More Races to Villager Many Animations

[Mirage1]

It's not a request of mine, it's more like a suggestion but I'd love if someone did it. Many RPGs and some other map genres tend to use the Villager Many Animations model due to its versatility and capability of using attachments in a very nice and quite unique way when compared to other models. But I wonder why other races never got their own version of that Villager.

Hive already has a lot of good villager models for many races so I believe that it would be more of a work of creating or mirroring the animations from that Villager. .KC submmited the model in 2008 and I'm a bit surprised that 8 years after I've never saw any model like that in another race. I've tried to transfer the animations but it didn't worked and I lack the skills to animate them myself.

I hope someone make these models. I believe that not just me but also a lot of people here in hive would find them very useful.

 

[Pyrogasm]

This is a very good suggestion. Quite surprising it hasn't been made yet; give it a couple days for people to post links to long forgotten resources

 

[Xonok]

I am capable of transferring most animations as long as the models have a similar bone structure. At one point I tried making my own model with every animation I'd need, but turns out that animtransfer breaks at about 30 animations. That demoralized me enough to stop trying and I thought I would maybe write my own tool, since the process itself is not complicated. Alas, I haven't done that.
But yeah, making better versions of this model is very much doable. I could say all the crucial things right here:
*Linearize all animations. (In notepad++ to a find and replace for "Bezier" and "Hermite". Replace them with "Linear")
*Remove all lines that contain InTan and OutTan. (In notepad++ that's a regex. I found a way to do it by googling.
*Remove empty lines.
*Try transferring. Most likely the model will work(e.g, it won't crash). It's also likely that it'll work wrong.
*If it worked wrong, open the model up in matrixhelper and look at the bone structure. Some models name their bones differently. Some are mirrored(E.g, the bandits and footmen use the same bones, but mirrored)
*Fix whatever problems there are in the bones. Usually nonexisting names or different(mirrored) bone names.
The last 2 steps are something I can't automate, but it's not really needed either. I did get to over 30 animations without quitting, so it's not too tedious.

By now I actually understand the MDL format enough to attempt animation transfers to parts of models, but I haven't tried that and it's very likely matrixhelper can do it if used right.

 

[Mirage1]

I've tried with Animation Duplicator 1.0 it finished the transfering but didn't opened in magos. My first attempt was about one year ago with another program (I believe it was animtransfer but I can't remember the name). After failing I didn't tried to push further because I believed someone would do a model better than mine anytime soon. Well, no one did, so here we are ;D

I'm pretty sure you guys can make them and they will be awesome. This is something I believe The Hive needs.

 

[Xonok]

I've never even heard of animation duplicator. Anyways, with the instructions I gave it's possible to do animtransfer on most models.

 

[Mirage1]

I'll try to do what you've suggested. I will post again after I fail or succeed. (Old)


The animations have been successfully transferred to a Troll Villager but both the corpse and the pickaxe are displayed in all animations except the basic attack (which belonged to the default villager). I believe I could make them invisible using another texture but that would not be much practical. I tried to fix the bones in matrixeater (don't know what is matrixhelper) but I didn't found any bone section or something of the sort to edit them. Also tried with Mdlvis and Magos but I honestly don't know exactly what I am searching to fix. (Old)

Succeded. I've discovered how to hide both the corpse and the pickaxe in all animations through mdlvis. I'm going to make the other races now. May I upload them in the models section? (While giving proper credits to the modelers since the models are not mine)

Also I have to thank you Xonok without your instructions I would not be able to transfer the animations.

 

[Mirage1]

Guys I know it has been quite a while since the last post but I was a bit busy, sorry for the delay. Well I've tried to create my own version of the villager with some new anims and the result is quite nice in my opinion. I've tried to transfer the animations to the Villager Troll (the one from Just Spectating) and it worked well except for some animations (like bow ones) where he suffer a few chest deformations. I must admit that I didn't fully understood what "Fix whatever problems there are in the bones." could possibly mean. I've proved to be really noob at identifying such problems. Honestly I have no idea of what they could be .

Anyway the first idea was to have more rpg villagers (at least for the basic playable races in Warcraft; i mean nothing about gnomes, goblins nor pandas for now) but they would require models that fit the necessary structure for the transferring (take the tauren's villager as example. Animation transferring will not work fine at him, he is too different from the normal villager ). I also don't know if there are enough models to make them all. I believe that there is a night elf druid villager but not a night elf "classless" villager. I am not a modeler and even if I try it will take a very long time to make something with a minimum of quality. For now I'll keep animating the ones I can. If someone could make the models (even if it only have basic villager animations) it would be awesome. As soon as I finish more transferrings I will post them here.

 

[Xonok]

The problems with bones are essentially 2 kinds. Either the bone is placed differently(bandits and footmen have mirrored bones) OR a bone with that name doesn't exist on one of the models.
For mirrored bones the solution is simple. I use MatrixHelper to mirror the model back.
For missing names you have to look at the list of bones in War3ModelEditor and figure out which ones are named differently.

Essentially the animtransfer tool ignores everything that it doesn't understand.

 

[Mirage1]

I use MatrixHelper to mirror the model back.

If you have time could you send a download link to this MatrixHelper please? I have downloaded a MatrixEater but I couldn't find any MatrixHelper. I don't think them to be the same thing. I'm using mdlvis for that purpose till now.

 

[Xonok]

Actually I meant MatrixEater, you are right.
I haven't really used mdlvis, so I don't know what it can do.

 

[Mirage1]

Dude I believe matrixeater hates me and the feeling is totally reciprocous. I tried to find a way to do what you're saying but I couldn't. You've already helped me a lot till this point (Thank you VERY MUCH! ) but to proceed further I must say that I understand what you are instructing me to do, I just have no idea about how to do it. Mirroring the bones may looks like an easy task but I've searched a lot in matrix and I have found no "mirror bone" option. May I ask you more about how to do it please?

 

[Xonok]

Ctrl+A to select everything. Then Model>Mirror>(Whichever way you want)

I admit MatrixEater doesn't explain itself very well though.

 

[Mirage1]

I've been looking at the original villager model and noticed that he also deforms himself in bow animations. The very same vertexes are deformed in both of them. So the problem might be between the archer who gave them the anims and the villager model itself rather than between the human villager and his troll counterpart.

About the matrix I have not found a "model" button maybe we are using different versions or my matrix is alien or broken. I've uploaded a picture of my matrix's screen so you could tell me if I'm using a different version of yours or if I'm just another blind noob (a Blind Guardian reference hehehe, never mind)

I've uploaded an rpg orc model with the animations. He does not have the deformations in bow anims since he's not based on the villager model. I honestly do not see this deformation as a big problem for it has always been there and no one complained (I never saw it myself until now). I will keep 'making' more villagers like these ones. I only regret not having many variations of the villager to work with.

By the way if someone is going to pick the orc from this post its author is Tenebrae. Credit him for the model.

 

[UmbraUnda]

Guys I know it has been quite a while since the last post but I was a bit busy, sorry for the delay. Well I've tried to create my own version of the villager with some new anims and the result is quite nice in my opinion. I've tried to transfer the animations to the Villager Troll (the one from Just Spectating) and it worked well except for some animations (like bow ones) where he suffer a few chest deformations. I must admit that I didn't fully understood what "Fix whatever problems there are in the bones." could possibly mean. I've proved to be really noob at identifying such problems. Honestly I have no idea of what they could be .

Anyway the first idea was to have more rpg villagers (at least for the basic playable races in Warcraft; i mean nothing about gnomes, goblins nor pandas for now) but they would require models that fit the necessary structure for the transferring (take the tauren's villager as example. Animation transferring will not work fine at him, he is too different from the normal villager ). I also don't know if there are enough models to make them all. I believe that there is a night elf druid villager but not a night elf "classless" villager. I am not a modeler and even if I try it will take a very long time to make something with a minimum of quality. For now I'll keep animating the ones I can. If someone could make the models (even if it only have basic villager animations) it would be awesome. As soon as I finish more transferrings I will post them here.

WHERE DID YOU GET THAT VILLAGER?! (So I can credit in my project)

Props mate!! I made a request a while ago and it never got done.
This model is great, please upload to resources section!
It has all the alternate defend animations + more that the VillagerManManyAnimations model lacks D:... WOW, I can't be more thankful, MUCH APPRECIATED.

EDIT: Wait, did you make this? If so, I have a simple request- add 1 more set of animations. (or just make a seperate villagerman model for me if thats easier). My project has spearmen and the villagerman lacks thrust animations.

Basically, 2 sets of thrust attack animations for spearmen - one handed & two handed. One handed version should be based off of alternate + defend animations, two handed version should be based off of channel.

 

[Mirage1]

WHERE DID YOU GET THAT VILLAGER?! (So I can credit in my project)

Props mate!! I made a request a while ago and it never got done.
This model is great, please upload to resources section!
It has all the alternate defend animations + more that the VillagerManManyAnimations model lacks D:... WOW, I can't be more thankful, MUCH APPRECIATED.

EDIT: Wait, did you make this? If so, I have a simple request- add 1 more set of animations. (or just make a seperate villagerman model for me if thats easier). My project has spearmen and the villagerman lacks thrust animations.

Basically, 2 sets of thrust attack animations for spearmen - one handed & two handed. One handed version should be based off of alternate + defend animations, two handed version should be based off of channel.

I believe to be able to do it. I think I know from which models you would like these animations to come from. I will post them here soon.

About the models: the troll's author is Just_Spectating while the orc's author is Tenebrae. (I could swear that I had mentioned Just_Spectating before, I'm quite surprised that I didn't!) The original villager_manyanims author you probably know is .KC.

 

[UmbraUnda]

AWESOME!! I'll give you more rep soon! Thank you very much.

Right - but you made the VillagerMan_MoreAnimations, right?

 

[Xonok]

@Mirage1
Looks like the menu is called "Tools" for you. It's even open in the screenshot.
I'm not sure what deformation you mean though.

@UmbraUnda
One of the 2-handed animations on RPG models looks like it could be used for a spear. It's based on the blademaster, but still.

 

[Mirage1]

I'm not sure what deformation you mean though.

The deformation happens during the 'attack lumber' animations. Their backs deforms horribly. (All villager-based models will deform that way I suppose)

Right - but you made the VillagerMan_MoreAnimations, right?

I see it as a complicated question. .KC gave the concept, Just_Spectating/Tenebrae made the models, Xonok taught me how to make the transferring work and I've transferred the animations.

For simplicity I believe you should mention only me and Just_Spectating/Tenebrae (for their respective models) since we did the final work. I will keep mentioning the others wherever and whenever I post these models.

Note: Just_Spectating asks in his model's page to give credits to his bnet acct: koondad. Check if you want: Villager Troll2.0

I should speak to Tenebrae about what I'm doing with his model. He didn't give permission to redistribution but I doubt a lot that he won't like the idea of more anims. Anyway rules are rules.

 

[UmbraUnda]

I'm just using the VillagerMan_MoreAnimations model for now, so I'll give .KC (for the original), you and Just_Spectating/Tenebrae (for adding the animations) credit. Unless I read that part wrong - Just_Spectating/Tenebrae helped add animations or made villagers for other races? (Or both?)

Thanks again, let me know about any updates on adding those spearman animations.

 

[Mirage1]

I'm just using the VillagerMan_MoreAnimations model for now, so I'll give .KC (for the original), you and Just_Spectating/Tenebrae (for adding the animations) credit. Unless I read that part wrong - Just_Spectating/Tenebrae helped add animations or made villagers for other races? (Or both?)

Thanks again, let me know about any updates on adding those spearman animations.

Just_Spectating created the villager troll model and Tenebrae created the Rpg Orc Hero model. I have transferred all animations from blizzard ingame models (footman, archer, shaman, blademaster, etc) except for the Gold animations (daggers) which came from .KC's original model Villager_ManyAnimations (I believe he made Gold animations himself).

I'm going to work on those spear animations in the following hours (I'm will stop to lunch soon, so yeah hours ). I'm really thinking in replace the current Throw animations (single dagger throw) of all models and replace them for two-handed spear animations (most common). I'm also considering in split the models in two (eg.:villager_troll 1 & 2) since there are some animations who can't be used due to the limited amount of disponible animation tags. Animations like spear throw (headhunters) or a two handed blunt weapon like paladin's hammer (it's weird a piercing attack with a hammer).

@UmbraUnda
I haven't test it yet so please tell me if everything is working properly ingame especially his new attack alternate defend animation. The old sword anims still are on the model you can find them on magos editor. Alternate for spear and shield, Channel for two handed spear.

Animations from Pikeman and Spearman both made by Wandering Soul.

 

[UmbraUnda]

O0o0o0o ok. So I'll just credit you and .KC then. Really? Most animations look so smooth tho - is animation transfers that easy or did you have to do edits after?
What program are you using for animation transfers? I hear MatrixEater is good but idk how to get it to work.

Awesome mate! No rush btw. Thanks so much.
The throw animations look good except he's leaning way to far forward - they work well for axe throwing. Maybe just fix his posture so he stands upright.
The throw animations also aren't that necessary so if you want to replace it that's fine.
Separating the model into two with their own animations works well - I'd prefer you do that. Now that the file size limit is 75~MB, no worries about importing 100 models.
I could also definitely use some spearthrower animations and 2H blunt animations.

Also if you do spearthrower animations, please include defend variants and base it off your alternate animations. My spearthrower lacks proper animations currently but it's not that big of a deal compared to the spearman animations. If you end up making more weapon animations, I'll make sure you get +100 rep.
Can't thank you enough!

 

[Mirage1]

is animation transfers that easy or did you have to do edits after?
What program are you using for animation transfers?

It is easy to do the transferring. Just read some previous posts here where Xonok explains how to do it. I will finish all those models. I'm a bit tired of all those years waiting for someone to do it for me. As I said in the beggining, its quite surprising no one did this before (add more races and anims). I only found a bit tricky to fix some issues with that corpse and pickaxe (corpse and pickaxe are displayed in almost all anims) when first transferring the animation to a villager model. It is easy but a bit boring.

I use mdlvis to fix those corpse issues, Notepad++ according to Xonok's instructions, Mdlx Converter to convert mdx indo mdl, animation transferer to transfer and magos model editor to fix the sequences and rename them.

 

[UmbraUnda]

Props and respect mate. It is surprising - also a lot of older authors have gone inactive.

Alright, I'll try messing around and hopefully make some new animations soon.

 

[Xonok]

@Mirage1 Oh, I think I know where that comes from. You see, the original archer model is normally hunched over, but during the attack animation it stands straight.
The dagger animations are from Demoness(I think it's called Succubus ingame). The model by KC has no custom animations.
Heck, he didn't even fix the 2h animation, so trying to use it will make the unit stab itself. If I were to get them from anywhere, I'd use the one that Zwiebelchen fixed for use in Gaias'.

Have you fixed the problem with corpses? You can probably do that with Magos. Essentially all animations are done by telling bones how they should behave at specific points in time(milliseconds). Visibility is similar. Somewhere each geoset should say when it turns visible and when invisible. Normally each geoset is told at the start of every animation that it should show or not, except the corpse one.

But yeah, when I first realized that I could do better than the published manyanims models here it was quite surprising. At that point I wanted to make a model with the necessary anims for every weapon class. I worked a lot on it, but at about 30 anims the tool stopped working. Apparently animtransfer simply doesn't work beyond a certain point. Then I figured that I should make my own MDL editing script, but lost interest.

 

[UmbraUnda]

Just_Spectating created the villager troll model and Tenebrae created the Rpg Orc Hero model. I have transferred all animations from blizzard ingame models (footman, archer, shaman, blademaster, etc) except for the Gold animations (daggers) which came from .KC's original model Villager_ManyAnimations (I believe he made Gold animations himself).

I'm going to work on those spear animations in the following hours (I'm will stop to lunch soon, so yeah hours ). I'm really thinking in replace the current Throw animations (single dagger throw) of all models and replace them for two-handed spear animations (most common). I'm also considering in split the models in two (eg.:villager_troll 1 & 2) since there are some animations who can't be used due to the limited amount of disponible animation tags. Animations like spear throw (headhunters) or a two handed blunt weapon like paladin's hammer (it's weird a piercing attack with a hammer).

@UmbraUnda
I haven't test it yet so please tell me if everything is working properly ingame especially his new attack alternate defend animation. The old sword anims still are on the model you can find them on magos editor. Alternate for spear and shield, Channel for two handed spear.

Animations from Pikeman and Spearman both made by Wandering Soul.

Alright - just did some some testing.

The Pikeman's animations work perfectly. However the spearman animations look very odd... Attack 2 looks decent however Attack 1 and all the Defend Attack animations are deformed - their attack is way off to the side, kinda looks like a wierd curved spear thrust.

Think you can edit some angles and fix it?

 

[UmbraUnda]

@Mirage1 Oh, I think I know where that comes from. You see, the original archer model is normally hunched over, but during the attack animation it stands straight.
The dagger animations are from Demoness(I think it's called Succubus ingame). The model by KC has no custom animations.
Heck, he didn't even fix the 2h animation, so trying to use it will make the unit stab itself. If I were to get them from anywhere, I'd use the one that Zwiebelchen fixed for use in Gaias'.

Have you fixed the problem with corpses? You can probably do that with Magos. Essentially all animations are done by telling bones how they should behave at specific points in time(milliseconds). Visibility is similar. Somewhere each geoset should say when it turns visible and when invisible. Normally each geoset is told at the start of every animation that it should show or not, except the corpse one.

But yeah, when I first realized that I could do better than the published manyanims models here it was quite surprising. At that point I wanted to make a model with the necessary anims for every weapon class. I worked a lot on it, but at about 30 anims the tool stopped working. Apparently animtransfer simply doesn't work beyond a certain point. Then I figured that I should make my own MDL editing script, but lost interest.

True, you think Gaias people would share their resources?

Whats wrong with the corpses?

Wait really??! Do you still have that model you were working on?

 

[streetpunk]

Are you guys considering Grabber's 255 animations villager? I'm using it on my project because it has plently of animations, including mounted, chrouch animations and a widely variety of attack animations.

 

[Xonok]

I think for something as simple as a fixed animation, Zwieb might give permission.
When transferring animations, the corpses tend to show up in animations that they shouldn't be visible in.

Graber's model is impractical imo, because you have to trigger the animations yourself every time.

 

[Mirage1]

@Mirage1
The dagger animations are from Demoness(I think it's called Succubus ingame). The model by KC has no custom animations.

Thank you for finding the source!

@Mirage1
Heck, he didn't even fix the 2h animation, so trying to use it will make the unit stab itself. If I were to get them from anywhere, I'd use the one that Zwiebelchen fixed for use in Gaias'.

What? Never noticed it. I must admit that I never used the dagger animations before so I've never seen such bug.

@Mirage1 Have you fixed the problem with corpses? ... Normally each geoset is told at the start of every animation that it should show or not, except the corpse one.

I've discovered a very confusing way to do it through mdlvis. I'm going to give magos a second chance on that point.

@Mirage1 I worked a lot on it, but at about 30 anims the tool stopped working. Apparently animtransfer simply doesn't work beyond a certain point.

You've said that before and as before I don't understand why it stopped for you. I keep transferring lots of anims without any problem. You should check that. Maybe there is a way to solve the problem. Using a different computer perhaps, I truly don't know.

Attack 1 and all the Defend Attack animations are deformed...
Think you can edit some angles and fix it?

I've tested it ingame and couldn't agree more. However I never have edited a wc3 model before. I can only promise you that I'm going to try.

Are you guys considering Grabber's 255 animations villager? I'm using it on my project because it has plently of animations, including mounted, chrouch animations and a widely variety of attack animations.

I agree with Xonok when he says that the model is impractical (at least when we are not speaking of custom movement systems and such). The main idea here is not to create a "for-all-purposes" model like our 255 friend but to create a "less complicated to use" version of it (Like .KC's villager). The goal is to give the basic villager_many animations the animations he doesn't have and to spread this new version of the villager to other races (If you go back to the first post you will see that creating that villager in more races was the original main goal of this thread).

---//---

By the way I would like to say that Tenebrae gave his permission to edit his models. So no more problems about that.
(The only downside is that they lack decay animations but okay I will carry on )

 

[UmbraUnda]

Thanks mate - do your best. Hope the end result gets there. If you need help, we'll have to ask some animators for help. Direfury (and a few others) are really good btw

 

[streetpunk]

Can I get involved and see what comes out of it ?

Here is a thread where I requested animations for my project but no one responded, so I think it may have a use to this thread. it has many animations on the list that could be used on this current project of you guys, check it out:
=Animations Requested for Project!=

 

[Xonok]

What? Never noticed it. I must admit that I never used the dagger animations before so I've never seen such bug.

By 2h I actually mean the ones from blademaster, not the ones from demoness.

 

[TriggerHappy]

I've personally done this for many models, however some had issues (aside from corpse showing which is a easy fix) or caused crashes.

Like these: BarbarianVillager, FacelessOneWorker

 

[Mirage1]

Can I get involved and see what comes out of it ?

Here is a thread where I requested animations for my project but no one responded, so I think it may have a use to this thread. it has many animations on the list that could be used on this current project of you guys, check it out:
=Animations Requested for Project!=

Of course you can. But know that we are only transferring animations and the focus now is to add more animations to villager_manyanimations and then to give other races their own villager version making possible to rpgs like Gaia to become multi racial while keeping its 'attached on character' item style with a single model playing lots of roles (But still in a simpler way, not 255's way). I think we might reach the model you want someday (maybe soon, maybe not so soon ) but for now you could keep checking models posted here and see if they fit your project.

By 2h I actually mean the ones from blademaster, not the ones from demoness.

Sometimes my brain fails me in a very shameful way . I didn't test the two-hand anims ingame but I suppose that he holds a two handed sword only with his right hand perhaps? I will test it later I've never seen it before . I use mostly the sword & shield and bow animations.

I've personally done this for many models, however some had issues (aside from corpse showing which is a easy fix) or caused crashes.

Like these: BarbarianVillager, FacelessOneWorker

Maybe you have some of the models we are speaking of? I've checked your MMO project and found it very interesting (Sharpcraft is alien I would love to understand it). Maybe you have them in your imports?
Asking doesn't hurts...

 

[Xonok]

You should try what the 2h animation looks like. When I compared it to the blademaster I noticed that the sword is turned 90 degrees up, so a normal slash motion turns into stabbing yourself in the chest.
I think the reason for this might be that the blademaster has some additional bones or that the sword itself is animated, not just the hand that holds it.

 

[Mirage1]

Definitely I can't make the modifications on mdlvis that program makes me sick (how do you create a face or edge there guys? holy shit). In the comming week I might give a chance to the 3ds/gmax (the one which is free if it works). I personally would prefer to work on blender if someone knows a way to do so please tell me.

Also if someone knows a way to do it in magos please teach me. I can't even make an edge it's so frustrating