Animation Tips for Dota?

two_larsens

Hi,

I was going to delve into the more 'complicated' parts of animating items for the Dota 2 Workshop, and wondered if some kind soul could give a few pointers to some questions. Now, I have looked a lot for this, but there doesn't seem to be many tutorials out there, except some for Flex modifiers in 3DS Max, which I do understand. However: here goes.

I of course know that an item is added with the Skin Modifier in 3DS Max, and it will then follow a particular bone or bones, but what is it called if an item has gravity - like a cape, or hair or a mace?

I am thinking that the Cloth Modifier is used, but is that added on top of the Skin Modifier?

For instance: I was going to make a Rubick cape, but don't know how the 'dragging' effect is achieved - where the upper part moves first, then followed by the lower.

I am not asking for any extensive help, but more what the different things are called, then of course I'll pick it up from there. It's always tricky when not knowing what to look for. If there are any good pointers to a tutorial then that would be much appreciated.

I have more questions, but don't want to flood this.

Thanks for any help!

H

Spudnik

Jiggle bones/physics bones are pre-setup on the different rigs. If you want to make custom physics bones, you have to add/modify a .cloth file for that item. It's kind of a gamble though since I think it generates additional back-end work for valve in implementing it which they don't seem to like. Also, limitations exist: You can't make a bone that is currently not physics into a based physics based one, and you can't modify the original skeletal structure, so everything you do has to be additive. I'm sure Ahelenek or Tvidotto have more to say on the matter.

hayes87

two_larsens wrote: »

I am thinking that the Cloth Modifier is used, but is that added on top of the Skin Modifier?

Oh no no, you just need to skin the mesh to bones prepped for cloth use. In the same folder of the "Rubick.MDL" file theres a "Rubick.cloth" file, its rather simple to create cloth file, just need to name it after the MDL you want to use it on. For the bones to work you need to name it with a sufix, like BONENAME_R0C0. R stands for row number and C for columm and then set it on the cloth file. Check some other cloth files for different parameters.

ClothSystem
{
    Cloth
	{
		"BonePrefix"		"BONENAME_"
                "columns"		"1" //BONENAME_RXC0
		"rows"		"3"          //BONENAME_R0CX,BONENAME_R1CX,BONENAME_R2CX
	        "damping"		"0.3"
		"gravity"		"0 0 -3"
		"gravity_scale"		"100"
		"BendSpringConstant"		"5"
		"BendSpringDamping"		"0.1"
		"R0"		"fixed" // FIRST BONE IN THE CHAIN ITS ALMOST ALWAYS "FIXED" 
		"R1"		"mass  5" /
                "R2"		"mass  1"
			
	}
}