Koniption's Orrible Critters

[Koniption]

Hi Ibsen,

I like the "bubbling sounds" for the idle the best. But for the foot sounds, I was thinking of doing a "blurp, blurp" sound - a "blurp" for each time the jellyfish's head flap does a flap in the water.

I like the "jumping into water" sound for the aware clip the best.

I think the harp sounds are best for the Paatru for environmental sounds. A jellyfish is not a whale, and maybe even those sounds are best for future possible whale creatures as well.

But I'd like to hear what everybody else thinks too. Majority opinion should rule, me thinks.

Animation-wise, the jellyfish should not venture onto the shore, if in CS you choose "swim" only in Creature section. However, if you lure a jellyfish that is fighting you close to the shore and the shore is at a slope where it can go up that slope, it can look like it's standing halfway in the water and halfway above the water, bobbing. But it shouldn't go all the way onto the land, at least not usually. This can also happen if it's wander package lets it go close enough to such a shore slope. However, the slaughterfish had problem of going onto land sometimes, even those it's only supposed to swim, so Bethesda made a "fish flopping out of water" regular "idle.kf" animation for when it does get stuck on land.

Come to think of it, the jellyfish uses same animation for swimidle and regular idle, so if it goes on land by glitch, it will bob up and down on the land in upright position. So, the jellyfish may need a regular idle animation where it's just laying flat on the ground motionless, like it has beached itself.

If nick-op is gonna add a magicnode, maybe he can do that one animation too, and kill two birds with one stone. But only if he feels like doing it.

Koniption

[nick_op]

Originally posted by Koniption
If nick-op is gonna add a magicnode, maybe he can do that one animation too, and kill two birds with one stone. But only if he feels like doing it.
Koniption

Yeah, should be pretty easy to do. Have you used any morphs for the jellyfish?

[Koniption]

Originally posted by nick_op

Originally posted by Koniption
If nick-op is gonna add a magicnode, maybe he can do that one animation too, and kill two birds with one stone. But only if he feels like doing it.
Koniption

Yeah, should be pretty easy to do. Have you used any morphs for the jellyfish?

No, I haven't used any morphs for the jellyfish, or any of my creatures for that matter. I just use plain Transform animations.

Truth is, I still don't know how to do morphs - I haven't tried to tackle morphs yet.
Can the Nif Plugin (not Civ IV plugin) export morphs yet?

Thanks,
Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Hello,

Could you try these out and let me know what you think...

Also, I have acquired some new 'drone' sounds that would again make excellent environmentals for a Paatru dwelling. If and when we get going with a tileset for this then you should give me a shout and I'll send them over so we can decide which files to use.

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
Hello,

Could you try these out and let me know what you think...

Also, I have acquired some new 'drone' sounds that would again make excellent environmentals for a Paatru dwelling. If and when we get going with a tileset for this then you should give me a shout and I'll send them over so we can decide which files to use.

I like the "Sink Blurp 04.mp3" the best for the jellies head flap sound. I listened to the mp3 of that, and it sounds like two blurps one after the other, like for two consecutive head flaps as in what the jellyfish swimidle has. Maybe you can separate one blurp from that mp3, then summon that blurp sound via the NitextkeyExtraData by timing for when the head hood flaps each time.

"Hollow Underwater Echo.mp3" might be good for an "Attack" sound.

Huh? Paatru tileset? Or are you referring to the jellyfish's soundset? If you mean the soundset, yeah, that's fine. Just PM me when sounds for all the jelly's circumstances have been decided or tweaked to satisfaction, and I can test them for myself. Or however which way this is done (I'm not sure; never been involved in sound production/testing before).

Koniption

[nick_op]

Originally posted by Koniption
No, I haven't used any morphs for the jellyfish, or any of my creatures for that matter. I just use plain Transform animations.

Truth is, I still don't know how to do morphs - I haven't tried to tackle morphs yet.
Can the Nif Plugin (not Civ IV plugin) export morphs yet?

Thanks,
Koniption

Morphs are a kind of vertex animation. To set one up you would:

1. Clone your 'base' mesh. Call the clone something descriptive (e.g. for the Kwama Forager I have one morph that it used in all of the special idles, therefore I called it SpecialIdle)
2. Adjust the vertices on the clone.
3. Add a morpher modifier to the base mesh. It must go above the editable mesh in the stack, but below the skin modifier.
4. Add the clone as a morph target.
5. Adjust the percentage of the morph target in your morpher modifier. Use with Auto Key in the same way you would with transforms.

There are some limitations to morphs. The targets must have the same amount of vertices (and the same vertxe index) as the base mesh, otherwise you'll not be allowed to choose them as targets.

As for NifTools expoting morphs - I know for definite that it now correctly exports a mesh with morphs attached (as it was me that repeatedly prodded Steve to get to get it fixed ). I've never tried exporting animations with morphs using NifTools, so I don't know if it will. I always use Civ IV for animation export.

PM me if you'd like some examples to look at.

Edit: Have you seen the animations in Fallout 3 yet? They're quite a bit better than OB's anims for the most part. Plus there are tons of them! I've been looking through the _male\idleanims folder, but it's going to take me a while before I've checked through all 707 animations in there. There must be more than 1000 anims for NPCs in total!

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Originally posted by Koniption
I like the "Sink Blurp 04.mp3" the best for the jellies head flap sound. I listened to the mp3 of that, and it sounds like two blurps one after the other, like for two consecutive head flaps as in what the jellyfish swimidle has. Maybe you can separate one blurp from that mp3, then summon that blurp sound via the NitextkeyExtraData by timing for when the head hood flaps each time.

I haven't a clue about how to summon the sounds and so on. You'll need SACarrow for that...or perhaps nick_op here might know something about it. I certainly wouldn't know where to begin attaching the sounds for myself though. However, I can certainly separate the sounds as you describe so that I'm creating two files. I'm just not sure how advanced the 'sound fixing' system for the CS is.

Originally posted by Koniption
"Hollow Underwater Echo.mp3" might be good for an "Attack" sound.

Really? I thought you might have gone for a slightly quieter version of 'Blastwave' or 'Sonar Ping Underwater' although I guess this one is subtler...but I felt it needed to be sharper and slightly more pronounced. I could work on that, of course.

Originally posted by Koniption
Huh? Paatru tileset? Or are you referring to the jellyfish's soundset? If you mean the soundset, yeah, that's fine. Just PM me when sounds for all the jelly's circumstances have been decided or tweaked to satisfaction, and I can test them for myself.

Regarding the Paatru tileset remark, I'm referring to using the new drone sounds I came across to add to those environmental 'water harp' sounds. These would be used whenever we got a tileset sorted for the Paatru dwellings.

I'll need to acquire the services of someone more wise to the CS than me to define and set up the jellyfish's soundset. I'm pretty sure it was nick_op that was working on fixing up the Kwama so perhaps he can do these when he's finished with some of his numerous tasks...?

[Koniption]

Nick_Op : I haven't played Fallout 3 yet, though I have it. I haven't looked at it's data files yet, neither. My younger brother has been busy playing the game , though, that I bought.

I PM'd you, btw.

Ibsen : I kind of know how to summon sounds in the Nif animation file, I think. Like in the NiTextKeyExtraData of the animation kf, at the appropriate timeframe, you can call "Enum: Attack" for the attack sound, "Enum: Left" or "Enum: Right" for the left or right foot sound, "Enum: Idle" for the idle sound. I think this is how it's done. But I've never fooled with it much.

Yeah, I liked the "Hollow Underwater Echo.mp3" the best for some reason. You can make it sharper and more pronounced if you want.

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Koniption has read my mind and sent along some new insects. I'll send the link to the files via PM to the rest of the core. This is just what I'd wanted! I will definitely be adding buzzing sounds for these. They'll be perfect in the especially swampy regions.

@Tlo1048 - Can you let me know when you've downloaded these. Then I can let Koniption know that she can delete this upload.

And she's caught me out too, because I haven't even finished with the sounds for the jellyfish yet as I've been working on other things. Thanks again, Koniption! :goodjob:

[Koniption]

Hey all,

I teased Ibsen earlier via PM saying I wasn't ready to disclose the new creature I've been working on, but changed my mind. It's still a long ways from being done, and will include my first work with morph animations.

Big credits go to Ra5946 for modeling & texturing 99% of the creature for me (I only added the roots and flower petals myself).

Screenshots of the creature can be found at top of first page of my photobucket linky below: http://s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn62/...irit_2008/

I show, in screenshot sequence, an animation I did of the plant opening from bulb to full blown killer flower (it's the handtohandEquip.kf animation). The head is separate from the rest of the main body, so just imagine it's in the center of the flower petals - I have to attach the head separately in the CS since it has morph animations.

Koniption