Unreal Tournament 99 - DirectX11 Renderer with Tessellation + HDAO

[PAGOEJA]

it's all skeletalchars, you remove it and start a fresh copy of ut99, and use your own anims and provide your own coords (even close ones)
you will get what you see. what a shame that guys rushed the skeletalchars mod / classes
but i'll take the time to import a ton of ut2004/ut3/ue4 stuff so that it stays up to date, once the base animations are in, people can import whatever they like.
and YES, I WILL PASS IT ALL AROUND FOR FREE when its worthy of mass download.
thank you again for your help it's greatly appreciated (i started small, but i got lots of cosmetic bugs so i'll fix in the am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-UEPKFZpM

and p.s.
YOU SURE ARE RIGHT ABOUT IT LOADING DIFFERENT when importing
but that's my fault for rushing it, and using a ripped off import script.
i'll do it clean and proper tomorrow (second image below)

but atleast the orientation comes out properly and the ANIMATIONS TOO!
(*third image down, cross referenced with original working mod for ut99)

p.s. it's my opinion that the successors of unreal engine one, are just more of the same with a bigger SDK/effects basket.
sure they've implemented a number of features, the worst one, making the script way more complex so you get headaches just looking at it.

i'm out to prove this old engine is still useful, if one puts the time in. take care meowcat, i downloaded your jetpack ages ago, i was super surprised to hear from you...

[PAGOEJA]

also, lastly, i was hoping to make a sort of low resolution version of fortnite, and get epic games to cross plattform from ut99 on any low end pc.

wouldn't that be cool for all of those old people who refuse to update their pc's or continually buy low end systems for no apparent reason other than its cheap to do so...?

[PAGOEJA]

but tbh
i was going to mac/pc/sega dreamcast/playstation psp/playstation vita/playstation 2/raspberry pi/android [crossplay]
my total conversion of the game, but nobody was interested
(*easy stuff too, compatible system code, along with much iterations, rofl...but would be well worth it, to re-connect everyone to one of their favorite games again.

psp ut99

psp vita ut3

playstation 2 ut99

dreamcast ut99

mac ut99

raspberry pi ut99

android UT99

[PAGOEJA]

my progress since...
will prove i am right about skeletalchars, once and for all

believe me now? meow!

[meowcatbuf]

Hi PAGOEJA.
Interesting model conversion work you have going there. I'm pretty sure that you don't need to remove anything from the base UT99 game files, you should be able to just add all of the additional content on top of the base game. Any time you delete, or worse recompile and use, an existing base game .u file, your now "custom" version of UT99 will not be network compatible with anyone else's out there, and could (probably will) break compatibility with any other mod packages. The correct way to mod for UT99 (and every UT UEngine game) is to just create your own .u files (& .utx, .unr, .uax etc) on top of the existing game. I think you can probably leave SkeletalChars alone (its just a couple of character models anyways), and just create your own .u package in which you import your mesh/animation rips and add your own weapon code. There should be absolutely no reason to recompile any other .u files aside from your own custom ones.

I hear you about the cross platform game versions. I would love to have a low-res version of the UEngine that ran a barebones version of the UT99 or the UT2k4 engine that could run on a lot of the older low powered hardware (to include things like the Raspberry Pi). If you are willing to go for far simpler models than the higher poly stuff you have been back-converting, it might even run.

On a side note, believe it or not, but the scripts for UT2k4 or only marginally more complex than for UT99. When I started modding for UT2k4 after UT99, there was a learning curve, but the capabilities of the UT2k4 engine are so much better for animation, effects, and map building. I think I can probably get higher FPS in UT2k4 versions of some map conversions than I could in UT99, and the character animation was simpler (and smaller in memory size), and since stuff like effects were handled natively (in C++ code that is way more efficient for particles than the old "actor" UScript particle method of UT99 engine) more detail could be added without bogging down the system. Anyways, good on you for adding stuff to UT99 and continuing to get more fun out of the game.

For the model conversions, I'm not sure what you mean by his "flawed import" (b.t.w., who is "he") in your last post. That imported version of the target painter looks exactly like the one from UT2k4. Epic (and every single other game company from the 1980s thru 201x) usually deleted "hidden faces" of 3d models to reduce the memory size and increase rendering speed, which is exactly what was done here. For the old C4 mod that Postal and I put together 16+ years ago, I usually deleted any face/triangle that would not be seen in game during the FP view animations (I kept versions with all faces for later reuse in UT2k4...).

[PAGOEJA]

i understand all of that stuff, and of course i understand (animations) now too.

the last process for importing that i missed. thank god.

i can assign my own anims now, with this tidbit:

// *** ANIMATION NOTIFIES ***
#exec ANIM DIGEST ANIM=SoldierAnim VERBOSE
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=RunLG TIME=0.25 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=RunLG TIME=0.75 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=RunLGFR TIME=0.25 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=RunLGFR TIME=0.75 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=RunSM TIME=0.25 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=RunSM TIME=0.75 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=RunSMFR TIME=0.25 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=RunSMFR TIME=0.75 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=StrafeL TIME=0.25 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=StrafeL TIME=0.75 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=StrafeR TIME=0.25 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=StrafeR TIME=0.75 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=BackRun TIME=0.25 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=BackRun TIME=0.75 FUNCTION=PlayFootStep
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=Dead1 TIME=0.7 FUNCTION=LandThump
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=Dead2 TIME=0.9 FUNCTION=LandThump
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=Dead3 TIME=0.45 FUNCTION=LandThump
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=Dead4 TIME=0.6 FUNCTION=LandThump
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=Dead7 TIME=0.7 FUNCTION=LandThump
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=Dead8 TIME=0.7 FUNCTION=LandThump
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=Dead9B TIME=0.8 FUNCTION=LandThump
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=Dead11 TIME=0.57 FUNCTION=LandThump
#exec ANIM NOTIFY ANIM=SoldierAnim SEQ=Challenge TIME=0.35 FUNCTION=PlayLoudStep

(this is the example i needed, for importing my own animfiles, thanks for your patience, guys)

Hi PAGOEJA.
Interesting model conversion work you have going there. I'm pretty sure that you don't need to remove anything from the base UT99 game files, you should be able to just add all of the additional content on top of the base game. Any time you delete, or worse recompile and use, an existing base game .u file, your now "custom" version of UT99 will not be network compatible with anyone else's out there, and could (probably will) break compatibility with any other mod packages. The correct way to mod for UT99 (and every UT UEngine game) is to just create your own .u files (& .utx, .unr, .uax etc) on top of the existing game. I think you can probably leave SkeletalChars alone (its just a couple of character models anyways), and just create your own .u package in which you import your mesh/animation rips and add your own weapon code. There should be absolutely no reason to recompile any other .u files aside from your own custom ones.

I hear you about the cross platform game versions. I would love to have a low-res version of the UEngine that ran a barebones version of the UT99 or the UT2k4 engine that could run on a lot of the older low powered hardware (to include things like the Raspberry Pi). If you are willing to go for far simpler models than the higher poly stuff you have been back-converting, it might even run.

On a side note, believe it or not, but the scripts for UT2k4 or only marginally more complex than for UT99. When I started modding for UT2k4 after UT99, there was a learning curve, but the capabilities of the UT2k4 engine are so much better for animation, effects, and map building. I think I can probably get higher FPS in UT2k4 versions of some map conversions than I could in UT99, and the character animation was simpler (and smaller in memory size), and since stuff like effects were handled natively (in C++ code that is way more efficient for particles than the old "actor" UScript particle method of UT99 engine) more detail could be added without bogging down the system. Anyways, good on you for adding stuff to UT99 and continuing to get more fun out of the game.

For the model conversions, I'm not sure what you mean by his "flawed import" (b.t.w., who is "he") in your last post. That imported version of the target painter looks exactly like the one from UT2k4. Epic (and every single other game company from the 1980s thru 201x) usually deleted "hidden faces" of 3d models to reduce the memory size and increase rendering speed, which is exactly what was done here. For the old C4 mod that Postal and I put together 16+ years ago, I usually deleted any face/triangle that would not be seen in game during the FP view animations (I kept versions with all faces for later reuse in UT2k4...).

[PAGOEJA]

here you can see i'm already going ahead with a ut2004 import from ut3,
and if i wanted i could use the ut3 mesh, or even redo the materials uv's etc all in ue4.
but tbh i think this project going on here:*DirectX11 Renderer with Tessellation + HDAO*
will be able to help with my future additions to touching up appearances of meshes be they static or moving objects.

according to sources the animation files are larger due to more graphical information stored in them, i merely have to write a script to make use of said information
and again script out a presentation for the information grabbed or invoked during import. :P

i'm not a pro, but i'm learning fast, and if i am wrong about this fact, well so is the source i got my information from.
but there is no other explanation for them being so large, there isn't that many more animations inside each file i'm getting from these engines, after all.

here is my TWO CENTS all said and done, my friend, meowcat:

skeletalchars is a static 1 size fits all anim mod that is very poorly contrived.

that said: here is my EZ solution

you add the animation control to your project, during import
its a lot to swallow all at once, but anyone who is serious will produce real mods (instead of linking from skeletalchars and embarassing themselves)

they can make a class like this:

tournamentplayer
|_
....REAPERUT3config (animation import, animation notify/digest, pawn/bot movement script)
....|_
.......reaperut3 (mesh and textures, anim used, team info, etc)

and then attach the reaperut3, reaperut3bot classes to that, from tournamentplayer, humanbotplus, respectively
instead of relying on skeletalchars and its meagerly programmed animations which only suit meshes from unreal engine 1.

i hope everyone takes a minute to understand they can make their own material for anything if they just follow the easy import steps that i took forever to learn, lol.

[PAGOEJA]

and p.s.

i do create my own mod files, but for all of my tests, i mock other people's work, so everyone knows who to compare my stuff with/against

you know, i'm a rising star, and i want to be noticed, what better way than by heckling the greats while pleasing all of those who are left wanting by said greats and their old promises/projects that failed to deliver/fell through.

like nephew, over in ut99.org, and so many others...

[PAGOEJA]

i've never had much luck with bad lodmeshes / skeletalmeshes (incomplete or flawed), and that's what that targetpainter looks like.

and as for the immortal kings guy, his texture map is flawed at the handle and the breakpoint nozzle (size and transparency), these guys always get sloppy somewhere...

i'll admit when it comes to importing animations and vectoring i'm sh*t, but when it comes to meshes and textures, i'm golden.

[meowcatbuf]

Hi PAGOEJA.
I'm glad to hear that you are compiling your own .u files instead of recompiling the existing packages (much cleaner that way). Here is some historical context on SkeletalChars.u. When it was released in one of the bonus packs back in 2000/2001 timeframe, skeletal animation capability had only just been added to the UT99 Engine. Unlike the Half-life modified Quake engine which had skeletal animation (and even more usefully, bone controllers/animation channels) from ~1998, the first skeletal characters for UT99 only showed up at that time, and UT99 modding had already been going on for quite some time (with some stuff from Unreal rolled forward). While people were still modding UT99 the only choice they had for character skeletal animations were:
1- Use the UT SkeletalChars skeleton & animation set (easiest path, least amount of time).
2- Rip ("steal") an animation set from another game, which still probably required animation cleanup work since they would most likely not contain all of the needed animation names/sequences that UT99 used for characters (slightly more work.... but still pretty straight forward). This required them to rip animations from decompiled files (MS3D could do that for HL files and them import the .smd files).
3- Create an entire new custom skeleton & animation set (all 35+ anim sequences for that game) that fit the UT99 names, and rig all of their character models to that skel. (potentially lots and lots and lots of time....)

Both TacOps and Infiltration eventually made their own custom character skeleton and extensive animation sets (especially INF) in later releases of their mods. I'd actually heard rumors that INF stopped updating the character models in the mod because all of the player animation source files had been lost on a harddrive crash (or something like that, this was before UModel existed that would have let them maybe recover at least some of their work). For everyone else, it was pretty nice to only have to worry about making the mesh & textures and just linking to the animation set that came with the game. SkeletalChars only looks simple now compared to what is "available" (e.g. rippable from UT3/UT2k4).

The point is that making original animation sets took a lot of time. Back then there were not as many tools available to modders cheaply that made creating animation sets faster. I spent the entire summer of 2003 using CharacterFX (which at least had IK) making some rather mediocre character model animation sequences for my own custom skeleton for a later version of the C4 mod (I like most aspects of modding... but I think I hate animating), and then programming my own .psa file generation tool to convert the animation files from CharacterFX->MS3D->exported to HL .smd format-> then converted to .psa file (thank goodness for good online introductory tutorials on how to use MFC and create GUIs rather than all of the commandline nonsense I used to write!).

My 2 cents: If you want to be noticed (and avoid being ostracized by everyone) I'd recommend making good original content and not heckling other modders, especially if they can help you out (and just because someone doesn't know how to do exactly what you want to, does not mean they won't have helpful pointers in how to figure out and solve problems, debug code, help with network testing etc.). Ripping someone else's/game's mesh/animation/texture content (using a program that you did not write) does take some skill and time, and can be fun to play with.... but making original meshes, textures, and most importantly animations takes way more skill, and even more importantly time (which is the primary limiting factor). My personal recommendation would be to be humble and try to work well with other modders. There is no contest about "who is best" here... no one cares anymore about UT1-UT3 except for those of us who still have fun modding and playing these games and sharing our cool little projects.

Once you have your content conversion pipeline planned out/refined, you should write a tutorial on how to do the conversions and create the character models/bots to be used ingame. I'm sure that would be appreciated by the other UT99 modders.

[PAGOEJA]

I am the furthest i have ever been, and yeah unfortunately for my learning curve to be worthwhile, i have to save time by borrowing materials and assets. yes i do feel guilty about that,
but in my mind, i've earned my way into the club, and i wouldn't be the FIRST guy to borrow others work (at least i'm using it to school myself and not make a profit via DONATION SERVER)

but anyway, i really appreciate the time you spend, so i'll let you in on just how skillful i've become since our talks. (i think you will be amazed)

later tomorrow, i'll finish it and post the results. but for now, time to play some more "fortnite" :P
(speaking of which i can't wait to learn how to do stickons, so i can do my own stuff besides adding a weapon)
i know that will require some bone work, thankfully it will be an easy first lesson i think. but for now i'd like to get some content going besides my aimbot gun (which borrowed a lod mesh)

Once you have your content conversion pipeline planned out/refined, you should write a tutorial on how to do the conversions and create the character models/bots to be used ingame. I'm sure that would be appreciated by the other UT99 modders.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


[you insist animations take a long time, i agree, they do. so why not just do an OIL CHANGE! figuratively speaking]
after a break i'll go back to it (the original meshmap wasn't ut99 compatible the whole time), another few tries i believe i'll have it (including selection mesh anim, etc)

***reaper_UT2004.psk and bipedmaleA from ut2k4 first image
second image is reaperut3 from reaperut3.u and the base soldieranim




and here you go, this is why this mesh was always mapping badly, the map wasn't ut99 compatible (top left in the image below for legit work)
the two extra material sections are for the rear arms, hands, legs, and half of the missing chestplate. which you can also see in the poly count.




ORIGINAL UT3 MESH:

[PAGOEJA]

p.s. i want to drop this for anyone interested in creating really fantastic content besides the norm:

i know a way to get easy animated textures
and flawless composition between two or more layers, just like in fortnite and other games
but i mean, for ut99 its a lot easier
environment map, on original meshmap text, get a fancy outfit,
and then the animation overlay (underlay) texes you just pump out with photoshop and a gif animator, make sure it fits and apply via skinmaker (it maps differently, but the same, you have to see it to understand)

cuz basically you will have your animating texture loaded first, then environment map over (using the transparency palette to allow the animation to pass through, obviously)
(load via multitexture settings in defaults in the editor)

just thought i'd pass that along, cuz i notice a lack of animated, environment mapped stuff for ut99 and even UT2004.

and i intend to change that....and a lot of other things, over time. (*even though i am far behind the many already trying to do so) i think i've caught up fairly fast.

aside from publishing my own mesh or anim, i've done it all, baby.

thanks again meowcat, and i apologize for hi-jacking the thread

i am very interested in updating the unreal1 engine level in regards to graphical capabilities. keep me posted plz.


(*epic games needs to realize they screwed us for ut4, and that guys like me are going to get vindication for the public, by any means necessary.)

[PAGOEJA]

meowcat you kept making comments about my ability, and if i make my own packages, certainly this will stop you from being suspicious of my skills or my intent.

here is another mesh/skin by aberiu, that i've imported to ut99, and as promised i also added the accessories lods (backpack, goggles)

unlike the lilian v1.0 that i did, where i forgot to import the buckles. but hey at least you know i can do arrays or multi mesh work

just so you know i wasn't bs'ing about being able to by-pass skeletalchars and do my own thing.
once the anim timings and names are done, it's all awesomeness from there on, thanks again meowcat.
(ya i forgot the goggles texture, when i imported lod_2, i'm a dummy, rofl) will fix, before final

[PAGOEJA]

the quality is down cuz it defaults WORLD instead of SKIN

trust me i know all the little tweaks for the game, that anyone who has used the engine for awhile, would know. and perhaps i knew of them even before some of these guys did.

david nash and a few others who might tell the truth today, could vouch regarding that, cuz all i really could do back in the day was light script/detail editing, and texture and vert mesh swapping. :P

[PAGOEJA]

p.s. i'll consider us all even, when they present me with a printable unreal engine 1 license, with my name on it, in my inbox.

i won't pursue damages for all of the thefts, i'll literally clean the slate and do my own thing, with my slice of the pie (ue1 remodded into whatever i end up calling it)