I have one in my game but I can't get all the pieces to line up correctly. There's only 4 parts- a head, an arm in the foreground, an arm in the background, and a body that all the pieces are supposed to follow. I've made it so that all the hotspots for the non-body pieces would be at swivel points and made the action points for those pieces at the same place.
The best I can do is get them to follow correctly when the boss is moving in one direction but when it turns the other way it looks like ass and all the pieces are in different places. For options I have it so the parts originate at the hot spot and set to the action point (??). I used separate body parts because I'd like to use MMF2's rotating to make swinging arms if I can.
Rather than fix this problem, I'm willing to scrap my system for one that actually works. Anybody have experience with multi-segmented bosses, and what'd be the best way to get all the pieces to correctly be where they're supposed to be when the boss does stuff?
Thank you
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"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
I used a lot of multi-segmented characters in my game, and came across this problem. It's hard to explain because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but it usually seems to work better when you use hot spots to rotate with :/
I likes to use a skeleton that consists of thin lines with a hotspot and action point at opposite ends, that deal with rotations (using values) and positioning, and then branches if need be. For each limb I'll set a limit of how far the rotation value can go so it doesn't end up having backwards knees or whatever (just a simple line of code like if Value A is greater than 30, set to 30 etc). To get stuff mirrored I add *-1.
Then ontop of the skeleton I'll add the boss pieces.
Originally Posted by Dr. James Where are you having trouble exactly, Mr Duio?
I likes to use a skeleton that consists of thin lines with a hotspot and action point at opposite ends, that deal with rotations (using values) and positioning, and then branches if need be. For each limb I'll set a limit of how far the rotation value can go so it doesn't end up having backwards knees or whatever (just a simple line of code like if Value A is greater than 30, set to 30 etc). To get stuff mirrored I add *-1.
Then ontop of the skeleton I'll add the boss pieces.
I've found this to be the best method as well. You can reuse/modify the skeleton code at any time without having to strip out all of the boss's AI.
Originally Posted by Dr. James Where are you having trouble exactly, Mr Duio?
I likes to use a skeleton that consists of thin lines with a hotspot and action point at opposite ends, that deal with rotations (using values) and positioning, and then branches if need be. For each limb I'll set a limit of how far the rotation value can go so it doesn't end up having backwards knees or whatever (just a simple line of code like if Value A is greater than 30, set to 30 etc). To get stuff mirrored I add *-1.
Then ontop of the skeleton I'll add the boss pieces.
This sounds like it'd be good but I don't know if it'd work for what I have. The main body is sort of like a big slug that crawls from left to right, and the head is positioned on top with the swivel arms where the shoulders would be. Should I make each of the arms and head check to see what direction the main body's moving in and then set them where the hotspot (for swiveling) meets different X,Y values from the body's action point?
Blah, looks like I have a lot to learn STILL. This sucks a bit.
--
"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
"Should I make each of the arms and head check to see what direction the main body's moving in and then set them where the hotspot (for swiveling) meets different X,Y values from the body's action point?"
I would, but then I'm no expert coder but it's always worked for me.
Also if it's a huge slug boss I think it would look better if it just backed up rather than changing direction. Big objects suddenly flipping to change direction look ugly, unless you're thinking about animating it
That's a good idea about having the thing back up Adam but yeah it flips about ugly-like
Although I did get some simple parts of this to work (the arms swinging back & forth) it actually made the whole thing look bad because the arms either 1) didn't look smooth when rotating or 2) looked all anti-aliased or whatever it does and it therefore made half of my boss's art style different from the rest of the game and that wasn't good either.
I ended up just drawing the whole thing's whole body in different positions and then trying my best to animate the boss for the different attacks or moves and etc. It's more time-consuming this way but at least all the art fits with everything else (good or bad, that's to be decided sometime 2010 or 2011 ).
But the good news is that you guys helped me learn some new tricks with MMF2 that I might be able to apply elsewhere, and the skeletal structure with lines is a good idea I never thought of before.
Thanks everybody again.
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"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
Well if you're going that route, you might as well build yourself a little animation studio then just copy the animated frames and redraw over them. That saves TONS of time.
I've found the best (?) way of doing it this way is to just open this huge mofo png file that has all sorts of copies of different boss parts like the main body, heads in various states (open mouth, angry face), and limbs. The limbs especially can be manipulated pretty easily just by flipping them or rotating them 90 degrees. Sometimes you have to draw different versions of the same hand when the angle doesn't look right of course.
Then what you do is "build" your boss at the bottom of the picture using copies of these base parts into different positions. There's still work to do on them but you can get basic stuff that works pretty well this way. When you're all done you then have to look to see where your boss's sprite limits are, like how high does his sprite have to be (if a sword is swung in an arc it might be the apex of that swing) or how wide the sprite has to be (the tip of the sword when swung straight out might be a good measure of this.) By getting the max width and height of the box that will contain your boss you can then go nuts and copy / paste straight into MMF's animation frames.
I hate, and I mean HATE animating stuff. This is why I only have like 4 frames for anything ever. Bosses are even moreso since they're almost always much bigger pictures that are usually more detailed. I wish somebody's invent a program where you could just import a single picture and tell it what you want it to do, and it'd churn out 24 frames for you in an instant.
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"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
I was talking about doing essentially the same thing, just getting all those little pieces together using a simple MMF program. Then just printscreen it. It's just the method I use anyway.
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