An Animation Tutorial for milkshape..

[RED BARON]

I realy dunno if you can reguest tutorials, and if you can if this belongs here, but anyway:
Could someone who knows how to animate in milkshape make a tutorial about it? Futuring: stand animation, death, walk and attack. (okay if simple, just that they could be used.)

 

[donut3.5]

Well, I can't really write a tutorial, but here are some great tips & tricks:
-In every frame, if something has not moved, that is usually bad.
-When making things float or suspend in air, make a keyframe to move that unit to where you want it to be, and then make a keyframe 5 frames later making the unit inch up ever so slightly. This will create an "ease" effect where it looks much smoother as opposed to stiff. Alternatively, if you want something to fall, make it move slow at first, then make it move fast.
Example: For my goblin rocket riders, their stand animation lasted between frames 1-60. 1-10 made the unit float up. 11-15 made the unit go up a slight bit more. Then I reversed the animation (explained below) across 16-30. I repeated the process, only going down for 31-60.
-Reverse animation: Makes a lot of animations turn out smoother and less rigid.
-Use copy and paste frames. I use these so much I assigned them hotkeys!
-Never use too few bones. If you think you might need it, put it there. If you didn't need it, that's much better than running Zero Joints, animating your model, THEN realizing you needed it.
-Practice! There is no better way to learn animating than to practice.
I think those are the best tips, I understand the second one was difficult to understand, it was difficult to explain. I might post pictures in a little bit.
--donut3.5--

 

[RED BARON]

Nice.. pics willbe creat, course it is mostly the keyframe move i dont understand, before this I tried to move a keyframe and move a bone, then an other keyfrom moved the bone again, but that didnt animate a thing... and how to apply those animations if I was able to use the keyframe thing..

 

[donut3.5]

Well, if you don't know basics, then here are those:
A frame is every single point in time which you can possibly animate.
A keyframe sets your animation. You must make the changes, THEN set the keyframe. This works a little bit odd, but that's just how it goes.
You seem familiar with the rest, so I wont bother.
Picture for what I was explaining before is below. As you can see, the translation of the black dot was much greater in frames 1-10 as opposed to 11-15, where it barely translated at all.
--donut3.5--

 

[robot-dude]

Is their a tut on ripping animations from already made wc3 model ?

 

[donut3.5]

There isn't a way to get it into milkshape.
I think RDZ once said you could transfer it into GMax, and then into milkshape, but it would lose quality.. I think.
--donut3.5--

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

There is only one Max importer (that I know of) that gets animations.

And Milkshape doesn't support the usual interpolation, so it's useless.

Closest you can get is wiring your skeleton up to existing animations.

 

[RED BARON]

There is only one Max importer (that I know of) that gets animations.

And Milkshape doesn't support the usual interpolation, so it's useless.

Closest you can get is wiring your skeleton up to existing animations.

Then two questions: I do have Gmax to so that max importer (a link) would be nice.

Jow to do the last bit you said... ? I make the bones attach them and so and then I can import other animations on them or??

 

[donut3.5]

Oinkerwinkle's Animation Transfer will transfer the animations if the bones are named correctly... I believe.
--donut3.5--

 

[RED BARON]

Oinkerwinkle's Animation Transfer will transfer the animations if the bones are named correctly... I believe.
--donut3.5--

If thats correct, then I still would have to know what the bones in the real unit was named...

Oh just saw this:

1. In Magos, you can create and position bones... Although I'm not sure if you can assign vertices from there.
2. Oinkerwinkle's Note Track can allow you to adjust keyframes I believe...
3. Follow the link above.
--donut3.5--

If you in MAgos can create and position bones, wil lI then be able to accach the bones to the vertices in milkeshape, then go to magos and animate by posisiton the bones? As far I know Magos I cant do that, but maybe...

 

[donut3.5]

Correct, which can be seen with Magos Model Editor's Node Manager.
--donut3.5--

 

[Cavman]

Donut, you did not suggest notetrack to some one?

Note track is one of the biggest pains in the ass every, and can seriously mess up a model if your not careful.

 

[donut3.5]

True, I suppose you can do it in Magos too.
I hate Note Track, especially now that I know how to do simple animations in Magos.
--donut3.5--

 

[Cavman]

you can animate in magos?

 

[donut3.5]

Yeah, you right click on a bone, select edit node, and then there you can change the translation/rotation/scaling.
--donut3.5--

 

[Cavman]

oh, thats the hard way....

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

Real men do that part in Notepad anyway.

Magos' eats rotation keys if you so much as look at them.

 

[robot-dude]

What if you do this :

Open up a Model you created
Open up a already model with animations

Copy the joints and then transfer the animations into your model.

would that work ?