Does anyone know if custom animations are possible with the source engine?

[Scunna]

Does anyone know if custom animations are possible with the source engine?
i.e. could an AT-AT from Star Wars be made and would it look good? Id love to see a Star Wars mod for Half Life 2.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Yes.

It was possible with HL, it's certainly possible with HL2.

And I'm sure that you'll see a Star Wars mod for HL2. There's already got to be 2 or 3 in the works. I know Jedi Timeline is one (that's not an endorsement)

 

[Apos]

Well, it would of course probably be illegal to do a Star Wars mod, as I'm sure the people doing one for Far Cry and HL2 will find out in due course.

But yes, it is possible, and Valve and SoftImage have already released a free version of XSI with which you can create characters and animations. The animation in HL2 is supposed to be extremely powerful, allowing you to blend different animations and script them into complex and reactive AI.

 

[mrchimp]

Does anyone know if custom animations are possible with the source engine?
i.e. could an AT-AT from Star Wars be made and would it look good? Id love to see a Star Wars mod for Half Life 2.

If you mean could the physics be combined with canned animations, the Strider appears to do this, it's.. um feet always apear to touch the ground.

 

[Scunna]

Yeah a Star Wars mod for half life 2, a total conversion similar to Battlefields -Galactic Conquest which i play.

 

[Scunna]

Isn't there a Star Wars mod for Half Life?

 

[Apos]

There does seem to be some sort of limited IK animation for get character's legs to work on sloped and uneven surfaces. There may be kickback blending from gun shots to still living characters: though Valve has been suspiciously coy as to whether there is or not. We don't really know at this point how they are doing what they are doing in each particular instance.

 

[Varsity]

Well, it would of course probably be illegal to do a Star Wars mod, as I'm sure the people doing one for Far Cry and HL2 will find out in due course.

Lucasarts are famous for the games and their lawyers.

 

[mrchimp]

There does seem to be some sort of limited IK animation for get character's legs to work on sloped and uneven surfaces. There may be kickback blending from gun shots to still living characters: though Valve has been suspiciously coy as to whether there is or not. We don't really know at this point how they are doing what they are doing in each particular instance.

They said they had been experimenting with knocking characters off there feet, useing a rag doll animation, then makeing them get back up again which would reqire a fairly complex system as you just described.

 

[Kadayi]

Making a mod based around any commercial venture is risky. You could get away with 'inspired' by, but anything more and you run the risk of legalities.

There was a case a good few years ago of an 'Alien' themed Quake total conversion that dissappeared out of existence after 20th Century Foxes lawyers got a sniff of it.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

http://jeditimeline.com/A/news.php

wtf you think source is.... bf1942 engine?? heh the animation tools are already around ffs

 

[Impulse147]

Fox doesn't own star wars ,lucas arts does, and i believe there is a star wars mod for bf1942. yea fox has canned some good mods , like the avp starcraft mod.

 

[PvtRyan]

I believe Galactic Conquest for BF1942 got a green light from Lucas. So it's possible, but your mod has to be of some quality.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I believe Galactic Conquest for BF1942 got a green light from Lucas. So it's possible, but your mod has to be of some quality.

yeh and troopers I think to b/c its fun :cheers: but the hell if I know what the future of any unoficial SW mod is... probably fseck'd if it gets any real popularity

 

[Kadayi]

Fox doesn't own star wars ,lucas arts does, and i believe there is a star wars mod for bf1942. yea fox has canned some good mods , like the avp starcraft mod.

Did I say 20th C Fox owned star wars?

The SW BF1942 mod is an bit of an oddity in that Lucasarts have allowed it, but undoubtably some level of contractual agreement was established to provide consent.

 

[Apos]

They said they had been experimenting with knocking characters off there feet, useing a rag doll animation, then makeing them get back up again which would reqire a fairly complex system as you just described.

Actually, if we are talking about the same quote, that's what I mean about coy. Instead of saying "yes" they said that physics can push npcs around without killing them. That doesn't imply anything about an animation system that blends ragdoll with coded animations.

Blended kickback is certainly possible, but I think that ragdoll animation blended with a character getting back to his feet is very unlikely. Since ragdoll could have a character's limbs and body end up in almost any position, how do you start the "getting up" animation so that it doesn't just jump from the random position to the scripted one?

Though Max Payne 2 had what looked pretty good: you could jump into friendly characters in slow mo, knock them over, and they would appear to ragdoll and recover. Not sure it was a real ragdoll though, and the clipping problems this caused were pretty bad.

 

[mortiz]

It's unlikely that a company of Lucasarts's size would bother pursuing legal routs over something as small as a HL2 mod, especially when the developers of it probably won't be a company per sae.

Obviously if the MOD is a massive hit and everyone and their gran-ma downloads it (like Counter-Strike) then Lucasarts could argue that the Star Wars mod has detracted from sales of their Star Wars games. I doubt they'd bother over a small project though, it's too much hassle for the amount of gain they'd get from it (virtually none).

 

[RblDiver]

At least for the SW Timeline mod, I'm 99.9% sure they got legal permission from LucasArts (if I recall the interview with them correctly...)

 

[Fender357]

Well, it would of course probably be illegal to do a Star Wars mod, QUOTE]


There's been a Star Wars mod out for BF1942 for a long time now.


I'm sure a TON of mods out there are "illegal".......but I'm sure some movie companies and other game companies just don't care about it.

 

[mrchimp]

Actually, if we are talking about the same quote, that's what I mean about coy. Instead of saying "yes" they said that physics can push npcs around without killing them. That doesn't imply anything about an animation system that blends ragdoll with coded animations.

Blended kickback is certainly possible, but I think that ragdoll animation blended with a character getting back to his feet is very unlikely. Since ragdoll could have a character's limbs and body end up in almost any position, how do you start the "getting up" animation so that it doesn't just jump from the random position to the scripted one?

Actually I know which quote you are thinking of and it's not it, there's another one where they actually said they had experimented with it or atleast it was possible.

Personally I don't think it would be too hard to get the ragdoll to move it's limbs into the right places for the canned animation to start but it would look a bit unatural, like as if it was being inflated and it's limbs were being forced into those positions.