Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: wEvil on November 08, 2001, 01:36:00 pm

Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: wEvil on November 08, 2001, 01:36:00 pm
 http://wevil.netfirms.com/drydock.avi (//"http://wevil.netfirms.com/drydock.avi")  http://wevil.netfirms.com/test2.avi (//"http://wevil.netfirms.com/test2.avi")  http://wevil.netfirms.com/test.avi (//"http://wevil.netfirms.com/test.avi")

Opinions welcome.  These are about 4mb (last one is about 500k).

They use the M$ Mpeg4 codec which should come with the latest version of Windoze Media Player.

Enjoy (or not as the case may be)

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Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and ***** slap them upside the head.
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: DragonClaw on November 08, 2001, 02:35:00 pm
Excellent  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)

Those are some nice models you got there! You made em?

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    -Director of the staff of Hidden Terror. ("http://www.hiddenterror.f2s.com")
    -WebMaster of Imperial Productions ("http://imperial.pcgcentral.com")

   
Quote
The fear always controls our attitude, let us fear no more!
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: wEvil on November 08, 2001, 02:37:00 pm
100% my own work..minus the planet which is a nurbs sphere mapped with 3dsmax's default planet.  I couldnt be bothered to make one.


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Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and ***** slap them upside the head.
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: Gortef on November 08, 2001, 02:42:00 pm
Not bad... not bad at all  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/cool.gif)
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: DragonClaw on November 08, 2001, 02:54:00 pm
Those models are just plain awesome... you've got promise dude  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)

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    -Director of the staff of Hidden Terror. ("http://www.hiddenterror.f2s.com")
    -WebMaster of Imperial Productions ("http://imperial.pcgcentral.com")

   
Quote
The fear always controls our attitude, let us fear no more!
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: wEvil on November 08, 2001, 04:50:00 pm
oh BTW -

if anyone has any good ideas on what a HiPoly deimos would look like can you get in touch with me? (the opening sequence uses one..hopefully)


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Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and ***** slap them upside the head.
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: WarpStar on November 08, 2001, 05:04:00 pm
Wow!!!!!   (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/eek.gif)

How did you do that?????!

Very Excellent  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)

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The universe is a big place and an even bigger mystery.
ICQ-117983680

Webmaster SubSpace Zero ("http://www.subspacezero.com")

Author of A Day in the Life of a Space Pirate
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: Ace on November 08, 2001, 10:35:00 pm
I'd keep a high poly Deimos pretty close to what the current ones look like, except making individual hullplates their own polygons, adding some sensors arrays in the lightstrip areas, and them turrets looking more like bulky WWII deck guns...

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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
 http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/ ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/")
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: jonskowitz on November 08, 2001, 10:56:00 pm
What I can see is pretty nice looking.  I can't really tell, the computers at work are really crappy for veiwing graphics, I think they're only capable of displaying 256 color format.

I've just started working on animations as well.  Just got the 'rotating model' animations done for the 'select ship' screens in FS2.  Pain in the monkey having to extract the animation as a series of bitmap files (fortunately TS uses the same numbering scheme as   (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/v.gif)'s *.ANI files do), then creating a palette, applying it to each frame (one at a time) and finally saving each frame as a *.PCX file for use by ANIBUILDER32.  Not exactly the most fun thing I've ever done.

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I told you I'd have it ("http://www.geocities.com/jskgames/home.html") done by November, well, mostly anyway.

[This message has been edited by jonskowitz (edited 11-08-2001).]
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on November 08, 2001, 11:07:00 pm
I don't think there quite the same thing...
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: LAW ENFORCER on November 08, 2001, 11:09:00 pm
Don't you use ModelView for that?

Im trying to think up a stylish new .ani format to easy work and not look like I just cpoied FS2 - any ideas???
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: jonskowitz on November 09, 2001, 12:15:00 am
 
Quote
Originally posted by LAW ENFORCER:
I don't think there quite the same thing...

No, of course not.  The animations shown to us above are *.AVI files using MPEG encoding techniques.  Most 3d modelling programs support the construction of them quite nicely so it's a one-step procedure.

   (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/v.gif) uses *.ANI files which is thier own, non-standard video files.  Building them requires 256-color *.PCX files and a utility that can assemble them in the proper format.  I just happen to use ANIBUILD32 because it's what I have and am familiar with it.  Problem is TS doesn't render to *.PCX format, or to 256-color either so I have to convert the files by hand.

  Hmmmm, maybe I can convince my buddy Stephen to build a utility for me that does it for me...

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I told you that It ("http://www.geocities.com/jskgames/home.html") would be done by November, well, mostly anyway...
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: aldo_14 on November 09, 2001, 03:19:00 am
I remember someone at B5 offering to convert an AVI file to ANI (I think) a while back, when i was looking for animators.

BTW, you can also use something like PSP7 animation shop, and save the individual frames.  Neat for adding text effects and non-3d stuff  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: Setekh on November 09, 2001, 03:30:00 am
Simply amazing - the quality is so high it's jaw-dropping. The codec is good, the animation is good, the models are good, the planets are good...  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/eek.gif)

My hat goes off to you, wEvil.  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: Styxx on November 09, 2001, 05:38:00 am
Top-notch work there...

I think a Deimos would retain the basic shape, but obviously have differences in the inner engine sections, the windows, and the turrets (all would be remodelled). More detail on the hull plates, detailed docking ports, and a few radar dishes and antennae spread around the lower surface.
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: Ryx on November 09, 2001, 07:29:00 am
I like! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)

I think test2.avi is a tad dark and that drydock.avi needs a starfield.
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: wEvil on November 10, 2001, 10:10:00 am
Turn your monitors' brightness up or adjust the gamma correct on your graphics profile-

the brightness balance is calibrated on multiple monitors and there is a starfield :P

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Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and ***** slap them upside the head.
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: Nico on November 10, 2001, 12:28:00 pm
there's a prog that can convet avi to ani, I even have it. Anyway, yeah, making rotating ani is a pain in the ... well it's long and fastidious (I did almost all the Descent weapons, ouch...)
for the avis, you should either increase the brighteness or the size of the stars, they're almost invisble (first avi, only seen this one yet)
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: Nico on November 10, 2001, 12:36:00 pm
mmh, otherwise, I assume this is a shivan ship? I imagine them much more with sharp angles, stuff like that, rather than organic and curved ships, because of all the concept pics I've seen from volition.
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: DragonClaw on November 10, 2001, 12:57:00 pm
In Lightwave there is an option to save all frames of an animation as #.extension

So you could make an animation and save it as 0001.pcx, 0002.pcx.. etc so it's already set for conversion to .ani

 (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)

------------------
    -Director of the staff of Hidden Terror. ("http://www.hiddenterror.f2s.com")
    -WebMaster of Imperial Productions ("http://imperial.pcgcentral.com")

   
Quote
The fear always controls our attitude, let us fear no more!
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: wEvil on November 10, 2001, 12:57:00 pm
That ship is still a *fairly* early WIP..

im going to add some butressed edges all along it, specially around the hangar holes.

I found the V concept pics to make them look a little to..err.."terran"..so im trying for a compromise between them both.  Have to see what it looks like when its' finished.

On the downside--i just got my bank statement through.

£935 overdrawn.  Yipee..i love the way this govornment handles student loans.

******** .




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Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and ***** slap them upside the head.
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: Nico on November 10, 2001, 12:59:00 pm
 
Quote
Originally posted by RKIF-DragonClaw:
In Lightwave there is an option to save all frames of an animation as #.extension

So you could make an animation and save it as 0001.pcx, 0002.pcx.. etc so it's already set for conversion to .ani

  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)

-Max too: rather than save as avi, you choose bmp, pcx, or wahtever you want and hop, you'll have each frame saved as a pic  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)

-for me, a mix between the two are the vasudans, no?
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: wEvil on November 10, 2001, 01:10:00 pm
nope, the vasudans seem more cracked mud/black corrugated piping style texturing.

Shivans= Arcane butressing, weird exposed piping and lots of red glowy things

Terran=Metal Hull Plating, Chipped paint and heavy guns.

I render all my animations out into .TGAs - gets the alpha channel for compositing.

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Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and ***** slap them upside the head.
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: Nico on November 10, 2001, 01:21:00 pm
how do you save the alpha channel? I'm obliged to make a screen cap coz Max will save all the colour channels...
Title: Animations (not brilliant but its time i posted somefink)
Post by: wEvil on November 10, 2001, 01:26:00 pm
render out to an image format that supports it, then go to the "setup" tab.

.TGA
.TIF
.PNG

all support 32bit colour or more.
they're not very compressable, though.


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Remember, when someone annoys you it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and ***** slap them upside the head.