Don't let this project die! I hope somebody is still working on this, it has SO MUCH potential!
For motivational purposes I barely slept last night to make my personal Toss-A-Tron. Beware!
Also thx to DrSuperEvil for pointing me towards the awesome data threads :)
edit:
not sure if I will continue working on this, because it really has no purpose for me and I have another project that I want to focus on :) But next thing should be to implement the Turn Sensor I guess (besides making more animations and sticks in general, I just added a single one for each arm, thats really not enough for good animations)
Not bad for a prototype. You are correct in that the animations could be improved by implementing a better calibrated version of the turn sensor and by validating the range till it has to stop.
Why does the current form remind me of a certain awesome superunit from Supreme Commander?
Basicly the long term aim of the project is to make a skeleton with good and versatile animations you can just hang stuff off to make any impressive composite unit. Has alot of potential for RPG bosses.
Why does the current form remind me of a certain awesome superunit from Supreme Commander?
No idea, never played it :D Also I didn't have any concept at all, just turned out like that. I guess its just a very cliche robot ;) I didn't plan to show a video or anything of it in the first place, I just experimented, but I was very satisfied how decent it looked with quite little effort put in so I uploaded the video.
Basicly the long term aim of the project is to make a skeleton with good and versatile animations you can just hang stuff off to make any impressive composite unit. Has alot of potential for RPG bosses.
Yeah I agree, and thats why it would be so cool if someone is still working on it. There is really a lot of potential once a basic set of animations is done (it doesn't even have to be a huge amount of animations with 2 billion joints), because applying the visual appearance isn't really hard once you understand how the moving parts are done and which joints move what parts of the unit.
It took me like 5 or 6 hours to get this kind of model (including changing the animations a bit), and it was the first time I did something with Forward Vector SiteOps (and I had to get used to the Rotation ones too) at all, so if I had to do this thing again it would probably take me 2-3 hours max. Sure it still looks pretty bad (especially the back and the animations) and I probably wouldn't use it in a map, but in my opinion you can very easily improve it and if you actually want to do some kind of huge mech robot maps it could easily be done this way in a reasonable amount of time :)
Took me three days but developed a simple system for leg movement. Here is the demo so far, needs calibration and implementation of an upgraded turn sensor.
Still the leg visuals are about 5 mins work from the skeleton (depends if you have an idea of what models to use already). Although custom leg movement patterns might take longer.
On the plus side it can have accurate trample damage.
As I mentioned via PM, those legs are plain awesome. I can totally see a nice spider robot made out of it.
I didn't really continue working on this project, but I am glad to see, what you guys are doing with it :) I will probably get back to it at some point as well.
Feet now automatically move if they stray too close or far from body and first/last steps look more smooth. Knee is still giving issues. Can someone find optimised parameters for the kneeesnap SOp?
Feet now automatically move if they stray too close or far from body and first/last steps look more smooth. Knee is still giving issues. Can someone find optimised parameters for the kneeesnap SOp?
What exactly is bothering you there / what does it change for the movement?
Experimented a little and couldn't really see the particular differences.
Everything just way too complicated :( So awesome though
The problem is sometimes the knee becomes inverted on game start so goes below Ground. The Kneesnap named SOp alters the starting rotation of the two leg halves and increased the chance they will join in the correct position. It is imperfect though and sometimes they still are below ground. It is an issue I need to resolve before i can add more legs because it is no good if half the time at least one leg is faulty.
Before As soon as it started moving it would move the leg and not have a high enough velocity to trigger the switch correctly, now it has a 0.5sec delay so places the leg correctly (especially when turning). The last step before stopping also would sometimes hang in an extended position so added a 1 sec delay before it returns to the idle position. There was an issue where if it turned a small amount before moving forwards the leg would sometimes be moved too close to the body and sometimes go under it which would twist the leg in a way that would not look good with multiple legs so added a degree of automation that if the leg is too close or too far from the body it automatically adjusts itself.
If you have any questions about how it works feel free to ask.
Edit: Redone how leg is created so on plus side is it no longer is inverted, downside is there is a 1 sec delay before visuals and movement align on creation.
Well new patch seems to have ripped my walker a new one.
Edit: Fixed the issue, had to redo whole leg visuals. Seems some actors were refusing to be hosted on the correct actor (weird). Anyhow have added most of deta needed to make a simple 4 legged walker, just need to work on the visuals and the leg timings.
Ok here is latest version. All four legs work but back pair need calibration and visuals. Need to perform extensive testing including over rough terrain. Also need to implement stomp attack at foes when not moving.
Good, because I will expect you to help with the fine tuning when it is done. Also will need you to test how easy the skeleton is to understand where to customize.
Also has a ton of effects too.
Next leg will be zerg themed (rebirth of our old idea of a tentacle leg I hope).
Once it is done I will strip it down of the eye candy visuals and make a mod for all to use.
Edit: Ok, tentacle legs are off the menu. Seems the neural parasite tentacle requires a channelled ability and having it as a Beam (Simple) causes it to twist to the sides as it walks.
Nothing a well placed model cant hide.
Basicly the skeleton controls all the movement and the visuals are hung from it like a building.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
Ok here are two more tools for this project:
1) The all important turn sensor for the leg movements (needs calibration and fine tuning)
2) Proof of concept, the merging of tentacles with joints and using joints as levers for other joints.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
Don't let this project die! I hope somebody is still working on this, it has SO MUCH potential!
For motivational purposes I barely slept last night to make my personal Toss-A-Tron. Beware!
Also thx to DrSuperEvil for pointing me towards the awesome data threads :)
Download Map
edit:
not sure if I will continue working on this, because it really has no purpose for me and I have another project that I want to focus on :) But next thing should be to implement the Turn Sensor I guess (besides making more animations and sticks in general, I just added a single one for each arm, thats really not enough for good animations)
Not bad for a prototype. You are correct in that the animations could be improved by implementing a better calibrated version of the turn sensor and by validating the range till it has to stop.
Why does the current form remind me of a certain awesome superunit from Supreme Commander?
Basicly the long term aim of the project is to make a skeleton with good and versatile animations you can just hang stuff off to make any impressive composite unit. Has alot of potential for RPG bosses.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
No idea, never played it :D Also I didn't have any concept at all, just turned out like that. I guess its just a very cliche robot ;) I didn't plan to show a video or anything of it in the first place, I just experimented, but I was very satisfied how decent it looked with quite little effort put in so I uploaded the video.
Yeah I agree, and thats why it would be so cool if someone is still working on it. There is really a lot of potential once a basic set of animations is done (it doesn't even have to be a huge amount of animations with 2 billion joints), because applying the visual appearance isn't really hard once you understand how the moving parts are done and which joints move what parts of the unit.
It took me like 5 or 6 hours to get this kind of model (including changing the animations a bit), and it was the first time I did something with Forward Vector SiteOps (and I had to get used to the Rotation ones too) at all, so if I had to do this thing again it would probably take me 2-3 hours max. Sure it still looks pretty bad (especially the back and the animations) and I probably wouldn't use it in a map, but in my opinion you can very easily improve it and if you actually want to do some kind of huge mech robot maps it could easily be done this way in a reasonable amount of time :)
Especially if you had a skeleton to import and just choose the visuals of the pieces.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
Took me three days but developed a simple system for leg movement. Here is the demo so far, needs calibration and implementation of an upgraded turn sensor.
Still the leg visuals are about 5 mins work from the skeleton (depends if you have an idea of what models to use already). Although custom leg movement patterns might take longer.
On the plus side it can have accurate trample damage.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
As I mentioned via PM, those legs are plain awesome. I can totally see a nice spider robot made out of it.
I didn't really continue working on this project, but I am glad to see, what you guys are doing with it :) I will probably get back to it at some point as well.
Only problem with my leg system is it seems to have a tendency to revert to digigrade joints. So it might be a while before we can make good bipeds.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
Here is an updated version with 3 ideas for implementing dynamic motion still to be implemented.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
Feet now automatically move if they stray too close or far from body and first/last steps look more smooth. Knee is still giving issues. Can someone find optimised parameters for the kneeesnap SOp?
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
What exactly is bothering you there / what does it change for the movement?
Experimented a little and couldn't really see the particular differences.
Everything just way too complicated :( So awesome though
The problem is sometimes the knee becomes inverted on game start so goes below Ground. The Kneesnap named SOp alters the starting rotation of the two leg halves and increased the chance they will join in the correct position. It is imperfect though and sometimes they still are below ground. It is an issue I need to resolve before i can add more legs because it is no good if half the time at least one leg is faulty.
Before As soon as it started moving it would move the leg and not have a high enough velocity to trigger the switch correctly, now it has a 0.5sec delay so places the leg correctly (especially when turning). The last step before stopping also would sometimes hang in an extended position so added a 1 sec delay before it returns to the idle position. There was an issue where if it turned a small amount before moving forwards the leg would sometimes be moved too close to the body and sometimes go under it which would twist the leg in a way that would not look good with multiple legs so added a degree of automation that if the leg is too close or too far from the body it automatically adjusts itself.
If you have any questions about how it works feel free to ask.
Edit: Redone how leg is created so on plus side is it no longer is inverted, downside is there is a 1 sec delay before visuals and movement align on creation.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
Well new patch seems to have ripped my walker a new one.
Edit: Fixed the issue, had to redo whole leg visuals. Seems some actors were refusing to be hosted on the correct actor (weird). Anyhow have added most of deta needed to make a simple 4 legged walker, just need to work on the visuals and the leg timings.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
Ok here is latest version. All four legs work but back pair need calibration and visuals. Need to perform extensive testing including over rough terrain. Also need to implement stomp attack at foes when not moving.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
:D Oh man, cannot wait how the end result looks like
Also, thats a crapton of marines xD
@Kueken531: Go
Good, because I will expect you to help with the fine tuning when it is done. Also will need you to test how easy the skeleton is to understand where to customize.
Also has a ton of effects too.
Next leg will be zerg themed (rebirth of our old idea of a tentacle leg I hope).
Once it is done I will strip it down of the eye candy visuals and make a mod for all to use.
Edit: Ok, tentacle legs are off the menu. Seems the neural parasite tentacle requires a channelled ability and having it as a Beam (Simple) causes it to twist to the sides as it walks.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
@Kueken531: Go
THIS, is freaking awesome. I am now compelled to learn how to play with actors as well :D
On a sidenote: The music on the first post video is very.. unique o_o
Edit: Somehow, I feel like this opens up the door to implementing QWOP in the sc2 engine
QWOP?
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
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QWOP:D