Animations

[SigniferOne]

Guys, Jerome provided all of the .evt files for RTW 1.5, but putting them into the extracted animations folder, so they'd match up with their corresponding animation files, still didn't work, and still crashed. So, Caliban will really have to babywalk us through here, because Jerome spent a lot of time trying to get it happen for us in RTW, and it didn't work, in large part because I think the TW engine is not so successful at loading animations when extracted. It works wonderfully for other files, which don't have to be in packs, but seems to still be a buggy process with animations, and they have to be packed, unless Caliban's animdb switch was truly made to work this time.

Just briefly, if animations have to be repacked, does this mean descr_skeleton.txt is still pretty irrelevant as a file? The one inestimable advantage of getting unpacked anims working is that descr_skeleton.txt would become important, and then we could do a lot of stuff with animations that couldn't be done otherwise.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi SigniferOne

Guys, Jerome provided all of the .evt files for RTW 1.5, but putting them into the extracted animations folder, so they'd match up with their corresponding animation files, still didn't work, and still crashed. So, Caliban will really have to babywalk us through here, because Jerome spent a lot of time trying to get it happen for us in RTW, and it didn't work, in large part because I think the TW engine is not so successful at loading animations when extracted. It works wonderfully for other files, which don't have to be in packs, but seems to still be a buggy process with animations, and they have to be packed, unless Caliban's animdb switch was truly made to work this time.

From what Caliban is saying it seems that if no_animdb switch works (and we won't know that until we have the .evt files in place) the skeleton and pack idx and dat files are rebuilt on start from the descr_skeleton.txt file, and then the engine uses those repacked files.

Just briefly, if animations have to be repacked, does this mean descr_skeleton.txt is still pretty irrelevant as a file? The one inestimable advantage of getting unpacked anims working is that descr_skeleton.txt would become important, and then we could do a lot of stuff with animations that couldn't be done otherwise.

I don't think from what Caliban says that we'll be able to work with unpacked files, we'll just use them to create new idx and dat files. It was possible in RTW to get new skeletons and animations in and I think that eventually we'll be able to do the same, but in the meantime its fun to play with it

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[SigniferOne]

Hi SigniferOne



From what Caliban is saying it seems that if no_animdb switch works (and we won't know that until we have the .evt files in place) the skeleton and pack idx and dat files are rebuilt on start from the descr_skeleton.txt file, and then the engine uses those repacked files.



I don't think from what Caliban says that we'll be able to work with unpacked files, we'll just use them to create new idx and dat files. It was possible in RTW to get new skeletons and animations in and I think that eventually we'll be able to do the same, but in the meantime its fun to play with it

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

Ah right, if the game recreates the packed files is fine, as long as it reads from descr_skeleton.txt and lays my fears to rest :P

[Casuir]

Looking at verc's extracted .cas's they seem to differ a bit from the engine animations and some cas's in unit_models/weapon_testing which look to be animation files. I think whats happening is the .dat has compressed cas's, verc's extractor is extracting them in a format readable by his max script but not by the game, which causes it to crap out. Any chance Caliban could provide an animation thats actually in the pack?

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi Casuir

Looking at verc's extracted .cas's they seem to differ a bit from the engine animations and some cas's in unit_models/weapon_testing which look to be animation files. I think whats happening is the .dat has compressed cas's, verc's extractor is extracting them in a format readable by his max script but not by the game, which causes it to crap out. Any chance Caliban could provide an animation thats actually in the pack?

The animations are fine, just in a bit of a different format from RTW ( which is why they're apparently appearing a bit wonky in Max - I think the Maxscript is hardwired to the RTW skelton). I can already convert them over to Mikshape format, etc. The main issue is to get the translations from the binary to the text .evt files so we can see if the engine rebuilds the skel and pack idx and dat files or whether we have to repack them ourselves.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[Casuir]

Hmm, well, it looked to me like all the other .cas have bone info at the top of the file. I thought maybe the engine was discarding it or storing it elsewhere when it packed the files. You know more about this than I do so if you say they're ok then I guess they must be.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hi Casuir

Hmm, well, it looked to me like all the other .cas have bone info at the top of the file. I thought maybe the engine was discarding it or storing it elsewhere when it packed the files. You know more about this than I do so if you say they're ok then I guess they must be.

The change in format that I spoke about was between RTW and M2TW, where the bone info has changed and some of the other information has changed within the file. The main reason that the animations looks wonky is that (I understand) you can only load the animation on top of a figure and since you can only load a RTW figure when you load the anim rotations they go to different bones ie change of skeleton between the programs.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[Casuir]

Guys, Jerome provided all of the .evt files for RTW 1.5, but putting them into the extracted animations folder, so they'd match up with their corresponding animation files, still didn't work, and still crashed. So, Caliban will really have to babywalk us through here, because Jerome spent a lot of time trying to get it happen for us in RTW, and it didn't work, in large part because I think the TW engine is not so successful at loading animations when extracted. It works wonderfully for other files, which don't have to be in packs, but seems to still be a buggy process with animations, and they have to be packed, unless Caliban's animdb switch was truly made to work this time.

If you re-read what the man said at the time the problem actually lies with vercs .cas extractor. He got it working perfectly with the original files and a retail version of the game, so the problems on our end, not theirs. Verc missed the ball on extracting the evt files from the dat, so its not implausible that something else is getting borked.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ighlight=bones

@gom, theres evt files in the animations/engines folder, not the exact same as the ones missing but you should be able to get the header and file structure from them.

This thread might be of interest as regards the skeletons
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=53763
Be nice to if caliban could confirm that the skeletons are hardcoded, how does the engine know which one to use for a camel and for a man?