Dinosaur Ragdolls into real animal. WILL PAY $50!!! - Developers

The current system for making SNPC's isnt really meant for large creatures, and the dinosaur NPC's that have been made in the past suffer greatly because of this. My request is for a set of [b]2-3 Dinosaur SENTS/SNPCS[/b] that will use the dinosaur ragdolls found in this pack [url]http://www.garrysmod.org/downloads/?a=view&id=3675[/url] and [b]use applyforce to make them walk around[/b], while still maintaining a physical body. Ideally, I would ask for one bipedal carnivore, one sauropod, or four-legged long neck dinosaur, and one hadrosaur, or the duck-billed dinosaurs, because those should be able to walk on four legs and run on two. The aim here is making them [b]as lifelike as possible[/b]. Thorough commenting of the code would also be appreciated, as I plan to modify these heavily later. [b]If anyone can produce these to my satisfaction and give them to me, I am prepared to offer that person $50.00, transferred via PayPal or redeemed in steam game gifts.[/b] Some useful tips to anyone who might attempt this: - Walking might be accomplished by converting Sestze's walker code over for use with LUA and modifying it. (I got his permission for this) - Ragdolls don't collide with the world properly, props might need to be welded to feet in order to make it walk on the surface properly. - Use welds or ball sockets between different bones to limit movement, which may help make it less spazzy or more lifelike. - Nogravving all the neck, head, tail, (and arms for carnivores), will make them less of a hassle. They should be moveable later so don't just weld the whole body together. Carnivore arms can be welded since typically they wont be used. - Dinosaurs only need to be able to walk forward, backward, and turn. No strafing is necessary. - By default, they should walk around randomly, but please section the code that tells them to do things off so I can modify or remove it later. Eventually they will be able to be taken over by players, which I will code myself. - Making the head look around and the tail swish would be nice, and though not necessary, it would save me some hassle. - Each species (each ragdoll) will likely have vastly different requirements and characteristics, so each one should be its own entity in its own folder. - Here I am only asking for 3 base templates, which I can later scale and apply to the other species's. The width and height of the stance, as well as step length and step speed should be easily changeable (such as in Seszte's code) to accomodate easy modification later. If there are any further questions that need clarification, you need only ask. If I forgot anything here, tell me and I will correct it.

Wouldn't some modelling knowledge be needed beforehand to rig the Dinosaurs so that they can be, "As lifelike as possible?"

Umm, I hadn't thought of that, but I suppose it's possible. I don't know how to model (though I will need to learn in order to do what I want with these ents) so I can't say.

The same thing can also be done with the Turok pack, they are a bit more high res.

They'd already be rigged (aside from controllers, but that's another story) and unless you go for the Turok ones, those models aren't especially detailed for re-rigging. Thing is, you'd need all those creatures to be animated. I animated the TRex in Silverlan's TRex snpc, and I'll tell you that animating entire npc's is no walk in the park. It's long and tedious work, and it's unlikely if you find someone to do it that they'll be able to code the things as well. I always team up with Silverlan in this sort of thing, but he's a busy guy with his own serious projects. One way or another, it's unlikely you'll be hiring less than two guys, this project will take potential months, and if you ask me, 50 bucks is a bit low for the kind of work and commitment it will take. Don't forget either, aside from animating, the guy doing the animating will need to find audio as well. I know you're proposing a code-based system to make them into moving puppets rather than snpc's, but you also said you wanted them "as lifelike as possible", and code just isn't going to do that for you. You want lifelike, then you need true animations.

There was a great Dino NPC on Garrysmod.org, you should grab that one and save yourself some money xD

I don't want standard NPC's they just don't work the way I want, and I don't think that animations will do what I want. I didn't ask for 100% lifelike, I asked for them to be as lifelike as possible within the confines of the system as I have defined it.

i want this as well, it would be kewl if there was a tylosaurus too, thats in the pack.

[QUOTE]Dinosaur Ragdolls into [B]real animal[/B]. WILL PAY $50!!![/QUOTE] Too much jurassic park?

I think it's a full-time job to monitor the forums for extremely wasteful threads Why can't people just read the [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1055637] sticky[/url] and use the pre-made [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1193966] thread[/url] like everyone else? Maybe it's just me, but when I was a kid I actually would fucking read shit and figure it out on my own. You'd think, with the mass amount of knowledge put on internet it would be common to look something up, but you'd be wrong. Kids today are so fucking lazy and lack a large chunk of common sense. Next time, read a thread that says in caps [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1055637][B][U]"READ BEFORE POSTING"[/U][/B][/url]

Uhhhh, i abandoned this method quite a while ago anyway, going for a half and half currently, ragdoll for the body which will be a lot easier to control, and using good ol animations for the legs. Also, EthanTheGreat... Dafaq you on about bro?

There's no way to really do this how you're describing. You can't effectively move ragdolls around with "applyforce" like you are saying. The only way to get models moving in any kind of efficient manner and ESPECIALLY to make them look lifelike, you HAVE to have the animations built into the model. I'm sure you could create some kind of stupidly complicated system to move the bones in sequence, but that would be a hell of a lot of work, for a very sketchy output. Also, you don't "weld" or "ballsocket" different parts of the same model together. You CAN weld a ragdoll to itself to lock bones in place, but you shouldn't be using too many constraints on just one entity, they're meant to be used between entities (or an entity and the world) tl;dr - your approach is impractical and you should NOT every code any kind of SENT/SNPC like this. Use base models with the animations built in, and code them with the built in SNPC API (I know it sucks, but it's what we have right now)

[QUOTE=Feihc;37845573]There's no way to really do this how you're describing. You can't effectively move ragdolls around with "applyforce" like you are saying. The only way to get models moving in any kind of efficient manner and ESPECIALLY to make them look lifelike, you HAVE to have the animations built into the model. I'm sure you could create some kind of stupidly complicated system to move the bones in sequence, but that would be a hell of a lot of work, for a very sketchy output. Also, you don't "weld" or "ballsocket" different parts of the same model together. You CAN weld a ragdoll to itself to lock bones in place, but you shouldn't be using too many constraints on just one entity, they're meant to be used between entities (or an entity and the world) tl;dr - your approach is impractical and you should NOT every code any kind of SENT/SNPC like this. Use base models with the animations built in, and code them with the built in SNPC API (I know it sucks, but it's what we have right now)[/QUOTE] Making ragdolls move have been done in wiremod e2's before and they've looked pretty good in some cases too. If someone is dedicated they should be able to make it look and work nice. Honestly this could be done with wiremod only so I don't see why you think it's impossible or too hard to do. Maybe it's not worth the money or whatever but it's still possible. Converting an e2 to lua shouldn't be to hard if you are willing to call yourself good at lua. I mean all the logic and structure is basically the same.

I don't know the capacity of e2, I've never messed with it. Not a fan of mega-mods. That being said, if you wan't to go the e2 route, please post this on the wiremod forums. This isn't really a good Lua based request.

[QUOTE=Salmonman;37844964]Also, EthanTheGreat... Dafaq you on about bro?[/QUOTE] He means you're supposed to use the [URL=http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1193966]Lua Scripter Hire/Recruitment Thread[/URL] to hire people for things like this. The [URL=http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1055637]sticky[/URL] states this.

Ah. I understand now that this is in the wrong place. But this thread is outdated anyway so it might as well sink back into oblivion. Also, I am NOT trying to make an e2... at least not in the long run. Since I know e2, I figured I could flesh out my system ingame with e2 and then once I have a good finished product I would translate it to LUA to create a SENT. So at least this certainly shouldn't be in the wiremod forums. Noone took up the offer anyway so I explored methods for doing it myself and have come up with at least 1 rudimentary method that I can make work, though its pretty ugly at the moment and I'm working on a more lifelike alternative. Also, I realized that the dinosaurs in that model pack just wouldn't work for my purposes, so I'm modelling my own. Current method built using custom models and E2 ingame. Pretty bad but it's a start: [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsdwwPgmLc8&feature=plcp[/url]

Good luck turning a ragdoll into a real life animal, dinosaurs have been extinct for like 65 million years..

[QUOTE=gardian90;37851686]Good luck turning a ragdoll into a real life animal, dinosaurs have been extinct for like 65 million years..[/QUOTE] Or is that what the government WANT you to think?

Christ on a pony, I didn't say I wanted people to clone dinosaurs for me, I wanted SENTs in Gmod. Nowhere did I use the phrase "Real Life Animal".