Jim's Corner Issue 70: AA's Stryfe

[Jimaras8]

Oh, you are way more knowledgeable on those issues than i am so will take your word for it . I will check the mesh and once again i'm really grateful for all the work you guys have done.

Don't know if i will manage to add her in the latest update but she will be in the next one   

[cranlox]

I've checked AA's Kate Bishop skope and the fists are semi bent. it also uses the taskmaster keyframes. Would it be easier to just rig the skope to that armature

We are essentially changing the skin but we are keeping everything else.

As RD correctly answered, what I do is simply generate a 100% faithful model captured from a video or image of a character (it usually comes out better from video, so I end up animating the image with AI).

That model is faithful, and I try to make it the best I can get from that capture. The musculature and body contours are all contained within a single, unique mesh. The downside is that the automatically generated texture is scattered everywhere, as RD mentioned (there might be better ways, but I'm not aware of them since I'm not an expert).

This Kate Bishop or the Wally Gator characters (to give an example) are 100% unique. They aren't modified models or taken from games; they're created specifically for each character. That's why each one takes so much effort, but sometimes they turn out so well. Typically, a screenshot is taken from a video and then animated with AI to capture the model from that video.

By default, the first model you get in Synthetic has a high polygon count and is associated with a generic ID or a famous character. You uncheck that option and take another capture model. Then you reduce the polygon count of that model to make it compatible with the game. This results in a loss of texture and model quality. Finally, you export it to Nifskope in OBJ format.

You have a new and extensive gallery of Marvel characters created using this process, which I complete by adding the skeleton and animating them with RD. Basically, I made each one that was requested to improve my skills with the program and fulfill a requirement, and RD did an excellent, meticulous job bringing so many to life.

I don't know if what I've told you is helpful or if it was clear; my English isn't great, and sometimes my explanations aren't either, haha.

There are characters from Savage Land, some rare mutants, and some aliens from the X-Men universe.

[Jimaras8]

Guys unrelated question but i'm freaking out a bit. I noticed some attributes names are different in the ffxmulti.py for combo attributes and in the attirbutes section in the FFEdit. For example in the py file it's 'shakeitoff' and in FFedit it's 'shake it off'.

I now fear that some attributes might not be be recognizied in-game if they are written differently in the py file. What is the correct writing for py files?

[cranlox]

That question killed me.

[Jimaras8]

What i'm trying to say when you create a combo attribute in ffxmulti.py does the name of the attributes involved need to be the exact same with FFEdit? If shake it off is written with spaces in the attributes section of FFEdit does it need to be written with spaces in the py file?

[Jimaras8]

Hey guys, today i have a gift for you. Benton has been realyl busy with his semester so i decided to upload an early release for Marvel Adventures 2.7 for folks here before Benton packs it for Moddb. Note that Benton will upload a version with some skopes being changed to the original version of the mod like Iron man and wolverine and he will also add a version without exe but other than that this will be the same update.

This update is kinda beefy as it streamlines a couple of things i wanted to address like:
1. EZFX 6.1 is fully integrated in the mod. In previous versions it needed to be installed separately otherwise certain fx wouldn't appear in the mod as their paths were there but not the nifs and textures.

2. I fixed the majority of projectile and area powers that had delay issues. This came from  FF1 nifs that coulnd't work properly in FF2. Now, the majority of the nifs have been fixed so heroes like Storm, Polaris, Cobra, jean grey, Kang, Klaw etc can use all their abilities without delay effects.

3. Even more new fx and fx fixes like new nodes and fixes to where fx should be coming from.

4. 4 new characters. Crossfire, Man Mountain Marko, Ammo and Shroud. Special thanks to deanjo2000, cranlox and Randomdays who came up with skopes in a very short notice and without me even asking them   
 
5. Almost 40 new powers to existing characters.

As always read the readme file to see what the newest additions are. The newest characters/abilities are always the last ones to be added at the bottom of the lists compared to the previous release.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/revbl21kwc7q8y9/V_2.7.rar/file

[Randomdays]

Downloading!

[Jimaras8]

Hello folks, hope you all had a great summer. Did you check MA 2.7 in Moddb? What did you think?

I wanted to ask what skopes/meshes are there for Marvel's Speed Demon? Preferably both skope/skin combos as the yahoo groups are toast.

[Randomdays]

What I have that I know of;

Speed Demon VX - standard skin by Zulu Delta. Extra skins by AlyCat and Podmark

male_bullet69 - skin by C6 and an update

Whizzer2 Gren - skin by SCD

I've got some listed as Squadron Supreme and others as Thunderbolts so I'm not sure if they're the same.

[Jimaras8]

Hey RD i think its because he was part of the Squadron Sinister as Whizzer which is not the be confused with the original Whizzer. Then he branched off as Speed Demon and became a spider-man villain. I would appreciate it if you could send me all threee of them in jmjimvas08@gmail.com

[Randomdays]

Sent

Alex has an updated C6 for male_basic_effects also

[Jimaras8]

Tahnk you so much RD   

[Jimaras8]

Quick question, is it possible to transfer some of the keyframes from the whizzer mesh to the vx speed demon mesh? There are a couple of animations that one mesh has and the other doesn't that could be useful.

[Randomdays]

No idea but the quick and easy way to find out would be to transfer them over and see if the mesh responds.

If not, the base Speed Demon mesh would have to be re-rigged so that it would.

I know that a lot of the VX69 meshes had extra animations for the mouth that most others don't have, so if the transfer did work, you might lose that.

[Jimaras8]

Unfortunately the m25 keyframe tool doesnt work on those as i suspected. The animation doesnt appear so i guess some rigging must be involved. Do you know anyone who would be willing to give it a shot, i only need a couple animations from gren's whizzer transfered and unfortunately i never got around to learn rigging

[Randomdays]

Just looked at everything, and I don't think rigging will help - its the kfs themselves that are the problem - they're not friendly with FFvt3R, and since the keyframe tool won't work on them there's not much that can be done - Tried to get the kf's into blender and it crashed as well.

You might look at some of the other flash/ speedster kf's and see if they have what you want.

[Jimaras8]

I'm sorry for all the trouble RD but might i propose an alternative? I have a spitfire skope that has the same animations i want to transfer? Its based on a hermes skope. Could you please see if those can be transfered? Soory to put you up with this, i have zero experience with Blender . The animations are melee_6 and area_2.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/g4b8bl2vc6bgmev/Spitfire_hermes_t_kx.rar/file

[Randomdays]

Not a problem Jim

It looks like it can't be done though as is.

When you look at the details of a character mesh, each part of it is tied to an armature, a skeleton inside of it. The kf's moves the bones and the mesh moves with it since they're tied together.

Each bone has a name to it, like left hand or right thigh, and the kf's look at that. The two main sets of bones are the ones used for male_basic and female basic, and since the bones are named different, usually a male set of kf's won't work on a female character and vice versa. I can get around this a bit by rigging a character to a different set of bones, but that won't work here, as when I tie the VX Speed Demon to male basic, it will no longer respond to its vx kf's.

VX uses another custom set of bones that are all named different which is why normal kf's won't work on it and his kfs usually don't work on standard characters. This is also why you can't really mix animations with his work like you want.


Some good news out all of this - I was able to take a male_basic_speedster69, put the VX Speed Demon skins by on it by renaming them from "male" to "male_basic", and get it to work with the Whizzer 1 Gren kfs - which look like the Whizzer 2 ones and have your animanitons, but work better.

Zipping it up and sending it over.

[Jimaras8]

Thank you for all the effort RD and finding a workaround. Unfortunately in this case the hero file is almost ready and the new skope doesnt have most of the VX animations that i have already used which means that i would need to re do it with different powers and animations. The best case scenario would be Speed Demon VX skope with a couple transfered animations from whizzer_gren for two powers that i have thought of but i understand this can't be done. It's ok, i really appreciate all your effort 

I kinda found a workaround. Took one of his dodge animations and turned it into a melee one. Its not what i imagined but it works for the time being.

[Jimaras8]

Also is there a Blender tutorial for animation transfer? I would love to give it a shot although i tried Blender once and it was pretty daunting.

[Randomdays]

Making new animations for a kf is still something beyond my skill level and I don't think I've ever seen anything here for it in Blender as a walkthru

I think the Blender manual for our version has a section on creating a simple Gingerbread Man, assigning it an armature and animating it. I put it up on my Mega site under requests if you want to read it.

And then there's my setup on how to import a model and rig it to a FF armature so it will work in game;

https://www.freedomreborn.net/forums/index.php?topic=55261.0

https://www.freedomreborn.net/forums/index.php?topic=60677.0
 

[Jimaras8]

I will definitely check it out RD, thanks.

On an unrelated notem i'm almost certain that AA had made a Stryfe mesh but i cant find it on his section in heroforce. Does anyone have it? My e-mail is jmjimvas08@gmail.com

[J.P.]

i made 2 different versions of that stryfe
1 basic_male and
1 VX_male,
i honestly dont think AA ever skinned them.. not 100% sure
i do have the the 3 guys skins who i know of that skinned it years ago..
C6, Daglob, L.P.
i sent to your email


https://www.deviantart.com/puppynuts01/art/VX-Stryfe-1383165405

[WyldFyre]

Found it! Sent to you. The one I have anyway.

[deanjo2000]

I'm sure I've got AA's one. I think it was released in a pack or something with the blob and other stuff. I'll look tomorrow.

[Jimaras8]

I dont know why i have the distinct memory of Stryfe being on AA's herofore section but now it isn't. It's been years, probably close to 10 at this point and maybe i'm confusing things.

Anyway, got the meshes, thanks everyone once again. At least my memory of AA making a Stryfe mesh wasn't misplaced since it's not available anywhere now   

[deanjo2000]

I've put what i have in my unfinished folder.
1 by AA and 2 by style.