SF's Hammer Tutorials - NPC Animations

Learn how to use a scripted_sequence to make a combine kick in a door.
Rundown:
We create a npc_metropolice, then we get the animation we want and position a scripted_sequence at the desired location.
We make the door open faster and give it a more fitting opening sound. Then we make it open as the animation is played.
After that we finish it up by adding a trigger for the event and some info_nodes for NPC navigation.
Made by Silverfish
www.precautious...

[@cerofgmodmachinimas]

over 11 years later, and his tutorial still teaches

[@demogaming8895]

Yeah

[@real_skeleton_guy]

Yeah

[@smallwheelmeatytireconnoisseur]

Yeah

[@ZingeyTheZman]

Yeah

[@Admintheadmin6558]

Yeah

[@thesaniks7477]

I was 1 year old when this video came out, and now you teached me. Thanks a lot!

[@Silwerfish]

Wow, that's pretty cool! :D You're welcome!

[@koldproxy]

If you are referring to when you start the game, the screen fades from black to clear vision then you go to Map>Map Properties>Level Fade In>Yes. A very important section for maps, especially singleplayer ones.

[@bigballer709]

Oh that old hammer and xp UI take me back.. God how I miss the early 2000s

[@Silwerfish]

You do that by using info_node_hint nodes, these won't force an NPC to jump somewhere, but it's used by them to know that they CAN jump up or down somewhere. You can read up on info_node_hint on the valve developer wiki.

[@Silwerfish]

You'll first need to set up something like an aiscripted_schedule that tells the crow to go to a specific place that you want it to fly. Then you create a trigger_once brush volume and set it to activate your aiscripted_schedule when the player enters it.

[@Silwerfish]

Use the entity tool to create an entity who's name begins with npc_, like npc_citizen or npc_combine_s for example.

[@Silwerfish]

After making him kick down the door like in this tutorial you can give him an aiscripted_schedule that tells him to run to the player. When setting the target that he should run to, put in "!player" without the quotation marks, but with the exclamation mark. All you need to do is activate the aiscripted_schedule with an output that is fired from the scripted_sequence when it completes its animation, and that should work!

[@MooseRider]

Thanks for that! it really helped me understand how to make NPCs work in SDK. I honestly had no clue before this. Also, your accent is epic.

[@Silwerfish]

Actually, you don't want them to sync up entirely probably, but you can set an output that fires when the combine's animation starts that activates the zombie's animation. Then you just have a delay set on the output that makes the animations sync up.

[@Silwerfish]

You could do that, that would make him do nothing until you tell him to do something (kick the door in for example), but it's not necessary.

[@Silwerfish]

You can check the flag "Ignore Player +USE", or you could have the door start locked and then unlock it at the same time you open it up. I'm glad you found my tutorial useful! :)

[@Silwerfish]

That character model probably doesn't have the door kick animation, if that is the animation you're trying to use.

[@Silwerfish]

@NoSRESPAWN Thanks for reminding me, I stopped doing the download links because they where too much work compared to the amount of people who used it. I added an annotation saying that there is no download.

[@flameknight7]

nice tutorial! i have 2 request. 1. Can you make a platform moving back and forth like as an obstacle? For some reason i cant find proper tutorials on how to do that... 2. Also, Can you make a tutorial for an animated object like from a trigger or like a ragdoll flying around randomly to scare someone? making tutorials for these would be awesome! i'm planning to make a scary L4D map that has random events to frighten player :D

[@Silwerfish]

I remember having a bunch of trouble with this before. You should be able to select the sitting animation as the action animation on the scripted sequence and then set "loop action animation?" to yes. If that doesn't do it, check in the flags as well and I think you'll find some flags related to looping animations and such.

[@Silwerfish]

@GENIUSGT You made the choreography using Face Poser? Then... I really don't know how to play that since TF2 doesn't have NPCs. I've made a tutorial series on Face Poser and how to get that into the game, but I use an NPC to play the choreography. And I don't use the entity I explained in this tutorial for that, I use logic_choreographed_scene. So I'm afraid I can't help you there. :/

[@Soulslayerzx]

Wow, I watched it with volume and I finally get that the person walks to the scripted_sequence.

[@spenceriguess]

@Silwerfish oh because on the accursed farms faq it says how ross scott(civil protection)does his videos all within the source sdk so maybe he uses that i guess ill have to try it out for myself

[@Silwerfish]

@ThePoliceComedyShow Choreography isn't lip synch though. Face Poser can be used to create lip synch and choreography, but lip synch is not the same thing as choreography.

[@Silwerfish]

@liamjhackett this just plays the animation, there's no way to simply change how the animation looks, so you'll have to adjust your environment to fit the animation. You might be able to stop the animation at a good time using inputs and outputs, but that will look very bad.

[@Silwerfish]

@FoxY1233 Are you entirely sure you're mapping for HL2, HL2:Ep1 or HL2:Ep2? Those are the only games I know of where the npc_metropolice entity are available.

[@raphu604]

Thanks a lot for your reply, I tried what you told me, and everything works now... the problem is, the zombie doesn't fall to the ground form where the scripted sequence animation last stopped... it returns to the npc starting position in 1 micro second and then falls in an "unnatural" way to ground... is there a way to fix this? O_o

[@YeomanBananaman]

It didn't work. I tried it over and over, but every time I make it a scripted sequence, the NPC disapeered, when I turned it back, the sequence didn't work!

[@Lallint]

cope

[@Andrewmaster0]

Could you PLEASE make a video on getting Combine to jump down from walls?

[@Silwerfish]

@MethshockFilms He shoots because after he's done what he was told to he returns to normal AI, which includes shooting his enemies, which includes the player. To change the relationships that the player and the different NPCs have, check my tutorial called "NPC Relationships".

[@noname323]

Also there is env_global if the player is non criminal

[@mixterproductions]

omg, how could i forgot? In the Scripted sequences flags, there was an box where i said something like "corpses stay", i checked it and it worked! :D

[@raphu604]

how do I make the combine kick a zombie, and the zombie flinches and falls to the ground?

[@Silwerfish]

@BigbadProduction You should be able to use the same technique as I use here to make that happen, just select the right animation.

[@Silwerfish]

@Andrewmaster0 to learn stuff I use the interlopers,net website for tutorials, and if I can't find anything there I use Google. Though I've learned most of what I know by just experimenting.

[@Silwerfish]

@mixterproductions Well they don't do that for me and they should stay for at least a while even if you have that flag unchecked. It might be some setting you've got somewhere that overrides the fade corpses flag. I know there's a convar that can change that, but that setting might also be tied to some graphical settings, I don't know.

[@carsonfisher681]

I have a question and i hope it gets answered quickly. What do i do if i want him to kick down a door and then him to run to me? hoping for a quick reply, thanks.

[@Silwerfish]

@Link98367 You use the ambient_generic entity to create sound. If you have some experience with the input/output system you should be able to figure out how to use it. If not, send me a PM! I'll also add this as a tutorial request, thanks for the comment!

[@Andrewmaster0]

Ok:/ but can you tell me where you learned to do all this? If you know of a book or guide or website that covers all the stuff about NPC actions that would be great

[@0XSpartaX0]

Help! I tried this but the combine just stands there infront of the door doing nothing!

[@RickRay9]

Hey SF! Tja :) Umm, I've got this problem, I made an animation following the tutorial, where a citizen walks right over to a wooden bench, then I used Idle_To_Sit_Chair, but I can't get him to stay in the chair, after he sits down he just pops up standing idle. Help! BTW great tutorial :)

[@mixterproductions]

Well it did work, but the they still fade away directly when i walked into the trigger.. And i have unchecked fade corpses.

[@Nightmare10311]

CAN YOU PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO ON HOW TO MAKE "civilians" ENEMY NPC'S

[@tropicAL509]

How do you script a sequence after another? I want to make a combine rappel down and then signal to his squad.

[@Silwerfish]

@mikilofo90 Yeah it should. The thing you need to refine is just the timing of everything.

[@Silwerfish]

@pr0xincss Ah yeah, if it's too far away you'll need to put info_node entities properly so the NPCs can navigate. Good thing you fixed it!

[@Silwerfish]

Just add that scipted_sequence name in the "Next Script" property and he should walk to that scripted_sequence and do it right after he's done with his current one..

[@Silwerfish]

@HUMANCONDlTION Hi! It's actually quite simple, you need to add a env_physexplosion entity that you trigger to go off at the same time as the combine plays the animation. An env_physexplosion is like a normal explosion, but it's silent, invisible and does no damage, it just pushes stuff around. You will need to play around with timings and you might want to make the barrel start with motion disabled and enable it just before you fire the env_physexplosion and stuff like that. Hope this helps!

[@noname323]

Stop spamming!

[@Silwerfish]

@LuiDeca That should be quite easy. Just set everything up as usual to make the NPC sit. But when it comes to triggering the scripted_sequence, instead of using a trigger_once brush entity you create a point entity called logic_auto. In that entity add an output like this: OnMapSpawn name_of_your_scripted_sequence BeginSequence Hope that helps!

[@юбмаД]

I just wanted to know how to make custom animations...

[@mixterproductions]

I tried to make a trigger, so once you go in it, two metro polices a little further away will die.. But in the triggeronce i chose kill, and then they just disappeard, if i chose become ragdoll they became ragdolls but faded away directly when they it triggered. I have unchecked the box in both MP:s to fade corpses, but it isnt working :(

[@Silwerfish]

@ThomasBorn92 This program is used to make levels for games using the Source engine. Like Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Team Fortress 2 for example. Platinum Arts Sandbox is a totally different program using the Cube2 engine. You can import animations into both, but I don't think you can import animations from one of the engines to the other.

[@Silwerfish]

Thank you for the requests, they have been added to the request list. Sounds like a cool map, good luck with it! If you want stuff to move I can suggest looking for tutorials on func_tracktrain, I couldn't find a good one after a quick search on KZbin though.

[@GameReviewer1987]

Whenever I type my classname "Zombie" (No "s) it's red, and it doesn't work.

[@Silwerfish]

Yeah there are pretty many steps involved, but if you compare the effort it takes to what you get in the end, it's totally worth it! I am indeed Swedish! There can never be enough tutorials, you should make some more! ^^ Thanks for the comment!

[@Silwerfish]

@GamingIsFreaky I think there's a property in the scripted_sequence that decides whether the NPC should face the direction of the scripted_sequence. After making sure that's on, rotate your scripted_sequence to face the direction you want your NPC to face.

[@Silwerfish]

Well you can still make characters talk and interact using the stock animations in an HL2 game by using Face Poser. This is much simpler than making your own animations and gives you a lot of freedom. The thing is that you need XP for this to work properly, and I have Win7. A tutorial on Face Poser is very requested, but it might take a while for me to find a way around this.

[@Silwerfish]

@Andrewmaster0 I haven't made a Hammer tutorial in months and I don't think I'll start again soon, sorry!

[@strvare]

THANKS FOR THE TUTORIAL i haved a lot of use for that

[@Silwerfish]

@YetiSandvichVideos I'm really happy to hear you learned from my tutorial, thanks for letting me know! ♥

[@Silwerfish]

This tutorial will help you with part of that, what you need to do is sync up the combine's kick scripted_sequence with the zombie's flinch scripted_sequence (I think there are settings in the scripted_sequence entities to make them sync up). And then you need to create an output on the zombie's scripted_sequence that sets the zombie's health to 0 when his animation is over. This will kill him so he'll fall to the ground.

[@Silwerfish]

@TheCreatorOfOwls The different models have their own sets of animations, it IS possible to replace the models but it's probably pretty hard to do and you'd also probably need to make your own mod to do it.

[@Matzu-Music]

Mine wont do an animation

[@tshai]

it is in Source SDK, you can download that in Steam

[@stormstudios1]

no its not

[@816nnm]

in Hammer editor does Half life 2 episode 2 work? because the screen is black and every entity is black. And i cant open the console

[@ceres_mars8137]

for some reason when i apply the animation it applies it to all entities, any way to fix this?

[@Silwerfish]

@idonthatethissite That's not possible, unless you want to use the same scenes that can be found in the original games, those can be accessed.

[@Silwerfish]

@tylorh26 That's odd, there should be for every NPC I think.

[@TheMazarineIsReal]

how do I do a falling object animation ( A tower falling or something )

[@idonthatethissite]

How do I make a guy talk? I want the voice, moving lips and not using the faceposer...

[@BenT1no]

POV: you stuck in 2007 - 2010 and you still have to rate

[@spenceriguess]

can someone help me find a vid for making custom animations within the sdk?(no outside programs 3ds max etc. )

[@Silwerfish]

Yeah, you could use a logic_auto, but you most often use trigger_once for events (at least I do), so I thought I'd do it that way. I like your vid, thanks a lot man! :D

[@FreyShadeClan]

And how do I spawn myself in it?

[@Silwerfish]

@0XSpartaX0 Try bringing up the console and writing developer 2 in it, then start your map and when he should do the animation, read what the console says. If some error occurred it will be displayed there. Good luck!

[@Silwerfish]

Glad you think so!

[@sbplankton_1999]

I had Save map already, But then it change to npc again, What just happen

[@YetiSandvichVideos]

Thank you so much bro! I was struggling for hours. And I couldn't find a good tutorial. But then I watchedy ours twice, and now it works perfectly! You rock! :D

[@Silwerfish]

@HammerTutorialsCH To record the audio and video as well as for editing I use VirtualDub. The codecs I use are Lagarith when recording and Xvid for compressing before uploading to KZbin. VirtualDub isn't an easy program to learn, but once you know how it works its very powerful.

[@SimpleCabling.]

can i change the player models?

[@Silwerfish]

Maybe they all have the same name?

[@DomiXen_Zvaczer]

It just keeps crashing

[@FreyShadeClan]

Where do I download Hammer?

[@cdviper12]

Can anyone tell me how you make a wake up for half life 2 or the other episodes please?

[@palatence510]

I'm from Russia but also that this is a very good tutorial Yes, so like the subscription bell

[@Silwerfish]

Yes, look at my tutorial called "NPC Relationships".

[@Silwerfish]

@superdvdman That's great to hear! I'm going to try to keep creating tutorials for you guys!

[@LordYvain]

it doesn't work for me!

[@Silwerfish]

Thank you! I have added your request to the request list, much appreciated. :)

[@stevy2]

How do you make an NPC like or hate you?

[@stormstudios1]

i know im late but yes

[@ryano1267]

ok so i made a npc_citizen take cover , aim and shoot problem is he only shoots once, then he reloads as i said and leaves the animation. how do i make im shoot for a certain amount of time. i tried loop action animation but he shoots once then does nothing in crouch.

[@Silwerfish]

We don't, a game like CS:S doesn't even have NPCs who can perform these animations.

[@Silwerfish]

@TheCombineMan HL2DM doesn't have proper support for NPCs, use a single player game.

[@Silwerfish]

@ThePoliceComedyShow They say things like "Reloading" and "I'm hit!" automatically when those events occur. I've been wanting to make a tutorial on how to make an NPC talk for a long time now, but it doesn't work properly on Windows 7 (only does work correctly on Windows XP).

[@dariusfol]

Really nice tutorials! Can you also make a train tutorial?

[@Silwerfish]

@pr0xincss That can be for a number of reasons, could you maybe upload your VMF file somewhere and PM me a link? Or you could just PM me and I'll give you my mail to send me the VMF so I can take a look.

[@Silwerfish]

@Beatz4theHeatz I used ep2 when making this tutorial so it should work.

[@Silwerfish]

@cdviper12 I have never done that so I don't know, sorry!

[@Awelmann1]

shouldnt it work for the citizen too... i mean it has the same bones

[@Silwerfish]

It's been added to the request list, thanks!

[@Silwerfish]

@spenceriguess You can't do that I'm afraid, you could use FacePoser to make scenes, but you still use predefined animations.

[@Silwerfish]

@MultiInsanity Just put the name of the next scripted_sequence into the "next script". The NPC will then do that scripted sequence right after the previous one.

[@EnderCatCore]

it wont work im trying for wheatley to chane expression when u bring him somewhere in portal 2

[@Silwerfish]

I don't even think you can place NPCs in CS:GO's Hammer, can you?

[@Silwerfish]

Sounds like great practice, good luck!

[@Silwerfish]

Thank you for the kind comment, I'm glad you like it! If you want me to cover a specific subject just give me a comment, the most requested ones will get made!