Attaching a Gun - Positioning Assistance Requested

[Nahton]

I've been reading through the forums trying work this out on my own but I seem to have run into a bit of a road block.

I imported a character and handgun model into FragMotion via a process I have used previously. They are imported in as separate skeletons

Below is a picture of the default pose:




The gun is in the desired position.

In the Skeleton Window I dragged the gun skeleton under the Character tree in and the result is the gun skeleton floats above the character:




If I try to transform the gun position to it's original location the whole skeleton moves.

Curiously enough the mesh animates as I desire if with the gun moving in synch with the hand.

I expect I will run into issues when I attempt to bring it back into my animation program if I don't correct this so if anyone can provide any assistance it would be greatly appreciated.

[Nahton]

I am no longer in need of assistance. I found Rex's post http://www.fragmosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=556.msg1806#msg1806 on the "connecting bone help" thread. I used the Bone Info tool to get the original coordinates and then changed them after I attached the gun to the character skeleton. Worked like a charm.

[Nahton]

It appears I've gone down the wrong path in trying to animate a character using a gun for the program I work with. Attaching the gun to the hand worked great for animating the character and keeping the gun in synch but I have to isolate the individual skeletons to bring in the animations into the program with one file for the character and one for the gun. When I drag the gun out from under the character root the animations for the gun are lost or corrupted and I can't see the skeleton for the gun. I tried everything I could think of to work around this including exporting the gun animations and merging them into another file but some of the motions were lost.

Is the only way to animate a character using a gun and keep the gun with the hand to animate each skeleton separately frame by frame?

[Rex]

Use an 'attachment' on the bone...??

An attachment is a 'cached' shape file that is not really in the 'Scene'.  You reference an external file in the attachment's properties panel and you can specify which node is the 'attaching point', even which animation to run.  They are very helpful for what you seem to be describing.

[fragmo]

I imported a character and handgun model into FragMotion via a process I have used previously. They are imported in as separate skeletons

you did this with a previous version of fragmotion?  if so which version?

In the Skeleton Window I dragged the gun skeleton under the Character tree in and the result is the gun skeleton floats above the character:

a picture of the skeleton tree before and after would be more helpful in describing what you did here.  a picture of the gun's skeleton tree by itself and the model's skeleton tree by itself would also help.

dave

[Nahton]

Use an 'attachment' on the bone...??

An attachment is a 'cached' shape file that is not really in the 'Scene'.  You reference an external file in the attachment's properties panel and you can specify which node is the 'attaching point', even which animation to run.  They are very helpful for what you seem to be describing.

Hey Rex,

Oh boy, this makes me think I'm over my head more then I thought. I'm going to have to play around some more try to decipher what you are describing here.  I linked to your other post concerning dragging a skeleton into another skeleton hierarchy to attach it. I'm guessing that wasn't so much intended for a prop. I'm going to try to elaborate on what I'm trying to do by replying to Fragmo's post.

Thanks!

[Nahton]

I imported a character and handgun model into FragMotion via a process I have used previously. They are imported in as separate skeletons

you did this with a previous version of fragmotion?  if so which version?

In the Skeleton Window I dragged the gun skeleton under the Character tree in and the result is the gun skeleton floats above the character:

a picture of the skeleton tree before and after would be more helpful in describing what you did here.  a picture of the gun's skeleton tree by itself and the model's skeleton tree by itself would also help.

dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your reply. I am using 1.3 and I guess I have some upgrading to do;-)

I'm attaching the Skeleton Tree's as follows:
Model Skeleton Tree Merged with Gun (Merged should read attached.) The gun is attached to the right hand.
Model and Gun Before merged - They are in the same project but not attached. The gun sits at the bottom of the tree. The model skeleton is in it's normal unattached state above it.
Gun Skeleton - This is just the gun skeleton. (The gun is listed as a Glock. It's  bit of a misnomer as that was the originating skeleton in my animation program)
I had to split the larger ones into thirds and paste them in side by side.

The way the program I am trying to get these animation imported into works is that I need 2 distinct animation files for the model and the prop. If I animated them separately in the ugh file and adjusted the movement for each skeleton separately as I moved the gun and hand I could achieve this. (With a lot of work:-)

I thought I might be able to attach the gun to the right hand and animate them together and then detach the skeletons later, adjust he coordinates as described in Rex's post linked to above and have the animations retained. That did not work. There was remnants of the gun animation but it was not the nearly the same.

I had another idea to copy the frames for the gun in one ugh file and paste them into another ugh file with the model and gun not attached. Unfortunately, they retain their same vertical position in the keyframe editor. I tried the same technique and and tried pasting them into an ugh file with just the gun and that was also met with failure. I can't imagine any other scenario where the ability to vertically slide the keyframes into place would be useful but the thought temporarily occurred to me it might be a useful feature.

Since I couldn't slide them or paste them where I wanted them I realized I might be able to export the animations out and merge them into the unattached puppet and gun file. It seems like it should have worked. The bones get mapped by name perfectly but once again the gun animations appeared to be remnants. I created keyframes in each column before exporting the animation to try to preserve the exact position and rotation of the gun bones and not leaving tweening coordinates in question.

I had pretty good success creating some basic non-prop animations and doing some MoCap merges but this is the first animation program I've extensively worked with. I've also played around with Misfit and Milkshape. I really love this program and it's an amazing piece of scripting IMHO. If I'm totally lost here with the attaching and detaching concept please let me know. If there is a better way to accomplish what I'm trying to do anyone can recommend I'd appreciate that as well. I've got a suggestion from Rex I'm going to explore as well (if I can figure out where to start).

Thanks again. 

[Nahton]

I had to break up the attachments.
This is the 3rd one after attaching.

[Nahton]

Use an 'attachment' on the bone...??

An attachment is a 'cached' shape file that is not really in the 'Scene'.  You reference an external file in the attachment's properties panel and you can specify which node is the 'attaching point', even which animation to run.  They are very helpful for what you seem to be describing.

Hi Rex,

I found this thread:
http://www.fragmosoft.com/forum/index.php?topic=131.15

It doesn't seem it would work for what I'm hoping to accomplish as from what I understand it is for use as a guide and doesn't generate animations for the attachment. I may have used a misnomer in saying "attachment" rather then "merge".

I really appreciate you responding though as it helped to confirm I'm probably on the wrong track.

[Rex]

Agreed, you cannot animate the 'attachment' when it's attached; I don't think I suggested that.

However; the attachment can be animated in the .UGH file it sits in.  I use attachments to check just such systems, figure or arms in one UGH file, the weapon/item in another.  I think once you research them and actually use them; you may have a differing opinion.

To put two separate hierarchies in the same scene and 'merge' them, animate them separately and then separate them, seems like a good/easy idea....not so much.  You don't mention the engine you're using or how it expects to use the object...'might' work by not parenting them; but then you add in an offset from Scene Root....


Good luck!

[fragmo]

There's a lot of ways to do attachments.  If you need 2 animation files, the way I'm familiar with involves having the same bone hierarchy in the attachment as in the model that holds it.  In other words, the attachment would include the parent bones from the hand to the root. In this case you would merge the attachment file into the model, animate, then use export selected to save out only the bones required for the attachment along with the animation data.  And of course do the same thing for the model's skeleton.

Based on the pics you posted, the gun doesn't share the model's bone hierarchy so moving the gun to be a child of the hand won't work.  It's meant to be a child of the skeleton node.  I'd recommend looking at Tools/Edit Animation Links.  If you create a link between the hand that holds the gun and the first child of the gun hierarchy and set the link to copy the animation you might be able to get the results you want.  That feature hasn't seen much use though, so let me know if you have any problems.

[Nahton]

Dave,

I have one thing to say regarding the Animation/Links feature:

Genius.... Pure Genius!

I'm not all the way to where I want to be but it looks like it is going to work. I had to use the "Grab" option.

I will let you know how it all works out in the end.

Thanks for your help!

[artettourisme]

  Hi Guys

i am a newbie and i got problems with some models each new bone is located on the origin (0,0,0) instead being in my model where i click
so thanks lot for answer!

[seppgirty]

i am a newbie and i got problems with some models each new bone is located on the origin (0,0,0) instead being in my model where i click
so thanks lot for answer!

go to my website http://www.chaosbrosfilms.com ......... go to joe's page. you can download a video tutorial on how to build a skeleton by right clicking and save as.... i have other videos there that you might find useful.


p.s
if you have a question, please make your own subject thread. it helps to keep things organized.