questions concerning animations & skeletons

**Lord Adherbal** · 06-30-2005, 10:45

This is an attempt to find out if I missed anything about new animations/skeletons implementation.

What I want to do, is make new skeleton - for both horses and infantry - who run at slower speeds then the skeletons they are based on. So I only need 3 or 4 new animations (run, walk, charge, ...), and not replace the whole animation set of the base skeleton.

I've been using 2 tools: Vercingetorix's Animeditor and NNyL's RePacker. But I experienced problems with both.
First of all, some animations (only horse animations I think) were messed up after using AnimEditor. I don't know how exactly this happened, cos I never altered those animations, I only rescaled speeds of other animations. There also didn't seem to be a way to make a new skeleton with only a couple of altered animations: either I had to duplicate the entire animations set of the base skeleton (heavily increasing the filesize every time), or I had no way to alter a few animations without affecting the base skeleton. However with RePacker this can be done: I just add a new animation, duplicate a skeleton and change the animation filename I want to. Problem is that this only worked for a small number of skeletons, a lot of others simply made RePacker crash.

Also, is it possible with the current tools to add an entirely new skeleton & animations for siege weapons, for example: a trebuchet ?

**GodsPetMonkey** · 06-30-2005, 11:29

Originally Posted by [cF]Adherbal

This is an attempt to find out if I missed anything about new animations/skeletons implementation.

What I want to do, is make new skeleton - for both horses and infantry - who run at slower speeds then the skeletons they are based on. So I only need 3 or 4 new animations (run, walk, charge, ...), and not replace the whole animation set of the base skeleton.

I've been using 2 tools: Vercingetorix's Animeditor and NNyL's RePacker. But I experienced problems with both.
First of all, some animations (only horse animations I think) were messed up after using AnimEditor. I don't know how exactly this happened, cos I never altered those animations, I only rescaled speeds of other animations. There also didn't seem to be a way to make a new skeleton with only a couple of altered animations: either I had to duplicate the entire animations set of the base skeleton (heavily increasing the filesize every time), or I had no way to alter a few animations without affecting the base skeleton. However with RePacker this can be done: I just add a new animation, duplicate a skeleton and change the animation filename I want to. Problem is that this only worked for a small number of skeletons, a lot of others simply made RePacker crash.

Also, is it possible with the current tools to add an entirely new skeleton & animations for siege weapons, for example: a trebuchet ?

What kind of messing up occurred? Does it happen if you just import it, then export it again (also try rotating one bone a little, no need to key it or anything)? Normal animations when exported seem to cause a CTD when over 43KB in size (even though RTW has several much larger then this). I haven't played with horse animations, but it might be something similar.

I also seem to remember vercs anim packer having a speed tool (like scale) which presumably altered the distance that scene_root traveled, have you tried using this?

As for siege weapons, I have not heard of anyone editing them yet, though I intend to do it some day (if possible). Mmmmm, cannons.
The problem with a trebuchet is it will probably need an entirely new skeleton, that may prove to be a very difficult challenge.

**Lord Adherbal** · 06-30-2005, 11:59

What kind of messing up occurred? Does it happen if you just import it, then export it again (also try rotating one bone a little, no need to key it or anything)? Normal animations when exported seem to cause a CTD when over 43KB in size (even though RTW has several much larger then this). I haven't played with horse animations, but it might be something similar.

I also seem to remember vercs anim packer having a speed tool (like scale) which presumably altered the distance that scene_root traveled, have you tried using this?

well the weird thing is that the animations that get messed up are not altered at all. Actualy I believe the animations are corrupted as soon as I extract it. What happens is hard to explain, one of the messed up animations is stepping backward (for horses), the horse's backside disintegrated during that animation.
And yes, I used the speed rescale option of AnimEditor.

The problem with a trebuchet is it will probably need an entirely new skeleton, that may prove to be a very difficult challenge.

well a trebuchet animation is fairly simple - altho I have to admit I have never tried making a skeleton. Got someone else to do that for me :P

**SigniferOne** · 06-30-2005, 13:33

Adherbal, I know your problem and there's a simple solution: AnimPacker is bugged, so you can junk it. Verc has created a new Animation packing program called XIDX (found at stratcomcenter website and twc), which does everything AnimPacker did, and more. And it does so without the bugs. Btw, just so you know, I have already created a bunch of varying-speed animal skeletons, out in the next version of the Animations Pack, in case you're curious.