Emote and how they work?

[kenny2060]

Emote: Make characters exclaim... and change facial/body expressions.

So my question is how? Scared and surprised work fairly easily and regularly, but as all for the rest?

For example, if you issue a Combat:Passout why are the characters eyes still remaining open, yet in the Orginal Story, I've seen them closed? I've tried to adding Emote:ClosedEyes but had no luck. So what is the trick (or tricks) I'm missing.

Is it a combination of Emote, Social, Mood, Romance, TrustLevel?

Cheers!

[kenny2060]

Either this is a dumb question or it can't be done in HPCS, only in the game engine?

Why do I feel like I'm answering my own question in this "House Party Custom Story Creator Help" forum....

[ttant]

There is not so much people that can actually answer that properly. And for some of them, this is holidays time.., So unless you want dumb answer like mine, you might have to wait longer for a proper response

Maybe peter980 or erasmus can answer that, but if they didn't, they might don't know the answer yet.

[kenny2060]

Thank you ttant,

I was being rather impatient. Only because I've been going over and over all the Dialogues, EventTriggers, Console... I'm sure that even if it's not an available Function at the moment, I'm sure it will be soon.

PS: It wasn't a dumb answer, just took a dumb question...

[peter980]

My advice is to experiment in debug console.

Both in original story as well as in custom stories.

In fact, there is possibility that behavior is not the same since custom stories disable voice overs and may differ in some other way (for example girls have sealed lips during intimacy in custom stories).

Some emotes change facial expressions, some add voiced expressions and some are on/off switches (close eyes, etc...). Note that state of emotions do not carry into saves.

Additionaly, some emotes affect hidden "mood" stat (can be sen with value command in console), that affect character AI behavior. For example characters with negative mood will not dance.

[kenny2060]

Thank you peter980,

From all that I've read so far, both yourself and erasmus seem to be the resident experts.

Ah, yes I could look from the changes within the states(Emote, Social and the ever illusive Mood) and Values(which are enabled) during those Dialogue sequences.

Good to note about not being carried into saves. Something to watch for in the future.

I've seen some of the changes the Emotes cause. I find the best trigger is within the Character[OnStart Dialog]/[OnClose Dialogue]. Plus you can add or subtract some Social values as your chosen Character is talking to you. For example, adding a Happy, Sad...etc to a string of dialogue. Slowing building the emotion/ emotions? as the conversation naturally matures. With each and every play response... and watch the Mood value change with different combinations of the aforementioned variables.

All of which... still means I can't close any Characters eyes... their eyes just constantly follow you... freaky

[eekdon]

Some of the emotes won't work very well at this moment. The ones that are not persistent like happy, sad, ecstatic, surprised, etc. will work well. ClosedEyes and a few others are persistent (meaning they use a lock to keep the emote blendshape at a set value) and/or tied to backend behaviors/code, and sometimes when we make animation, model, or code changes, those sometimes get wonky.

As of now I actually have "ClosedEyes", "EyebrowsUp", "EyebrowsIn", and "PuckeredLips" commented out in the command console code specifically because they aren't playing nice right now. So avoid those.

Also bear in mind that other social/interaction animations can cause emotes to cut short.

[kenny2060]

Thank you Erasmus,

I understand a little better now. Indeed, the not persistent emote are quite profound in HPCS, as only being a few at this time, you run the risk of overusing them within the story dialogue. Hence, a repetitive sigh or laugh. I wait with eager anticipation for when more become available.

As for the emote blandshape is that specific to each character model or do you have a library of stock animation? All I can see from the console is a reference to blendshapes being enabled. I ask only because would it be possible to express an emote by having access to the model's values for setting poses or morphs i.e 'smile', 'frown', 'arrogant', 'mean'...etc. by using a percentage? Maybe even use a combination of these presets?

Good note about emotes cutting animations, it certainly is a case of "less is more"!

[eekdon]

Thank you Erasmus,

I understand a little better now. Indeed, the not persistent emote are quite profound in HPCS, as only being a few at this time, you run the risk of overusing them within the story dialogue. Hence, a repetitive sigh or laugh. I wait with eager anticipation for when more become available.

As for the emote blandshape is that specific to each character model or do you have a library of stock animation? All I can see from the console is a reference to blendshapes being enabled. I ask only because would it be possible to express an emote by having access to the model's values for setting poses or morphs i.e 'smile', 'frown', 'arrogant', 'mean'...etc. by using a percentage? Maybe even use a combination of these presets?

Good note about emotes cutting animations, it certainly is a case of "less is more"!

Accessing certain blendshapes and modifying them via percentage values is exactly how we come to some of the animations that occur in-game. We hard code certain amounts to be "happy" or "sad", etc. Not sure at what point, if any, we'd release further editing of these through the story creator, but in time, who knows!

[kenny2060]

I see, so I'm kinda starting to understand more about the architecture of the actual game engine versus HPCSC. Whilst it is still in its infancy, protecting the core elements of the product is paramount. Letting us 'modders' (or what you will...) have limited access or restricted rights to creating content is wonderful and will hopefully grow into a budding community.

That being said, I really don't see many users generating content out there right now. Again the HPCSC, as is (0.8.0), really suffers from a lack of variety and with the characters abilities to invoke little or no visual emotional responses, really make the whole custom story feel flat, rigid and linear. Nothing like the Orginal Story.

Is user-created content (models, characters, clothing, items, even.... scenery or level design) Something you possibly hinted at... going to be a thing? Is it within the scope of your objectives for House Party, to let users really get stuck into it with wonderfully diverse and possibly the most bizarre and hilarious concepts?