DT: Animation Improvements

[Solus]

http://www.stonehearth.net/dt-animation-improvements/

DT: ANIMATION IMPROVEMENTS
JANUARY 23, 2018

Hey everyone, welcome to another Stonehearth Desktop Tuesday! Alpha 23 has been a pretty full release: we started with a bunch of AI improvements, we added an appeal system so that your hearthlings can appreciate all your decorating efforts, we added a new fine item system for more flexibility in decorating, and finally, we added a bunch of prioritized input and output boxes to improve your workshops and the general flow of goods through your town. To close out Alpha 23, let’s talk about the release’s surprise feature, facial animations! (Plus, actually, a bunch of other animation updates) .

Other Announcements
Roadmap Updated!: Finally, we’ve managed to update our Roadmap and Trello board. Apologies for the long delay. You can find the new roadmap on the right side of the stonehearth dev blog –>

Desktop Tuesday: Next week, I am traveling for work again, so there will be no Desktop Tuesday on January 30th. Desktop Tuesday will return on February 6th.

Streaming: We always stream on Thursday at 6:00pm PST on www.twitch.tv/stonehearth. There will also be a Europe-timed stream on Wednesday, February 7th, at 8:30am PST. See you then!

[Pawel_Malecki]

Some will say this is gameplay-insignificant.
Don’t listen to them. This is beautiful.

Two technical things:

1. Was the animation operation order fixed (I guess so, because new animations use scale and rotate together)?
2. Weather/seasons stuff. My inner voice tells me it will cause a ton of trouble if it isn’t implemented early enough. It has many votes on Trello. As I wrote somewhere else I think it would be more rewarding immersion-wise than adding new biomes.

[AdriannaVentara]

I agree we need weather/seasons for immersion… could even have hearthling animations for when they are out in the rain/snow like covering their faces or something for added cuteness.

obviously it would have gameplay impacts as well… such as no farming in the winter ect which will make the game feel more realistic in that sense… as youd have to store/stockpile food for the winter.

[astyanyx]

Surprise features are the best, especially when the surprise gets the devs as well.

[Pawel_Malecki]

especially when the surprise gets the devs as well.

These are usually called bugs, but not in this case.

[CrazyCandy]

These are usually called bugs

You misspelled “feature”

[MajorFordson]

Hello was that a cheeky preview of an axe weapon there?

[Fornjotr]

This look so awesome! Great job with this @malley I have not had the chance to open up the game in a while, but i was wondering if the goblins got these new eye animations aswell?

Thanks…

[TMS_Stoneaxe]

RIP My ability to run this game…

[SirAstrix]

Some will say this is gameplay-insignificant.

Don’t listen to them. This is beautiful.

I second this. Whereas a few of the animations seem odd, this really adds to the game in a way that’s much needed.

Surprise features are the best,

…to an extent. This was an amazing surprise, but at the same time, could it have been made better with community feedback? Something to think about for any future “surprises”.

[nikosthefan]

This one comes from the latest devstream, but it’s about animations, so I guess it fits.
Luke told us that he wanted goblins to become part of your town (as a future maybe with emphasis on both words), but that it would be difficult, and gave as an example that goblins don’t have the same rig as humans do.

…
What! … Goblins don’t have the same rig as hearthlings, how?.. why?

Ok serious though, I’d imagine that they’d have the same rig. Goblins are basically humans, physiologically speaking, so what motivates them not having the same rig? @malley can you explain?

[BrunoSupremo]

They are smaller than hearthlings, even smaller than the female. They are only 2.5 blocks tall while a hearthling is 3. Just getting a female rig (the closest to a goblin in shape) would still result in very deformed animations.
They also have many different body parts, like the moving ears, or a jaw, not present in hearthlings and lack a few others, like toes.

The main reason the goblin mod lacks so many features are because they simple lack animations for it. For example, all the emotes from conversations, like waving or jumping, are not there and as such throws errors when they try to talk with each other.

[malley]

Thanks! Sadly no, goblins can’t have eye animations because their eyes are recessed into their heads as opposed to sitting on the surface like hearthlings : /. We could if we were using skin weighting, but we are just hard weighting polygons to bones : (.

[malley]

Hehe, its not a case of motivation : ), they are simply different. The main differences between goblins and humans is height and proportions - goblins are just too short to fit on the standard rig, and their heads are too big - but that’s what gives them their look. The rigs are very similar - in fact all goblin animations are transferred over from the hearthling rig, but that transferring takes time. I’m hoping to tackle it in the next month sometime : ). I want goblins in my town too - especially PARTY GOBLIN! : D! We’ll see though, no promises : ).

Oh, @BrunoSupremo already beat me to saying all this ; ).

[malley]

Hopefully I have some time to transfer more animations across, and then you can use them as well ; ).

[Pawel_Malecki]

Was the animation operation order fixed (I guess so, because new animations use scale and rotate together)?

@malley, may I humbly ask you to confirm this? I really want to know if I should start planning some new Archmod items.

[malley]

Yup! Was fixed a while ago : ). Let us know if you run into any issues with it!

[MoonSight]

Just a quick question, in the video Steph mentions that the current bone cap is at 39
But my Sylph has every bone the hearthling had (-toe and eyes) and an added set of wings and hair bones (total of 16) and it works in-game.

does this mean 39 is a development limit for the main game models and the game itself ‘can’ handle more matrixes?

[malley]

Sorry, that is a mistake. 39 is how many bones the hearthling rig is up to. I incorrectly thought the max was 40, but it is actually 48 (I’m pretty sure).

[Fornjotr]

Thanks! Sadly no, goblins can’t have eye animations because their eyes are recessed into their heads as opposed to sitting on the surface like hearthlings : /. We could if we were using skin weighting, but we are just hard weighting polygons to bones : (.

aww thats sounds terrible! But there is nothing that CANT be done Maybe the answer should be, we dont know the solution yet? Or, we dont want to spent the resources on doing i?

The very first thing that came to my mind, was that the goblins head should be divided up into two matrixes, just like a hand in a glove, where the eye animation then is on the “hand/inner” matrix

I know that the hearthlings is the stars of the show, but i seriously think that the goblins would bring the game more life with eye animations? Take a look at this picture and then imagine if the eyes where animated…

Thanks