Old dinosaur riggings

[glitchhunter09]

https://imgur.com/a/8X4xc uh...... uh oh
this is the E3 raptor btw. Haven't tried the build 32 one yet.

edit: build 32 raptor has the same problem.

[Draconisaurus]

I was wondering how much machf had tested these. glitch, how many have you looked at? And, plz post a BONES mode screen.

[glitchhunter09]

I've tested both Green T-rexes as well. They both seem to work but the IJ one doesn't open its mouth for some strange reason. Also, it seems like the bones will randomly crash the game. They pretty much animate the same as the final models btw before anyone asks. Any tail movements on the models that did in the old builds don't happen either.

And for those wondering why the team butchered the animations in the first place, it was most likely performance concerns. Keep in mind that computers in 1998 were not exactly cutting edge by today's standards. This was quite arguably the main hurtle the team faced through most of development, other than the deadline. every bit of their work was meant to make the player's game experience as fluid as possible. Sadly, this never got completed because of the deadline. It simply would have took more video memory for the animations seen in the older builds if they were in the final which is probably why they were butchered. Same goes for anything else that used trespasser's ragdoll locomotion in the game. (*cough*Anne*cough*)

Back on the subject of the models, I'll download and try the Triceratops models.

@machf, would it theoretically be possible to rerig final game models with the PVA's of the prototype ones? If it is we could at least see how the brach and stego were supposed to be rigged originally. There's also a Triceratops in both build 32 and 22's version of PV. Not sure if it's any different from the E3 or JR one but it seems to suffer from the same disappearing problem as the JR trike. It can be found near the geothermal plant.

[machf]

Didn't test them at all. (Remember that I asked you to do it, Drac?) That's the original riggings, after all. And that also means the original bones. For them to work with newer engines, you need to add another bone/joint at the proper location. In the case of the raptors, it means just editing the .TPM file by making a copy of bone 00 with index 20, and editing the values.txt file so that NumJoints is now 21 instead of 20.

Old versions of Anne need a similar treatment: make a copy of bone #00 as #19 and edit the values.txt file so that NumJoints is 20 instead of 19.

In the case of the Rexes and the Para, they already have a bone #20 at the proper location. So, no need to add another bone.

In the case of quadrupeds (currently, the Trikes only), well... the Trike from JR appears to have bone #28 in the proper place, but the one from IJ doesn't. The latter would need a bone #29 added where the former has bone #28 and its values.txt file edited.

[machf]

I've tested both Green T-rexes as well. They both seem to work but the IJ one doesn't open its mouth for some strange reason.

It's because everything is assigned to the head bone, nothing to the jaw bone.

[glitchhunter09]

here's what their collisions look like as requested by drac https://imgur.com/a/9PE6M

the only ones I haven't checked yet are the JR Trike and the build 32 Anne. though without the stuff machf mentioned above, I don't think the older annes can be used. I tried the build 22 Anne but I didn't make the edits above, so it caused the game to hang on the load screen. Not crash, hang. I'll try the edits above to see if they make any difference at all.

oh also machf, I asked a question regarding rerigging final dinosaurs with the prototype pva's in my last post as well.

[machf]

@machf, would it theoretically be possible to rerig final game models with the PVA's of the prototype ones? If it is we could at least see how the brach and stego were supposed to be rigged originally.

You see, for the ones I've uploaded, we did have the original mesh and the original bones, and I extracted the original PVAs from the executables. If we neither have the original mesh nor the original bones, the PVAs by themselves are useless.

There's also a Triceratops in both build 32 and 22's version of PV. Not sure if it's any different from the E3 or JR one but it seems to suffer from the same disappearing problem as the JR trike. It can be found near the geothermal plant.

They're the same ones as the other two already rigged (one of each variant).

[glitchhunter09]

I got the E3 raptor working properly. I'm currently uploading a video onto youtube of it in action.

edit:
here's the video. I would have embedded but I couldn't figure the embed function out (every forum seems to be different in this regard) Also note, the Raptor has no proper physics and instead uses some rather small and primative collision boxes. if someone would make some collision boxes for it, then it would be fully functioning. If you want the modified E3 Raptor, let me know and I'll upload it.

[machf]

You must use this form of the URL:

Code: Select all

[youtube]https://youtu.be/vbxtyB0lJWc[/youtube]

Also, the other raptor (from build 32) does have collision boxes. I wonder if this one was supposed to have ones hardcocded into the executable, too.

[glitchhunter09]

On another note, that jaw bone.... lol.

[Draconisaurus]

Looking at your screenshots, it seems the dinosaurs generally suffer from physics resizing, not sure why.

machf, I'm a little unclear - why exactly is an additional bone needed ontop of the files you made?

[machf]

Because with scripted PVAs (int PVA = -2) it's a requirement. I've mentioned it before.

[Draconisaurus]

Not quite my question - so is the point that this additional bone, then, is the only difference from retail dinosaur skeletons which are being used via alias?

[machf]

No. It's ONE of the differences. Others are the bone positions and orientations, their actual numbers, and the meshes themselves...

Old topic on this matter:
viewtopic.php?f=129&t=10937

[Draconisaurus]

Well I'm confused again - if there are all manner of differences, why this one correction needed by users?