The minotaur in particular is different from many of the other animations. For the minotaur, Clint made each animation a separate action, so I think you need to render each animation individually. If you look at others like the cloth gloves in my above screenshot, all the animations are on the same timeline, so Blender treats it as one big animation.
What version of Blender are you using? I recall using the scripts on older versions without issue. If you're trying to run the script outside of Blender, that may be the issue. I've attached a screenshot showing how to run the script from within Blender.
I don't think I'm well suited enough to do a complete step-by-step tutorial, but here is an overview of what I know:
Create and animate you model in Blender
Create an invisible "Render platform" plane and parent your model to it
Use a Python script to render each animaton, rotating the render platform to cover all 8 directions. It's best to look at the existing creature models in the "art_src" directory, as they include such a script.
After running the script, it will create seperate images for each frame. Using ImageMagick's "montage" program can combine these into a single sprite sheet. Search the "art_src" directory for "montage.txt" as an example. You'll need to change the dimensions to fit your images.
Now that you have a complete sprite sheet, you'll need to create an Animation Definition that Flare can understand. Examples can be found in the "art_src/animation_defs" directory.
The only way I could make a better tutorial would be to embark on creating a creature from start to finish while documenting the process. This might be something I try to tackle, since we'll want to keep up the enemy variety as the game expands. However, my main focus right now is creating new maps.
Also, I realize I didn't comment on your "Snappa Kappa" creature that you posted. I'm not sure how well it would fit with other Flare assets. Maybe it could live among the goblins? Both creatures have similar "beady" eyes and green skin.
I'm working on it! The first map in the new Flare content will use the ruins tileset, the medieval props, and likely the new plants (when they're done). I'm currently using Clint's modular medieval building tileset as well, but it doesn't blend well with rubberduck's new buildings. So I'll likely use rubberduck's buildings later on in another map. Since Clint's tileset doesn't have snow variants, rubberduck's buildings would be perfect for a new snow map.
This data-path fix is now in the master branch. One thing to note: If you have a path with spaces, you need to put the double quotes around the flag as well, like so:
Okay, I was wrong about data-path working for me. I just happened to have mods in the fallback directory, so I didn't notice it was failing.
After some testing, it turns out that Windows preferring backslashes for paths isn't the problem. We don't convert the forward slashes in mod data files, and they work just fine. The problem actually ended up being the trailing slash. The stat() function errors when given a path that ends in either a slash or a backslash.
I've created a fix for this on a separate branch. I still need to test it more throughly before moving it upstream.
Did you receive any error messages when changing the data path? I just did a clean "Release" build on Windows 7 and was able to use the flag successfully.
I believe SDL handles populating argc/argv on Windows since Windows treats console and gui applications differently. Maybe this is broken on versions of Windows > 7?
Not sure how I missed vector init in the Win32 platform. I've push a fix for this.
As for the crash in BehaviorStandard, it happened whenever the player died because the AI couldn't find a valid target. This was due to a recent change, and I have pushed a fix for it as well.
I don't know what's causing the problem with data-path on Windows. I'll have to investigate.
I use the MinGW that's bundled with CodeBlocks, which I believe is 32-bit. Flare doesn't have a high memory requirement, so we went with 32-bit builds for compatibility. Linux 64-bit with GCC and Clang work fine.
The minotaur in particular is different from many of the other animations. For the minotaur, Clint made each animation a separate action, so I think you need to render each animation individually. If you look at others like the cloth gloves in my above screenshot, all the animations are on the same timeline, so Blender treats it as one big animation.
(Edit: I see you got it.)
What version of Blender are you using? I recall using the scripts on older versions without issue. If you're trying to run the script outside of Blender, that may be the issue. I've attached a screenshot showing how to run the script from within Blender.
The equipment files are in:
Hero equipment is done the same way. But if it's not obvious, keep in mind that the rigging should match similar pieces of equipment.
@Danimal
I don't think I'm well suited enough to do a complete step-by-step tutorial, but here is an overview of what I know:
The only way I could make a better tutorial would be to embark on creating a creature from start to finish while documenting the process. This might be something I try to tackle, since we'll want to keep up the enemy variety as the game expands. However, my main focus right now is creating new maps.
Also, I realize I didn't comment on your "Snappa Kappa" creature that you posted. I'm not sure how well it would fit with other Flare assets. Maybe it could live among the goblins? Both creatures have similar "beady" eyes and green skin.
@fraang
I'm working on it! The first map in the new Flare content will use the ruins tileset, the medieval props, and likely the new plants (when they're done). I'm currently using Clint's modular medieval building tileset as well, but it doesn't blend well with rubberduck's new buildings. So I'll likely use rubberduck's buildings later on in another map. Since Clint's tileset doesn't have snow variants, rubberduck's buildings would be perfect for a new snow map.
This data-path fix is now in the master branch. One thing to note: If you have a path with spaces, you need to put the double quotes around the flag as well, like so:
flare.exe "--data-path=..\path with spaces"
Cool! Glad to see you included cattails, as I wished I had some when designing the swamp maps in the Empyrean Campaign.
Okay, I was wrong about data-path working for me. I just happened to have mods in the fallback directory, so I didn't notice it was failing.
After some testing, it turns out that Windows preferring backslashes for paths isn't the problem. We don't convert the forward slashes in mod data files, and they work just fine. The problem actually ended up being the trailing slash. The stat() function errors when given a path that ends in either a slash or a backslash.
I've created a fix for this on a separate branch. I still need to test it more throughly before moving it upstream.
Question about the data-path issue:
Did you receive any error messages when changing the data path? I just did a clean "Release" build on Windows 7 and was able to use the flag successfully.
I believe SDL handles populating argc/argv on Windows since Windows treats console and gui applications differently. Maybe this is broken on versions of Windows > 7?
Thanks for the report.
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