Editing Animation folder

[Tanauser]

I still meet a problem ...I don't understand....

the HR_Arquebus folder is composed by a sub folder : Weapon
& 7 files :
HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_hold.cas ;;(evt) ;;_ready.cas (evt) ;;;release.cas (evt) ;;;reload.cas (evt) ;;; HR_Arquebus_stand_A_idle.cas



I have modded frame/frame the "Release.cas" (Set key frame each time in the Tab)(with the firing the movement I want at the end of the motion...the ms3d file run fine ....





But it doesn't show in the game ,when I replace it .... than I have changed the "Reload" one
by the same one (modded)...and the same mistake occurs , I don't see my modded frames , It's jumping across....
What mistake Have I done ?

Is there something else to do after extracting the .cas from the ms3d ?

[Tanauser]

Is that normal ? after saving the Ms3D file and reopening :



seems that the joints have no weight

and in the game (loading with no problem (deleting each time the 2 .dat files in America/animations folder to recreate them) whatever I change in the animation ; it doesn't show up; ...it goes over it

all that job for

[Tanauser]

The best I can do , but the rifle cannot stay still it moves along with the hand , which is not the real motion ....

[Tanauser]

Ok I did the best I could without moving the rifle , because the model doesn't accept this in the game, so I had to play with the motion of both arms and shoulders to give the idea

this is a very short video sample : 7 mo you can see:
http://www.filecrunch.com/file/~cmkwdh

it's in avi ; just dl the little video on the disk and pay it with any player

let me know what you think

[Tanauser]

Breech reloading Animations for Download:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1808

[KnightErrant]

Been missing in action the last few days.
You got it working! You mentioned CTDs in the
other thread, just out of curiosity, was it a problem with the
modeldb entry or something in descr_skeleton.txt when you made
the new animation family entry? Just so others who want to make
animations will know what to watch out for.

[Tanauser]

Hi
I Cannot make another family entry in the descr_skeleton.txt (vanilla)according with the modeldb. (America)
- If I copy the whole entry from the HR_Arquebus and rename it ...MTW2_Bre_Reload (ex) gives the right path to it to the DATA/animations folder (vanilla) to a new sub dolder there in which I have passed my new files (example HR_Winchester and...
..... than modify the modeldb (America) US cavalry units with this new name MTW2_Bre_Reload refering to the descr_skeleton.txt (vanilla) entry : I got CTD WHEN LAUNCHING the BATTLE , not at start

I have sent you a video of the unit new reloading ....I'm ready to re_do it ...but no one gives me an answer about it ...is it good or bad ?

[KnightErrant]

Hi Tanauser,

Finally got a chance to put your animation in game. This is the medium
difficulty option. For this I pretended that the musketeers were your
bluecoat model and I wanted to create a custom animation family for them
and have all others use the vanilla MTW2_Musketeer family.

My setup is this: I mod descr_skeleton.txt in the vanilla \data folder.
(Probably you could copy to your mod folder and io_filefirst would find it
there but my experiments from last summer were done this way so I'm
following that again.) I also mod the battle_models.modeldb file in the
vanilla \data\unit_models directory. This is non-negotiable I believe, the
game only parses this file in that directory unless something changed in
the 1.2 patch and nobody told me.

(1) Create a new directory in Caliban's animation directory. I called it
MTW2_Winchester. (Again, you might be able to do this in your mod
folder, I just didn't do it that way before.) I put your file
MTW2_Musket_attack_missile_reload.cas
with the changed reload animation in it.

(2) Edit the vanilla descr_skeleton.txt file (maybe a copy in a mod folder
would work, a good experiment to try). This is what I put in, I named
the animation family "MTW2_Winchester".

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;


type		MTW2_Winchester
reference_points							siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Arquebus_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints
parent		MTW2_Musket
;locomotion_table soldier

anim		default							data/animations/MTW2_Musket/MTW2_Musket_basepose.cas

anim		stand_a_idle					data/animations/MTW2_Musket/MTW2_Musket_stand_A_idle.cas					-fr		-evt:data/animations/MTW2_Musket/MTW2_Musket_stand_A_idle.evt

anim		attack_missile_reload			data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/MTW2_Musket_attack_missile_reload.cas			-fr		-evt:data/animations/MTW2_Musket/MTW2_Arquebus_attack_missile_reload.evt

;;;;;;;; weapon


type		MTW2_Winchester_Primary
suppress_refpoints_warning
parent		MTW2_Musket_Primary

suppress_refpoints_warning

anim		default							data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas
anim		stand_a_idle					data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas
anim		stand_a_to_ready				data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas
anim		stand_b_to_ready				data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas
anim		stand_c_to_ready				data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas

anim		ready							data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas
anim		ready_to_stand_a				data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas

anim		attack_missile_ready			data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas
anim		attack_missile_hold				data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas
anim		attack_missile_release			data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas

anim		attack_missile_reload			data/animations/MTW2_Musket/weapon/w_MTW2_Musket_default.cas

Basically, all I did was copy the Arquebus entry, including the weapon bit,
and just renamed the red parts. Note that the parent keyword just
defaults everything back to MTW2_Musket. Since we don't have
a non-standard skeleton we DON'T have to copy everything to the
new directory. (If you had gone with the bone_lever option, that's the
really difficult way. All the animations have to be copied and the new
skeleton exported to, and the entry for this file gets really large.)

(3) Assign this new animation family to your unit in battle_models.modeldb.
For my experiment I just assigned it to the Musketeers.

10 musketeers 
1 4 
54 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/musketeers_lod0.mesh 121 
54 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/musketeers_lod1.mesh 900 
54 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/musketeers_lod2.mesh 2500 
54 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/musketeers_lod3.mesh 6400 
4 
5 spain 
71 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/textures/RN_Light_Lmail_spain.texture 
72 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/textures/RN_Light_Lmail_normal.texture 
40 unit_sprites/spain_Musketeers_sprite.spr 
8 portugal 
74 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/textures/RN_Light_Lmail_portugal.texture 
72 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/textures/RN_Light_Lmail_normal.texture 
43 unit_sprites/portugal_Musketeers_sprite.spr 
5 milan 
71 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/textures/RN_Light_Lmail_milan.texture 
72 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/textures/RN_Light_Lmail_normal.texture 
40 unit_sprites/milan_Musketeers_sprite.spr 
6 venice 
72 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/textures/RN_Light_Lmail_venice.texture 
72 unit_models/_Units/RN_Light_Lmail/textures/RN_Light_Lmail_normal.texture 
41 unit_sprites/venice_Musketeers_sprite.spr 
4 
5 spain 
67 unit_models/AttachmentSets/Final European CB Gun_spain_diff.texture 
67 unit_models/AttachmentSets/Final European CB Gun_spain_norm.texture 0  
8 portugal 
70 unit_models/AttachmentSets/Final European CB Gun_portugal_diff.texture 
70 unit_models/AttachmentSets/Final European CB Gun_portugal_norm.texture 0  
5 milan 
67 unit_models/AttachmentSets/Final European CB Gun_milan_diff.texture 
67 unit_models/AttachmentSets/Final European CB Gun_milan_norm.texture 0  
6 venice 
68 unit_models/AttachmentSets/Final European CB Gun_venice_diff.texture 
68 unit_models/AttachmentSets/Final European CB Gun_venice_norm.texture 0  
1 
4 None 
15 MTW2_Winchester 
20 MTW2_Non_Shield_Fast 1 
19 MTW2_Musket_Primary 1 
18 MTW2_Sword_Primary 
16 -0.090000004 0 0 -0.34999999 0.80000001 0.60000002

(4) Last step. Backup the pack.dat, pack.idx, skeleton.dat, and skeleton.idx
in your mod folder America\data\animations directory then delete them so
the game rebuilds the animation packs.

I played Spain (with Musketeers so using the new anim) against England
with Arquebusiers (not using the new anim).



Please don't think this worked the first time for me. I fussed around
with it for two hours with endless CTDs before it worked. I think the
main thing is you can't skip the matching weapon section in descr_skeleton.txt
even though you don't use it.

Give it a try and post back how it goes.

[Tanauser]

[QUOTE=* I also mod the battle_models.modeldb file in the
vanilla \data\unit_models directory. This is non-negotiable I believe, the
game only parses this file in that directory unless something changed in
the 1.2 patch and nobody told me.=QUOTE]

So even if the unit modded is in the America extension , I have to mod the vanilla modeldb. ?

You mean creating a new entry for US Cavalry in the MTTW2 vanilla ???

So if I follow well ; I have to mod both modeldb. ?

I 'll try it today and tell you if I had it worked
Thanks

[Tanauser]

It works only with the Cavalry so I have followed your advice with the Cavalry entry (MTW2_Winchester) instead of HR_Arquebus....
perhaps as you pointed out because of the same parent :
in HR_Arquebus we have weapon type HR_arquebus_Primary suppress_refpoints_warning parent MTW2_Musket_Primary suppress_refpoints_warning anim default

but in MTW2_Musket we have:

type MTW2_Musket
reference_points siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Musckett_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints
parent MTW2_Knifeman

perhaps there is something to change there ; I couldn't tell

When I have tried to do the same to US_Infantry as I did to the US_Cavalry but this time with animation MTW2_Musket; It didn't go well , CTD on and on....I did exactly the same thing: in Vanilla DATA directory: Rename a new folder in Caliban unpacked Animations folder " MTW2_Winchinfant " in which I passed all the files from the original MTW2_Musket + mine (replacing (2) reload & extended reload)
Copy in descr_skeleton the entry MTW2_Musket and rename it under MTW2_Winchinfant
just changing the path to my 2 modded files

including the weapon bit which I call MTW2_Winchinfant_primary

than I have copied the unit entry from the America modeldb. into the vanilla modeldb (always rising by 1 the n° of entry) and assigning after the .....5 Horse 16 MTW2_Winchinfant ....Well it didn't work ! I checked and checked it ..I didn't forget any slash bar ...I really really don't understand why it's working with one animation, and not with the other .

It's Weird that it went OK with HR_Arquebus replacement and not with MTW2_Musket ...too bad