I'm going to be out of town starting this Saturday, so I'm afraid I won't be able to help any nor communicate for the next few weeks. Nevertheless, good luck on the rigging, SemiPsycho!
For the few lurkers of this thread, we actually have a Discord server dedicated to the PSA. Please give it a look if you're interested:
So I'm in the process of preparing Porky's skeleton before I rig it. There are several "Landform" bones that aren't rigged to anything but are placed in specific locations. Does anyone know what these are for? I could just delete those, but we could also use them to place graphic effects on when we're programming. For example his up air, the energy orb that shoots up, we can animate one of the landform bones to match the path of the orb, then attach the orb graphic effect to it later. The orb wouldn't be in the FitPorky00.pac file, it would be found in the FitPorky.pac file. Even so, do we need all six of them?
If I'm not mistaken, those have something to do with the boss's hit detection, since the body of the mech acts as a solid object that can be stood upon in the boss battle. I agree that at least a few of those bones should stay, for ease of placing GFX; the many laser/electricity attacks, the fart attack, etc.
You use the Crusade up-air as an example, but I don't think that would work, since the orb needs to be coded as a separate object much like the vomit attack. The orb is a projectile that travels upwards, separate from Porky, so it couldn't feasibly be attached to a bone. That would cause the orb to be permanently "tied" above Porky for the animation, and would probably cause issues if the attack was performed multiple times in succession.
About the texturing progress right now, I know PigMaskColonel is eager to start animating, and I don't know how much time he'll have until he won't have time anymore. So I'm thinking, since I've finished the UVs, what if I rig the model now so you can start animating, while I continue texturing the new clothes? It just means you'll be animating Porky with Lucas' colored shirt and distorted suspenders until I finish the textures. Because rigging is still a big process. The mech fortunately won't be very hard, but since Porky is an organic object that will take more work.
I was actually going to suggest this, but I decided to let you do things at your own pace. If you think you're ready to tackle the rigging now, I'd greatly appreciate it!
That sounds perfect! I never liked all of the odd little modifications that Brawl made to Porky's design, anyway. Just to clarify, do you mean you're actually designing brand new textures from the ground up? If so, well... Kudos to you. Texturing is a tricky business, especially with Brawl's gritty art style. Good luck.
Coming up with a Porky render seems a bit difficult, but I guess we can go with something like the original render, which was only a salute, but maybe adding the mecha-porkies, considering that Brawl's renders are somehow simple poses, Ness literally has his pose from the promotional art, being Ninten's pose as well.
I didn't notice the parallels between my current render mockup and the old one until now, but you're right. Ha! Actually, Porky isn't necessarily supposed to be "saluting" in the new render (I intended it as him motioning the Mecha-Porkies into battle), but I can see why you'd think that. Hopefully the gesture will read more easily when re-done with SemiPsycho's improved rig. I don't really see any other similarities between my current mockup and the old one, though.
While I agree that Porky's range should be large, we don't need to increase the size of the whole model to accomplish that. Range can be optimized for his attacks through use of "squash & stretch" animation techniques, regardless of the size of the model itself. Therefore, I definitely think the scale of the mech should be kept as small as possible, to reduce the size of his already-large hurtboxes. Anything bigger would just hinder the gameplay of the character.
Besides, Porky's range is likely going to be pretty ridiculous no matter the scale of the model. The mech's limbs can reach VERY far when fully extended (even longer than Dedede's mallet or Shulk's Monado, in most scenarios). This is why it's crucial that Porky's animations be crafted very carefully, to avoid making him too big of a target.
Regarding the render, I imagine it'd be easier to get my points across if I just gave you a visual of what I have in mind (this is just a POC, of course):
Considering the fact that the PSA is primarily built for vBrawl (and eventually Project M), I think we should strive to fit the straightforward style of Brawl's render aesthetic for now. I mean, the mod will most likely end up in Legacy XP at some point, but we can worry about making renders & other elements for the modpack at a later date.
My render mockup isn't necessarily 100% what I have in mind, but you get the general idea; the mech legs overlap less, and the Mecha-Porkies don't clutter things quite as much, since all they really do is fill out the sides of the image. Additionally, the camera angle is more along the lines of Brawl's head-on renders, which makes the whole shot feel much cleaner and more concise.
Hmm... Yeah, I'm still not sure about it. The composition of the shot is pretty busy, what with the robots & mech limbs going everywhere. I like the angle of the shot, with Porky looking down upon the camera, but the rest of it could use some fine-tuning.
I want to show everyone progress on remodeling Porky. As a matter of fact, I might be done with the remodeling. Now I have to recreate the UVs (some are salvageable) and rig him over a new skeleton. Check out the screenshots I made! I'll update the OP with this as well:
This isn't shown in the screenshot, but the skeleton for Porky and the rest of his mech now match the resize PigMaskColonel made properly, rather than forcing the animations to resize it. I have to add more bones to Porky first before rigging otherwise the whole remodeling process is pointless.
It looks even better than I thought it would. Terrific stuff! Thanks for all of your Herculean efforts on this. I agree that the new pant legs are better. It's a more visually pleasing design than the original model's flared-out pants, which seemed to mimic the look of EarthBound's Porky more-so than it did his Mother 3 sprites, interestingly.
Also, yes, I definitely think we could do it without any facial expressions. It's not like Porky's going to do much "acting" anyway, considering how frail and sedentary he is in his time-warped state. For the most part, Porky will just lie in the bed and get jostled around a little while his mech handles the real performance.
Now a bit off topic, I plan the pose for the renders be the one from his Brawl/Sm4sh trophy, and I'd love to include Mecha-Porkies in since they're such an important part of Porky's moves, so, at one point (not now), do you think you could start importing it, or give me a Mecha-Porky model to use in BrawlBox? I don't know from where to extract files, so if you could find it for me it would be great.
The directory is stage/adventure/920201.pac. The file has everything & the kitchen sink for Porky's Subspace Emissary appearance; character models, his stage, visual effects, animations, etc. I think including a Mecha-Porky in his render might clutter the whole composition of things since his mech is already so large and difficult to frame, but you can still give it a shot if you'd like. I haven't nailed down any render concepts yet, anyway.
It kinda bugs me how the SSE Porky is bigger than Ness while this Porky is smaller, the only problem I could see with him being resized to Ness'/Lucas' size is that he will probably hurt his head when reposing it over the part that's right over the glass, but I guess that's just me.
In his final animations (rather than the T-pose seen in the image), Porky will be seated lower in the mech, so we won't need to worry about his head clipping through the stuff near the top, even once he's been up-scaled a little -- and yes, I am planning on making him a little bigger. Ideally, we'd just re-model his entire body, but I'm not sure how possible that is currently. We'd likely have to do the same for the mech if we went that route.
Porky's animations are pretty good, but the run animation doesn't quite fit, looks more like a fast walk rather than a run, I still think PigMaskColonel's old run animation was pretty good as a run.
Well, 99% of the animations we've currently implemented could certainly be considered placeholders, so I wouldn't worry too much about that just yet.. My old animations were crude at best, but I think I could do a far better job with my current skillset.
If we get to do some "custom coding" I could think of using Porky throwing bob-ombs from the upper part of his mech of course, and maybe we could find a way to replace that bob-omb's model with a Mecha-Porky? For the attacks that already have animations I think that the dash attack could use basically (almost) any other character's coding, being Mario the main one of course. If we get the project somewhere, I wish we can get people to do custom models and make a more high-poly Porky model, not being able to really move his arms or legs is a shame to be honest, even though Porky almost can't move I thought we could still make him do the spankety taunt. I'm thinking about tweaking the textures too, I can take care of that, since Porky's textures apparently were designed to fit with the glowing lights of his mech.
The Bob-omb definitely wouldn't work. It's an item that's hard-coded into the game and would be far, far too powerful as a spammable projectile. I still believe our best lead is Dedede's Side Special, due to how similar it is to what we have in mind for the Mecha-Porkies. Maybe even Olimar's Pikmin could give us a few hints?
I'm not so sure about the dash attack either, considering that Porky's will need a lingering hitbox, like in Crusade. I really don't think we'll want to try recycling code from other fighters for most of Porky's attacks, since Porky's hitboxes and general properties are so massively different from any other character in the game. It'd be easier to just do it from the ground up most of the time. Also, just in case it wasn't already obvious, both of the attack animations are just placeholders... Haha. The frame data isn't final in the least.
And, as a stated before, a new Porky model is definitely desirable. I'm just not sure how practical it is in the long run.
Before this post ends: the textures on the mech are kinda buggy, the upper and lower part of it are black, but when approached with the camera on training mode actually makes it red.
Could you post screenshots of this as well? I haven't had the chance to look at it running in-game much, so I wouldn't know what exactly you mean.
Animating would be a huge help! Do you plan to use the animations I've already made? Be sure to scale him down in his animations to the same size I've changed him too.
Well, frankly, I think most of the animations could use a little touch-up (they lack a sense of weight, and some are too stiff), but that's OK. You still did a good job, and I like a lot of the visual gags, such as the mech crossing its arms when crouching.
I've actually been experimenting with some different mech sizes, and I believe I may have found a good one:
(new on the left, old on the right)
I squashed the mech's body a little and made some modifications to the size/length of the legs -- of course, Porky himself is still the same size, though. Thoughts?
As for deviating from Crusade's moveset, I think the only attack we might have to change is his down light attack, aka his puke attack. This is because the puke can't be simulated with an actual animatuon since it stops once it hits the floor. Otherwise, it would float in midair where it supposedly would land on the ground if Porky is near an edge, or go through the floor at an incline. Another, way harder option is to program it like a special attack where the puke is its own entity. Porky's side special will be another case like this. I'm not sure how, or if, there's a way to change Lucas' special attacks to have these properties.
I see. Well, like I proposed in my PM, it might be a good idea to move things over to Dedede so we can use his Side Special as a base for the Mecha-Porkies. That's the only solution I can really think of, lest we scrap the move(s) completely -- and I would hate to do that, since the Mecha-Porkies are so integral to the character.
I'm ecstatic to see that interest in the PSA has been revived! Thanks for sharing, SemiPyscho.
I can't write a lick of code in PSA for my life, but I'm more than happy to assist with animations, audio-related business, textures, icons, etc... Additionally, I'm willing to contribute to moveset design and the like if we decide to deviate from the Crusade character a little, but I know I'm probably in the minority there. I'd like to hear some opinions on this first before I go hog-wild with design ideas... Haha.
Thanks to NintenDS, who's been seeking out talent to work on the project, I believe CaliburTrek (creator of the Ninten PSA from awhile back) might also be contributing, among some others. I imagine some people from the SmashBoards Porky support thread might be interested as well(?).
I know it's been a while and that you probably all think this mod is dead, but I still intend on finishing this. I'm not sure if Semi is coming back, but whatever. I just have a really bad habit of getting all excited about a project, starting it, and losing my motivation to finish it.
I have another project I've been working on, actually. I'm composing a soundtrack for a Banjo-Kazooie fangame. So I'll look for some time soon to work on Porky again.
Yeah completely agree, maybe it's best for him to be in his Mother 3 incarnation. And I'd love to test out Porky and give feedback! I'll probably test him out on my BrawlEx. He's going to be over Lucas right?
To answer you're questions, yes, he's going over Lucas, and no, I'm still making the the essential animations before I even start messing with PSA. In other words, I'll definitely let you test him eventually, just not until I actually get him working in the game without any beeps of death.
I would really reccomend using the game animations if possible, and trying to make the skeleton compatible... It's ao ambitious and awesome I'd hate to see you burnt out animating everything.
Well, I've tried it and it seems to work fine... However, unfortunately, all the animations don't look right due to the different size of the mech's model. Porky's legs are also inside the mech in all the animations.
Also, there's an issue I want to address: You know how whenever a character turns around, they aren't mirrored? Well, I just realized that this will ruin Porky's animations, because you'll only be able to see the back of him when facing the left (he faces the screen constantly when facing the right in almost all animations)... It'll look rather awkward and you won't be able to see Porky himself. So, is it somehow possible to make animations mirrored? I feel that this could really ruin the PSA...
Well, Porky is a coward and he is too afraid to fight, maybe it's better for him to be in his Mother 3 Incarnation, this will be one of the best mods I've ever seen, good luck dude!
I was worried you would be disappointed in my decision, but I'm very happy to see you're on board. Thank you very much!
I see. Are you using the animations for the boss as a jumping point, or are those animations incompatible?
I haven't tried yet. I'm planning on making all the animations myself, however it kind of depends... Some of the animations may be too difficult (animating the mech is hell with just how many different bones there are), as it's much different than animating you're average character with much less bones to work with.
So I really should probably try it, however I'm not sure it'll work because of how different the model is now.
Release him in early versions for feedback and bug hunting. As a pack builder, I would never have been able to find all of the little bugs and glitches in the build I'm working on, were it not for my multiple releases. It's much easier.
Yes, I agree. I think I'll release him once I have, at the very least, all of his tilts, jab, and dash attack done... Or something. I'm not really sure just how much time it will since this is my first PSA. However, I think I'll take this route.
If you need someone to help with CSPs and recoloring, let me know.
I can do any CSS things myself, however, I''m not too familiar with how to do good recolors. You could help me out with that. I'll PM you a download link to a FitLucas00.pac file. You can rip the textures and edit them however you like.
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