I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice or a hand in hexing/skoping Vertex's winged mesh. What I want is the wings to appear in flight/hover animations and in the appropriate melee attacks, but "invisible" in most other animations. I have no idea how long of a process this, but Tommyboy advised me me 3d-max was the best way to go on this, and since I do not have the program, I would appreciate the help.
I would say that this might be a problem. I think you will have to choose whether you want the wings to appear/disappear OR be animated. I'm pretty confident you can't have both. I am hardly an expert on meshing, though so somebody might have greater insight the I.
If you are forced to compromise, my suggestion would be to use the VXArchangel mesh and paste the bird-type wings from the VXmale_wings into wings node of the the Archangel mesh.
Doctor,
I have tried your suggestion with no success, thank you for the suggestion though.
I know that the objects they 'invisible' they are scaled to 0.001 size, when visible they are scaled to full size (usually 1). In each animation the size is set to one or other, and in-game or ctool the illusion is that the parts appear/disappear. So I think it could work I just don't have the software.
Over the course of several months I have been perfecting the look of one of my central characters in my Infinity's Edge Universe. The character is Guardian Angel, often shortened to Guardian by his male colleagues and Angel by his female colleagues. His secret identity is an extraordinarily talented acrobat who family owned a circus theme amusement park. Because of this singular upbringing, Bailey O'Neil has a tremendous list of unique talents including acrobatics, trick throwing, juggling, and tumbling to name a few. On top of this training, he has studied at the feet of three masters of exotic martial arts who were brought to his family's park to give long exhibitions.
[spoiler] However, his parents wanted their children to go beyond the circus and park life having participate in extra-curricular activities, however for Bailey many of his activities focused on his love of theatrics and entertainment. An adept student, Bailey was by no means the perfect student but is academic prowess and innate reasoning skills served him as he completed high school with 4.5 GPA.
When he was 18 tragedy struck. In an attempt to increase the popularity of the family business, and launch his career, Bailey and his youngest sibling Chris, attempted a death defying acrobatic sequence, however when a screw on Chris's trapeze stripped and broke, Bailey sacrificed himself to save his brother. However, as the saying goes angels were watching over him that day, and archangel called Reyvin gave Bailey a second chance at life with the condition that he use his talents and skills for the good of humanity and not for selfish ambition. The deal was given extra incentive when Reyvin revealed that without Bailey's interference his family would be placed in grave danger. Awaking two months later in a miracle recovery, Bailey confided his "vision" to his grand-father, who then revealed the O'Neil family legacy, the Guardian Angel.
Bailey's grandfather, Marion had been a member of the WW II era Allies team the Secret Squadron, a team of masked allied heroes. He had similar death-bed deal with Reyvin, after being shot by Nazi forces, inheriting the Guardian Angel costume and motif from Pierre Benard, an allied resistance leader who was killed in action. While Marion and Reyvin came to an agreement after WW II for him to have normal life, but knew one day the archangel would again intercede. Supported by his grandparents, Bailey began investigating crimes in Atlanta, making an impression as supernatural entity protecting the streets of the city. His supernatural nature was undercut when investigating the corruption of a rouge squad of cops who were dealing drugs from the evidence locker, with Detective Sean Levesque. When the investigation lead to Levesque's dismal from the police force, he and Bailey began their own investigatory agency, with the help of some of the various people that Guardian had helped during his tenure as Atlanta's Angel.
During his time in Atlanta, Bailey began to understand Reyvin's purpose for interceding in his demise, that purpose was not only to help people to be a spring board for hope in dark times, with Reyvin himself stating, "My Boss would it himself, but he wants to give you all the chance first." Upon gaining this understanding Reyvin revealed two things to Bailey, one the war between heaven and hell had been escalated when the demon Beelzebub usurped the crown of hell from Lucifer, titling himself Satan Beezlebub, and two being revived by Reyvin gave Bailey access to the "Endless Spirit" an ancient source of power that has empowered many of histories greatest heroes. In Bailey the Endless Spirit manifests itself in the powers of tactile telekinesis, object animation, the ability to heal the wounds others receive in battle, and the power of possession.
While Bailey was reaching a new level of self-knowledge, Sean Levesque had began investigating the disappearances of young nova children across the United States, disappearances that lead to the devious Dr. Marcus Von Morrison, and his Pandora Project. Morrison finding and training vagabond named J.D. Curtis (unknown to himself a nova with the power to absorbed and mimic other nova powers), had bound the genetic codes of the missing children to Curtis giving him incredible super human abilities but making him an accessory to murder. Originally believing, Curtis went along with this atrocity willingly, Guardian and Sean faced off with Curtis on multiple occasions until Bethany ______, discovered Morrison's methods and exposed them to Curtis who then vowed to kill Morrison to avenge the deaths of the children whom he slaughtered. However, Bailey was able to convince Curtis that murder was not the right option, play reminding him of the story of Pandora, citing that despite all the evil that was unleashed by her box, she was able to save hope. Bethany and Curtis turned themselves, and Morrisnon into the authories, and because they were unaware of their roles and testified against Morrison they were released from custody. Bethany and Curtis would join Guardian and Sean for several months until Guardian was called back to Atlanta to deal with a rise in increasingly violent crime.
Bailey and J.D. were reunited a year later when the two joined the cast of reality TV show Super-Real. Bailey was investigation the disappearance of Chris Clairborne, whose abusive parents had implored Bailey to find their son. J.D. had joined the show as a chance to clear his name and to use his powers for good. The cast consisted of the missing youth Chris calling himself Rush, the rainbow haired princess Child's Play, the son of super villains Maximus, the ingenious super artificial intelligence Grey, and the beautiful but seemingly inept Satin. The show did not last long as several members of the heroing community, had exposed the producers corrupt nature and their slanderous actions. At the end of the team, Satin was revealed to be an undercover B.E.A.U. and A.E.R.O. agent, sent to sabotage the experimental show by any means however because of her nature she along with her contacts at the Murphy Foundation maintained the team for a brief period. The Super-Real team dissolved soon after the murder J.D.'s fiancée Bethany at the hands of Javelin, and the first Correalian invasion. On personal note Agent Satin revealed to Guardian that her grand father was Pierre Benard, and that because of her respect their joint legacy to keep in contact, giving him her direct line and personal number.
Bailey and Sean began working closely with the OSIR, to investigate supernatural occurrences with Satin, the monster hunter Superstition, and mysterious doctor and immortal Revenant. During one major investigation, the team uncovered a demonic plot create wish fullfiment Faustian deals with desperate people in order to unleash the original demon the Serpent. The team was able to destroy the cabal, however not before the Serpent awakened from his sleep, only interference from Reyvin and several other angels keep the ancient evil from escaping it's binds.
After than adventure, the time traveling hero John Carter, pulled Guardian Angel and J.D. into a time hopping adventure in the hopes of averting an apoclolyptic crisis. Their job was to keep Dr. Von Morrison from giving J.D. his powers, there by keeping von Morrison from creating an army of cloned Centurions with which he imposes a tyrannical rule. The job was a success removing J.D. original powers and giving him a new lease of life. But tragedy struct once again in his life when in a confrontation with a demonic entity J.D. absorbed the creature's dark powers.
J.D. was brought to the OSIR for study, where it was determined that despite the creature's power, Curtis was in control, and when Supersition discovered an ancient text citing the man bound demon and man bound angel allying to stave off Armageddon, the destiny of the two friends was unraveled. In shocking turn of events, the mysterious team doctor Revenant, revealed herself to be none other that Bethany who had inherited her ancestor's curse of immortality.
Currently, OSIR has sponsored Guardian Angel's hand picked team S.P.R.I.R.T. (J.D. now called Rampart, Revenant, Superstition, Sean Levesque, and Mama Rose) to be the official supernatural investigation team. [/spoiler] Click to read bio
As you can see I have put a lot of time into this character. I have put together a mesh for his costume, but I need help with his keyframes. The reason I need help with the keyframes is because I am hoping to be able to get animations set up to have his wings appear in flight and disappear when grounded. I have two reasons for this, one the "wings" would impede some of his acrobatic movement when fighting (the same reason Nightwing doesn't where a cape) and two the "wings" are actually made of a durable light weight material which Guardian "animates" using his tactile telekinesis and giving them a command. Upon landing he gives the command to close and the fold back up giving him back his mobility. His martial arts background includes Capoeira, Eskrima (knife and eskrima stick) and Kalarippayatt (Indian Martial Art that focus on all aspects of combat as well as healing techniques), so I would love key frames that reflect these as well as his powers tactile telekinesis, object animation, the ability to heal the wounds others receive in battle, and the power of possession. Later tonight i am going to up load the mesh it is a skope of tommboy's angel mesh, if anyone finds this concpect interesting enough to help in anyway I would certainly appreciate it. Any way I thank you all for your time an I hope I have peaked some interest.