Animations

[alpaca]

Well just to let you guys know: I started looking into the animation files a bit.
I already wrote a python script that can extract them from the .idx/.dat file - it seems they aren't packed or anything since Verci's old cas importer was able to import them (well they didn't work properly, but it didn't crash, either).
So what I'm planning to do right now is to figure out how the .cas files are described by leeching a bit of know-how from the cas importer :P

As for the idx file (only pack.idx):
It has a header consisting of the string "ANIM.PACKV:|", then a long 9 and then a long with the number of entries.
Each entry then consists of:

Bytes	Variable type	Explanation
0-3	long	strlen+10 of the tag (below)
4-7	long	byte offset in pack.dat
8-11	long	byte length in pack.dat
12-15	float	Unclear so far, often 1.0 (first four additional bytes of the strlen+10)
16-25	-	These are the other 6 additional bytes in the strlen+10*
strlen	String	tag (qualified path for the animation)

*They seem to be 0x3F**00140014 - 0014 is 5120 as a short which sounds probable. No idea about the first two bytes.

[SigniferOne]

Just briefly, yes the old Verci script works halfway. It can extract, if you replace the title string above with the RTW version, and the animations are half-way ok, but still not 100% good. Caliban wrote a post somewhere here that the reason is that in M2 bones are weighted, whereas in RTW they weren't.


Caliban, is it a secure fact that once the animations are extracted and work properly, they don't have to be put back into the packed files again, and work using that anim_db switch you once posted?

[KnightErrant]

The bones section at the top of the .dat file has
the idle pose of the standard skeleton in the first three
floats after the null terminated ASCII string. There's 19
floats in each data section between the bone strings,
3 are the idle pose offsets, 3 probably 0.0 rotations, and
who knows for the remaining 13 floats.

Edit: Sorry, not the first three. Skip the first float after the
bone string, then the next three floats are the idle pose offsets.

[alpaca]

KE: Are you talking about the skeletons.dat? I was looking at the pack.dat
I got the impression we could still extract the skeletons with xidx?

Edit: By the way, don't forget ICQ XD

[KnightErrant]

Oops, my mistake, wrong .dat.

Edit: What does ICQ XD mean?

[alpaca]

Well I don't really know how the skeletons work at any rate.
Do they just link the bones in the .cas/.mesh files to the anims?