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FPSC Classic Models and Media / Custom Weapon Model Info Request

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RUCCUS
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Joined: 11th Dec 2004
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Posted: 24th Dec 2009 04:24
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I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction as to whats really involved in getting weapons set up for use in FPSC. I've got a lot of weapon concepts that I would love to put up in the TGC store along with all of my other models, but I cant find any firm documentation on how its done. The manual gives a basic outline, but Im curious about things like how the weapon animates along with the hands (do they get attached to limbs on the hands, or animated to follow along with the hands?), and other things like AirMod and Ply'sMod that I've heard about. Id like these weapons to be as functional as possible, and from what I've seen this means making them work with these plugins as well.

Any info would be greatly appreciated. Id love to hear from Errant AI but I guess it doesnt make much sense for him to give competition advice .
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wizardious
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Posted: 24th Dec 2009 04:44
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I saw some stuff on youtube that might help.Just do a search on FPSC and you should run into it. They were using fragmotion for the modifications. Hope that helps a little, I know weapons and characters can be tough.
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PW Productions
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Location: sitting in a chair.
Posted: 24th Dec 2009 05:08
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Quote: "it doesnt make much sense for him to give competition advice "


He gives advice. Trust me. He's given advice to lots of newbies out there

I'd suggest using FragMotion for animating, not modeling. It is very easy to get used to (I got it like a week or so ago and see what I've done) and is very powerful. Plus they're selling it half off right now I think

The way gun rigging works goes like this:

-1ST you must 'rig' the hands. What this is is basically creating objects called 'bones' and making Vertexes attach to the bones (virtually). This way, when animating, you can move the bones which will then move the hands.

-2ND (or first, just making a list), you must 'rig' the gun in the same manner.

Here are screenshots of how EAI rigs his guns...

FragMotion basically looks like this... Simple.



Now here is how Vertexes are rigged to bones with lines...



Each Frame is animated either individually or elsewise...





Here is how you are to line up the guns in FPSC. The FPSC camera 'looks' out of the center origin/axis point, as you can see here, the gun is rigged according to that.



The way EAI does it (and other animators) is by making a 'ROOT' bone that controls all other bones. This makes it easier to animate more precisely.



NOW HERE IS THE CONFUSING PART!



That there is the Animation editor. You essentially go through each frame moving the bones the way you want them too. Now, it may look complicated, but it really isn't. It's just crowded

The most important part of animating is that when exporting to FPSC, the weapon will be mirrored. So, basically you have to animate the whole thing... 'Backwards'. When animating, do not forget this!! When making the model, you must plan accordingly to FragMotion and FPS Creator.

I hope that helps mate If you need extra help, ask me here General Jackson is also good with FragMotion, he would be a good resource as well


Cheers

PwP

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RUCCUS
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Posted: 24th Dec 2009 05:33 Edited at: 24th Dec 2009 05:35
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PW thanks but you misunderstood a bit. Im perfectly fine with animating, I've been going to uni for animation for 2 years now . I just have no idea on how FPSC handles taking in the animation. I assume I would have to model my own set of hands, rig them and animate them in all the sequences of the gun (shooting, reloading, etc. ). I know Id then have to animate the gun to line up as well, using bones.

What I dont understand is how to get this animation data into FPSC. How do I load in custom hands for example? I cant find anything like a handbank folder.

Say I've modelled a gun, and my own set of hands, and I've rigged the gun up to bones (one bone that controls the body of the gun, one that controls the clip), and rigged the hand up to a skeleton for animation of all of it's limbs. Lets say I've also animated the gun and hands to shoot and reload, and everything is attached to a root / parent bone as you've suggested to make life easier in moving the entire group of models around for orientation's sake. I've got my two models exported in x format, along with their appropriate .dds textures.

What do I now need to do? Is it as simple as copying an existing gun's .fpe file and replacing it's .x file / changing it's .fpe file to match the animation data in the gun? How do I then get my own hand models into the game, as this gun would obviously not line up with the animations included in the stock hands that come with FPSC.

Furthermore, how do I incorperate AirMod and PlyMod for things like iron sights or dual wielding? I've read that these scripts allow this, but Im not sure where to look for information on how to apply them to my custom models.

I know Im asking a lot, I just know if I could get this all sorted I could get some high quality weapons into FPSC that the community could benefit from. Id also be willing to put together a tutorial to sort this all out for future artists wanting to figure this out as well (I've written several tutorials for programming in the past, they've all gotten pretty high regard so I think I could do weapon creation justice as well).


BTW Im animating in 3DS Max, it exports to .x as well so I dont think there will be any issues there.

Thanks for any other information you can provide,
- RUC'
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PW Productions
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Posted: 24th Dec 2009 06:18
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Ah, sorry, I see.

Alright, I suppose you do know EAI, right? You know how his hands work, the folders generally look like this:



As you can see, the Hand texture is there. Reason being, is that the Hand is built into the gun model.

I'm no 3DS Max expert, but I believe you can import models, correct? When you have your gun model opened and textured (very important), import the Hand model. Texture the hand, and export the gun and hand as one.

There is no handbank needed.

Now, for additional Ply/Air stuff? Those are tricky, but worth it.

For Ply's mod, you have separate animations for dueling. Separate shooting, idle, reload, walk, select, and putaway animatiions. In the Gunspec file, you can edit the frames for them.

For Airmod, there are two ways to get Ironsights. One way is to insert values manually in the Gunspec file which lines up the HUD.x on the Player's camera. It is more simple, yet tedious.

The second way is to use animations. For instance, a zoomto animation, zoomfrom, zoom idle, zoom move, zoom start fire, zoom end fire, and zoom automatic fire for automatic guns. Getting the zooming to work as an animation is difficult, yet rewarding.

A typical 'additional' gunspec is setup like this:



That's basically advance airmod stuff. The manual values you put in (that do not use anims) look like this:



Any other questions?

I think that's what you meant, right?

Cheers

PwP

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RUCCUS
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Posted: 24th Dec 2009 06:55
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Ah that helps a lot. See I've been programming my own game engine for the last two years now, and I've set it up so that any weapons imported into the engine will automatically be glued to the hand models. The weapon is glued to one hand, and the second hand is glued to the weapon. In this way, you only need to animate the hands, and the gun will follow along perfectly. I just assumed FPSC would use some sort of a system similar to this as it's more efficient . I had no idea the hands would be exported along with the model of the gun. That makes life easier for me.

I think I understand now. I just have to animate my gun and hands together and export them as one .x model, then set all of the properties in the .fpe file / include all the necessary media and it should work inside FPSC.

Thanks a lot, Ill try putting something together tomorrow.
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PW Productions
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Posted: 24th Dec 2009 17:03
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Quote: "The weapon is glued to one hand, and the second hand is glued to the weapon. In this way, you only need to animate the hands"


That's actually a great idea, I could try it.

Cheers, glad to help mate, any more questions, e-mail me or ask here

PwP

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Errant AI
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Posted: 24th Dec 2009 17:33
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Quote: "Id love to hear from Errant AI but I guess it doesnt make much sense for him to give competition advice"


It makes sense if you're planning to sell in the store at competitive prices

It only doesn't make sense if you release everything for free or super cheap

Or you write an easy to follow tutorial so someone else can do the later

The FPSC weapon handling is very unsophisticated and frankly only made bearable with the advent of Airmod and so on. So, no fancy hand systems or the like.

If your using, Max you can easily get a WYSIWYG as long as your exporter settings are tuned correctly. It's different than the CS export settings given on the site but the key things are to export at 30FPS and export anim data as position/scale/rotate in lieu of matrix. That is only if you're using maxbones though. It could require different settings if you're using a biped rig.

Be sure your units are set up correctly as generic units with 1 unit = 1 inch. Then model to life-scale.

0,0,0 translates to dead-center screen at the camera/clipping plane. Imagine the player eyeball being at 0,0,0 and you'll get the idea.

The first thing you have to do is get your hands working. I wouldn't even bother with the weapon until you know the rig is exporting correctly. If your anims come out looking slow-mo or you need to exaggerate the animations to get it looking proper in FPSC, then your rig and/or settings are rubbish.

Aspire to have clean weapon positioning; meaning that your gunspec position settings are 0,0,0 or close to that because it will simplify things with Airmod and other stuff. Most everything for mod goodies has been documented in their manuals though it may assume a level of familiarity. You can also pick apart some of my GSC weapons as the recent ones (like the m11 or vz61 have nearly all the AirMod/Plys(PB) settings. There will be some new settings coming online with Fenix Mod which would be good to incorporate as that will be/is the most commonly used mod.

There are some other critical things but I've skipped over them to test your problem solving skills
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EGG HEAD OF DOOM
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Posted: 24th Dec 2009 17:49
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what program doo you use, Errant AI?

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RUCCUS
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Posted: 29th Dec 2009 05:41
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I have another question actually.

I understand Ill have to create my own hands, thats no problem, but the way I see it, my hands wont work with everyone else's models, which would be a pain. I've noticed Errant and a few others are using hands from various model packs. I assume this is to keep a consistent hand mesh across the board so everything flows. Is there a set of hands available for free downlaod that most people use? Im not going to go out and purchase one of the model packs . Is it even legal to sell guns attached to these hands? Im a little confused about this. For the time being Ill just make my own hands, but I would like to offer the gun attached to something most people use if I can.
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JJB Productions
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Posted: 29th Dec 2009 06:42
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You should ask EAI if you can use his hands, they are the best quality hands and a lot of people use them.

I AM LEGEND: THE VIDEO GAME
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=152828&b=25
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Toasty Fresh
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Posted: 29th Dec 2009 13:37
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Quote: "I understand Ill have to create my own hands, thats no problem, but the way I see it, my hands wont work with everyone else's models, which would be a pain. I've noticed Errant and a few others are using hands from various model packs. I assume this is to keep a consistent hand mesh across the board so everything flows. Is there a set of hands available for free downlaod that most people use? Im not going to go out and purchase one of the model packs . Is it even legal to sell guns attached to these hands? Im a little confused about this. For the time being Ill just make my own hands, but I would like to offer the gun attached to something most people use if I can."


Yeah just ask Errant about it. He'll probably let you, he seems to not mind just about everyone using them.

Your signature has been erased by a mod - Please reduce it to 600x120 maximum size
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Red Eye
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Posted: 29th Dec 2009 14:50
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Quote: "Is there a set of hands available for free downlaod that most people use?"


Yup - Model Pack 6


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RUCCUS
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Posted: 29th Dec 2009 15:48
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See this is why I wish I was there when Lee and the bunch were working on how FPSC worked . I would have written a much more efficient system that would use any set of hands that could be locked to a weapon, then the weapon would be animated and sold on it's own and would work with any set of hands, like my engine uses . Would make life so much easier for everyone.

Maybe I should write a MOD. I've been thinking about it lol, I've got a lot of good ideas in my own FPS engine that would benefit FPSC.
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Errant AI
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Posted: 30th Dec 2009 06:16
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Quote: "I've noticed Errant and a few others are using hands from various model packs. I assume this is to keep a consistent hand mesh across the board so everything flows. Is there a set of hands available for free downlaod that most people use?"


I use MP9/10 hands because, as author of those packs, I retain the right to do so

There hasn't been a definitive answer of is Simon's hands (MP6) can be used on weapons sold in the store. He has previously specified that they could be used with for-sale media to be used in FPSC only. That conflicts directly with selling on GCS or as a TGC pack because such media is licensed to be used in any engine/software.

Bond1 released his fantasy hand set for community use a while back. I do not believe it is restricted in such manner but you would need to check the tread details to know for sure. However, if you aren't making fantasy weapons, you sort of loose out on user-base aspect.

Quote: "You should ask EAI if you can use his hands, they are the best quality hands and a lot of people use them."


Nice of you to say, JJB Productions but I actually have to disagree to an extent. To me, the quality is only so-so now (nearly three years old!). There are better hand sets out there although I would like to believe my animations are above the norm. but that is in spite of a fairly horrible arm rig. It does have a strong install-base though and I can't argue with that!

RUCCUS, if you are in it for the long-haul, especially if you are planning to corner an untapped market section (like scifi or WWII) I strongly recommend developing your own hand set. You won't be tied up using someone else's assets and you can set things up how you please. If the media is well done, abundant and on-going, you will be able to build up a base.
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RUCCUS
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Posted: 30th Dec 2009 16:42
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Thanks Errant. Thats what Im doing, I just think the system could have been designed a lot better and none of this would be an issue. If something similar to the method I described was implemented from the beginning, we could all focus on making the weapons, and not force the users to conform to a certain artist just because they use different hands than another artist.

Anyways thats what Ill be doing then, working on my own set of hands. Ive got a few laying around attached to some of my previous full-torso models, so Ill probably just tweak them to add some more detail.
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