Custom 1st Person Weapon Animation Problem

(the_hat) #1

growl :angry: :banghead: :bash:

hehe, ok, heres my problem that i cant seem to figure out, and have been working on for the past few days.

i finished my model, made all tags needed, grouped each part to its tag, did animation, exported animation (tags only), exported parts (mesh and tag used), the main part of the weapon is where it should be (ingame), the flash shows up where it should (ingame), the animation works fine, but the other md3 “parts” were not where they should be ingame, so i moved them so they line up right ingame, but on the reload animation the left hand fly’s way up “where it did befor i attempted to line up the parts” which makes no sense to me. couple things i should add, i didnt move the tags because i thowt the whole point of the tags is to aline one “part” with the same tag name as another “part”. but that doesnt seem to be the case.

here’s some screen to get a better understanding of what my problem is:

In 3dsmax befor deleting the meshes to export the animation at the part of the reloading animation where it goes way away from where it should be ingame (how it should look ingame):

and ingame, where it forks up (same time in animation as above screen)

hehe, any ideas befor i give up on my TC all together?

(the_hat) #2

:frowning: nobody has any ideas? hrm, well ill just add one thing, the ingame might look weird “arm is way to long” but thats just because the cg_fov is like 130 when i took the screenshot

(bacon) #3

Change your FOV to 90 and then see if we can help. It looks too distorted in 130.

I don’t know how you can stand a FOV that high, don’t you get the fishbowl effect?

(Hewster) #4

Hi,

Ok, before I start, please take note, I only have experience of RtCW, not ET,
Its been quite a while since I did this, and I’m writing this purly from memory :slight_smile: …

right… you should have a tag assocciated with each movable weapon part “barrel”
when you export each part, you delete all other parts and tags (not the associated tag)
link the weapon part to its tag
position the tag at (0,0,0)
export the weapon part.

do this for each part of the weapon, and your done.

Hope this helps

Hewster

oh, and you wouldn’t believe how long it took me to originally sus out how to-do this !

(the_hat) #5

much thanks Hewster, heh, only acouple “stupid” questions :stuck_out_tongue:
what do you mean “link the weapon part to its tag” ? group them or?
second, when i position the tag at (0,0,0) should i move the mesh to, or only the tag?
thanks again :slight_smile:

bacon,
yeah, most of the time i leave my fov at 90, i had just changed because one of my model parts wasnt in the window, and i was wondering where it was floating around :stuck_out_tongue:

(Hewster) #6

ok… in a little more detail :slight_smile:

open your complete model
select the model part / parts and its associated tag
inverse the selection (so you select everything else)
delete.

select the model part/parts, and click the link tool (2 boxes with a chain linking them, next to the undo / re-do buttons top left)
click on the slected parts, and drag cursor to your tag (or select the tag from the selection menu)

The parts and the tag are now linked, so when you move the tag, the model parts will move with it :slight_smile:

now what I do next is to create a tag using the “create tag” from the md3 export script dialog, this create a tag at 0,0,0 aligned to the world.
next I select the export tag, and click the “align” button, a dialog will popup, select the following:

Align position, X, Y & Z
select pivot point for current object and target object
Align orientaion (local) X, Y & Z

Click apply and OK

IMPORTANT: now delete the new tag (probably called “tag_unnamed01”)

You are now ready to export, export the model at frame 0.

and your done :slight_smile:

Its unfortunate, I did write a comprehensive tutorial on exporting weapons, with lots of pretty pics, example models ect,
but it was lost in a Hard-Drive failure some time ago… when I get the time I do intend to write another one.

Let me know if you need any other help

Hewster

(the_hat) #7

omg, awesome, thank u some much, works great, i never used the link feature, would have made the animation alittle easyer “i just used group but then i had to open group and delete mesh to export animation”, anyway, thanks again, u rock :slight_smile:

(mohaa_rox) #8

is there anything u can do with the arms or the fingers? like rotate or move them? if so, how do u do that?