[Choofy]

PEDs, Actors, & Animations

This is the new, official, ped topic. The goal is to have an accurate, up-to-date list of all peds in GTA:LC. This post will be updated constantly, and if you have any updates, comments, concerns, whatever, post in here. Just keep it on-topic.

The status of each ped will be updated when any changes occur. Ignore the download links for each individual ped. They are out-of-date and I didn't feel like editting the post to remove those columns. Also, I'm not postive about the status of the default.ide peds.

Useful Links if you are interested in helping:
Blender Script and Tutorial!
Player Editing Tutorial (Using Blender)
3d Studio Max Tutorial

All peds are now converted. Thanks to ModelingMan. Some may need tweaking though.

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Ok a few updates maria is looking a lot better almost finished. Joey from the 'salvatores called a meeting' is now joey, nearly finished also. Another generic ped also near final. Tony is very close now too.

This post has been edited by Craig Kostelecky on Monday, Jun 7 2010, 19:55

[--Cole--]

I have a question about the cutscene actors- why is it that in the cutscenes, nobody's mouth moves? No blinks, facial expressions, nothing. I've been looking at the original GTAIII files (PS2, actually) and it appears that there aren't cutscene actors, but there are their heads, which are set up to be on top of the ingame models and they have all the facial expressions and stuff.

But that's only GTAIII- how do the LC cutscenes work? Are they carbon-copies of the III's, or are they entirely custom-made? Was it drag-n-drop connversion, or rewritten entirely?

It could affect how the cutscenes and cutscene actors are set up to work in LC, and how they are converted.

[Craig Kostelecky]

Here's what I understand with the cutscene actors. In GTA3 there are two different models for each character. A body and a head. The animations are stored in the ifp files (in the cuts.img file) and were converted to a Vice City format by Hammer. The heads are also controlled by an opcode that was in GTA3 but was removed from the VC engine.

To figure out how to animate the heads, we'd need to figure out two different things. First we'd need to figure out exactly how to convert the head models. Then we'd need to figure out how to tell the heads to animate.

I'm sure Hammer's reply will be more acurate and detailed though.

[Hammer83]

VC Engine doesn't support head+body animations that were used in GTA3. All cutscene actors in VC consist of a single model that is animated by the skeleton. GTA3 models were animated by moving different parts of the character model. Head animation was stored in a separate file and this format is not supported by VC engine.

While we were able to automatically convert GTA3 model movements to skeleton movements of GTAVC models, adding support for something that doesn't exist at all (namely head animation files) is much more difficult.

[Choofy]

Hi everyone

This is just a information post. I used the full facial boned candy cutscene model and put it in the the asuka 'under surveilance' mission, replacing the non facial boned model. Then altered the .ifp file relevant to the scene, so as one of her eyes move around a little. Going ingame with these alterations gave me a messed up candy model(her armscross), but the eye ball moves(also some facial distortion. Using joey would produce the same effect. It means reanimation of the facial areas in max as well as a heck of a lot of skinning and lipsynching. I for one wouldnt edit the cutscene this way for 10 seconds worth of one cutscene (personally it would take me over a week to do 1 scene, im not quick at animating)but if someone is a fast animation whizz it could be done Hopefully hammer can work his unreal magic on the anm files to get some usable premade facial animation from gta3, he did impressive work on the ifp convertor tool!

P.s: Hammer is there any chance at all do you think it can be converted?

[Hammer83]

QUOTE (Choofy @ Dec 5 2005, 18:05)

Hi everyone This is just a information post. I used the full facial boned candy cutscene model and put it in the the asuka 'under surveilance' mission, replacing the non facial boned model. Then altered the .ifp file relevant to the scene, so as one of her eyes move around a little. Going ingame with these alterations gave me a messed up candy model(her armscross), but the eye ball moves(also some facial distortion. Using joey would produce the same effect. It means reanimation of the facial areas in max as well as a heck of a lot of skinning and lipsynching. I for one wouldnt edit the cutscene this way for 10 seconds worth of one cutscene (personally it would take me over a week to do 1 scene, im not quick at animating)but if someone is a fast animation whizz it could be done Hopefully hammer can work his unreal magic on the anm files to get some usable premade facial animation from gta3, he did impressive work on the ifp convertor tool! P.s: Hammer is there any chance at all do you think it can be converted?

Last time I looked at anm files (which was a very long time ago), the format didn't appear to be very hard to decipher. In fact I think I did only to forget it now again. The problems with head anims are all technical. While GTA3 body parts have equivalent bones in GTAVC models, there aren't any real counterparts of head animations in there. VC even had separate models for cutscenes and gameplay, where cutscene models had a lot of bones for the face. Since we struggle as is to convert all gameplay peds (although I heard you contributed a lot in this area lately), I don't think dedicated cutscene models in GTALC will appear anytime soon.

Also to take into account the fact that I don't have that much time to work on GTALC these days, so I concenrate on more critical portions. Cutscenes are of acceptable quality in LC right now and most people skip them anyway.

[Ben]

Well Choofy, if you could post a guide on how to do it, perhaps someone who is quicker at animations and has the time to devote to the mod will be able to do it.

Or else someone who helped do the original conversions might be willing to help out again.

Hammer, I know that you said that you're devoting your (very limited) free time to the more important aspects of LC right now. But, this will eventually become one of the more important aspects after the release of Beta2 v6 - Craig indicated that after that, all of the minor bugs would be worked out before a final version is released. I'm fine with this - I hope you can find the time to work on it eventually .

[Hammer83]

I would really not recommend it. There are 90 cutscenes, some of which have 5 or more actors and hundreds of frames per actor. And you have to play around with each frame to animate every part of the head. It is not a good idea trying to do this by hand. If it'll ever be done, it will be automatic.

On the other hand, i once thought a lot of things couldn't be restored properly in LC, yet they live in the mod now. Everything is possible given enough time and motivation.

[Choofy]

Automated would be the go, but a good animator wouldnt have a problem with it (probably using lip synch tools etc). But for non animators it looks like a huge job, and not worth it. In the hopes a professional shows up heres a brief how to

Use kams max scripts and drag a cutscene model in, the character names starting with CS. Use the skeleton, and replace with your mesh, then skin the body parts. Apply the corresponding .ifp file to it from the cuts.img. Start animating the facial expression,once its done, save your animation to an .ifp replace the old with the new.

To much work really, when its true most players of Lc have completed gta3 heaps of times by now, and dont watch them anyhow. ^^^ good animators dont be put off though It would be the icing on the cake!

EDIT:Ive been doing a few more peds. But shall await --cole-- to post some finished ones, so we dont coincide in what we do. This list needs updating a bit also, I work off it (yes Im always online in here ) Ive done about 10, but I find that quite a few on the list that are marked as not started, are already done (some have glitches so thats maybe why?) so those who can update it a little please do

This post has been edited by Choofy on Friday, Dec 9 2005, 00:20

[--Cole--]

Don't let me hold you guys back. I can't do a thing untill I can get my copy of 3dsMax working.

[Ben]

QUOTE (Choofy @ Dec 8 2005, 03:37)

This list needs updating a bit also, I work off it (yes Im always online in here ) Ive done about 10, but I find that quite a few on the list that are marked as not started, are already done (some have glitches so thats maybe why?) so those who can update it a little please do

I can update it for you Choofy, but I don't know what needs changing. If you can PM a list of changes (don't worry bout the table format, I can do that for you ) to me then I'll gladly update it for you. Sorry, I only just saw the edit after reading Cole's new post.

[Bebop]

QUOTE (--Cole-- @ Dec 16 2005, 04:25)

Don't let me hold you guys back. I can't do a thing untill I can get my copy of 3dsMax working.

Cole i recomend you to use Blender since is the only one that always worked for me, there is a tutorial made by MM if you need help.

[Craig Kostelecky]

Bebop! Where ya been? I missed you

Choofy's moving along nicely with the peds. But another hand could help speed up the process. Do you have any interest in doing any more peds for us? Choofy has the list of the unconverted default.ide peds. And I think I have the list of the unconverted actors. If you're willing to help, there's work to be done! If not, that's cool too. You've already helped us out.

That reminds me, last time I was at silver's site, I read that he converted a few characters including Asuka and Donald Love. I'll have to head over there to see if he can send me what he did. There's no use in multiple people converting the same models.

[Bebop]

Maybe ill do a couple of actors later when i get a VC and gta3 copy.
There's been a great advance while i left.

Posts combined.

The list is out of date you know

This post has been edited by benisablink182fan on Sunday, Apr 16 2006, 09:19

[Craig Kostelecky]

Yeah, I'm lazy with updating the posts.

Choofy has an up-to-date list of the default.ide peds, I think. But the actors list is close to updated.

[Bebop]

I fixed Luigi's leg a while ago just check for the last luigi's update in the old peds topic.

[Craig Kostelecky]

Here's what I found after digging through the old topic. On this page you have 2 Luigi downloads. Both are just dff fixes. And I didn't see any mention of the leg so I don't know if that's what was fixed or not. And I'm away from my GTA computer, so I'm not in a position to test it right now.

[silver007]

I have Attempted a Few player conversions of my own... all with less than perfect results, but a good learning process for me along the way

-Asuka
She works actualy Quite well, but there are issues with her neck/head, the neck appears to stretch to much i think... also her hands do not hold the stick she beats miqel with during the Bait cutscence... i do not know if this is a animation problem or a weight boneing issue
Click Here to download Her (save target as)
-Donald Love (track suit)
ive tried several times to get him to work, everytime his hands appear to be very corrupted and he doesnt work right at all...
-The 2 Prosistues
ive gotten both to work ingame, but their arms are very stick-like and are unreleasic, i dont think it can be improved unless someone re-makes the arms.. also thier arms tend to pass though their bodys when they walk because they're moving their hips back and forth
-8Ball
as well with choofy i got him ingame, works fine except his hands go though his legs when he sits in a car... when they are supposed to be resting ontop of his legs
-Old Gentelman 1st cutscence
The old guy in the orange jail suit the columbians take from the enforcer that claude and 8ball are in, ive also gotten to work, if i remeber straight, issues with his hands going though is body
-the 2 Columbians in the first cutscene
ive tried the both of the Columbians that are suppose to be in the first cutscence (right now they are normal Columbians members, they are actualy differant)
both have issuses with holding their m16's that are stored with the model... the m16... ill get a screen to show you later
-Micky
Gotten him ingame, but i boned him wrong... need to re-do him

anways, thats who ive tried to get ingame... and my results, so yes, ive been busy...

[Craig Kostelecky]

I can't get the Asuka link to download. Of the ones you've done, I'd like to see Asuka, Donald Love, and the 2 Colombians. The rest we have in game (and they look alright).

[silver007]

Try This Link (no log-in/save target or anything, straight download)

if not

Try This Fileplanet Link

ill get examples of the the Colombians up soon..