two questions about 'skeletons'

[hoggy]

descr_skeleton does nothing it seems ro be a redundant file.

I don't think we have a way to add bones to the existing skeletons yet sadly but don't quote me on that.

[Bwian]

Hoggy is right...there is currently no way of actually making a fundamental change to the skeleton. Don't let that limit you TOO much though!

First off...DITCH the old anim editor, and get a copy of hte latest version of XIDX. It works much better. Vercingetorix virtually started again with this tool to sort some fundamental bugs in the old one. XIDX is loads better.

Secondly...whilst you ARE limited in the number of bones you have, you can distort the skeletons in all sorts of ways to make new stuff once you get the hang of animations, and provided you have access to a copy of 3DS Max.

The text file descr_skeleton has no effect on the game that I can see. In fact...delete it, and the game runs just fine.

[SirRethcir]

The text file descr_skeleton has no effect on the game that I can see. In fact...delete it, and the game runs just fine.

I suppose you know this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=44433

ChivTW-Demo: in descr_skeleton their is for example a skeleton type 'fs_crossbowman'. Is this just a remnant of an sad attempt to implement a new skeleton?

Hoggy is right...there is currently no way of actually making a fundamental change to the skeleton. Don't let that limit you TOO much though!

The limit is beyond your imagination!

First off...DITCH the old anim editor, and get a copy of hte latest version of XIDX. It works much better. Vercingetorix virtually started again with this tool to sort some fundamental bugs in the old one. XIDX is loads better.

Yeah, already done!

Secondly...whilst you ARE limited in the number of bones you have, you can distort the skeletons in all sorts of ways to make new stuff once you get the hang of animations, and provided you have access to a copy of 3DS Max.

Not just in the number of bones!
Ok, i wanted an additional bone for the horses.
Due the fact that the dog has more bones than the horse I tried to use these dog bones for the horse. Not good.
Then I had the idea of making generals riding dogs. But to accomplish that I need a new skeleton or the animations are limited to the dog animations.

And all this, because I just wanted to make a more realistic animation for the general on the rearing horse.
(Besides, changing the general animation won't do it, because general_signal_charge.cas is used for the charge signal -horse not rearing- and for the regroup signal -horse rearing-)

[Ciaran]

No, th crossbowman in Chivalry works just fine. The point is, all relevant files regarding animations are packed in the files in the animation folder, animations.idx and skeletons.idx and they have to be packed in order to work. The descr_skeleton is redundant, but perhaps it´s a good way to make the list of available skeletons easily acessible.

[Bwian]

Ahh, I see... you see...the terminology here is a bit confusing...

You CAN make new 'skeletons' in terms of say fs_dagger kind of skeleton. You CANNOT make a new skeleton in terms of the actual underlying skeleton in the model mesh that is animated.

The files you want to change can be changed. These are animation routines. You will need 3DS Max and Vercingetorix's script to import and export animations.

Use the XIDX tool to extract all the animations and skeleton files, and make yourself a copy of the horse animation sets. Then you can modify the ones you want, and re-pack. It's quite a tricky task at first, but once you have the process done once...it gets easier!

[SirRethcir]

Ahh, I see... you see...the terminology here is a bit confusing...

You CAN make new 'skeletons' in terms of say fs_dagger kind of skeleton. You CANNOT make a new skeleton in terms of the actual underlying skeleton in the model mesh that is animated.

No confusing at all. Cause I had two question.

Use the XIDX tool to extract all the animations and skeleton files, and make yourself a copy of the horse animation sets. Then you can modify the ones you want, and re-pack. It's quite a tricky task at first, but once you have the process done once...it gets easier!

Ok, I can extract animation and skeleton files. I can change animation and re-pack them. But how do I make new skeleton files?

[Bwian]

Provided you are not intending to try and change any of the actual bones...all you need to do is extract the skeleton.idx and skeleton.dat ( using the batch file provided in XIDX ). Yo uget a whole load of files which are skeleton files. Copy one of these, rename it, add it to the text file 'list' and you have a copy of the skeleton. It will use identical animations to the original. Next...you extract all the animations ( another batch file for this ). Then...using the chpath command, you can set up a folder with a full set of 'copy' animations. Then you start changing stuff. Once you have all teh changes you want done, re-pack all the skeleton and anim packs and you are good to go. A simple change of the skeleton reference the model usies in descr_model_battle and there you are.

Chack back a way for my thread on animation problems... I put a step by step of the working process in there.

You are not actually making a new skeleton file ( even with the evt files provided by Gerome, making new skeleton files from scratch is impossible. #IT just CTD's ) but you can copy an existing one and change all the anims.

What I REALLY wanted to do, but can't is make a skeleton from scratch with different bone layouts .... but that just can't be done with the tools we have.