The way they walk

[Sheralynn]

I'm not sure if this is possible or not, but can anyone do something about the way female characters walk, my character looks as if she's carrying an invisible melon under each arm and in battle runs in a crouched position, I mean come on if it was for real no one would run crouched like that, it looks stupid.

 

 

The crouching in battlemode is annoying cuss its slow. But I dont mind the way it looks. The female animations actually look pretty good in my opinion. Running and walking with the legs together. The males on the other hand.. They run like reptiles! With their feet as far apart as possible. The first time I played a male character I was almost yelling at the screen "Whats wrong with you?! Walk normal!". lol

 

I still dont understand why BW chose to make the bodies in such a complicated way. It seems excessive and clumsy but Im no expert.

[ell46]

Yours must look different to mine, because both male and female crouch/run the same, perhaps it's more noticeable depending what armour you are wearing, when you think about it you wouldn't run like that if it was real, not unless you were taking advantage of cover for a surprise attack. In the game you could see them coming a mile away even crouched as most of the time there isn't any cover.

[VGfallout]

it's not uncommon for gaming engines to use certain humanoid anim/bone/collision sets that are applied to "universal" events... say sitting down, convohand gestures or wide-shared actions that pretty much every npc type uses at one time or another

 

i think i remember noticing its the same for either gender as well

here's what may help getting a lot closer to hatching this idea

 

1.) is playermodel just like any other humanoid npc type, does it use the standard human_female as a base? or is it a special model with extended specs for player special functions or something.

2.) IF model is special/bi-gender? , is there a way to separate walk animation replacement from affecting the male model as well, having the male pc walk like ru paul would be bad :D

3.) are the walk/run animations cross compatible with regular npcs? or do they have "special" north east west south movement/event schemes

if they are indeed cross compatible one could probably replace it would a different female walk animation meant for civilian npc types, such as uh...female_patrol_walk used in fem denerim guards or something...

 

if what wolf said is right about having to embed custom animation into each armor/model type, which would make sense since they do in fact replace the bare skin model, you'd have to apply the special animation to either every single armor piece/set, or only the ones you're sure you will use - so that you can see the changes

 

theres a chance of pulling this off if player shares models with race model type, quanari, human etc you could slap the standard "female villager" walk in there as a replacement or whatevers clever as a replacement, if, if

well actually i was about to end the post...

 

but.. if every piece of armor has the embedded animations..which it has to be, that means the player walk bone structure is fully compatible with every armor type, massive medium etc, so actually i dont see why a regular female civilian walking anim couldnt be imported into the model and have it only apply on a per-model basis

 

what would be cool and helpful is a tutorial with a basic Woriking template for imp/exp anims in models

 

but...what if there is a MASTER set of npc_type animations that are compiled into a single batch_anim. filetype....that would be no fun at all..

too many "if" and "what ifs" & not enough time to start fiddling

 

one last if...what if..(lol) moving animations are controled via master_script, and simpyl changing the "player move N. E. W. S." functions could be altered for player_female walk event....to trade off with an alternative walking animation? it would affect only the players or same-race party members, right?

[DarkeWolf]

2) I dunno, I think seeing Zev walking like Ru Paul might be appropriate. :laugh:

LOL sorry, I couldnt resist.

 

Ok, NOT to blow off a large portion of your response bro, but a lot of those "ifs" I dont know the answer to.

 

yeah, such a thing would be really nice to have.

[VGfallout]

[ i read a quick tutorial just to get an idea what the deal is regarding importing and exporting meshes, theres a few ways either by command lines from a utility for 3ds or apparantly another plugin has been made with an actual visual interface (hope its just as reliable) , while the ability to do what is needed appears to be present - there is some compatibility issues and more confusion than there is answers (googled, lurked, head shakes), as far as i can tell, there has been no solid, or mainstream utility that can do this with ease - as far as the Anims go that is, or even a model/mod releases with custom anims implemented (correct me if im wrong im very absent minded)

 

the best bet to accomplish this inmy opinion is to find out if it can actually be done through some sort of script that replaces the walking anim called on by default...or....to use an animation from the anims.erf and simply do a swap with the current manly ones - avoiding possible skeleton corruption upon import/?

 

i hate sounding ignorant, its so ignorant heh

yeah wolf, for sure - zev doing the glorious "runway" stroll would definitely be worth some laughs....after you puke in your soup hahahah, out of all people why does ru paul come to my head? .....bad question i just set myself up :p

 

i really wish i had the motivation to look into this for you guys - but the toolset has taken over my life and i'm in an seriously intense learning period and i simply cant picture stopping the fun to dabble in this :/

on the other hand, if anyone who has in fact transferred animations into the game successfully would like to give me a basic rundown or a template, then such a "shortcut" would definitely get me moving

 

a pretty worthless post, but thought i'd share whatever i learned

p.s. a seasoned scripter familiar with the engine could definitely put more substance and provide a bit more clarity regarding this topic, to see if scripts should be considered or disregarded in the entire processwhatsoever

[freemanphd]

Speaking of which: the scene with the Tevinter slavers. Didn't the slaver, Caladrius, kinda do a sashay when you first see him?

[VGfallout]

 

indeed he does, one of my first thoughts if the cutscene animations could be used for normal function, though i see it being less likely than more

 

heres something to find out - do any other npcs use that walk in-game regularly, or any other note-worthy anims?

[RedVexHK]

I think character builds would be nice.... say you are a woman. you can pick a tough muscular build that has a marginally feminine walk.... or like Morrigan who practically ooozes sensuality.. a slender shapely build .. or a rogue with a fluid dancer's body and grace.. trim and sensual.. but solid as well and each build can wield different types of weapons some exclusively.. some with bonuses or minuses... each build moves differently... from a plodding tank of a man to a less plodding tank of a woman.. to one that moves with such grace and sensuality even a room full of statues would take notice.

 

lets say you have a powerfully built fighter wielding a rapier... "SLASH! WHAM!! BASH!! SNAP!! oops it broke.. "

Then a lighter build .. swiftly slashes and parries.. lunges and ripostes.. and is even more skilled using one with a Main Gauche in the opposite hand.

[ell46]

It probably won't make and difference, but I don't think Horlocks etc walk/run all hunched over when they come running at you.

[VGfallout]

ok, i figured out how the movement and walking animation works, and they are in fact seperated by gender, and by specific events such as N,E,W,S, as was predicted, i extracted all of the animation resources and will start seeing exactly how to embed the movement so its stable/blends properly/looks decent for the "walkf" female (moving NORTH)

 

this comes right when im figuiring out how to edit the combat and ambient special fx, as well as controlling enemy "damage" reactions (so every time you hit them, they trigger *pain* animation, instead of just proceeding with combat)

 

and during all this ive figured out pretty much -exactly- how tints work so im trying to do 50 things at once and my HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE because i simply cannot work on it all and i want to

 

ive slept about 6 hours in the past 36 hours and i can feel my ability to function in a normal civilized manner slipping away from me

 

its alle xtremely exciting and awesome but all of it takes so muchtime and i feel stuck if i should do animations or continue on the model exp/mesh importing both will be essential to what i want but the animations especially combat animations are a key part of the entire games experience

 

im trying to tell you that it may very well be possible, from what ive seen id say 75% chance of successfully replacing the walk animation with a custom one, i have yet to test it with prefrab/retail animations like npcs etc if it will accept those

 

damn, so frustrating but im beat and gonna catch some zzzzz after i finish some other stuff

 

what i aws going to ask is if you can pinpoint a suitable npc walking animation you could pictuer as a replacement since most of my time in game isin flemmeths hut so i can test/reload client quickly, it wouldbe a great help, thanks

 

 

edit-

 

if anyofgmne wants tyo take a stab at this while i crash tonightg the file name is movement_fem.anb (for female) and movement.anb for male, please post any resutls i absolueltly have to spend time with someone tomotrrow or im gonna hate myself later so i wont get a chacneg to fiddle with this until later tonight (sunday), thought id say thath just in case

 

also take these with you mov.walkf.evt mov.walkf.evt mov.walkf.gad i dont know specifics functiogns of each as i JUST stumbled across this entire thing but i assure you they are sessential

 

goonight

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2010 by veteran_gamer