Complete replacement of the animation & model system

[Odey555]

I was looking into modding the other day, specifically on adding and creating custom models and animations or editing existing animations. Found out rather quickly why it is that the animations in the game are all pretty terrible and stiff-looking, the Vintage Model Creator makes it especially hard to make animations, and it feels more akin to something that would've been used back in 1998. Using rigged meshes should've been implemented forever ago instead of whatever this is. 

My suggestion is to completely replace the current model and animation system to support custom meshes with bones for animation via Blockbench or Blender. Having full compatibility with these programs would go a long way in making the game better, and making the modding experience less of a pain. I know this would likely be a big task, but it'll be well worth it. 

A very good example of this compatibility is Hytale, they have native compat with Blockbench through a plugin and that makes modeling and animating less of a hassle, since Blockbench itself is already a very good well-rounded program with modeling, texturing, and animation tools built-in. Let's be objective here, the current system and program makes it a massive pain and is very unintuitive. 

I'll even volunteer to remake all animations from scratch using these programs if implemented (shameless plug). 

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the game and forums!

44 minutes ago, Odey555 said:

My suggestion is to completely replace the current model and animation system to support custom meshes with bones for animation via Blockbench or Blender. Having full compatibility with these programs would go a long way in making the game better, and making the modding experience less of a pain. I know this would likely be a big task, but it'll be well worth it. 

Keeping in mind that replacing entire systems like this is a massive amount of work, since it likely means redoing almost every animation and model in the entire game. And time and resources spent reworking this specific system is time and resources that isn't being used to development other areas of the game...areas that may be more lacking. It's not that animations and models aren't important, however, they are primarily cosmetic, and not exactly a priority when there are still entire systems of gameplay missing or otherwise unfinished. Blockbench and Blender are also third-party software, so while they might be useful programs there's also the risk that the TOS for those programs could change, and not in a good way. To my knowledge, the VS Model Creator is software owned by Anego Studios, so one distinct advantage of using it is that the devs can tune it for their exact purposes and don't need to worry about fees or TOS changes when using it.

It's also worth noting that many models and animations currently in the game are simply placeholders until the devs have time to add more polish to those things, and many have already been polished compared to what they used to be in previous game versions.

In any case, as convenient as this kind of rework might be for some, I don't think it's worth it. It pulls too much time and resources away from developing more critical aspects of the game, and relying too heavily on third-party software can be rather risky.

[Odey555]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Blockbench and Blender are also third-party software, so while they might be useful programs there's also the risk that the TOS for those programs could change, and not in a good way. To my knowledge, the VS Model Creator is software owned by Anego Studios, so one distinct advantage of using it is that the devs can tune it for their exact purposes and don't need to worry about fees or TOS changes when using it.

Both programs are open source and free which means you can use anything made within them for commercial work

Blockbench has this written out in their FAQ: https://www.blockbench.net/wiki/blockbench/faq#can-i-use-blockbench-models-in-my-commercial-project

So does Blender: https://www.blender.org/about/

So I don't think licensing is a valid argument against these outstanding tools. Point being even if Anego keeps tweaking and slowly improving their editor, adding compatibility with industry standard programs such as those two would still be the best long-term solution. At bare minimum adding GLTF compatibility, which is also open-source and royalty free and allows for bones and good animation (used by Godot, Unreal, Unity, etc) and seems to be the replacement of FBX. As someone who's also involved in gamedev I definitely wouldn't be making this suggestion if I didn't think it were necessary to improve both the user experience and the development workflow, everyone wins in the end and the time investment would be well worth it  

[LadyWYT]

They may be free for now, but things do change. Software can change hands, or go under entirely. I'm not saying that would happen, of course, or that Blockbench and Blender are bad programs. But it's not a risk I would rule out entirely either.

Ultimately, I'm not sure that it's very wise to change direction and invest that many resources into a change that isn't really necessary, especially since that kind of decision can easily set back a project, if not break it. However, for those who really want to use Blockbench for Vintage Story modding, there's already a plugin for it: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/19838

[Rainbow Fresh]

Granted, if the approach to modeling and animation in the game was to be changed - not just a core mechanic but a fundamental part of the core foundation the game runs on - it would make sense to rework that sooner than later. Considering the longer you wait, the more models and animations already exist for the game and as such the more needs to be redone in a single go to update to the new system. And speaking from experience, it's usually not the actual code writing programmers missing in a development project. It's the people making all the assets. Just look at how many devstreams there have been just for the upcoming horses; I'm sure actually implementing them is a far faster feat.

That said however, I also do think that this game is lacking a fair bit more important things than reworking the entire modeling engine from the ground up. If nothing else, let's atleast please - please - just fix all the game-breaking bugs still around that for some reason are currently giving the impression to have been postponed to 1.23 after all; another major update that is sure as tropical rain to cause a plethora of new bugs.

[Facethief]

I’m almost 100% sure that the project glint team made a blockbench plugin. That’s probably as close to official as possible.

EDIT: it’s the GitHub link on the mod page @LadyWYT linked to.

Edited 4 minutes ago by Facethief
Adding additional information