a 10 frame death (alot of movement, twisting, explosions maybe, and lots of different pixels)

Cool!! I didn't realise that. I'm just going to have to try that out on the Baneblade

 

[Dease]

[dance][dance][dance][dance][dance]
YAY!!! it worked! Thanks muffins you are
(BTW, nice avatar but i was thinking somthing a bit more edible )

It turned out to be that two separate models were using the same texture, so I just made a duplicate texture and it's all good now

Also, mainly out of curiosity, (since tif works good) why can't I render bmp's with resolutions that arn't multiples of 20??? If I try then the image is all skewed and multicoloured horizontal lines are all over it

 

[A Viking Yeti]

I had no idea it did that... Thanks for telling, I didn't want to have to find that out myself...

 

[muffins]

YAY!!! it worked! Thanks muffins you are
(BTW, nice avatar but i was thinking somthing a bit more edible )

It turned out to be that two separate models were using the same texture, so I just made a duplicate texture and it's all good now

Also, mainly out of curiosity, (since tif works good) why can't I render bmp's with resolutions that arn't multiples of 20??? If I try then the image is all skewed and multicoloured horizontal lines are all over it

For some reason with bitmaps, OpenFX only does it right if the small number from the resolution is exactly 75% of the larger number without fractions (ie 156x117, 160x120, 164x123, 168x126) ... it might be the maths or the bitmap format or something. If you do render directly to small civ-sized bitmaps then remember to right-click your cameras and change their aspect ratio to 1.2 or your images will get squished

And I found out why you can only see the skeleton in animator and not the model ... you have 'draw bounded' turned on in the View menu. Click View > Draw Full to change that

 

[Dease]

yeah, I dicovered how to see the verticies a while back, even easier is the f6 button
That's quite a strange system OFX has there with bitmaps I already got my resolutions figured out so I'm just gonna render in single .tif's and batch convert/rename 'em

Another thing, (although I doubt there's a solution) does anyone know how to bypass or deal with the ringframe civ units have at the end of each direction? very annoying because the west anims always look wierd if they loop, and some (like muffins tank) don't even get to the good part (like explosions or gun shots). Info on these ringframes can be found in the flicster thread but it stops short of how to deal with 'em