How to attach the tail to the werewolf ?

[darthsLair]

Hi,

Does anyone have a recommended fm I can look at where someone has perfected a way of using a mesh attachment for connecting the tail to the werewolf? I found one fm, but the tail was in a blue room, and I took it that it may not be possible, or was just too hard to figure out.

Anyone? I cant get it to be perpendicular to the werewolf, only sideways. Looks a bit wierd !

[R Soul]

Do you have Dromed Deluxe? There are good setting in there.

Attached obj 1: concrete number of tail object
Joint 8
Z angle: 15000
offset X: 3.5, Y: -0.5, Z: -6.5

Even without good settings, it should be easy to work out your own angles. 65535 is the equivalent of 360, so you just need to work out your angle as a proportion of 360 and apply that to 65535.

[darthsLair]

Thanks Robin ! I am using Dromed toolkit 1.00

[Ottoj55]

my main boss demon in the dead of winter had both wings and a tail attached if you want to look at those.

[darthsLair]

my main boss demon in the dead of winter had both wings and a tail attached if you want to look at those.

Cool Jason, Thanks !

[Evelin Ash]

Don't know if what I'm going to ask is a bit too much off off the subject of this thread, but...

...well I'm (trying to) create a demon myself (how original ), but I was thinking to "just" add the tail in Anim8or and convert the AI back to bin.

So my question is... why would or should one add a tail to an AI in DromEd, if/while one can do that in Anim8or? Does adding it in DromEd have any advantages over Anim8or?

[darthsLair]

Don't know if what I'm going to ask is a bit too much off off the subject of this thread, but...

...well I'm (trying to) create a demon myself (how original ), but I was thinking to "just" add the tail in Anim8or and convert the AI back to bin.

So my question is... why would or should one add a tail to an AI in DromEd, if/while one can do that in Anim8or? Does adding it in DromEd have any advantages over Anim8or?

For those who cant make models or use modeling programs, it is just easier. If you create a new Dedx (Dromed Deluxe) directory for dromed, then it has the mesh attachment configuration for attaching the tail. The tail must be placed in a blue room in order for it to show up ingame.

[LarryG]

Don't know if what I'm going to ask is a bit too much off off the subject of this thread, but...

...well I'm (trying to) create a demon myself (how original ), but I was thinking to "just" add the tail in Anim8or and convert the AI back to bin.

So my question is... why would or should one add a tail to an AI in DromEd, if/while one can do that in Anim8or? Does adding it in DromEd have any advantages over Anim8or?

Yes. Tails (wings &ct.) modeled on the AI can get in the way of the limit planes and end up distorting oddly as an AI moves if you are not very careful. Also when you attach additional appendages you can put joints on them and thus provide a pseudo animation effect (thrashing tail, flapping wings, &ct.) which you can't do when the appendage is modeled on the AI.

[Yandros]

I always wondered about that, thanks for clearing it up Larry.

[LarryG]

If we had the ability to add a new AI type, we could add the appropriate limit planes for a tail (or wings or ... ), create a new set of motions which include same in the motion database, and really go to town. But as far as I know all we can do is use an existing AI type's limit planes for whatever we want to model, and there are no tails (or wings) on any of those. (Except maybe the Sweel, which I think is all tail, and only one or two motions.)

[Evelin Ash]

Yes. Tails (wings &ct.) modeled on the AI can get in the way of the limit planes and end up distorting oddly as an AI moves if you are not very careful. Also when you attach additional appendages you can put joints on them and thus provide a pseudo animation effect (thrashing tail, flapping wings, &ct.) which you can't do when the appendage is modeled on the AI.

Wow, moving parts. Woulda' like to see that! And...wouldn't have thought about that. Thanks for the info! It's probably what I need to use, seeing the oversized wings I created...

Question: "the limit planes". Is that the 'bounding box' when you select the model (AI) in Anim8or? Or does it have something to do with the green joint planes seen in Anim8or? Or... ?
The thing I know now for sure is not to position the wings in such a way, that they go through the forecalled 'green zones'.

I'll hope and try not to post any more questions about this - at least not here, in this thread. Sure feels like thread hi-jacking now...

[LarryG]

I don't think this is hijacking the thread. It's all about attaching tails to AIs.

In any event, the original Trickster AI in T1 had the tail modeled as part of it, and as a result was just as stiff as the horns on his head. Schwaa modeled a T2 version of the Trickster and released it in his complete AI pack, IIRC. There he separated the tail from the Trickster mesh and made it an independent object to mesh attach. Actually as two independent objects, TRTAIL02 and TRTAIL06. Both are jointed at the base of the tail, where it wouuld attach to the Trickster's body. It looks like the idea is to both use a models tweq and to use a joint tweq on the tail to get a better thrashing motion. Certainly somewhat sophisticated motions could be managed by model tweqage combined with joint tweqage if you wanted to put in the effort to make 6 models and add in a joint to each.

Edit: oh yes, the limit planes are the joint limit planes which define the range of motion for the joints.