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S-23 "Prophet" Tactical Reconnaisance Armour


Max_Caine

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Here's an animation test from the modeller. Ibrahim found a problem with the mental ray setup and he thinks he's fixed that. I think this is about ready for a full rollout.

prophet_test_zps3555141f.gif

Note this is going to get shrunk down again for the spritesheets post-render, so a lot of the detail is going to get lost. And you see the idle animation as well!

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We shall try stuff out! I'll keep all informed when things happen. What I'l probably do is try out spritesheets by inserting them in exisiting, established armoursets. That way I know the spritesheets themselves work, and when I've got enough for a full weapon type when that's ready I'll push that out first of all, so we can try it out, while I keep on rendering and spritesheet-stuff. The first one shouldn't take too long to fully render - I figure it at around 1000 frames per direction, with 8 directions that works out to 8000 frames and my rig can render out one every 5-7 seconds, so let's say 40,000 seconds, which translates into 667 minutes, so that's 12 hours, (rounding up). Where it gets tricky is using the post-processing droplet that Chris has so kindly donated, then spritesheet stuffing. That's going to take up more time than actual rendering, I reckon.

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I could talk to Jsleezy about that and ask him if he'd be willing to alter the X-23 on the pic. I've no objection to changing it over.

EDIT: Could I give a really big shoutout to Chris. Chris allowed me to use Xenonauts assets. Chris even provided Xenonauts assets for me to use. He's given me the droplet, and has been invaluable every step of the way. Without Chris, this mod simply would never happen.

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Just a quick update. I was expecting to download the armour textures last week, shortly after I had made my last post. The modeller hasn't uploaded them, I asked him where they were today, and he said he had already uploaded them. He;s promised to do it soon. As soon as I get that retextured armour, I will start rendering.

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Update: I've got the model and I've started rendering. No point me putting up more pix, as they would be more of the same, although the pix just don't do the actual model justice. First test render will be 40 frames all cameras for the ballistic rifle. I'll then work from there doing the post-processing, spritesheet stuffing and spectre making. Once that all works, I'll do some compression, make sure that works then do a release for people to try the new spritesheet (although it won't be very much). I'll keep rendering all the while this is goig on, as I can just set the computer to render when I'm asleep and when I'm out.

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Next update: Things seems to be coming along smoothly. Rendering for the walking frames has finished, and the droplet that Chris very generously provided has done its stuff. Here's what the game-ready animation will look like when I'm done messing about with Texture Packer.

testwalking_zps14bdb7e2.gif

It's very small, but the size will alter depending on the in-game resolution size.

Right, now to try my hand at Texture Packer. I'm probably going to be quite a while doing this!

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While I figure out how to use the custom exporter, I notice that the run animations have relatively few frames compared to mine, which is interesting as these are exactly the same set of animations! Currently my running animations come to 30 frames, whereas vanilla running has 19-22 frames. I'm seriously considering cutting out some frames. There would be a corresponding reduction in smoothness, but it can't be that bad, and it would help to reduce the overall size.

EDIT: Okayk, I'm too sleepy, and I'm no longer thinking properly, but I think I've got a handle on TexturePacker. Once I work out the proper output I will be able to churn out spritesheets like no tomorrow!

Edited by Max_Caine
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Well, as much as I would like to take credit, that's the consequence of building on the shoulders of others. All the hard exploratory work was already done by the time I came along, and I never forget that. And it puts me in a philosophical mood. All the things that Goldhawk learned doing this game - how many times has that been done? How many times has the wheel been re-invented by studious groups of people? I'm lucky enough that I have a wheel to study from before I make my own, but I can't imagine how difficult it was for Goldhawk to make their own from scratch.

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Update: Okay, first sprite sheet made. This was half done in TexturePacker, half done by hand. I'm having difficulty with the custom exporter as the documentation has been written by someone who knows their code inside out... and expects everyone else to know it as well as he, which is no help at all for a n00b like me. I've found a custom exporter that's similar to Playground SDK's flimstrip output so I'm hoping to be able to adjust that to reduce the amount of manual work I have to do per sprite sheet. I'd like to ask if anyone's interested in testing the spritesheet to see if it works for them. If you're intersted, choose an armour type and weapon type you currently have in-game. Then back up the run_e spritesheet of the armour/weapon combo you've chosen, replace the sprite sheet you've backed up with the sprite sheet from the zip file, and put the run_e xml file in the same directory. When you then play the game, the new run_e spritesheet should appear each time you move east with the appropriate weapon/armour combo.

Does this work for you?

Please note this is a "does this work?" sprite sheet - it's not fine-tuned. I feel the sprite looks like he's shuffling, so I'm going to remove enough sprites to give those legs more freedom to move. A problem I have which I can't fix is I have no idea how flimstrip calculates the GC registration points, not a scooby, so I'm having to guess using existing data. Thankfully, registration points don't have a wide range in which they change. Does anyone see any problems with the sprite sheet other than these two?

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Update: Well, I have no idea how to get TexturePacker to actually use a custom exporter. It just won't let me. The documentation is rubblish and utterly unhelpful and there doesn't seem to be any community to help out so it's going to be a case of half and half, using TexturePacker as much as I can then doing the rest by hand, which is going to take a lot longer to sort out.

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Update: well, that took ages. I listened to all of the Co-Op Podcast while doing the spritesheets for standard movement. Almost all the time was taken up editing the spectre. There must be a way to automate this, as most of what needs doing can be heavily automated. Anyway! I've done the standard movement spritesheets for all directions. I'll keep working on the rest of the spritesheets, but it's going to really take ages!

Edit: Complete set is uploaded on the link two posts up.

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