In this first section of this Blender 2.5 Video Tutorial, I cover the creation of a game-friendly model (i.e. low-polygon), texturing, rigging, animating, and bringing it into the game engine with basic forward and back controls, as well as turning left and right, and running.
The first 8 minutes of the video is a time lapse video of me modeling and rigging a quick low poly character. With this series we wanted to focus a bit more on the game engine.











Please help when I put my character in the game logic and give him the command to walk the hair and the eyes are the only things moving, none of the body mesh is moving with the armature I tried what you did in the video but still nothing,
what should I do?
Please help
Owain
Hi Owain,
Does your character mesh have an armature modifier assigned to it with the rig set as the object in the modifier settings?
it did but then i removed it
I finally solved it for 2.66.
A combination of 2 things fixed it.
1. Sensor needs to be: keyboard:-up arrow:-invert, for static
2. Actuator needs to be set at: Static priority 1 and Walk Cycle priority 2
I think I found another way for the static: use the “Always” sensor, but also activate the “Activate TRUE level triggering (pulse mode)”, that is the weird three quotes button right underneath and left to the “Freq” slider; and also set “Freq” to 1.
This worked for me in 2.66.
i have also changed the rig settings to armature
but it still wont work only the eyes and hair move but their settings are bones?
Great job with this tutorial! Lots of info and well explained. You guys make such a great product and I really feel like I’m getting my money’s worth. One request: Is there anyway to make this a downloadable tutorial like some of the others available for Citizens? I don’t have the most reliable connection and I’m frequently stopping, starting and rewinding while I watch these. It’s just easier to do that on a local copy. Again, great work!
You should already be able to download by clicking “Download Source Files.” You just have to be logged into your Citizen account.
I thought that was just the files for following along. I didn’t realize that they included the videos themselves. Thanks for the clarification! Keep up the great work.
Hey, when I press P, he does his static, but when I press up, HE FREEZES!!! helphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelphelp!!!!!!
After i did johns basic rigging tut i did a walk cycle on my char then came here to see how to set up the logic and different animations into the game engine. there is something cool about seeing something i made in 3d walking around on the screen and even having a basic static animation, even though i have no environment and the animations are a little stiff it still rocks. thanks man
I have one question though on johns rig the arms are ik and it seemed a little tough to get the arms right on the walk cycle(just looks a little stiff on the front swing) is it better to turn off the ik for doing certain animations?
Thanks for these tuts im gonna have to go over all 3 when i get a chance.
cya
ps I have one more question actually luckily when i made my walk cycle i saved it as its own file and its all good but i tried to make a static by pushing the + sign and a new action but when i saved that new file it for some reason deletes the walk cycle then only the static is there. in my original i had auto record on and somehow have 2 other actions that are worthless but i dont want to mess up the walk cycle i have going.
So basically how do i make more actions and save it so it wont delete new ones. and how do i safely delet the 2 actions that are on my walk cycle file without losing the walk cycle. thanks i know its noob questions but hey i gotta learn somehow.
Next to the + button is an F button. That stands for “Fake User”, and Blender should save it even if it’s not currently assigned to anything. You see it a lot of places, like with colors I mean materials.
I trust you’ve figured out how to clean up Actions; just go through slowly and see what’s making stuff happen, and deleting the keyframes you don’t want.
my mesh dont follow the animation of rig when i start the game and press the up arrow what should i do?
no need for answer my problem solved.;D
how ?
hooowww ???? i have the same problem the animation works fine but in the game logic don’t want
I have a problem, I already deleted the armature modifier and parented my mesh to its armature, the mesh moves as normal in the actions but in-game it doesn’t, I’m sure the armature is moving because when I parent it to a single bone the mesh moves
I tried the bit with the game logic, set up two “cycles” one for walking, one for standing. Then i connected the “always” sensor to the “standing” cycle and a keyboard sensor to the “walking” cycle. But whenever i press p, the charakter plays the “stand” cycle. But when i press the up button, it freezes.
What do i do now?
can i not do this tutorial without downloading source files?
The source files are bundled with the video file. The source files are pretty small, though.
Hey I´m doing something similar but I have one small problem. I have made a run animation and an animation for the static pose however when I put everything into the logic bricks one of two things happens : one the character moves but only the static animation is playing or if I change the priority settings, he wont jump back to the static animation. Please help !
The Always sensor seems to work differently than in this tutorial. Following the instructions, the Static pose works until I press the Up Arrow. Then the walk-cycle plays once, then freezes. If I replace the Always sensor with a Down Arrow, it works fine (except I have to hold the Down Arrow in order to be Static, and both actions stop if I press the Up Arrow and the Down Arrow at the same time).
Clearly something has changed from the build David was using, ’cause it works for him!
This is because your priorities need to be set accordingly
-Alex
Thanks, Alex, but, as I said, I followed the tutorial, and David made this clear. Also, there are only two Sensors being used, and it’s much easier to switch them around than it is to log into Blender Cookie. So, yes, I’ve tried that.
In the video, the first possible Sensor in David’s version of Blender is Always. In my version, the first choice is Actuator. So I’m sure I’m using a different version than David, and I’m awfully sure that they’re working differently.
When searching various forums for an answer to this, I came across people saying that the “state” or “tics” or something has been changed in newer Blender versions, but I don’t even understand this! Clearly, I’m a hobbyist and not a professional!
Again, Alex, thank you for taking a stab at this.
@Alex, reading yet another forum, I now see what you mean by “priority”. I thought you meant which Sensor was on top, but now I see you mean in the Actuator. But, no, still no success.
I’m giving up.
Always and actuator are very different logic bricks, if you upload your blend to pasteall.org or send it through to [email protected] I’ll take a look at what’s going wrong.
And yes priorities determine how actions are played rather than the order they are placed.
-Alex
Thank you, Alex, for responding to this! I’ve sent a blend file to the support address.
I realize that Always and Actuator are different types of Sensors. I was pointing out that when this video was made, Actuator wasn’t even a type of sensor; therefore, many changes have been made to the BGE since David made this video.
Tom
Please I am needing a lot of help I am busy making my own game and I have a bit of a deadline I am using some of david wards videos and one of them is the “how to make a simple character part 1 ” I am battling with this because when I try linking the “W-key” to the animation in logic editor and when I hit p nothing happens and I have tried making other rigs and remaking my one now and none of them seem to want to link it of you have any advice please help me!!!!
I’m having a problem with the static and walking animation. when I press p to activate the game mode, the static animation plays but as soon as I press up,the model stops moving. I’m using blender 2.65
I’m having the same problem, I think, but just to be clear, the model still “moves around” the screen, but without a walk-cycle, right? Anyway, that’s my situation.
This sounds like an issue with the priorities on the action brick, On my netbook at the moment so can’t look into it further but try adjusting the priorities to see if it fixes the problem.
-Alex
Is there a way to download the source files without the video? I just want the .blend without the huge video file.
Not currently sorry.
-Alex
hooowww ???? i have the same problem the animation works fine but in the game logic don’t want to work :/ help please
I downloaded the source file, but the character doesn’t have any animation cycles (walking or otherwise) while playing in the game engine. Is the source file compatible with Blender 2.65? (same as Tom’s comment above)
This sounds like an issue with the priorities on the action brick, On my netbook at the moment so can’t look into it further but try adjusting the priorities to see if it fixes the problem.
-Alex
Ok I’ve done the tutorial with the little alien dude the one by david ward, now I’ve created my own character and riged it and made the walk cycle but for some reason when I push”p” the game engine starts but the charachers walk cycle doesn’t want to start it is done exactly how he did it and I have done it before a few times but for somereason it doesn’t want to work please help!!!!
I found this example .blend file online and it works great. I imported it as a scene and copied bit by bit to my scene. Finally everything works! http://www.mediafire.com/?64fhjc2tf0thp5f
It’s a very simple scene with a rigged character and logic controls. it makes it simple to figure out what might be going wrong with your setup.
This file confirms that it is broken .
This file won’t play the static animation either.
how i make the head go yellow and the legs green the edges of my character stick.Help!!
select the faces in edit mode and add a new material and click assign to have multiple materials per object.
-Alex
actually if you are talking about the rig, yellow is IK constraint and green was a lock constraint I believe
-Alex
Thanks alex. will this stop the edges from sticking?
i have now blender 2.65. I follow your directive but when I press the key for walk (me it’s w) my character stop the static pose and strike the pose and do not start the walk sycle i look your tuto 4 time but i dont know why he do this can u help me plz!!!
I want to make it a sidestep motion instead of turning. How?.
in the animation view make a new animation of your character sidesteping in set it up the same way as a walk cycle
Just wondering were i can find the alien video.
Can you link me to it?
here is the link
http://cgcookie.com/blender/2010/01/04/rigging-an-alien/
its so perfect i had learn so much to make a game like that
So I’m using Blender 2.66 and whenever I press P to start the game, my character disappears. Is this due to the update?
this is not due to the update. I use 2.66 as well. What you can do to try and fix this is in the physics settings check wether you have invisible turned on.
He wont do his static pose! Why not!!??
I’m using 2.66
-noah
This could be because of constraints deforming the pose
Stop replying to people because you are clueless.
Considering Alex’s extensive experience across many different applications, and many fields I can say for sure that he most definitely is not clueless. His recent hiring at Weta Digital would also suggest he knows what he’s talking about. Just saying.
Hello when i go into game logic and set up walk action using keyboard it works but when i add a always action for static when i press walk it doesnt work then help anyone
hei galera voces sabem como fazer para um personagem andar e atirar ao memso tempo na mesma armature por que quando eu faço e executo uma animação a outra para!! tem como ajudar?
Hi folks,
I had the same problems with the static animation using 2.66 After some trials and errors
I figured out a solution. You have to tweak the priorities. I use the following set up:
walk priority: 2
run priority: 1
static priority: 3
happy blender
You need to flag this as broken in 2.66.
People will waste hours of their life for NOTHING!
With well over 300 tutorials for Blender along we cannot constantly go back and check for broken parts with each new release. That would be asinine. We are happy to fix things as they are brought to our attention but please keep a level head and some manner of politeness. Being polite gives us a lot more incentive to fix things than rudely accusing us of wasting your time.
Cheers,
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan, please don’t vex. He’s angry because he couldnt get it to work but is not all of us. I personally appreciate you guys for doing tutorials for free (even though you have most for citizen users), i mean with all the work that goes into making tutorials. I tried making tutorials for Photoshop and i quited after 3 videos. But you guys make lengthy videos just b’cos you want to teach (even though i dont like timelapse videos), overall i think the least i could do is to say thanks to you all.
Can I skip the texturing and proceed to rigging and animation then after the game is finished I go with adding more details and texturing?
Of course! It won’t cause any major problems. You might find a little texture stretching but it should be too big of a deal. You can go back and texture at any point for this kind of project.
If you are having problems with the exemple file in a recent version of blender (2.67 here), I got it to work simply like this :
- select the mesh, go to the modifiers, and put the armature in first position (it comes after the subsurf by default) – do not delete it when the video ask you to !
- in the logic editor, set the armature actuators priority so that the static pose priority is higher than the run/walk.