Natural Motion(c) and Source

[Kaine904]

Hello, I was wondering if there was any way that we could immplement a program called endorphin 1.6 built by a company called Natural Motion (www.naturalmotion.com) to create custom on the fly animations for mods.
I dont know how it would work, but by using this program, any mod could create completely custom animations for its characters.
Goto their website, and check it out and tell me what you think.

Note: this program would advance source ragdoll physics a great deal. IE people would not just fly and fall down, they would fly, scream, contort to protect themselves, and then fall down. They would fall more realistically, and also react to bullets for realistically.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Endorphin isn't a realtime application. It's used in a modelling package to generate animations that can then be exported for use in a game. It'll be a while before you can simulate this kind of thing in realtime.

 

[Kaine904]

Well yes, i know. I'm just saying that by immplementing this into the sdk would allow the community to create their own custom animations for the game, as a replacement for canned stuff.
basically would augment the havoks ragdoll.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Well yes, i know. I'm just saying that by immplementing this into the sdk would allow the community to create their own custom animations for the game, as a replacement for canned stuff.
basically would augment the havoks ragdoll.

Well can't you use it in its current state, output the sequences and get them into the game that way. It should be able to do that if its any good.

 

[azz0r]

So get to it yourself

 

[Kaine904]

...
Let me clarify with an example
NOW:
enemy gets shot in the shoulder, becomes a limp ragdoll.
POSSIBLE:
enemy gets shot in the shoulder, staggers, falls down realistically in a realistic pose.

NOW:
enemy is running past player, player hits with a burst from smg. enemy does a funny little fall and roll, ragdoll makes an interesting pose
POSSIBLE:
enemy is running past player, player hits with a burst from smg. enemy gets thrown off balance, clutches wound as falls realistically, falls and rolls/slides realistically

you see, instead of having ragdolls and canned and or hand animated animations, one has fluid and more realistic movements. Zombies can be disabled by getting shot in the spine and head, bones can be more realistically simulated, a myriad of things can happen.
Now, is it possible?

this ---> http://www.naturalmotion2.com/files/NM_Siggraph03_Show_Reel.mpg

 

[Venmoch]

Uh correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't you use animation blending to do that?

 

[Kaine904]

hmmmm....
nope. dont think you could.

 

[SidewinderX]

...
Let me clarify with an example
NOW:
enemy gets shot in the shoulder, becomes a limp ragdoll.
POSSIBLE:
enemy gets shot in the shoulder, staggers, falls down realistically in a realistic pose.

NOW:
enemy is running past player, player hits with a burst from smg. enemy does a funny little fall and roll, ragdoll makes an interesting pose
POSSIBLE:
enemy is running past player, player hits with a burst from smg. enemy gets thrown off balance, clutches wound as falls realistically, falls and rolls/slides realistically

you see, instead of having ragdolls and canned and or hand animated animations, one has fluid and more realistic movements. Zombies can be disabled by getting shot in the spine and head, bones can be more realistically simulated, a myriad of things can happen.
Now, is it possible?

this ---> http://www.naturalmotion2.com/files/NM_Siggraph03_Show_Reel.mpg

I don't think you understand the software... It's not a real-time, in-game simulator.

You take your skeleton from max, xsi, whatever, import it into this program, and then the program will animate the skeleton being hit in the head. You then export that animation as a part of your model, and then when, in game, he gets hit in the head, it plays that animation.

If you only made 1 "hit in the head" animation, it will run that animation everytime it gets hit in the head.

 

[Kaine904]

forgive me, i am sick (literally) and slow today, i do understand that all the software does is creates animations that are then used in the program. All it is is an alternative to hand animated motions and such. This program is just another way of creating custom animations. I was just wondering if it was possible for it to be implemented along with source as a striped down sort of software.
i.e. simple question: can 3rd party software be implemented with the sdk and hammer directly?

 

[SidewinderX]

no, the workflow should go model -> this tool -> max/xsi/maya/lw ->studiomdl ->game


but my guess is that the software is too expensive for a mod to seriously consider using.

 

[Cunbelin]

You could probably do it, but at the same time you could probably write a quantum particle simulation into the engine, it just doesn't serve a particular purpose and would eat up all the power of the system. If you have the expertise to create a system as advanced as the natural motion system then you should probably make it a stand alone package and sell it. Even at it's current level the stuff I've seen using natural motion is generic and floaty, it generally lacks weight and breaks some fairly important principles of good animation. On the other hand it is a step up from alot of mo-cap stuff, so it might work well as a prelim pass that you tweak to get your results.

Basically if you want the things you suggest you should look at animation blending not at the natural motion system. If you look through the animations for some characters you'll see they already have flinch blends for being hit in different locations, and though they only have a few death sequences I'd assume you could add more.

 

[Ultimape]

Black and white 2 will have a reactive animation engine of the sort you are saying, if only for the creatures.

 

[polypod]

in the model viewer it allows us to tweak animations in all sorts of ways.. how can we save these? I think there's enough flexibility there to do anything we want! Is there some way to save a blending of animations without having XSI?(phone modem)