4.14 - DI-Guy Integration

VR-Forces has built-in support for DI-Guy models.

It publishes DI-Guy animations and appearances, which 3D visualization applications such as the VR-Forces front-end and VR-Vantage Stealth can use to control lifeform models. The DI-Guy representation of the entity is stored in its state repository in the container class DtRwDIGuyCharacterInfo. This holds DI-Character, the current appearance, and the animation of the entity.

The DtDiGuyController class handles changes to the DI-Guy representation of the character and keeps the DI-Guy animation the entity is currently performing synchronized with the actual simulation of the entity. It responds to the Set DI-Guy Appearance set data request and updates the DI-Guy appearance in the entity's state repository. It responds to any DI-Guy Animation tasks and updates the entity's DI-Guy animation.

It maintains the synchronization between the DI-Guy animation that is being performed visually and where the enity is in the simulation by reading the data file, character_digest.xml. This file is produced by the DI-Guy application. It lists:

• The appearances available to DI-Guy characters
• The animations available
• For each animation, it specifies:
  • The time it takes to perform one cycle of the animation.
  • the distance it covers.
  • Posture changes it makes.
  • Any directional changes it makes.

The ./appData/settings/vrfSim/character_animations_table.mtl configuration file clarifies and sorts the information coming from ./appData/settings/vrfSim/character_digest.xml. You can edit this file to set a user-friendly display name for the animation and determine which animations are taskable and which are intrinsic.

Note

If you set an animation to intrinsic that is not intrinsic in the original character_animations_table.mtl file, you must extend the DtDIGuyController to handle that animation. This is because VR-Forces has to know how to synchronize the animation with the entity.

The DtDiGuyCharacterDataMgr class reads the configuration files when VR-Forces starts. It holds a list of DtDiGuyCharacterData containers that represent a list of all of the available DI-Guy characters in VR-Forces. Each DtDiGuyCharacterData container holds all the information about a particular DI-Guy character: the character type, all its possible appearances, all its available taskable animations and all its available intrisic animations.

When an entity is not doing a tasked animation, the DtDIGuyController uses the entity's current posture, speed, and weapon state to determine the best default intrinsic animation. For example if an entity is in a prone position and moving toward a waypoint, the controller queries the available intrinsic animations in the character data for an animation that is in a prone position and has a speed close to the speed of the entity. If the entity has no prone animations than it gives up and the entity finds the closest animation for its default posture.

By default, character_animations.mtl and character_digest.xml are in ./appData/settings/vrfSim. You can specify a different location in vrfSim.mtl file.

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