Greetings MechWarriors. I apologise for being absent for so long I got caught up with IRL which has kept me from working on the Brian Cache. I'm going to try get back into th swing of modding now that I've some time to myself, so I've started work on my next mech which you can take a sneak peak on my Ko-Fi page I will try to post a progress update once a week.
If you have noticed that some mechs seem to have "wonky animations" this is due to Yet Another Mech Labs option that Forces Inverse Kinematics on, I recommend disabling this option until I can find a solution that will solve the IK issue.
I have a question concerning Load Order: When I move Brian Chache to its position (according the json) among the mods around LO 20, the Turkina loses all hardpoints. When I put it back at 0, where the original Turkina mod was, it works again.
Can you clarify the load order your mod should appear at?
Hey mate :) aye it's been a bit chaotic lately but its settling down now and I can get back to doing something I enjoy :). Hoping to get a new mech out as soon as I can but its still in the early stages of blocking it out.
Hey, I am using your YAML version and I noticed when I attempt to leg a Mastodon Prime I can only destroy 1 leg and then the damage transfers to the torso's after that. I thought my aim was off until I moved really close to see for myself.
I would like to use your lore-mechs with a variant that introduces them in their lore accurate years; I understand and sympathise with the choice you've made for them to show up earlier, but as it is, I currently just use Spawn Control to force them not to show up early.
Is there a chance you could release a version as described? It would significantly reduce my overhead in using your mod as I'd like to.
Hi thanks for the question. I'll have to investigate to see if anyones found a way to overwrite the intro dates with a simple override mode, but for right now I'm unable to do such a thing, I'm running low on storage and maintaining Vanilla and YAML editions is eating up a fair bit of my drive space.
If LBMV can have two versions of the Thug and YACM/YASV can have two versions of a lot of IIC mechs, then I think we can have two versions of the Hatchetman. If anyone wants to narrow down what versions they want to see spawning, you can always get Spawn Control to pick and choose.
Although . . . I will say again . . . I think that model would make a great Axman if you ever wanted to upscale it and tweak some hardpoint placements/models.
Regardless, as always, a huge and very sincere thank you for the efforts you've put into the mod and your mechs. It is greatly appreciated.
Cheers mate the support and messages are always welcome. The Hatchetman was an easy update to do I've finally got all my mech is one place, that said it still needs some work I've got some animations created for it I just need to get them out of Blender and into MW5.
Right now I've got a bit of artist block, I just can't seem to get motivated to model anything I've made a start on quite a few Chassis, Horned Owl, Axman, Grizzly Battleaxe, Lancelot but again just can't get motivated right now ><
anyway, thanks for the support as always mate it's appreciated :)
Sorry for the artist's block . . . but you've got a Horned Owl started?! Both the new and original art for that thing are awesome. That's quite the tease.
Curious . . . I remember you were working on a Flashman back in the day, but I also remember there was a kerfuffle with who owned what and what-have-you. Anything ever come of that? Could always seek to do one of those from scratch, if you're looking for a new challenge. I remember we had quite a conversation about hardpoints for the variants.
Anyway, happy to support. You've always put out top notch work; and it is very sincerely appreciated. Feel free to reach out in messages if you feel like it or need it.
Yeah I'm too easily distracted, thiers loads of chassis I'd love to get through it's not like I can't work fast enough I just get distracted easily >< the Horned Owl right now is also just a set of legs blocked out :\ I need to play around with it to figure out how it will move and reduce some clipping issues.
It will be the CGL design I have the miniatures so I've got some decent refrence at hand to work from, probably with some tweaks here and there to fit hard points on it and what not
Right now it's just Standard, 2 and "Snowblind" planned for release and others will follow later on so I can flesh out newer updates and hopefully generate more interest in the mod. :) I want to get the latest update out before Christmas but I'm going to take a couple of days to experiment with Bruin and this IK issue I've got one leg working more or less just need to sort out the other haha.
Congratulations on getting the Bruin out. Looks great, overall! Minor visual critique: Please consider turning the SRM2/NARC/T-Bolt5&10 models in the CT hardpoint 90 degrees so the tubes lay horizontal and a bit more flush with the chassis (all use the SRM2 visual). The rest look good. The two-tube model sticking up like a fin looks a little off, but maybe it's just my personal tastes.
Anyway, I see what you're talking about with the IK, I believe. With IK on the left leg was buckled inward, no matter what (even in mechlab), but turning IK off allowed the leg to rest normally, even if you end up with the "floating mech" syndrome that IK is meant to prevent. It just becomes a give and take. However, that said, whatever you had done to the right leg seemed to work fine with IK turned on, and I didn't notice any issues in a test mission.
Regardless, hopefully it's not too difficult to content with. I look forward to seeing the next release, with the apocryphal stuff, after Christmas/New Years. As always, a huge and sincere thank you for the efforts you've put in making all of these mechs; and doing such high quality work, to-boot.
I'll look into moving the SRM2 around when I make the extra hardpoints :)
This is what's utterly mind bending to behonest the Left Leg is identical to the Right Leg so it doesn't make sense why it buckles, I tried to experiment with different bone orientations and no matter what I did with it the Left Knee would always buckle like that :\ at the moment my conclusion is, it's something PGI have set up in the animation code OR worse yet, Blenders FBX export plug-in is known to be problematic so could be that Blender just doesn't export those properly. I'm still going to experiment when I can hopefully find out what's happening with it
Forgive me, please, if this is a "duh" or "already checked that". I'm just trying to look at the problem from the utterly uneducated stance. Sometimes in my life it's helped me spot the obvious-yet-overlooked thing that was staring me in the face the whole time.
Doing some checks in a lot of blender tutorials and curious, are the bone's transfer pivot points and roll elements aligned with bone one, which I'm guessing would be the hip? Random theory . . . it may appear fine in Blender, but if those values aren't set up perfectly and then transferred into UE4, then PGI's code aligns the skeleton's animations according to the bone pivot and roll values, causing the leg to appear twisted whenever IK is turned on. If the rig for the left leg isn't saying "I only flex this direction" or is accidently set wrong (90 degree twist inward, toward the right leg) then wouldn't IK automatically readjust and flex the knee inward, instead of the way it's meant to go? Non-IK movement is only going to use hard-coded animation values and settings, but IK needs to procedurally adapt the skeleton values according to the collisions in the terrain, correct? That then relies on the data within the skeleton to tell it which way and how it procedurally manipulates the skeleton. I could see where that'd cause a problem when only IK is turned on, but not when it's off.
Again, just random thinking coming from the uneducated pleb here. I am utterly unskilled when it comes to 3d art, let alone animation. Hopefully something there is helpful.
Typically your IK Chain starts at the foot and ends at the thigh, the way PGI has it set up is odd because the IK Controller is parented to the Foot bone which normally you don't parent it to anything, and I've never been able to find any information on this method. As I understand it (I could be absolutely wrong about this) the IK solver is supposed to move the bones in that chain accordingly and regardless of it's orientation. In the end it could be a number of things that causes the problem, could be the animation Baking I have to do or blenders FBX exporter. Regardless I'm going to continue to experiment and try solve it, though it's likely going to take a lot of time my PC is getting on now and packaging mods for testing has become increasingly tedious.
Sorry for all the posts (must be annoying), but is the Dragonslayer's walkcycle supposed to be so...wonky? It's a bit jarring, coming from the standalone release where it uses the animations from the (I assume) Black Knight.
Yeah the Dragonslayer orignally used the Black Knight rig and animations, but i've since updated it with my own. I tend to make these mechs with vanilla as the primary focus and then port to YAML, which has an option that forces IK to be switched on by default, you can disable that in the Mod Options > YAML > Miscellaneous - In-Mission.
I Am attempting to to make my animations compatable with the option but it's taking a hell of a lot of time to experiment with it right now.
Glad to see my intuition hasn't failed me. From what I've heard, IK is very tricky to get working right. Best of luck to you. And if you need a tester for stuff, just gimme a holler. I'm no good with any of that computer mumbo jumbo, but I'd like to help if I can.
Also, I noticed that at least the Fire Moth FRM-G has the lore of the Flea on the unit card. The other Fire Moth configurations might as well. Is this just a placeholder until descriptions for each variant can be added?
Yeah IK is annoying towork with, I think I know what the solution is but it will take some time to experiment with it. Mostly because it will require that I reimport the animations and mesh several times with different bone orientations and then package the mod for testing.
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Horned Owl WIP 2
Brian Cache is also available on Steam Workshop.
IMPORTANT NOTE YAML EDITION!
If you have noticed that some mechs seem to have "wonky animations" this is due to Yet Another Mech Labs option that Forces Inverse Kinematics on, I recommend disabling this option until I can find a solution that will solve the IK issue.
I have a question concerning Load Order: When I move Brian Chache to its position (according the json) among the mods around LO 20, the Turkina loses all hardpoints. When I put it back at 0, where the original Turkina mod was, it works again.
Can you clarify the load order your mod should appear at?
I would like to use your lore-mechs with a variant that introduces them in their lore accurate years; I understand and sympathise with the choice you've made for them to show up earlier, but as it is, I currently just use Spawn Control to force them not to show up early.
Is there a chance you could release a version as described? It would significantly reduce my overhead in using your mod as I'd like to.
"displayName": "Brian Cache YAML",
"version": "1.5",
"buildNumber": 115,
"description": "Brian Cache v1.8 YAML Edition
Although . . . I will say again . . . I think that model would make a great Axman if you ever wanted to upscale it and tweak some hardpoint placements/models.
Regardless, as always, a huge and very sincere thank you for the efforts you've put into the mod and your mechs. It is greatly appreciated.
Right now I've got a bit of artist block, I just can't seem to get motivated to model anything I've made a start on quite a few Chassis, Horned Owl, Axman, Grizzly Battleaxe, Lancelot but again just can't get motivated right now ><
anyway, thanks for the support as always mate it's appreciated :)
Curious . . . I remember you were working on a Flashman back in the day, but I also remember there was a kerfuffle with who owned what and what-have-you. Anything ever come of that? Could always seek to do one of those from scratch, if you're looking for a new challenge. I remember we had quite a conversation about hardpoints for the variants.
Anyway, happy to support. You've always put out top notch work; and it is very sincerely appreciated. Feel free to reach out in messages if you feel like it or need it.
Anyway, I see what you're talking about with the IK, I believe. With IK on the left leg was buckled inward, no matter what (even in mechlab), but turning IK off allowed the leg to rest normally, even if you end up with the "floating mech" syndrome that IK is meant to prevent. It just becomes a give and take. However, that said, whatever you had done to the right leg seemed to work fine with IK turned on, and I didn't notice any issues in a test mission.
Regardless, hopefully it's not too difficult to content with. I look forward to seeing the next release, with the apocryphal stuff, after Christmas/New Years. As always, a huge and sincere thank you for the efforts you've put in making all of these mechs; and doing such high quality work, to-boot.
I'll look into moving the SRM2 around when I make the extra hardpoints :)
This is what's utterly mind bending to behonest the Left Leg is identical to the Right Leg so it doesn't make sense why it buckles, I tried to experiment with different bone orientations and no matter what I did with it the Left Knee would always buckle like that :\ at the moment my conclusion is, it's something PGI have set up in the animation code OR worse yet, Blenders FBX export plug-in is known to be problematic so could be that Blender just doesn't export those properly. I'm still going to experiment when I can hopefully find out what's happening with it
Again thanks for the continued support :)
Doing some checks in a lot of blender tutorials and curious, are the bone's transfer pivot points and roll elements aligned with bone one, which I'm guessing would be the hip? Random theory . . . it may appear fine in Blender, but if those values aren't set up perfectly and then transferred into UE4, then PGI's code aligns the skeleton's animations according to the bone pivot and roll values, causing the leg to appear twisted whenever IK is turned on. If the rig for the left leg isn't saying "I only flex this direction" or is accidently set wrong (90 degree twist inward, toward the right leg) then wouldn't IK automatically readjust and flex the knee inward, instead of the way it's meant to go? Non-IK movement is only going to use hard-coded animation values and settings, but IK needs to procedurally adapt the skeleton values according to the collisions in the terrain, correct? That then relies on the data within the skeleton to tell it which way and how it procedurally manipulates the skeleton. I could see where that'd cause a problem when only IK is turned on, but not when it's off.
Again, just random thinking coming from the uneducated pleb here. I am utterly unskilled when it comes to 3d art, let alone animation. Hopefully something there is helpful.
I Am attempting to to make my animations compatable with the option but it's taking a hell of a lot of time to experiment with it right now.
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