With the end of my animation “testing” I wanted to do something with more of a point other than a collection of dance moves.  Ive always loved the bit at the beginning of HL1 where you can mash the button on the microwave to ruin the casserole, so I wanted to make a short animation around that part.  This became GORDON’S BREAKFAST. Another thing I wanted to do is continue these shorts as a series where Gordon progresses closer to the test chamber in each episode. At first I wanted to use hammer to position the models into the scene however, at the time when I decompiled the map everything broke.  Map decompiling in GoldSrc breaks almost everything and the amount of “clean up” you have to do to get the damn thing to re-compile makes it almost unfeasible.  KILL ME… IT HURTS TO LIVVVE Fortunately for me, I found out that one of the scientists in that lunchroom walks over to the microwave in his scripted walk sequence and then plays an idle animation.  I took advantage of this and swapped out the idle sequence for my custom model animation.  One problem of this was that I was once again at the mercy of which angle the original animation was, and I did some trial-and error to correct the position in 3DSmax.  It sounds crazy and way more work than it should, but I am very persistent when I want to get stuff like this done.In this video I did another head-hack (the process of replacing and reskinning a mesh of a head from one model onto another) to make the scientist Gordon model from the Gordon HEV suit playermodel and the regular scientist model.  Again I used Milkshape to do the model edits, but did the animations in 3DSmax.  An interesting thing I learned this time around was the ability to use the HL1 procedural talk animations that produces jaw movements based on the peaks of an audio WAV file.  All I had to do was add the line of code into the QC that specified a voice in an animation sequence.  An example of this is shown here:$sequence “checktie” “checktie” fps 12 { event 1008 1 “scientist/weartie.wav” }(More technical details on GoldSrc QC model code here:  http://articles.thewavelength.net/170/ )Animating the sequences was pretty straightforward, but I ran into a major problem with wanting Gordon to slam one of the scientists into the microwave.  My solution was to focus on Luther and imply the rest via sound effects, which worked surprisingly well.  The next challenge was how to get the model of Walter into the microwave.  Since I wasn’t using hammer, I had to get creative.  My crazy idea was going into thirdperson and swapping my playermodel with Walter in his face-in-glass position.  I noclipped to the point I wanted and moved in. Positioning it just right for both the model and the camera view was nightmarish, but I did eventually pull it off.  “What about the broken glass in the microwave?” you might say, but I did that as a post-effect in Adobe Premiere by masking off the area and colour-correcting it to look broken.  The “MAX POWER” on the microwave was also an effect added later during video editing.  The last technical hurdle was the blood on the glasses.  The glasses were an additive “chrome” texture, but it couldn’t have an extra bloodsplat texture on it at the same time.  I got around this by making a second mesh of the lenses only with the blood splats on with alphatest transparency. I had to do the glasses bit in 3 takes since I had to re-skin the glasses to Gordon’s head and hand.  This was because I didn’t know how to use animation attachments or how to make it work after compiling, so I did it with separate models. I had also created my own blood decals by making my own WAD texture file that contained BMP images of the new blood decals (GoldSrc uses  WAD files which is a format created by ID  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_WAD) were The blood on the walls was placed simply by binding “impulse 202” to a key which sprays a random blood decal on the wall.  The bits of Walters head I made by modifying the head model in Milkshape and using it and its placement the same way I placed him in the microwave. Lastly, Luthers running was created by taking the run animation, looping it several times and moving the root bone in animation in a curved line.  Again I had to guess the positioning when adjusting the animation.Despite all these technical hurdles and nearly 3 weeks of work & learning for only a 48 second short film, It is still the best movie I have made so far.  I was going to continue the series after this and was already producing a 4th episode, but lots of different things distracted me and many more technical hurdles piled up.  I shelved animating in GoldSrc after I went back to school among other things, but as of this year I am continuing this series.  Again ETA: VALVE TIME 

With the end of my animation “testing” I wanted to do something with more of a point other than a collection of dance moves.  Ive always loved the bit at the beginning of HL1 where you can mash the button on the microwave to ruin the casserole, so I wanted to make a short animation around that part.  This became GORDON’S BREAKFAST.

BUTTON MASH

Another thing I wanted to do is continue these shorts as a series where Gordon progresses closer to the test chamber in each episode. At first I wanted to use hammer to position the models into the scene however, at the time when I decompiled the map everything broke.  Map decompiling in GoldSrc breaks almost everything and the amount of “clean up” you have to do to get the damn thing to re-compile makes it almost unfeasible. 

IT HURTS TO LIVE

KILL ME… IT HURTS TO LIVVVE

Fortunately for me, I found out that one of the scientists in that lunchroom walks over to the microwave in his scripted walk sequence and then plays an idle animation.  I took advantage of this and swapped out the idle sequence for my custom model animation.  One problem of this was that I was once again at the mercy of which angle the original animation was, and I did some trial-and error to correct the position in 3DSmax.  It sounds crazy and way more work than it should, but I am very persistent when I want to get stuff like this done.

In this video I did another head-hack (the process of replacing and reskinning a mesh of a head from one model onto another) to make the scientist Gordon model from the Gordon HEV suit playermodel and the regular scientist model.  Again I used Milkshape to do the model edits, but did the animations in 3DSmax.  An interesting thing I learned this time around was the ability to use the HL1 procedural talk animations that produces jaw movements based on the peaks of an audio WAV file.  All I had to do was add the line of code into the QC that specified a voice in an animation sequence.  An example of this is shown here:
$sequence “checktie” “checktie” fps 12 { event 1008 1 “scientist/weartie.wav” }
(More technical details on GoldSrc QC model code here:  http://articles.thewavelength.net/170/ )

Animating the sequences was pretty straightforward, but I ran into a major problem with wanting Gordon to slam one of the scientists into the microwave.  My solution was to focus on Luther and imply the rest via sound effects, which worked surprisingly well.  The next challenge was how to get the model of Walter into the microwave.  Since I wasn’t using hammer, I had to get creative.  My crazy idea was going into thirdperson and swapping my playermodel with Walter in his face-in-glass position.  I noclipped to the point I wanted and moved in.

ARRRGH

Positioning it just right for both the model and the camera view was nightmarish, but I did eventually pull it off.  “What about the broken glass in the microwave?” you might say, but I did that as a post-effect in Adobe Premiere by masking off the area and colour-correcting it to look broken.  The “MAX POWER” on the microwave was also an effect added later during video editing.  The last technical hurdle was the blood on the glasses.  The glasses were an additive “chrome” texture, but it couldn’t have an extra bloodsplat texture on it at the same time.  I got around this by making a second mesh of the lenses only with the blood splats on with alphatest transparency.

glassesedits

I had to do the glasses bit in 3 takes since I had to re-skin the glasses to Gordon’s head and hand.  This was because I didn’t know how to use animation attachments or how to make it work after compiling, so I did it with separate models.

badass

I had also created my own blood decals by making my own WAD texture file that contained BMP images of the new blood decals (GoldSrc uses  WAD files which is a format created by ID  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_WAD) were The blood on the walls was placed simply by binding “impulse 202” to a key which sprays a random blood decal on the wall.  The bits of Walters head I made by modifying the head model in Milkshape and using it and its placement the same way I placed him in the microwave.

FACE BITS

Lastly, Luthers running was created by taking the run animation, looping it several times and moving the root bone in animation in a curved line.  Again I had to guess the positioning when adjusting the animation.

Despite all these technical hurdles and nearly 3 weeks of work & learning for only a 48 second short film, It is still the best movie I have made so far.  I was going to continue the series after this and was already producing a 4th episode, but lots of different things distracted me and many more technical hurdles piled up.  I shelved animating in GoldSrc after I went back to school among other things, but as of this year I am continuing this series.  Again ETA: VALVE TIME
 

Notes

  1. the303 posted this