Spring RTS Engine

Hi,

Does anyone how to model walkers for Spring? how do I go about creating, say, a 19th century rifleman?

I used to do Rise of Nations, so I know that I need...

- an "idle" animation
- a firing animation
- a movement animation
- a death animation.

Also, unlike Rise of Nations I know that buildings in Spring must be in 3d - if so, how many polys do they need? how detailed can they get, as regards to moving parts?

If any of you have any experience with the mods Imperial Winter and Spring: 1944, I would be very grateful if you could give me some insights on how this could be done.

Does anyone how to model walkers for Spring?

you mean bipedal infantry? Most spring games have this pretty down.

how do I go about creating, say, a 19th century rifleman?/quote] make the model, create breaks at the knees, elbows and other points of articulation. Kinda like an oldschool gi-joe toy

- an "idle" animation
- a firing animation
- a movement animation
- a death animation.

doable. Easily

polycount:
- how many units do you plan on each faction having.
- what is the distance you want the game to be played at(how far zoomed out)
- how skilled are you at texturing.

I had a few of those lying around once. Lets see if I can dig them up.

A good rule of thumb is 1k tris for units that are built often, and higher for less frequent units.

Number of pieces has more effect on performance than polycount or animation complexity.

The spring engine performs really well even with high polycount models.

S44 scripts are freely available to use, though they are complex and somewhat buggy to say the least. Better to start afresh with lua than use the old .bos, but you can convert the animations themselves.

http://code.google.com/p/maackey/source ... n/scripts/

I made some human walk scripts ages ago. Feel free to use what you can.

I don't know if I'll ever get around to working on that game again any time soon :/

smoth wrote:make the model, create breaks at the knees, elbows and other points of articulation. Kinda like an oldschool gi-joe toy.

The models are already finished, it's just a matter of finding out what else needs to be done - can I just texture the model and be done with it, or must there be something else that is to be added, such as bones and such? I currently do not have Blender, only 3ds Max V, but to be honest I am planning to start work on my project soon, so I could use as much information as possible. Better still - is there actually a tutorial out there on creating a walker for Spring? textures are not a problem for me, it's only getting the unit to run, shoot, bum around and die that's the problem.

Smoth was highlighting the point that in spring, there's no mesh deformation, so each animate-able part needs to be a separate mesh.

Upload the model and someone can have a look and help set it up for Spring.

it's only getting the unit to run, shoot, bum around and die that's the problem.

Not for a walker but scripts in general:
http://tvo.github.com/spring/2010/04/19/lus-stumpy.html
http://tvo.github.com/spring/2010/04/26 ... mpy-2.html

http://springrts.com/wiki/The_Complete_ ... the_Engine

http://springrts.com/wiki/Animation-LuaScripting

http://answers.springlobby.info/questio ... ving-units

Did you already download some game and play around with its file? Probally answers many questions..
This testmod has less confusing files than most "real" games:
http://springrts.com/wiki/SpringTutorialGame
Even has a walker that can "run, shoot, bum around and die"

VelvetClaw wrote:

smoth wrote:make the model, create breaks at the knees, elbows and other points of articulation. Kinda like an oldschool gi-joe toy.

The models are already finished, it's just a matter of finding out what else needs to be done - can I just texture the model and be done with it, or must there be something else that is to be added, such as bones and such?

spring does not currently allow for skeletal, it uses a heirarchal model setup... so cod is the parent of right thigh, right thigh is the parent of right calf, right calf is the parent of right foot.
ex:
(click for larger)
each object has an origin point which is used for rotation.

most of us use upspring to setup models for spring. You may or may not find it crashy, I have no such issues, others do.

VelvetClaw wrote:I currently do not have Blender, only 3ds Max V, but to be honest I am planning to start work on my project soon, so I could use as much information as possible.

Then you should be looking at other spring projects.
All spring projects can be viewed with 7zip. This isn't like modding a game, you cannot just jump in and expect to get started rocking and rolling. We have scant tutorials because there are many aspects which vary greatly depending on your codebase. this forum, the wiki and people like myself knorke and flozi are probably your best resources. Best is to get started and ask questions as you go. it will take a bit but the learning curve is part of the price you pay for the greater flexibility.

VelvetClaw wrote:Better still - is there actually a tutorial out there on creating a walker for Spring?

Not that I am aware of. Franklym this is one of the simpler parts and there are so many ways to handle it. There are tutorials on how to create a tank and honestly, a walker as far as the unit script goes isn't very far from a tank. S44, AA, and many others all have different approaches for animation. We all have our prefered methods and honestly, you are better off just looking at code out of projects. Flozi, can you link him to the mechwarrior thing you were doing? that is probably exactly what this guy needs.

VelvetClaw wrote:textures are not a problem for me, it's only getting the unit to run, shoot, bum around and die that's the problem.

I asked about textures because you asked about poly count.

I can, though BTL scripts are probably a bit heavy to jump in as a noobie, particularly as the actual walking animations are separate to the main script, and the whole thing relies on an additional gadget to pass more information to LUS.

I guess one of the walk scripts themselves as an example of the simple functions available can't hurt:

http://mwspring.svn.sourceforge.net/vie ... iew=markup

In fact a quick look at my gundamdev.sdd suggests gouf.bos is a solid base to start from - it even has comments! (without getting into philosophical questions over traditional bos 1-script-1-unit methods vs the one-size-fits-all automagical approach I used in BTL )

if you want I can luafy the rgm script and add idle anims for him. You reckon that'll help him?

smoth wrote:if you want I can luafy the rgm script and add idle anims for him. You reckon that'll help him?

Sure Walk scripts are not my strong suit (Nemo wrote the entirety of S44 infantry scripts, and Spiked wrote all the walk anims for BTL even though I did all the rest of the script), including the 'framework' for correct starting/stopping/idle switches without 'skating' problems.

I will see what I can get done tonight. A simple script is probably easier than the more abstracted scripts you guys developed. Although ultimately I find scripts with everything to be ultimately bad as they are less flexible and a maintenance nightmare, so I prefer the specialized abstracted stuff you did.

did a bit of work on the script for a death anim.. I need to do the idle still. I will look at that later tomorrow ok?

some animations

I have one old bug to figure out which is some times unit seem to believe they are moving when they are not.. but I am not sure if that is my scripts or all games.

flozi? that run in place thing? bug that I need to fix? because if so I can start looking into it. If not, I need to create a mantis

I've noticed years ago that StopMoving() wasn't always called, so move anims could run for units which weren't actually moving. Was very noticeable with wakes on ships.

I seem to remember that happening after a unit moved as part of attack order (which also seems to be the case in your vid btw). Not sure it's the same problem or not, since my scripts don't depend on StopMoving anymore (checking if unit's position changed during the last n frames is more reliable).

Okay, got tired of modding for Rise of Nations, as well as wooden boats. It's Time for War. It's time to get Blender and make me some ironclads.

But before I go in, is it possible to create a script which makes units spin around when idle like in Age of Empires? I do not mind if my units do not ram balls into their barrels before firing, I do not mind if horses don't neigh and whinny; but they must look alive sufficiently - so I want them to rotate around at random.

is it possible to create a script which makes units spin around when idle like in Age of Empires

Even my age-old rusty luaskillz tell you can probably do it in a five-liner gadget, or else just in unit animation script.

Here's some good examples what can be done; unfortunately, the maker is no longer active on the forums it seems.

Some more of his work http://kencumpian.deviantart.com/gallery/37126211