EPIC - is there a patch coming to fix PPM new weapon displacement?

[legacy-Slyrr77]

I'm afraid the weapon distortion which I've mentioned here before has become a severe factor in the importing of my latest model.

In previous personal player models (Raptor, Junkmech, Bender) there was distortion in the placement of the new WEAPON meshes, due to coding and scaling you gave them. Where old weapon meshes from UT2003 appear in the PPM's hands correctly, the NEW ones were displaced in space a couple of virtual 'feet' and do not appear properly in the PPM's hands.

The size of the model when exporting from your 3D suite of choice with ActorX is most certainly a factor in this, as was guessed by several modellers who had similar problems. I decided, with my latest model, to test it out by building it smaller before animating and exporting it.

I guessed wrong. With trial and error, you ofttimes hit error first. Making it smaller only amplifed the displacement when importing the model to UED. The distortion is now so bad with new weapons like the AVRIL that it would be a severe in-game distraction. Here's the proof...

http://home.comcast.net/~gregfisk/farns01.jpg

As you see, with weapons like the Avril, the Redeemer and so on, the weapon isn't just floating out there - it's WAY out there. The link gun, shock rifle, assault rifle and other 'new' weapon meshes suffer the same problem, which can't be fixed by tweaking the righthand socket in UED.

There's no way I'd be able to re-scale him in MAX without destroying the skeletal setup and starting all over. And I equally doubt I'd get a precise vertex match even if I did. Errors will creep in, and the any differences could cause major issues (possibly). I can't just select and scale the whole thing in MAX either. It won't let you. You wind up with a stretched and distorted stick person.

Is there anything you can think of that I can do to fix this short of bagging all the work I've already done and starting from scratch? Are there any settings in UED that might be tweaked? (Editing the righthand socket won't cut it - we all know that doing that will only throw the old weapon meshes out into space.) Or better yet - is there a patch to fix the 3rd person new weapon meshes so they'll behave like the old weapons meshes do? (That would be an ideal solution). I certanily can't just tell people who download the latest PPM to 'live with it' when their Avril is trailing about 10 virtual feet behind them....

Radiosity from the Beyondunreal forums has been doing some coding for this model. I asked him about this, and he had this to say:

"...It's an epic problem with their attachment classes for the new weapons. Normally weapons are imported inverted on the z axis for 3rd person models, which works perfectly. But for some bizarre reason epic decided to import all their new 3rd person models the correct way up and then used locational offset values in the script classes to invert the weapon in game (because they would appear upside down in game if they're imported the right way up in Ued; I know, confusing and not very logical).

Epic have admitted themselves that they have no idea why this happens to some models, but hopefully they'll fix it in a patch when they find the cause....."

Modellers have lived with this issue for a year now. (Check the archives - I've posted about this very issue from the moment UT2004 was released.) Isn't it about time there was a fix from the people who made the game and created the glitch in the first place?

Slyrr

[Angel_Mapper]

I doubt it. I'm guessing the only way to fix it would be to redo the skeleton.

[Radiosity]

Holy crap dude, I didn't realise it was that bad.

I'll take a look at the mesh I've got at the moment and see if I can work something out, it'd be a right biotch if you had to redo him from scratch.

[legacy-Zynith]

Damn man, that sucks.. *hugs bender skin*:confused:

[legacy-Slyrr77]

I know - I can't help wishing I'd scaled him UP instead of down when I built him initially. Again, I can't be sure that this would have cured the displacement. But if making him smaller screwed it up that badly, I can only deduce scaling him up would reduce the distortion.

In any case, any solutions that you might come up with would be appreciated. In the meantime, I'll go ahead and try rebuilding the skeleton, scaling the mesh UP instead of down. And hope that when I'm done re-applying physique and re-assigning all the vertices, that the pre-existing PSK file will accept it and the distortion will be reduced. This will probably take a few days at least, so please put on your thinking caps and see what you can come up with because like I said, I'm not even sure this will work....

Slyrr

[legacy-Mr_Caravaggio]

I really dont have anything constructive to say, it just seems like that rare editing thread that deserves a "my condolences".

Er.

"Sorry for your loss, he was a good man."

Anyway, I doubt it but I wonder if I'm not completely missing a weapon on my own custom skeleton for a similar reason. Scary to think I never heard about this before. There really isn't a universal scale in max that won't distort things? I'm confused on why you can't do that.

[legacy-Slyrr77]

Radiosity - for what it's worth - something I did note about the weapon displacement....

The custom skeleton models, (Bender, Raptor, Junkmech) all have the weapon displacement.

But PIERRE - (ze soopair moogair) does NOT have the weapon dispalcement - all weapons, old and new, appear in his hands correctly. And he was modelled and exported at exactly the same size and with the same methods that were used with all the other models.

The only difference is that Pierre was animated and exported using the custom BIPED skeleton supplied by EPIC for the standard male models. And in UED, he was given the same mesh properties as an EPIC model by loading the MercMale models, copying their MESH properites and PASTING them into Pierre.

So it would seem that not only does the models SIZE on export have something to do with it, there is also some factor in the mesh PROPERTIES that triggers it as well - otherwise Pierre, who was the same size as Bender and the Raptor when exported from MAX, would have the weapon distortion too...

To be fair, not ALL the new weapons are that bad - the AVRIL and the Redeemer are both extreme cases. The link gun, shock rifle and other new weapons are much closer to the mesh, but still floating far enough away form where they should be that it's a distraction.

Something to think about, hopefully it may help with anything you may be trying.... Would you like the updated animation file?

Slyrr

[Radiosity]

Have you actually tried copy/ pasting the mesh properties from an existing model? On the couple of occasions I've created models with custom skeletons I've pasted the mesh properties from HumanMale (the model is scaled to the same size as the default 2K4 bipeds first) and pasted them onto my model to get scale set up correctly. I must say I've never come across a major problem with the weapons when doing this. Obviously you'd then set up your sockets after that and so on. It depends on the scale of the model in Max though, as it'll be scaled relative to your original scale, so if your model is half the size of an epic rig, it'll scale it to half the size of an epic rig in Ued as well.

Yes, I will need the newest version please. I've got an idea for this, but whether it'll be doable I don't really know. If it is though, I'll need to be able to see the weapon models on the character for tweaking.

[legacy-Slyrr77]

I mis-spoke about the Pierre model - I forgot one step that I did while modelling him. After making the mesh, I opend the EPIC skelton biped file, then scaled Pierre to match it before linking him to the bones.

So I DIDN'T actually scale him to match the other meshes I made... :(

For point of reference, I've been making my models in MAX about 100 units high, from the "0" point in Z space on the floor where the bottoms of the feet are, and up to the top of the head.

The EPIC skeleton is about 240 units high. I may have to revamp the skeleton again to match those proportions and relink the ancillary bones once again if I'm to fix this annoying distortion.

Unless whatever plan you had in mind with the mesh properties works..... <sound of fingers crossing>

Slyrr

PS check private forums at beyondunreal for updated files

[legacy-Mooseboy]

Those metrics are another part of what led me to look hard at the 0.4 scale factor.

My other (unreleased) model was done in Milkshape in a similar fashion to Pierre - I imported the skeleton and made the mesh to fit. Then I made animation sequences in CharacterFX.

I hope there are a couple of simple tests that can get you a successful proof-of-concept, even if it looks butt-ugly with misweighted vertices or whatever, before you're forced to invest the days in all that other work.

[legacy-chipV2]

@ Slyrr (~~~~~~~):
you mention that you cannot scale the rigged model in Max directly. is it possible to parent a null object to the root bone (or perhaps the entire skeleton) and the mesh, and then scale the null? i've done this in other apps, but don't know if Max would allow it -- depends on how it handles hierarchies, i guess.

[legacy-Slyrr77]

define 'null object' and I'll try it.....

But if you mean making like a dummy or something, linking it to the biped center and thus every connected bone, then scaling the dummy, I doubt it would work. The way BIPED is set up, you have to increase the size/height thru the creation control panel, and then only when the biped is specifically set in "FIGURE MODE".

When you do that, you increase the biped, but stretch the mesh. If you try to select additional objects, the biped panel greys out....

Slyrr

[legacy-Mr_Caravaggio]

I apologize, I'm not a big max user and may not understand everything here, but isn't there a way to convert bipeds to regular bones?

Some cgtalk threads that probably won't help...
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=129661&highlight=scale+biped
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=46191&highlight=scale+biped
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=199891&highlight=scale+biped

[legacy-chipV2]

Originally posted by ~~~~~
if you mean making like a dummy or something... yes, that was my meaning -- known by different names in different apps, but the same general concept.

guess it's been thought of, though.

[legacy-TOP-Proto]

Is there anything you can think of that I can do to fix this short of bagging all the work


The bone the weapon is attached to is Weapon_Bone. cant you offset using sockets? or rename one of your bones to Weapon_Bone?

[legacy-Slyrr77]

Alas, nay. A bone is usually attacked to a skeleton to be the weapon bone as you said. Though it's not really needed. It's mainly used as a visual aid for the modeller. The fact is, once in UED you can name ANY bone of the character with any socket and make it the weapon bone.

But changing the socket settings doesn't do any good with the weapon distortion. You can make the OLD weapons meshes appear in the models' hand dead on accurate. But the NEW weapon meshes (avril, etc) will appear way out in space, as demonstrated here. It has to do, as Darksaber said, with the way EPIC coded these new weapons.

If you change the socket settings so that the NEW weapons are right in the character's hands, then it has the reverse effect on the OLD weapons and suddenly they're floating off in space instead.

It's an 'either or'. But how severe this distortion is has something to do with the SIZE of the model when exported from MAX using actorx. So I'm taking a chance and rescaling the whole kit and kaboodle, and re-assigning the mesh to the bones from scratch. Hopefully I'll be done with that over the weekend, and hopefully UED will let me link the current anims to it. Then we'll see if I"m right......

Slyrr

[legacy-Slyrr77]

Update: I spent a few days resizing the mesh, resizing the skeleton, resizing the extra bones that control the mouth, chair, etc. Then I spent time relinking the upsized mesh to the upsized skeleton and reassigning most of the vertices.

As a test, I tried to export the mostly-done updated mesh into UED to link him up to the existing animation file and see how it looked.

I regret to say not all is well. The mesh comes in bigger, certainly. And you can paste the mesh properties and resize it and all that jazz. But when you link up the resized mesh to the anims, then suddenly the mesh sort of collapses on itself. Using 'show bones' you can clearly see that the big mesh is trying to reconform itself around a smaller skeleton. Rescaling the mesh in UED doesn't seem to help.

So while there are no bone conflicts and whatnot, the mesh looks awful. I'll tinker around a bit and see what I can come up with. But based off these first attempts, it looks as if resizing the mesh and skeleton in MAX isn't going to be an easy fix for this problem, unless I spend another couple week re-doing ALL of the animation sequences, which I don't really want to do.

Addendum: I used the rescaled mesh to save a new animation sequence called 'refpose' and managed to merge it into the pre-existing animation file. As I guessed, the new sequence had the bones in UED scaled right. But all the pre existing sequences had a tiny skeleton that made the mesh collapse. It seems (off the top of my head) that the only solution would be to re-do all the animations from scratch one by one.

Is there no way to fix the new weapon displacement on the current Farnsworth file without going through all this? I really don't want to have to re-do 89 sequences.

Radiosity, if you want the upscaled farnworth mesh to look at and see what I mean, I can forward it to you....

Slyrr

[legacy-chipV2]

have you tried scripting a correction for the wonky weapon offsets?

[legacy-Slyrr77]

Being that I don't know how, I haven't. I frankly don't know much about scripting, especially for something as specific and localized as this. If you know how, or know of someplace that TELLS you how, feel free to pass it on.

Don't hold out on me now :)

Slyrr

[legacy-chipV2]

Originally posted by ~~~~~
Don't hold out on me now :) Slyrr i'd be willing to give it a shot, at least. you should have my e-addy-- send me the initial model (too small, with large offsets) if you'd like me try.

[legacy-Slyrr77]

Sent you a private message thru the forums, I'm afraid I don' t have yer email.....

Slyrr

[Radiosity]

chip is thinking along the same lines as me I think. Using a script to alter the offsets for each wonky weapon individually would probably work, and of course I already have some scripts here (for the emitter effect) that could be put to good use for this.

chip, I'll email you the scripts if you want to take a look into this, chances are you'd have more luck getting something like this to work :)

[legacy-chipV2]

@ DarkSaber:
i'll look for the email. i've already found a fix for the offsets: Epic provided a boolean in xPawn -- bClearWeaponOffsets -- that when set to true clears up the positional problem quite handily.

however, my in-game tests show other probs involving some of the muzzle flash/fire FX being way, way off, and that looks to be a gnarlier issue.

we'll continue this off-forum, but post the results once a full solution is found in case others have similar probs.

[legacy-Slyrr77]

Some good news though - I spent time last night redoing the voice pack from scratch with wavs sampled lower. As a result, the voice pack is now only 3000 kb instead of 12000.

Unreal editor really has a lot of weirdness going on with it - it won't let you just import and write over sounds in a voice pack, even if they have the same name. It imports the duplicates in with the same name and keep them both. Your only choice is to start all over again.

Hopefully they'll fix that for UED4 or whatever they use for the unreal3 engine - as well as this @))!(*#@) weapon coding.....


Slyrr

[legacy-TOP-Proto]

that would most likely be because of myloc.sounds.mysound
myloc.mysound scenario

[legacy-Slyrr77]

Darksaber (or is it Radiosity...?) One thing I forgot to ask - do you need the TEAM color versions of the skin? Hopefully I arranged the skins and such so that the team color portion will be the part with his coat, which is what should be team colored - along with his glasses perhaps.

If you've already cranked out team color skins to your satisfaction, never mind.

But I've been playing through a few matches with Farnsworth as team-mates, and he looks really washed out and bright in game. Whatever magic you work with the skin, I overlooked that severely.

I'll be starting on the RAGDOLL now - almost the last thing that needs to be done. Then it's just the coding and fixing and he'll be ready to post on the 'beta release' page....

Keep me posted on any progress.....

Slyrr

[legacy-TOP-Proto]

you might be interested in these settings further down the line

function HoldGameObject(GameObject gameObj, name GameObjBone)
{
if ( GameObjBone == 'None' )
{
GameObj.SetPhysics(PHYS_Rotating);
GameObj.SetLocation(Location);
GameObj.SetBase(self);
GameObj.SetRelativeLocation(vect(0,0,0));
}
else
{
AttachToBone(gameObj,GameObjBone);
gameObj.SetRelativeRotation(GameObjRot + gameObj.GameObjRot);
gameObj.SetRelativeLocation(GameObjOffset + gameObj.GameObjOffset );
}
}

although its for game object, im sure it would be similar for your setups

[legacy-chipV2]

Originally posted by TOP-Proto
you might be interested in these settings further down the line
...clip... the weapon positional problem has been solved by using the boolean apparently provided for that purpose.

but some of the weps' fire FX need massaging, as they are not working properly (like the classic sniper rifle firing out its butt :bulb: ). this may or may not be associated with the xPawn mesh's bone and/or dummy orientation -- kind of hard to track -- but it does need fixing.

[legacy-Slyrr77]

Ragdoll's done (more or less). I guess I'm getting better at using KAT since it doesn't take me near as long as it used to....

There are some things about the ragdoll though - the way the bones are set up and the way the skeleton must be optimized, the chair clips into parts of the world when you die, especially the claw arms and the footrests. There was no way around it without causing other glitches.

But once you've got the skin fixes done and the weapon alignment, he should be ready for his test debut....

Slyrr

[Radiosity]

Quick question: do you want team skins adding for green and gold? I would imagine you'll get people bugging you about CTF4 support, so it'd probably be a good idea ;) I can always scale the green and gold skins to 512x512 to drop filesize a bit, since they won't be used so much as the other skins.

[legacy-Slyrr77]

Depends on how many people actually PLAY ctf4 I guess. I tend to gear my models with the standard game types in mind, and CTF4 is a mod. Still, if you can keep the file size manageable, go ahead.

PS: I'll give you the ragdoll if you can let me see the updated UTX file :) Be sure to tell me any changes I must make to the UPL....

Slyrr