Hi KE et al

I feel better now. Just did an experiment to make sure that the mtw2 engine was running off string recognition for anim purposes rather than bone indices.

I manually added three new bones to the Dismounted Feudal Knight (bone_cloak1, bone_cloak2 and bone_cloak3) at the end of the bones section of the mesh files. I left all the anims alone. I ran the program and the figures animated without a problem in the world - this means that :-

1. As long as all the bones that are required are present in the mesh it doesn't care if there are any more. If the skeleton and anims provide anim information for those bones they will be animated as well.

2. Anim is definitely done by string recognition, I was half expecting to have to move the new bones from the end of the section to the middle so as not to interfere with the weapon and shield bones. Not necessary, which is good news for mesh designers, might mean a bit more work for converting anims though.

The poor old Dismounted Feudal Knight has taken a pounding during all my experimentation, I'm thinking of mentioning him in dispatches

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan