Need help with descr_skeleton.txt

[SigniferOne]

I've decided to create realistic hoplite animations, and just released a Beta at TWC (will post here when v1.0 is done).

Now the only way I've been able to get this far is by taking advantage of Verc's awesome AnimEditor program, which allows me to modify animations stored in the skeletons.idx, and even create my own new skeletons (i.e. fs_hoplite, as you'll see in the thread mentioned above).

Now my question is: what is the purpose of descr_skeleton.txt? Verc, the undispited non-CA master of this aspect of RTW, says the file does nothing. However, strangely enough, the game demands that the file be there, or the game will not start.

So, can someone from CA (Jerome, ) shed some light on this file. It seems like CA originally intended to go foward with this part of the game completely externalized into a text file (as with unit skins, etc). So, it'd be nice if the meaning behind this file was clarified, or even if it was explained how to make the game take advantage of descr_skeleton.txt. Because if we could do that, it would be a miracle.

Ever wondered why some units strike their enemy, and then the enemy reacts with a parry like 10 seconds later? We could fix that if we could use descre_skeletons.txt! You see, in that file you can specify which frame of your animation does the intended action (i.e. attack), so that the computer will know that in my 30-frame animation frame 12 is when the sword is thrust at the enemy, and will run the 'parry' animation in that soldier immediately, making him instantly react to my attack and not wait for my animation to finish. The possibilities, i.e. realistic strike/block battles, are endless.

[SigniferOne]

Another question for Jerome (who hopefully will see this):

A poster at TWCenter tried to do a hotfix for the legionary stabbing animations by substituting their skeleton to fs_spearman, which makes them hold their gladius at waist level and thrust it forward. However, he added, this animation causes them to attack the enemy at a far longer distance than the gladius can reach.

Me, on the other hand, when creating the new fs_hoplite animations, I used fs_javelinman as my base, who naturally have a short range for attack, and always fight with their enemy at very close range.

Is there a difference between various vanilla skeletons, that determines at what range they become effective? i.e. is there really a difference between fs_spearman and fs_javelinman, that seems to make the former have a longer attack range than the latter? Or is that just an incidental aspect of how the animations work (i.e. the guy doesn't stretch his hand far enough in the animation, but the game assumes he did for the battle calculations)?

[Bwian]

OK ... I have done a fair bit of messing around with the descr.skeletons text file, and I can conlcude on thing:

IT DOES NOTHING

To test this theory...first delete the text file, and spot the absolute lack of difference this makes ;)

As far as the animation determining the distance of engagement...hmmm..

I don't honestly see how the two could be linked. I think it is more likely to be the class/category definition in export_descr_unit that determines the rough unit type, and hence it's particular range of engagement. All the animation files do is to determine how the model mesh animates in a set of circumstances. The skeletons.dat file holds all the animations and links certain actions to a certain animation CAS file. If you define a new animation, you will change the visual element of an attck/charge, stand idle etc. but that is all.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

If you delete skeletons.dat and .idx, the game will parse descr_skeletons.txt instead. This then allows you to create new skeletons by adding them to this file - you can assign animations to actions, set hit ranges and so on here as well.

[SigniferOne]

Oh my god... Jerome you are the greatest!! ... oh man........


Then since we won't have the animations stored within skeletons.dat/.idx, we will just keep them in their respective directory structures, out in the open, right?

Also, where are all the *.evt files stored? in pack.dat/.idx? If you have a little extra time, can you explain what those two data files do?

---

Edit: Also, I might as well put all my questions into one basket and hope!! What does this do in descr_skeletons.txt:

type fs_swordsman
force_hit_positions_to_cylinder
anim stand data/animations/fs_gladius/LIS 01 Stand Idle.cas -evt:data/animations/LIS 01 Stand Idle.evt

[Shigawire]

Jerome, you bring the rest of CA to shame, while simultaneously representing them very well!

[SigniferOne]

Hmm, if I use Verc's animation extraction program (which works perfectly, that's not the problem), and delete the skeleton files, the game says it can't find any animations at all. Maybe the reason is that the path to them is now RTW/Data/animations/data/animations, but that path was encoded in the skeleton pack files anyway, so..

Well here's the problem: no animations can't be found, the game says. Then I move that entire directory structure into the root data/animations folder, which means the pack.dat/.idx are now mixed in with all of the game's animation files. Then RTW won't start up at all, but show up the starting screen for a few seconds, and then CTD without any errors even. Despite the fact that I have -show_err on.

Where do you I think I went wrong?

[Vercingetorix]

Yea this is what happens. I thought maybe this was updated in 1.2 but it's been there since vanilla. If the animation files are not extracted it complains about both the cas file and the .evt missing. If you extract the animation files you CTD. Even if you fake the .evt file the game CTD. I remember in the past trying to play with the "-animdb" option but couldn't get anything to work with it.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

I see what's happened here. The pack files are mounted under the game's virtual file system at the project root, not in the directory where they actually live. So data/animations/data/animations is not the place for them to go... Also, the animations pack.dat / pack.idx are linked to the skeletons.dat / skeletons.idx files, and all four should be removed or deleted after you've extracted the pack contents.

So what you should see inside {root}/data/animations after you've extracted the packs is several hundred .cas and .evt files, plus a whole bunch of subdirectories which contain various other anim sets (some names: camel, engine, elephant). The paths for the individual files are given explicitly in descr_skeletons.txt, so when descr_skeletons.txt says it's looking for a file in data/animations/carry_and_artillery it will look for it there, relative to the location of RomeTW.exe o' course.

The .evt files, by the way, carry information about sound events to be played at particular points in an animation, plus a few other event types. I'll dig out the specifics at some point.

[Duke John]

I have never seen those evt files when extracting it with the tool of Vercingetorix? Am I missing something or does the program need to be adjusted so that it extracts evt files?

[JeromeGrasdyke]

That sounds possible ;) Alternatively you could edit descr_skeleton.txt to remove all references to the .evt files, in which case you will lose the animation-driven sounds but at least it should load.

I'll have a look and see...

[Bwian]

I am going to sit down and read this again when I get in from work....because if this is truly what I think it is ..... this is a simple way to make COMPLETELY new skeletons.

I can make things with broader shoulders....things with longer arms....all sorts of fun stuff....not just scaled in uniform directions

SO...

1) Unpack all the animations and move them so they sit in the correct place in the file tree ( [root RTW] /data/animations , making sure I keep the sub-directories etc. in their relative positions
2) Delete: skeletons.dat , skeletons.idx AND the animations pack and IDX files

Now...at this point, if I see .evt files, I am a lucky bunny ;) but probably not.

Now...with the pak and idx files gone, the game WILL be reading the skeleton_descr file ( which...luckily I backed up before I deleted it ) Being Mr paranoid, I have burned ALL the files I was going to mess with in RTW onto a backup.

3) Edit the skeleton TEXT file to remove the .evt bits. This will, I assume, stop some of the sound triggers. Are these anything vital ? I can live without horses neighing and dogs barking, but not without teh delvicate sound of steel on flesh ;)

Then, having achieved a successfully running game it should be possible to create whole new skeletons that won't 'snap' back into stock shapes when the game displays them. This is going to have to get tested!

[JeromeGrasdyke]

Ok, some bad news. The .evt files specified in the descr_skeleton.txt file get parsed into binary and saved into the skeletons.dat file, and so they have not actually been shipped with the game in an extractable form.

But also some good news: the .evt files are essentially text files, with a fairly simple layout, like so:

event SOUND_AMBIENT stretch_back 6 6
event SOUND_AMBIENT neck_crack 20 20

or so:

event SOUND_BANK unit_run 4 6 RANDOM
event SOUND_BANK unit_run 10 12 RANDOM
event SOUND_BANK unit_march 14 18 RANDOM
event SOUND_BANK unit_march 20 24 RANDOM

The valid sound categories for the second word are: SOUND, SOUND_BANK, SHOCKWAVE, SOUND_VOICE, and SOUND_AMBIENT, the third word is a tag for lookup into the category, while the two numbers are frame counts for start and end times (in the anims 20 fps frame counter).

I'll have a chat with the powers that be and see if we can make the original .evt files available.

[Bwian]

You, sir, are a Gentleman and a scholar ;)


I am sure we could 'create' our own evt files, but we would have to make an awful lot of them! If they are willing to let us have the files that would be brilliant. Not only can we then run a fully 'exposed' set of animations, but we also have a template to design new sound routines to go with our new animations. There is one I am dying to add to the Gaulish peasant 'taunt' pose

Presumably, the sounds will be in an archive file or folder with all teh sounds in it, and the rest is pretty straight forward ( like a lot of the RTW stuff.... it MUST have been designed with modding in mind ) RANDOM, I assume, indicates that it will randomly play ( or not play ) that sound at that point in the animaton cycle.

OK...boss has gone home.... It's Friday...I am officially baling out and going home to play with this :D Look out London traffic...here I come!

[Myrddraal]

Jerome, you truely are a gent. You can't overestimate the debt that is owed you by the modding community

[JeromeGrasdyke]

The man from Del Monte, he say... Yes! Now all I need is somewhere to post it up for download. It's about 200 kb zipped up, so not a huge file. Suggestions?

[Bwian]

There is a 'files' link at the top of hte page...is it fully functional ?

This is a 'must have' file for modding!!! If I had webspace I would host it :D

[SigniferOne]

Amazing, Jerome! The Admins of this site can provide all the space you need I'm sure, haha.

One important question on distribution of these files: what kind of appelation do you think it's okay for us to use in describing them (in the Downloads section, for example)? I.e. the files will be under my name, but whe can we entitle them as? Is it ok for us to use big fancy words like "Official Modding Files from CA!!"?

For some reason I don't think you guys would be too comfortable with that, so please specify the format that's most preferable to you, i.e. probably something more discreet and using less words like "official".

The best, and only, thing we can do in return for your wonderful magnanimity is to honor your wishes.

[JeromeGrasdyke]

For some reason I don't think you guys would be too comfortable with that, so please specify the format that's most preferable to you, i.e. probably something more discreet and using less words like "official".

Truth, indeed. Let's have something suitably low-key, like "Modding extras supplied by CA (unsupported)".

[SigniferOne]

That will be exactly the phrase that I use, and I will also make an extra paragraph in the Readme specifically to this extent as an unofficial and unsupported release, and all the legal mumbo jumbo.


You rock Jerome.

[SigniferOne]

Done.

http://www.twcenter.net/downloads/db/index.php?mod=403

I had to fiddle with the title a little bit, in order to squeeze the all-important "(unsupported)" in.

[Bwian]

:D I can't believe I am only the second person to downlod this !!! I suspect hte 'count' may be rising over hte weekend!

[AoM_Horus]

Thank you very much Jerome, i know this is something a lot of RTW fans will appreciate.

[Bwian]

Anybody got this to work ?

I tried it, and all I can get is a CTD

I used a fresh, unaltered setup, patched to 1.2

Then:

I ran V's animation unpacker and created the subfolders which I then shifted to sit in the right place ( rather than [root]data/animations/data/animations...I have them where they ought to be )

Then I deleted the pack.dat and IDX and the skeleton dat and idx files.

Then, I extracted the evt files to my animation folder

Then I ran the game. The front screen pops up as it should, but then I crash to desktop with no error message.

Did I do something wrong ?

[SigniferOne]

Do you reference any custom skeleton files such as my "fs_hoplite" in your descr_model_battle.txt ?

EDIT: Btw, it's not like I'm saying that it worked for me. I haven't gotten home yet to try it out. But there may be a few accidental reasons on our side that prevent it from working. Just make sure that no files try to access a non-existant skeleton, or something like that.

[Pode]

Will some kind soul who grasps this stuff better than I do please create and post for download a slower horse skeleton and the fixes required to make cataphracts use it?

[Bwian]

No..I'm not referencing any custom files. Always try out new things on a clean install in case custom stuff conflicts. This is a pure and clean install patched to 1.2

Annoying thing is it doesn't give an error message

If it did, and said it couldn't find such and such a file, it would be easier to pin down! I think this is something other than just a problem with file paths for the anims. It looks to me as though it is looking for a file to parse which it can't find....and I suspect the DAT and IDX files I deleted contain something that V's extractor isn't extracting ... but I have no clue what it might be.

[SigniferOne]

Where do you place all of the animation files, and the evt files? I'm asking for the full path, from the root of RTW directory.

[Bwian]

I put all of the extracted animation files into [ROOT RTW FOLDER/data/animations

I kept all the sub-folders where they were, and then moved the whole lot into place.

[SigniferOne]

Ok so far I'm having the same problems of crashing. The animations seem to be extracted with Verc's program, the EVT files have been provided by Jerome, but all this seems to not be enough. There's something else there, something Verc's program is not extracting, that the game doesn't find. And I don't think it's something that is referenced from descr_skeleton.txt, because then the game would complain it isn't there.

Just for reference, here's what I did:

Verc's program extracts all animations into Root/data/animations/data/animations. So I took all of those files and coped them into Root/data/animations. Then I extracted all of the EVT files into the same folder,resulting in 1,200 files being there, which is in accordance with the numbers Jerome gave. And that's basically it. I restored all files like descr_model_battle.txt to their vanilla form, so that they wouldn't reference any new stuff.

Currently I'm planning to do some massive editing of descr_skeleton.txt. Basically I'm going to remove every other skeleton other than some basic one, and even there remove all references to EVT files. I just want the game to RUN with parsing descr_skeleton.txt; if it does that, then I can continually add stuff and verify exactly what it is not finding in the files Verc is extracting.