Altair in UDK | Combining Motion Capture Animation with UDK Physics (WIP)

[rprich]

Here's something I've been working on for a while, it's a project for uni where I have used this Altair model: (http://thefree3dmodels.com/stuff/cha...d_i/14-1-0-564) and animated it using motion capture techniques. I then implemented and scripted it to be playable in UDK.

It has some custom mechanics such as climbing and sword fighting but at the moment these mechanics are just about functional and quite buggy, but here's a video of how it looks right now.

Here is also a link to download the short game seen in the video: http://www.mediafire.com/?i0lypffwl48ge8u

[scrapland]

Looks good.
try blending the animations more.

[Private Tux]

Slightly astonishing work, I like that. The character takes the advent of samurai styles in this project.

[jak_carver]

This is the coolest **** I've seen on this forum!

[Beno09]

Oh my God, this is so awesome. I would like to see later a tutorial from this. It would have the tons of views believe me.
Keep this awesome work.

[rprich]

Thanks guys, I'm hoping to improve this in a few weeks for my uni's graduate exhibition so should be able to post some new stuff as time goes. If I have time I will also go through my processes and techniques.

To scrapland, I know what you mean, particularly the jumps between attacking, I did have a problem with this because the attacks are blended between each other through a custom blend node. The problem is that I use a PlayAnim function to start the animation from the beginning, without this the animtree just picks up the time position from the last time it paused. This PlayAnim is set to loop because otherwise once the animation has played through once it will not start again unless it is set to loop for some reason. This means that, if I set the node to blend between animations, you catch a glimpse of the animation looping. It would probably be easier to explain in a video but, yeah, I need to find a better way to play these animations.

[Chosker]

to fix that last problem you're mentioning (non-looping animation starting its play from last time it paused) you could use some custom AnimTree Sequence node. here's one I coded a while back that does exactly what you need:

class eAnimNodeSequencePlayFromStart extends AnimNodeSequence;

var() bool bPlayFromStart;

event OnBecomeRelevant()
{
	if (bPlayFromStart)
	{
		SetPosition(0.0f, false);
	}
}

defaultproperties
{
	bPlayFromStart=true;
	bCallScriptEventOnBecomeRelevant=TRUE
}

once compiled into your project, a new anim sequence type should appear in the AnimTree menu. use this new one instead of the regular AnimSequence, and once it becomes relevant from within the AnimTree it will play the animation from the start, effectively removing your particular need to use PlayAnim
now you'll be able to blend your animations properly

oh btw it looks awesome

[Chimerainc]

Wow I wish you could some how turn this into a template to sell the climbing / rolling / melee as a big framework for this type of gameplay. I mean I would even hire you to expand this and add a cover system too that is if you plan to do more with these skills for freelance purposes aside from any personal projects etc.

Countless amount of threads asking how to do stuff like this, well the climbing definitely. Is it procedural?

Amazing!

[rprich]

To Chosker - Thanks man I'll get onto adding that as soon as I can, that could also solve a few other problems I've been having too

The climbing is is a bit hacky at the moment, it is basically a trigger volume around the climbable block which plays the climbing animation if the character is looking at it, and is not jumping.
I then use a SetPosition at the end of the animation so the pawn is teleported to where the skeletal mesh now is, this way you get really smooth animations because the pawn is following the mesh rather than the other way around.

The same goes for the fighting, when the player attacks, the animation is played and the character moves forward slightly with the attack, however this doesn't work so well because the camera snaps a bit more which makes the fighting a bit jarring to watch. I also use a SetRotation to snap the pawn to the mesh's new rotation because at the end of each attack he has turned a bit, but this doesn't quite work yet. I'm sure with a bit of tweaking this can be fixed.

Thanks for all your comments guys!

[Chosker]

To Chosker - Thanks man I'll get onto adding that as soon as I can, that could also solve a few other problems I've been having too

The climbing is is a bit hacky at the moment, it is basically a trigger volume around the climbable block which plays the climbing animation if the character is looking at it, and is not jumping.
I then use a SetPosition at the end of the animation so the pawn is teleported to where the skeletal mesh now is, this way you get really smooth animations because the pawn is following the mesh rather than the other way around.

The same goes for the fighting, when the player attacks, the animation is played and the character moves forward slightly with the attack, however this doesn't work so well because the camera snaps a bit more which makes the fighting a bit jarring to watch. I also use a SetRotation to snap the pawn to the mesh's new rotation because at the end of each attack he has turned a bit, but this doesn't quite work yet. I'm sure with a bit of tweaking this can be fixed.

Thanks for all your comments guys!

no problem

hacky indeed. the way you're doing it now the collision component is staying in place until that teleport happens, which could very easily lead to missing collision if another player/AIenemy wants to attack/push you while you're in the middle of that animation
you could use Root Motion Animation for this instead of just teleporting the Pawn at the end of animation, and that would cause the Pawn to move+rotate with the character's RootBone at all times, avoiding all those collision+camera errors

[seenooh]

I believe using root motion will be easier to implement those stuff.

[rprich]

Ah, great shout, I've seen RootMotion here and there but wasn't really sure how it worked and if it would help me, but it sounds perfect for what I need.

Thanks again for all the help guys

[Black_Stormy]

That roll needs to be a whole lot faster, and floppier, and aside from the fact that AC was an unreal engine game anyway, nice character work.

[MarkG85]

Very nice bro, very nice

[talus14]

Very Nice Animations keep up the work

[SkullKing]

How did you set up the blocking?

Does it actually prevent damage or is just an animation for now?

[lVampirel]

That roll needs to be a whole lot faster, and floppier, and aside from the fact that AC was an unreal engine game anyway, nice character work.

actually it was a Anvil game engine.

[jak_carver]

That roll needs to be a whole lot faster, and floppier, and aside from the fact that AC was an unreal engine game anyway, nice character work.

Assassin's Creed does NOT run on Unreal Engine. Double check where you get information from before posting

[Beno09]

Have I said this, yes I said it but i'll need again.
This is so awesome man

[LordNelson7]

This looks really cool! Other than the animations snapping a little this is a perfect combat system!

[rprich]

Thanks guys, I'm working on some improvements for it at the moment so some updates will be made soon enough.

Right now the combat system is just animations, they don't do anything yet. However, I am trying to do something with it since I have a whole set of animations waiting to go in such as taking hits, blocking a hit and a counter attack.

[rprich]

So I've finally finished updating and improving the project, sorry I haven't posted progress updates but I've been so busy trying to get everything done for GradEx.

There's been loads of little tweaks here and there, blending has been overall improved, tonnes of bugs have been fixed, the roll has been sped up and no longer slows the player down. I have also added some (bad) AI so you can attack something and he will react, there is blocking and taking damage, didn't have time to add the counter though. A vault animation has also been added.

I then made a quick level for the player to run through and try all the animations and stuff. The AI was supposed to be in the level but for some reason he was very broken, he either shot me (even though he had no weapons) or ignored everything I did (didn't draw sword or take damage etc), so instead he is just in the test level.

I also couldn't get RootMotion to work properly apart from the first 2 attacks and the vaulting.

[lebaje]

Did you had to make a lot of script for the combat with the sword?

(sorry for my english)

[jak_carver]

just watched this video with some of my co-workers; this looks great. You definitely should have no problem finding a job in the industry once you graduate.

[Private Tux]

25/5/2012: The video looks nice. Real fun in combat.

[rprich]

Thanks everyone, I've had great feedback on this project and I will definitely post my future work here, it's a great forum

Hi lebaje, the script for the combat was pretty simple, I made a new pawn script for the enemy and then referenced the main player script so the enemy would react based on what the player was doing. So for example if the player attacks, and is in range, the enemy will pick up on that function. He then has a 30% chance of blocking the attack, otherwise he will take some damage and play the 'take hit' animation. The combat works alright but it is really slow and there's still a few bugs in it, took me like 5 tries before I could capture an attack sequence without it bugging out too much lol.