Talking Heads new method

[Jack Rackham]

Some character models have no talking head model. And some are not so easy to fix with, like skeletons for ex.
In this example we are making a working head for the "mummy" model.

1 copy the mummy character model and rename it to "h_mummy". Move it to the HEAD folder.


2 check other head models in aniview to see the height of the face.

He should have the nose at y = 0.

3 sink the model with the TOOL.

Ok, but will this work, will the game take just the needed part or use the model from head to toes?

4 Test in game.

YES! but there are some disturbing black things here and there...

5 Make a new texture file and alpha channel away everything below the chest. This is how he'll look in aniview.


6 Test in game.

And yes that did it. If needed adjustments to size and position can be made with the TOOL.

I have so far also fixed a head for the "conquistador".

This means skeletons and other troublesome models now can be fixed for the prize of 1 extra texture file.
And don't forget to make a "h_mummy.ani" file as well. Use something close.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Nice trick, @Jack Rackham!

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Good job, @Jack Rackham!!!

 

[Grey Roger]

Indeed. I'll have to see if this will work on some of my imported models from CoAS:GoF. Those have no talking head because AoP:CT and CoAS don't use them. So until now, all I've been able to do is make something approximate using a PoTC head model which looks vaguely like the character model. And that also costs an extra texture file because the PoTC model will be looking for a texture file with a completely different layout.

The problem then is the "h_*.ani" file. The CoAS:GoF models use different animations from anything in PoTC, so I had to make up a PoTC-compatible animation file based on the CoAS:GoF file but with the actions required by PoTC. As there is no head animation, in theory there's a serious problem. In practice, perhaps not: @DeathDaisy got away with using stock PoTC head animation files for "Espinosa" and as for her own character models, so I might be able to get away with it as well... (This might be the cause of those "disturbing black things here and there" in stage 4. An animation file which is not quite right could end up moving parts of the character into silly places. That won't matter if the parts being moved are invisible.)

 

[Grey Roger]

@Jack Rackham: how did you get the talking head animation to work? After I'd used TOOL to lower the model so that the bridge of his nose was at y=0, the model wouldn't even work properly with its normal animation file. It may be that only some models are suitable for this procedure; perhaps the only distortion on the mummy model was the bits which could be made invisible by putting an alpha mask on the texture, but the one I was trying to do looked like he had tentacles sticking out of the face on his head model!

 

[Jack Rackham]

I think it was one of the indians .ani filed I used for the mummy head. Maybe I was just lucky.

 

[Grey Roger]

You must have been lucky because the Indian models which look like mummies are "Native" and "Native_Chief", whose head models don't look remotely like Indians. In fact, as soon as I get your "h_mummy" model, I'm going to try making new "h_Native" and "h_Native_Chief" models which will just be "h_mummy" with different textures. Talking characters using those models appear in both the "Assassin" storyline and my "Crystal Skull" sidequest.

 

[Jack Rackham]

No I didn't mean the "natives" but maybe "Indian1".

I'm going to try making new "h_Native" and "h_Native_Chief" models

Very good, I have thought about it too. I can try fix the davy1 - 5 who also have very not so look-a-like
talking heads.

 

[Jack Rackham]

I have fixed Skel1 -4, SkelT & Bmunk talking heads now. Another day I'll go for Davy1 - 5.
The existing animation files did work.



Together with my own files I've got many files again
so @GreyRoger let me know when it's time for another zip update.

 

[Grey Roger]

For preference, unless you're going to do "Native" and "Native_Chief" yourself soon, could you upload your new talking heads this week? Then I can do the Indians and they'll go into the update as well.

 

[Jack Rackham]

Sure, here are the mummy head files. I'll keep the skeleton heads for reference while doing the davy skeletons.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I have fixed Skel1 -4, SkelT & Bmunk talking heads now. Another day I'll go for Davy1 - 5.

The Davy ones are just retextures of those other ones.

 

[Jack Rackham]

The Davy ones are just retextures of those other ones.

Indeed, but it's hard to see in those textures what can be deleted that's why I started with the skeletons.

 

[Grey Roger]

Using your "mumTH.tga.tx" as a template, I copied the same white blocks and same alpha channels onto the two Indian textures, and made duplicates of "h_mummy.gm" to use them. The result:

That's from the "Crystal Skull" sidequest, for no reason other than that I had a savegame near the end of the quest which made testing the new heads very easy. They should work equally well in the "Assassin" storyline.

 

[Jack Rackham]

...and I've made the 5 "Davy" skeletons as well.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Good lookin' lads!

 

[Grey Roger]

It may be that only some models are suitable for this procedure; perhaps the only distortion on the mummy model was the bits which could be made invisible by putting an alpha mask on the texture, but the one I was trying to do looked like he had tentacles sticking out of the face on his head model!

This is now confirmed. TOOL allows you to view an animation. If I load "h_Davy1.gm" and let TOOL view its animation, the body distorts but the head does not, which is why blanking out the body texture allows the talking head to appear to work.

The models I imported from GoF aren't so lucky. It turns out that although GoF has no talking heads, the character animation has dialog actions - presumably the main character model should appear to talk to you in the game. The models imported from GoF are driven by "Rousselet.an" and "Rousselet.ani", so I tried making a new "h_Rousselet.ani" using the dialog action names required by PoTC mapped to the relevant parts of "Rousselet.an". The head model still distorted badly.

One workround seems to be to define the dialog actions to start and end at position 0. That means the talking head won't do much talking, it will be a fixed portrait rather than an animated head. This will still be better than an empty square and a lot better than a writhing mess!