Mana Games

[MarianoEG]

hi my friends!! im back after a hard week of job. .now its time to entertain us again!! this week im going to work on my nalbys FH...2h-backhands are hard for me now...so i keep working on forehands...maybe 1h-backhand...about the serves i want to do murrays one..but as you all know..the only one who deal with this really well is Neeky... but i want to try at least this murrays...so..back to work gentleman!!

[MarianoEG]

megyaem30
can you do the berdych forehand and backhand for the users of version 1.0c
and thanks for the murray and djokovic forehand and slice they are awsooooooooMe thanks again !!!!!

i achraf...i was thinking to try to do those aniims that the other guys do it for v1.0d...but i have to ask permission from them

[SamModder]

Impatient for Nalby's forehand! You can do it!

[MarianoEG]

Impatient for Nalby's forehand! You can do it!

thanks Sam!!! ill do my best!!

[Lucian86]

I'm quite satisfied with this one Still not over yet..have to adjust a couple of things
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wKRKAmQ ... e=youtu.be

As you can see, the animation starts with Berdych standing up; it looks great but there's a problem when the animation starts over like in the 1:56 minute of the video; I think I can't adjust this...I can only do another version with Berdych starting from the loop (when he throws the ball to the ground)...you choose wich one to use

In a certain sense, it's easier to make serves resemble more to the real ones because basically it's always the same The forehand and backhands are very different instead

[SamModder]

Brilliant stuff Lucian, really congrats! ( please when you finish post the link here too )

[achraf federer]

please my friend i didn't understand what i need to do to make all the anims works with my version 1.0c ????????

[Neeky McDeez]

Hoy hoy !

In case some of you would like to see their strikes incorporated into the official game (*), I'm releasing the following strike styles :
https://www.managames.com/download.php?T ... trikes.rar

You'll need them because in the official game, all strikes within the same family (ie: all 1H-FH, all 2H-FH, all 1H-BH, all 2H-BH) share the same sweet spot ; this is very important as it has an influence on the gameplay.
So if you create some new strikes, you should make their sweet spot (on the frame where the ball hit occurs) to match the one of the strike of the same family bundled in the .rar above.

I didn't put any serve, so for the serve, I give you manually the coordinates of the sweet spot on ball hit : x (width) = 1.05cm ; y (depth) = 1.2cm ; z (height) = 29.4cm

For the rally strikes, your sweet spot :
- x should be within +/- 0.5cm of the official strike (ideally, even within +/- 0.2cm)
- y should be within +/- 1cm
- z is free, but should be somewhat same, as I usually used the most neutral height (ie: can work more or less with low ball & high ball)

For the service, the sweet spot coordinates should all be within +/- 0.2cm, as it's very important to determine the ball trajectory on serve.

Note : everything is scaled x10 once in the game, so 0.5cm in 3ds Max will be 5cm in the game

Important : These anims are also bundled with the 3D mesh ! So it'll be easier for you to feel how the anim works directly within 3ds Max (although, it's always a bit different within the game); it will also help you to avoid smashed body parts, and it'll let you fix the shoulder rotations, if you have the brave to do it (this is the biggest pain in the *ss, as it's very hard to get a perfect result).
In bonus, the 3D mesh of the racket is also present, that could lead to creation of new racket Models if some Modder wants to give it a try ; if you do that, do it in a way that the sweet spot isn't modified (or only by a tiny bit), else it'll be visually wrong while playing with it.

(*) : I'm not sure how & when I'd put your strikes within the game ; we will have to discuss that together, maybe for TE2011 v1.0e in June..? And of course, I would not put any of your strike without your express consent..!

So, I'm now creating animations with the real sweet spot, and after a quick analysis, I'm coming to those sweet spot values (0.2 +/- range) :

BH-1h : x = 8.6 / 9.0, y = -2.7 / -3.1, z = 10.5 / 10.9
BH-2h : x = 7.1 / 7.5, y = -7.0 / -6.6, z = 9.7 / 10.1
BH-slice : x = 7.8 / 8.2, y = -4.6 / -4.2, z = 8.6 / 9.0
FH-1h : x = -11.6 / -11.2, y = -3.8 / -3.4, z = 12.4 / 12.8
FH-2h : x = -9.6 / -9.2, y = -2.0 / -1.6, z = 10.8 / 11.2
Serve : x = 0.85 / 1.25, y = 1.0 / 1.4, z = 29.2 / 29.6

If any other animator can confirm so we can all agree
Anyway, it will take me a looooooooooong time to convert my old animations with the actual sweet spots, but I'll work on it

I just reupload the biped with the .max file with the meshed up biped file with the following modifications :
- Only first key, with the normal stance
- 17 Frozen elements : arm twists, racquet + bone, toes, right fingers (we don't need them), middle spine (shouldn't be modified IMO), footsteps. They follow the body but can't be modified directly. They can be unfrozen anyway.
- 6 spheres which coordinates "materializes" all sweet spots (i'm not a fan of creating the hitpoint frame, I think it makes the animations less smooth.

How to create those spheres :
1. Go the right panel
2. Click on the "Create" white arrow symbol
3. Click on "Sphere" in object type then develop the "Keyboard Entry"
- Creation Method : Center
- Let other values as is
4. In Keyboard Entry, enter the coordinates of the sweet spot with the average coordinates (ie : x = 8.8, y = -2.9, z = 10.7 for a 1h-BH) and a 0.2cm radius, then click on create.
5. The sphere is created. If you want, you can select it on frame 0 then "freeze selection". It's not necessary but it can be useful. But, don't forget that if you want to unfreeze it, in MAX8, you will have to unfreeze ALL frozen elements and not just one...
6. Now you can make your animation with the center of the racquet passing by this sphere. This will give you the frame without having to actually create it.
7. To be more precise when looking for the right keyframe once your animation is finished, I advise you to upgrade your frame rate to a custom 300 FPS in the time configuration window to have a 0.1 precision keyframe.
8. The number of the frame will be multiplied ten times, so you should divide it by ten to have your hitpoint keyframe (ie : frame 176 => 17.6)
9. Don't forget to erase the Spheres before exporting your animation :p
10. To manage the sweet spots, enter "H" in Max, they will appear at the bottom. Double click on one to select it.

[Neeky McDeez]

Oops, new link for the biped V2 because I froze an element wich prevented the biped to be moved
It's unfrozen now : http://www.mediafire.com/?d52thdzjnajpjaf (also updated in first page)

[m4n4c0r]

I wuld agree with the coordinates if i would know how to figure it out . I created the sweet spot by the "move" coordinates of the right hand by now because when i point the cursor on the sweet spot the coordinates are always changing depending on the zoom and angle...

Tanks for the new biped. I have to accustom myself to the meshes but it will go off all right

The new technique with the spheres seem to be complicated to me right now I'll give it a try !

[Lucian86]

One question:

The sweet spot for the serve, I read that has a value Y=1,2 on average...Is actually 1,2 or -1,2....1,2 means that it's behind the baseline which is not so realistic I think

I'm asking because in McDeez's biped V.2, the sphere is actually -1,2 so in front of the baseline

[Neeky McDeez]

One question:

The sweet spot for the serve, I read that has a value Y=1,2 on average...Is actually 1,2 or -1,2....1,2 means that it's behind the baseline which is not so realistic I think

I'm asking because in McDeez's biped V.2, the sphere is actually -1,2 so in front of the baseline

Oh, my bad, if so. Manutoo wrote "+1,2", I read it too fast and forgot the minus...
and yeah, it makes the serve behind the baseline, but if you notice on some TE videos with serves, there is a little bump at hit point wich makes the player moves forward, so the ball is actually hit in front of the baseline.
I'll modify the biped with the right serve sweet spot ASAP.

[Lucian86]

I hope Manutoo made a mistake...it would be a little bit difficult to make animations with the hitting point behind the baseline since almost every player nowadays hits the ball way inside the court.

Another question

I currently working on Murray's serve. In the servewaiting animation, how come between two frames exactly the same (so with the same position of every element of the biped), the body is still moving a little bit (not much but enough to make it unpleasant). I controlled every element of the biped (the hand and footfingers as well) and there's no assigned animation in between..somehow it's still moving a little bit....that's for one range...in other frames with the same situation the body is not moving instead

[manutoo]

Ooooops, I checked all serves and I actually didn't standardized the hit spot depth, and even the height & width are changing a bit...
So for the serves, better to follow these extended ranges :
x = 0 ; 1.5
y = 0.0 ; -2.5
z = 28.5 ; 29.5
with the prefect goal being :
x = 0.5
y = -0.15
z = 29

I'll try to update my serves as well to be closer of that..!
In real, I guess the players might be hitting in the range [-0.2 ; -0.4] on Y, but it'd require too much change on the current serves to reach that...

BTW, a note on the serve : the game engine makes the server advances forward after the hit occurs (more or less depending of the ball speed), so it should not have any forward movement after the frame where the hit occurs.


Lucian86,
it's coz Max creates a curve to smooth the animation.
You can control that in : Motion -> Key Info -> TCB . There, put Bias at 0 for the key at start of the static time, and Bias at 50 for the key at end of the static time.

[Lucian86]

Lucian86,
it's coz Max creates a curve to smooth the animation.
You can control that in : Motion -> Key Info -> TCB . There, put Bias at 0 for the key at start of the static time, and Bias at 50 for the key at end of the static time.

Thanks Manutoo for the suggestion...I've done that but the problem still persists...actually nothing happens..maybe I did something wrong..I don't know