Question about Random Face Animations...

[RobertGraham]

I have a simple question. Is there a way to make a Marine or anyone for that matter to make different facial expressions? Like when a Marine gets shot, they make a face of pain, and when a plasma grenade, they make a surprised look? This would be good for Campaigns and Machinima

[Choking Victim]

Halo 2 uses an "emotions" animation, it's just an overlay animation with different facial expression which the engine interpolates between in game. Halo 1 has a slot for the emotions animation, but I haven't tested if it's actually a used function in the retail build of the game. Even so, the halo 1 bipeds don't have enough facial bones to make any sort of complex facial animations.

[RobertGraham]

So.. thats a no right?

[Choking Victim]

So.. thats a no right?

That's a maybe.

[p0lar_bear]

I know emotions are used in cutscenes; look at Cortana and Keyes in the opening cinematics. However, like Choking said, the stock bipeds don't have their faces rigged for facial animations past the mouth moving. Moreover, I never actually looked into this kind of thing, so I don't know if it's possible to tie an emotion to an action or whatever.

[Choking Victim]

I know emotions are used in cutscenes; look at Cortana and Keyes in the opening cinematics. However, like Choking said, the stock bipeds don't have their faces rigged for facial animations past the mouth moving. Moreover, I never actually looked into this kind of thing, so I don't know if it's possible to tie an emotion to an action or whatever.

Those particular emotions are part of the actual cutscene animation, they aren't dynamic, which is what he's asking for. I'd imagine the emotions animation has a hard coded order, since it's an overlay animation. For example: frame 0 = default, frame 1 = smile animation, frame 2 = frown animation, and so on. The engine would probably match these animations to specific actions/events just as it does with dialog. I can't figure out the order for halo 1 tags if it's even used, since I haven't seen any bipeds that use it.

[RobertGraham]

This would be nice for machinima, because I would also like to add voice for things like if a team mate shoots his partner, the AI will say "What the hell is wrong with you?!" like when you kill another marine, and he will make an Angry/Questionable face. Though, I need voices, lol.

[Rob Oplawar]

This is relevant to my interests.

If nobody else has it figured out already, I will be experimenting with this at some point for BCE. Hopefully we'll add a facial expressions notch to our collective community belt soon.

[p0lar_bear]

Those particular emotions are part of the actual cutscene animation, they aren't dynamic, which is what he's asking for. I'd imagine the emotions animation has a hard coded order, since it's an overlay animation. For example: frame 0 = default, frame 1 = smile animation, frame 2 = frown animation, and so on. The engine would probably match these animations to specific actions/events just as it does with dialog. I can't figure out the order for halo 1 tags if it's even used, since I haven't seen any bipeds that use it.

There's two script functions I noticed a while ago:

(unit_set_emotion <unit> <short>)

and

(unit_set_emotion_animation <unit> <string>)

So the sequence I don't think is hardcoded; you could have one unit have indifferent, happy, angry set to frames 0 1 and 2, and on another one you could mix it up, though that would be a bad idea.

[Hunter]

If it is in cut scenes I am use it is porssible. We can do more or less everything else bungie did in Halo CE.