equipable horse tack and armour - possible?

[saregona]

would this be possible? i am looking to implement wearable horse armours as a mod, and was wondering if the largely unused food slot could be used for the purpose of equiping armour and tack on the horse much like the armour equiping slots on the player character?

dabbled around with the module system for warband for a little while, was promptly overwhelmed, so i thought i'd straight out ask instead.

also if anyone has any possible ideas about how i could implement equipable armour on horses, your creative input would be much appreciated.

 

[GetAssista]

I would do different horse items and change them on the fly as you "apply armor" in some menu choice. Because you would still need to show armor on the battlefield and there is not other way than to change horse model and hence item type.
Yes, that would require X*Y different horsies, but the range can be lessened a bit by restricting some armors types for some horses - not all of the beasts are fit for heavier armor

Edit: would be so much easier with heraldry working for horses, but  AFAIK WB does not have it yet

 

[saregona]

i did think of having it switch on the fly, but what i really wanted to do was have the additional slot, like the player character does for armour, and like the player character have the armour appear 'on top of' the existing horse mesh, much like with the human characters that consist of a bunch of parts that are laid over eachother (armour, shoes, hands and head or w/e)

i came to the conclusion that this would cause a problem with excessive polys if i were to do this with all troops as well, but i decided i could easily make some alt horse meshes that have their hidden geometry removed to save on polys for using with the troops. that way only the player characters mount is being a poly hog.

also, havok ragdoll physics controlling the movement of the mane and tail of the horse, possible or not? i have given my meshes brand new alpha mapped fancy manes and tails and its a shame to see them all staticly animated like the native horses. fancy mane doesnt really have much of a point if its just sitting there.

discuss.

 

[havoc]

A tad off topic - This reminds me, you promised me a custom horse.

 

[saregona]

A tad off topic - This reminds me, you promised me a custom horse.

lol, remind me what you wanted?

 

[GetAssista]

and like the player character have the armour appear 'on top of' the existing horse mesh,

Impossible. You can only switch for a different horse item. Which will have its model = body mesh + armor mesh. But it still requires different item

also, havok ragdoll physics controlling the movement of the mane and tail of the horse, possible or not? i have given my meshes brand new alpha mapped fancy manes and tails and its a shame to see them all staticly animated like the native horses. fancy mane doesnt really have much of a point if its just sitting there.

Dunno about havoc applicable to living things. But its possible to make tail and mane a bit more lively.
1) shift tail rigging weight from single tail bone to some more bones. Including small weights for leg bones will help it jiggle
2) distribute rigging weight for mane vertices
A lot of trial and error here with rigging weights on different bones, since you really can't change skeleton (impossible) or animations (hell of a lot work) to make rigging behave exactly as you want.

 

[saregona]

okay, how would i go about switching it with another item? i've not considered doing anything like this yet so i will need it explained to me like a child 

would this mean for each colour horse i have (i have about 60 unique colours, which probably needs a cull tbh), and each different build/breed in that colour (i have 4 different builds/breeds in mind to replace the 9? in warband; light, average, medium and heavy), i would have to have a "set" for each of them that has a bareback version, a saddled version for each different saddle (there's 5; peasant, scout, archer, noble, and war) and then each different armour (5 again; cloth skirt, mail skirt, leather barding, lamellar and half plate with mail)... so.. ~60 x 4 x 11 =  2640 different meshes at max. even if the light breed of horse was not allowed to use the mail skirting and half plate or whatever, that doesnt really cut it down much.

not feasible.

please explain how this could be possible, because im starting to doubt i can actually do it on the scale i want.

 

[Snutze]

damn what your working on seems awesome but well for right now I guess you woudl have to cut il a little liek ad multiple restriction / combo possibility  basicly I suggest you start doign lets sya your 5 type of armors  and different breeds  but then you would have to make specific horse ... the problem being that horse is 1 object with all piece that makes it its not multiple objects .... but still even IF you only did 10 20 mix version im pretty sure your work would be awesome :p

 

[havoc]

A tad off topic - This reminds me, you promised me a custom horse.

lol, remind me what you wanted?

I ah, can't remember.

 

[GetAssista]

please explain how this could be possible, because im starting to doubt i can actually do it on the scale i want.

Start with making armor for 1 horse and get some knowledge about rigging. If OpenBrf autorigging function happen to be not enough, search the forum. When you manage to rig modified mesh (horse + armor) successfully to a horse skeleton and see it in game, come back for more hints.

There is an easier way, if you are more interested in gameplay mechanics, not 3d models. Take vanilla hunter and warhorse and assume latter is armored former. You would eother
1.1) need to study code for inventory presentation and learn how to do a slot for horse armor so that everything looks beautiful or
1.2) just do quick and dirty camp menu option to apply armor
both of those will change some global variable $horse_armor_on to 1 or 0
2) before each mission check what's the value of the var and replace a horse in players horse slot to warhorse or to hunter correspondingly

Oh, and cut back scale dramatically (less horses and variations)
Oh, and bring back your old avatar

 

[saregona]

Start with making armor for 1 horse and get some knowledge about rigging. If OpenBrf autorigging function happen to be not enough, search the forum. When you manage to rig modified mesh (horse + armor) successfully to a horse skeleton and see it in game, come back for more hints.

I have done this already, as well as altering the horse skeleton to have a longer back and the neck held lower so that the horse stands properly. and have added it into the game, in fact i ride around on them in single player (minus any saddles etc). this is not the problem for me, this bit is easy 

would like to know how i could manually adjust the vertex weights though, so that the tail stops sticking to the back of the legs...

1.1) need to study code for inventory presentation and learn how to do a slot for horse armor so that everything looks beautiful or
1.2) just do quick and dirty camp menu option to apply armor
both of those will change some global variable $horse_armor_on to 1 or 0
2) before each mission check what's the value of the var and replace a horse in players horse slot to warhorse or to hunter correspondingly

sounds like ill have to do this as a compromise. would prefer option 1.1 obviously, but seeing as i'm completely unsure of how i'd do any of those things, i guess i'm stuck doing it whatever way you're willing to explain. with the about options is would it be possible to change the armours on your horse between a few that you have bought? for example if the player buys a medium build horse, i want them to be able to switch between say a set of armour and a set of tack, the armour for when they want a charger type mount, the saddle set for when they're after more speed like as a hunter.

one also has to wonder how the tack and armour is going to be bought. is it possible to add sub menus to the interactions with the horse merchants? so upon talking to him/her you could be prompted with the option to buy a steed or buy equipment for said steed?

Oh, and cut back scale dramatically (less horses and variations)
Oh, and bring back your old avatar

can easily cut back scale on the horse colours, but seems a shame to see them all go to waste like that. might keep just a bunch of common colours (browns, bays, chestnuts, buckskin, greys) with a few easter egg type rare colours (palomino, creme, paint horses, appaloosa dun and grulla) with low very low abundance.

also, my old avatar is silleh

 

[GetAssista]

I have done this already...

... i've not considered doing anything like this yet so i will need it explained to me like a child 

Great contradiction here I sense. Need child explanations you really not 

would like to know how i could manually adjust the vertex weights though, so that the tail stops sticking to the back of the legs...

Dunno. 3d editors should have it, 3DMAX for sure. Prolly somebody will come up later with cheaper alternative.

i guess i'm stuck doing it whatever way you're willing to explain.

First you need to devise a way to link different horses, so that you can get from every horse what's it armored /tacked variant item is. Ordinary item slots containing "itm_..." references to relevant horse items will be just fine for this, defined at the gamestart. Oh, and merchants should have only unarmored varieties of horses, and your char will be able to buy only unarmored ones. The system will substitute those with armored on battlefield if armor is applied.

Then you would have a camp menu option to apply/remove armor, which would set global var.
Then you would have an entry in mission templates, that will check your equipped horse, check global var and replace your horse with armored variety, taking a reference to armored variety item from initial horse item slot.

I'll write more later...

one also has to wonder how the tack and armour is going to be bought

Least of worries. Several new items going as food (to fit into a slot), and a few lines of code to allow horse merchants restock this "food"

can easily cut back scale on the horse colours, but seems a shame to see them all go to waste like that.

Just remember that +1 color implies +X horse mesh variations and hence items. And MB has 915 item limit hardcoded, dunno about Warband.

 

[saregona]

I have done this already...

... i've not considered doing anything like this yet so i will need it explained to me like a child 

Great contradiction here I sense. Need child explanations you really not 

haha, i meant im a noob coding wise, not mesh and rigging wise.

Dunno. 3d editors should have it, 3DMAX for sure. Prolly somebody will come up later with cheaper alternative.

hmm, i shall play with it in 3Dsmax then, but whenever i try and export an SMD from there it doesnt seem to work. probably some stupid mistake on my part though.

I'll write more later...

will gladly wait for more help from you, meanwhile i'll get to simplifying my idea.. and culling those pretty horse colours

 

[Snutze]

would you midn showing some of your work >< im curious really !!