Can someone explain me how to: "From Dissipate to Decay"?

The thread title says it all, however the hero model is that of "Jaina", all I had trying this is:

1. Gutz geoset instead of the Glow (so the Gutz are seen as they were a glow O_o)

2. Freaky Decay anims (Funny, something like "spell", then "dissipate", then the model returned to Z=0 point and started walking, then death anim) (I saved this bugged model because it was uber-funny XD)

So: Can someone explain me how to: "From Dissipate to Decay" using Jaina model as a base? Thanks.

Oh that's right, I forgot about Gutz geoset... Eesh.

The problem with assembling a decent guts model from this kind of thing is that you need to make it match the last frame of her death animation, rather than any reference pose that can be easily accessed in a modelling program.

I suppose you can steal one from somebody else and just keep tweaking it until it fits; anyway.

First things first: get the decay animation sorted. Once this is done, the rest is trivial geoset shunting.

You need to isolate the very first frame of the dissipate animation (which will match the very last frame of the death animation). Do this by shortening the "Dissipate" sequence to include only that frame; say, set its end to 36502 (it starts at 36500; make sure a gap remains, just in case).

So now we have the frame sorted, we need to copy it. The dissipate animation itself is no use to us -- it is surrounded (chronologically) by other nonsense, and a decay sequence is 60 seconds long -- the dissipate is about two seconds. Using AnimTransfer, copy only this buggered dissipte sequence back onto the same model -- AnimTransfer will conveniently position it right at the end of the sequence timeline, giving us free reign to add what we need.

Extend the NEW dissipate by 60000 frames. Rename it to "decay bone".

Now, we need Bone_ArchDruidRoot (it's actually a helper). We need to add a simple translation keyframe onto the end of all the bumf it has. If all has gone well, the last frame should be one for the new decay sequence. Copy this (include the intan and outtan bit, just to be safe), paste -- and adjust the keyframe to match the end of your decay sequence. Now, adjust the Z value (the third component of the keyframe -- NOT of the intan or outtan lines!) to be low enough to put Jaina in the ground. My examination says it's going to be set to about -37 as it is, so down by another 100 should be safe (probably return later for tweaking... Notice a pattern here?).

And bang -- you have a decay.

If you can follow all of that, then we can move on to inserting the gutz geoset (it'll need its own bone) and all the geosetanim buggery this will entail.

I you, RDZ!

But I'm a bit confused, I've probably done something wrong here:


Or here:


The results: When the decay animation starts, the body bumps, then goes down veery slowly while in mid-air and the staff is glowing

Probably I misinterpretated this:

All you really need for a Decay anim is the "Translation" function on the Mother bone (Bone00, Gutz00, etc.). simply Duplicate this bone, tamper with the 'Dissipate' animations' Translations in the duplicated mother bone, so that when it 'Dissipates' it goes down very slowly, instead of up, here's an example:

Dissipate:
Intervals:
From: 3333
To: 5448

Find 3333 in the Translations menu, you should paste 5448 directly below it, if it isn't already there. Now then, here is the set up for the Dissipate translation, as far as I can tell:
3333: { 0, 0, 0 }
5448: { 0, 0, 200 }

Change that to something along the lines of:
3333: { 0, 0, 0 }
5448: { 0, 0, -50 }

Add the Gutz geoset to the Gutz bone and you're all set. The game will balance out the decay time no matter what.


Oh, and if you haven't figured it out, you'll need to move the Duplicated mother bone around so that all the other bones under it are connected to it, while it is connected to the original Mother Bone, which you should not tamper with.


As soon as I finish the model i'm working on, i'll get right to the Decaying Jaina model.

... Woah. All I can do is bow in awe and Bookmark this page for later.

Nobody appreciates my contributions :'(

Hrm.

The problem with the bump won't be anything you've done, it'll be horribleness from the intan and outtans. Try setting all their values to zero; but do it on a copy, because this may well fuck it up harder.

Glowing staff is all about the same stuff as geosetanims, we'll get to that once the rest is ready.

Ok, the corpse is still (as it's supposed to be, I guess), now we can pass to the easy part...

We'd better do the staff particles before I forget.

You need to add to their "visibility" tracks a keyframe for the start of your decay sequence -- "48767: 0", zero to indicate invisible. Just shove it right on the end; beware that if you're doing this in Notepad, you'll need to increment the number at the top that details the count, or Magos' will scream.

Now, you need to add a new bone. Better do this in Magos'. Make sure it's got no parents at all -- that means moved as far to the left as possible. Name it as you wish.

Now geomerge your corpse onto this. You should now see that the corpse appears on every sequence; this is because it has no geosetanim.

Magos' is a bit annoying here because you can't easily distinguish between geosets. Shift-click on the new corpse geoset, and it will be selected in the Geoset Manager -- it will be called something like Geoset34A07DF. Usually the last three characters are enough to note (beware that the list here may not be in the order that the geosets really appear in the file). Now, go to the Geoset Animation Manager, and create a new one. Assign it to the corpse geoset.

Now, tick "animated" under "alpha" -- you'll see the alpha button become active. Click it. Here you must now fill in a lot lot lot of zeroes; as we did in the particle emitters, one at the start frame of every sequence. EXCEPT for your new decay bone sequences; where you will put a one (technically this is not necessary, but it's nice to be on the safe side).

If the corpse only appears in the decay bone sequence, you've scored. If you want to be really Blizzardy, try making the corpse appear a little after Jaina has started to sink into the ground.

Oh fuck's sake, it's decay flesh we're doing right now. If you can follow everything so far, decay bone will be a piece of cake.

Huh? I'm using notepad from the start... should I switch to Magos'? Until then I'll continue trying with Notepad, it seems that I understood the whole .mdl thing (except for geosets) (for the bone I guess I could use Object Id Inserter and copy Priest's bone (the selected corpse for her)... I use Oinkerwinkle's tools for now...)


You said "Decay Bone" before (effectively it seemed a bit strange...)

Ok, so far I guess I can do that. I'll let you know in some hours (now I got Japanese lessons...)

EDIT: Step 1, Staff particles disabled!

Ok, understood, Fatal Errors means "switch to Magos', idiot!", I'll edit this post for further succesfully edits.

Fatal Error again! (But I found out why: A Geoset Animation without Geoset Id specified... good idea, Sherlock!)

FURTHER EDIT: Ok, everything is basically done, now I'm tweaking a bit Z and animation values to match the best way a blizzard anim...

The Animation is working at first, but then the corpse, after it's totally sunk, returns to the original value.

To compare:


And should I add rotation values for these points? (Doesn't seem requred ATM...)

Also I should rotate and scale the gutz geoset, but I think I can handle this step by myself.

You do not need to add rotation values. Translation, rotation and scaling operate entirely independently (unless you fuck up the rotation, where it can cause strange scaling because of the mathemagics involved).

Yes, you should use Magos' for a lot of this; it completely eliminates the possibility of making stupid or simple mistakes, and generally provides an interface for things that are otherwise confusing or unwieldy. Most of what I've said is program-neutral... But if you want to be half-decent at model editing, you will need to become proficient with Magos' as well as the Oinkertools and Notepad. A solid grounding in all the programs will ultimately give you a better understanding of everything and a faster, stronger work-flow.

I don't know why you're drawing parallels with the Priest model, but the fact that you're scanning other MDLs for hints about how to do what you want is a good sign.

The corpse bouncing back is a problem that cannot exist from only the information you've given me; the keyframes all match and you've zeroed the intans and outtans (though this could itself be the problem: perhaps... Try duplicating the end frame, and putting it a single frame before the actual end frame. Dirty rotten hack from my Milkshape experience, but it's worth a go).

I did indeed say Decay Bone before, but I also have been writing most of this without reference to a single model, and I haven't performed any complex edits like this for a while.

That's not true. Simply your posts are not shown when you wrote them, but strangely some time after into the thread. It's the 3rd time, as I've seen, that this happens, and only for new users. Should be reported to an Admin, probably, I'll take care of that after this post.
However if you have opinions on what is the problem here, they will be appreciated.

Ok, so far I tried:

- Duplicating last frame
- Changing intans and outtans (maybe I should try this a little more)
- Making the anim shorter and then let the game fix it for me
- Adding a mid-frame and changing intans and outtans

Nothing has worked...

Strange.

Post the MDL you have right now and I'll take a poke around.

Here 'tis.

Strange name? Because I'm doing a backup of every step (just in case)

But only this step, ok?
I'd have to manage the rest by myself, just to end asking model-edit questions :P