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Post by John-Sims on Jul 26, 2016 13:20:00 GMT -5
So I really wanna do an animated cat clock that moves the tail and the eyes. Do I make it like the poses?--Add frames and the change the mesh in Edit Mode or Does it have another tutorial?
~Thanks~
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Post by Bakie on Jul 26, 2016 15:50:46 GMT -5
Hi John-Sims, Animations aren't possible yet. There has been some testing with this, but there's something wrong within the game engine itself that makes it very hard to make our own animations at this point. It probably will be available in future, but I can't say when as it also depends on EA itself.
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Post by Feyona on Jul 26, 2016 15:52:56 GMT -5
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Post by Bakie on Jul 27, 2016 2:16:05 GMT -5
FeyonaThat's one of the few animated objects right now. He also made "Duncan the drinking bird toy" that can be found in our The Sims 4 DLC Pack: Household stuff. Both those object go from left to right or up and down. Rotating objects, like for a clock isn't possible yet, without seeing some stuttering. When Studio will be able to make custom animations, there will be a more easier tutorial written by Orangemittens probably. But for now it isn't that easy as it maybe looks in Andrews steps.
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Post by phyre on Jul 27, 2016 2:26:08 GMT -5
I blame TS4s Animation State Machine and those horrid .jazz files :P
So far I have only been able to add animations into there that already exist (I am working on converting all yoga animations for children), or replace existing animations with another clip (which I do not want to do, we want more unique animations). Adding your own stuff is still very tedious and glitchy at this point.
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Post by Feyona on Jul 27, 2016 2:43:12 GMT -5
Bakie did you see Veranka's water wheel? I didn't test in the game but animation seems looks good on this video and it's spinning. I don't know what program she used. I suspect that instead of creating new animation she could use new shader that came with SP "Backyard stuff" (spinning flower), as per SimguruGraham every object with this shader applied will spin.
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Post by Bakie on Jul 27, 2016 3:21:12 GMT -5
Feyona, I didn't, that waterwheel looks very good! I don't have that expansion pack yet, but did saw the spinning flower thingys in a video. Looks like they've solved the spinning animation problem then. Maybe other animations will work better too now. Fingers crossed!
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Post by phyre on Jul 27, 2016 4:05:09 GMT -5
Bakie did you see Veranka's water wheel? I didn't test in the game but animation seems looks good on this video and it's spinning. I don't know what program she used. I suspect that instead of creating new animation she could use new shader that came with SP "Backyard stuff" (spinning flower), as per SimguruGraham every object with this shader applied will spin.Then I think creating an animated cat clock would be rather simple(ish). You are not making a new animation yourself but using one the server already recognizes. If you mesh the clock and clone it from one of those spinning flowers, making sure the cat's body has the same cut number as the static stem and the cat's tail the same cut number as the spinning flower, it should theoretically work. If you want the eyes to spin too, you could even assign that to the same cut number as the tail as well. In Studio, you can simply change the object's tuning to that of a clock but since you cloned it from the spinning flower all the other settings will follow that object (such as its assigned shaders and associated spinning animation). Now if you wanted the cat's eyes to, say, blink instead of spin, that'd be a different story and require a unique animation that will result in the aforementioned difficulties.
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Post by anska on Jul 27, 2016 4:59:06 GMT -5
So basically, if you use one of EAs existing animations and just modify the portions of the mesh which are animated it works, but if you want to make a completely new type of movement/animation it gets difficult? If I recall correctly gtw had its share of spinning industrial ventilators too (not the small table fan but the huge industrial wall mounted ones).
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Post by phyre on Jul 27, 2016 5:19:25 GMT -5
So basically, if you use one of EAs existing animations and just modify the portions of the mesh which are animated it works, but if you want to make a completely new type of movement/animation it gets difficult? If I recall correctly gtw had its share of spinning industrial ventilators too (not the small table fan but the huge industrial wall mounted ones). No this is not entirely correct. There are different types of animations. Until recent all TS4 (at least so far as I am aware) animations were described in the ASM (Animated State Machine). In the ASM, each animation is attached to a specific "state" of an object and when the object is in that state the ASM calls the appropriate animation(s), which are in separate clip files. The ASM files basically describe which animations to play at what moment (to take yoga as an example, the ASM describes different states such as idle, yoga poses, and the possible transitions between poses and, for each one, calls upon the appropriate clips). These clips are hand-made custom animations that apply only to that object. From what I understand, Backyard Stuff was the first pack to introduce another type of animation, which comes in the form of a shader. Basically, the shader refers to a generic "movement" (in this case spinning), which can be applied to any object. It bypasses the ASM and is instead read and rendered directly be the game engine like all shaders are. This is not really an animation in the traditional sense of the word, more like a new way in which the game can render an object (spinning around). I have never looked at how the GTW objects work, however. Perhaps that was their first attempt at building this specific shader? Or they may have been traditional, ASM described, animations. Or none of the above, considering EA has ways of creating in-game assets that we do not (like simulating "wind").
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Post by anska on Jul 27, 2016 5:45:59 GMT -5
Thank you for taking the time to explain this phyre That explains why the geostates are so vital for animations too.
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Post by orangemittens on Jul 27, 2016 6:28:50 GMT -5
Geostates are not vital for animations. Geostates are two or more separate meshes that are switched depending on the state of the item. So, for example, the item can have a dial that is meshed on the object. When it's on the dial shows a mesh with the arrow in one position and when it's off it shows the mesh with dial in another.
True animation doesn't require different meshes and therefore it doesn't require geostates and animation state machines have nothing to do with geostates.
Andrew and I started a tutorial (more like finished it...it has well over 150 illustrations and steps) showing how to animate an object when we ran into a flaw in the game. It's a problem with render times that causes all animations...even EA's own animations, to skip and stutter. I posted about this at EA forums and I guess this lame shader solution is their answer to fixing the problem. It doesn't bode well for the idea that they'll ever bother to fix their game so it plays right and this is quite disappointing. The use of shaders instead of true animation may severely limit what modders are able to accomplish.
ETA: shaders for animation have been used in previous Sims games. For example, if you apply the plumbob shader to an item in Sims 3 it will appear to "animate" the object.
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Post by phyre on Jul 27, 2016 7:52:38 GMT -5
ETA: shaders for animation have been used in previous Sims games. For example, if you apply the plumbob shader to an item in Sims 3 it will appear to "animate" the object. I did not create for any other sims game before so I did not know this.. Shame to hear about the animation problems, though, I hope EA can manage to fix it and that it's not due to the sub-par engine... (probably is though). While I like the idea of shaders to add some simple animations to objects they are very limited and I was absolutely hoping to add true custom animation to the game. Let's hope someone at EA still wants to update that engine of theirs...
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Post by anska on Jul 27, 2016 13:43:53 GMT -5
Thank you for the explanation orangemittens ! It is a shame to hear about that problem indeed.
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Post by Feyona on Jul 27, 2016 15:50:45 GMT -5
Let's hope someone at EA still wants to update that engine of theirs... phyre Considering that EA doesn't plan to appear on Gamescom this year I don't have high hopes. Seems they don't have anything big to show this year (expansion pack). Either they decided to lay to rest the game or they're working on something huge and won't be able to present it by August. But considering the way this game is being presented since the beginning I have not much hope about this...
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