Problems, bugs Options

[T.G.Maestro]

I only tried the Pit Fiend animation so far, and it looks truly nice in-game.
There is one annyoing problem with it though, it's "speed". The animation speed is quite slow, definitely slower than it originally was in NWN - the framerate should be increased at least by 50% to get the ideal result.
This brings up multiple problems:
- the creature moves very slow, as if under the effects of a Slow spell. On the other hand, his actions happen at normal speed, causing the animation to be unsynchronized with them. Example: while the Pit Fiends swings one with his arm, the target gets hit at least two times.
- somehow the animation doesn't react to movement increase. If I add an effect to the .cre file to increase it's movement rate by 50% for example, the result is far from perfect - while the creature will get faster to it's target, it's movement animation won't get any faster (e.g. it will move at the very same speed, but to a greater distance than before). This looks as if it would use a skate, sliding from one place to another.

As a summary, it would be most useful to have the base framerate of these bams increased by a significant percent to get a normal movement speed/animation for the creature.

[T.G.Maestro]

Ok, I discovered the source of the movement problem, it is as I guessed .
I haven't discovered that movement decreasing effect you put on the test creatures before - the one that reduces movement rate to 50%. This makes these creatures move at half speed.
The problem is, that if you remove this effect, the animations will move at normal speed, but the framerate will remain the same, as if slowed. Hasting the creatures helps, at least to the point that they will move as they should without any positive/negative effects.

As a solution to this (quite major) problem, I'd once again suggest increasing the framerate of these converted bams to 200% by a VVC. I know it means extra work, but without it your efforts remain flawed I fear.

Also, there is another problem with the Bebilith test creature: it is flagged as "PC" instead of allied or controlled creature. This means that you cannot control it or assign commands to it. Furthermore, if I set it to controlled/alied, the game crashes to desktop once you summon the creature.

[WoRm]

Yeah, I know that the syncing so far isn't up to par...but I still have all the original 3ds files still on my HD so speeding up the frame rate won't be really that much work...(I have a max script that will section off the animations, rotate them automatically,etc....very useful indeed) but I guess I should point out here that I know there will be some problems with some of these and I WILL address them but I am just trying to get organized on my end first...i have Soooo many of these animations not to mention the other customs...that right now I'm just trying to get them all in one place, so modders like yourself can play with em' ,help me find out what could be done (for instance figuring out the framerate for me)
so bear with me if I don't jump on fixing the minor issues right away(unless its unplayable ) I tend to lose track if I go back and forth on things and I'm sure you all want to see whats coming in the future...so like I said, bear with me for the next few weeks while i get everything off my HD and then I will start addressing the problems (mainly shadows, framerates, some lighting on some of the creatures,and footstep sounds)


also don't mind the test cre. too much, I'm using the somewhat flawed "merlin" creature as a base (I used it to test spell casting and such) and really kind of left it at that. It probabaly would be best as a modder to create your own base creature and assign it's animateID to the creature model your going for.

aside from that I hope you've enjoyed these animations and hopefully with *fingers crossed* GEMRB still being worked on we can have ALL the creatures we need (=

[T.G.Maestro]

Yeah, I know that the syncing so far isn't up to par...but I still have all the original 3ds files still on my HD so speeding up the frame rate won't be really that much work...(I have a max script that will section off the animations, rotate them automatically,etc....very useful indeed)

Sounds good.

so bear with me if I don't jump on fixing the minor issues right away(unless its unplayable ) I tend to lose track if I go back and forth on things and I'm sure you all want to see whats coming in the future...so like I said, bear with me for the next few weeks while i get everything off my HD and then I will start addressing the problems (mainly shadows, framerates, some lighting on some of the creatures,and footstep sounds)

Yes, this sounds reasonable indeed. The animations are useable, and perfect for testing purposes. I tested all of the available versions so far (except sharks), and I haven't seen much problems. They fit in almost seemlessly, and the framrate problem can be countered with a double-haste effect (first a (speed)Haste effect to get the desired normal speed, then an additional movement rate increase by 100% to get the "hasted" status).

also don't mind the test cre. too much, I'm using the somewhat flawed "merlin" creature as a base (I used it to test spell casting and such) and really kind of left it at that. It probabaly would be best as a modder to create your own base creature and assign it's animateID to the creature model your going for.

Another slight flaw seems to occur with the Hamatula animation. If it turns to "south-east" (or so, I'm not sure right now), a wrong animation is displayed, it still looks as if the creature would turn to another direction. Again, I'm not sure about the precise angle, but it can be easily spotted.

aside from that I hope you've enjoyed these animations and hopefully with *fingers crossed* GEMRB still being worked on we can have ALL the creatures we need (=

Of course, your work is most appreciated WoRm. The fact that I took the time to hunt these flaws shows how amazed I am with your progress so far.

This post has been edited by T.G.Maestro: Jun 26 2005, 01:45 PM

[WoRm]

Okay...I went back and re-did the osyluth,Bebilith and Scarecrow animations.
so the others will follow , but what has been fixed is the following:

1) Shadows have been fixed (no more solid color! It was an easy enough fix)
2) syncing has been fixed

[WoRm]

sorry,got cut off.

as I way saying, animations now are smooth in walking and attacking sequence,haste doesn't look like the character's floating anymore.

and lighting overall has been improved.

these updates I will post thursday am.

and should have the others fixed up and ready by sunday.

I'll post again when all is good.


~Until then

WoRm

[T.G.Maestro]

Great, I'm glad you decided to fix them before doing any additional work.

[WoRm]

It wasn't all that big of a deal (I thought it would have been harder) so yeah,definitely I'll get these done before shipping more out the door...but please give these a try (just updated animations page) and let me know if anything else might be wrong...

(thinking to myself that T.G.Maestro may be a good beta-tester candidate for some other surprises I have in store)

[T.G.Maestro]

thinking to myself that T.G.Maestro may be a good beta-tester candidate for some other surprises I have in store

I'm glad to help you out if I can find the time - but I think I might just do that during the summer.
Contact me on PM here or at the SpellholdStudios forums if you need some help.

[Galactygon]

For some reason, the greater basilisks look ugly if I copy the basilisk animations to the override. The regular basilisks still look quite fine, it's only happening to the greater ones.

-Galactygon

[T.G.Maestro]

Not really a bug or problem, but still, I have a question about the Pit Fiend animation: as I remember, in NWN Pit Fiends have real wings, not these "bony" ones like you added - they are typical for Balors in NWN instead. Now, as I said, this won't cause any problems, but it would be nice to have those real wings to help making them more different from Balors once you add those as well.

This post has been edited by T.G.Maestro: Jul 11 2005, 03:01 PM

[WoRm]

Done!

check the new thread 'discussion of animations in progress...

[T.G.Maestro]

2 minor flaws:

- Even the larger creature animations use small feet circles - while this is good for the Osyluth for example, it looks weird for the Bebilith. Not to mention that these feet circles are important in determining where the creature can slip through (doors for example).

- The other strange thing happens with the Pit Fiend: though the creature animation is not THAT big, projectiles target the creature as if it would be Dragon-sized (the impact is nearly above the head of the creature). This could be fixed too, if possible.

[WoRm]

Well there isn't much I can do about the foot circle unless I override an existing creature. I have other 'big' creatures that will be needing the big foot circles. Unless of course galactygon wants to incorporate them into his beastial animations.

as for the projectiles. Heres the thing...in order to contain the entire animation of these BIG creatures the frames need to be 255x255.(bioware got around this by limiting each frame in an animation to just the actual animation itself((cropped images))...but I don't have anything that can do that automated...so I would have to hand crop each and every frame...then figure out the center horizontal and vertical for each of these cropped frames...that would be alot of work....far too much for me to concieve doing alone. Projectiles will always head to the top-left corner of the animation frame. now in order to fix that the animations would have to be significantly smaller and I felt it was more important to have a somewhat life-size animation and for that I had to trade off the projectile problem.

i know it's kind of annoying (i noticed it myself) but I can't really figure a easy-to somewhat easy way around these problems.

[T.G.Maestro]

Well there isn't much I can do about the foot circle unless I override an existing creature. I have other 'big' creatures that will be needing the big foot circles.

I'm not sure I understand you here - yet, IIRC, one of the editors out there was able to change the circle size...

Projectiles will always head to the top-left corner of the animation frame. now in order to fix that the animations would have to be significantly smaller and I felt it was more important to have a somewhat life-size animation and for that I had to trade off the projectile problem.

Sounds fair.

[Sir-Kill]

isn't the amount of large footcircles (as well as the total amount of animations) hardcoded??

[WoRm]

AFAIK the circle size is hard-coded and cannot be changed by any editors out there...I may be wrong. (and i hope that I am!) but I am pretty sure about this.

[T.G.Maestro]

AFAIK the circle size is hard-coded and cannot be changed by any editors out there...I may be wrong. (and i hope that I am!) but I am pretty sure about this.

Yes, this might be true - I just remembered that I was able to change the circle size by using Creature Maker back then.. but I guess I was wrong. I'll have to check.

[Avenger_teambg]

You can have a correct feet circle if you replace a fitting animation.

There is a problem with the basilisk: some cycles (not all) still have purple shadow!
And the shadow isn't located on the second palette entry.
I think this could be fixed with dltcep, (i'm not sure, though).

[WoRm]

This will be corrected and re-uploaded.. Thanks for the bug report avenger