A problem with unit skeletons

[Seth Krn3ll]

Ok first thing let me state that I am a total noob in modding: just givin' a try. Again, be patient - my english is really not that much.

To focus the problem I'm facing I'd like to do a short premise about how i get there. Who's not interested may skip it and go right to my actual problem with skeletons.

PREMISE
I loved the LOTR saga and found a LOTR Mod for 1.2 I like a lot. It have tons of brand new unit like Uruk-hai, esterlings, oliphants, gondor and roah nunits, hobbits, numenorian and elves - but unfortunately it have two huge limitations:
1. works only for custom battle - no campaigns
2. totally replaces the file system of RTW

My point was to try to adapt it to a campaign, and that's what I'm into now :)

I plan to make a full LOTR campaing playable by different factions with different goals, like finding the one ring and destroing it, bringing it back to Sauron at barad-dur, conquering Minas Tirith within a date and the like.

I already drawn a middle-earth brand new map, made all the versions for climates, roughness, regions, etc; assigned appropriate names to all regions and settlements - Not yet tested them though being still at work.

I changed all the factions names according to the LOTR factions already modded in the RTW-LOTR (Gondor, Hobbit, Numenorians, Elves, Isengard, Rohan, Mordor, Southrons, Esterlings, Man of Dunland, Dwarfen etc etc)

Later on I will probably need to ask some help in lots of those fields.

Now my objective is to add all custom units I can use in the LOTR mod to that fresh 1.2 RTW installation, adding all the needed files as a brand new mod.

Given I'm a total newby, I've read a lot of tutorials and guides around here, downloaded the plugin for photoshop and the vercingetorix unpacker, unpacked all the packs in a fresh 1.2 RTW installation and unpacked the packs in the LOTR RTW mod, started to add .tgas and descr_ files checking each step. Of course i got tons of CTDs and worked through all of them, until now.

here's what's puzzling me:

ACTUAL PROBLEM with skeletons

Starting points:
1. I have a working installation of RTW-LOTR, which works only for custom battles.
2. I am trying to make out from it a mod on a 1.2 RTW clean installation.

I already added all the UI tags and it works fine. Same with symbols and banners. Then I tried to add one by one the descr_ files taking them from the working RTW-LOTR mod and adding them to the LOTR Mod. There started the hard part: after a few CTDs with error messages I've been able to face, I am now getting a list of errors saying that some units are missing their skeleton. Precisely it CTD and says:

"Generic Error: unable to find skeleton fs_thisorthat"

I checked the file descr_model_battle.txt and it really points some units to some skeletons models which are not listed in the file descr_skeleton.txt

But again, those exact same files are the ones in the RTW-LOTR version, and it loads with no problems and I USE those precise units in the custom battle!

So the point is: how can the RTW-LOTR version load while his own descr_model_battle.txt points some units to a skeleton model which is not mentioned in the descr_skeleton.txt?

I searched around in the RTW-LOTR folders to find if i was missing something, maybe another descr_skeleton.txt file somewhere but there is only one and as I said it does not contain about half the skeletons assigned to custom units by the export_descr_unit.txt file.

So here's my question how can it be possibile? What am I missing?

If anyone can help, I'll try to go on making that LOTR campaign :)

[Seth Krn3ll]

Edit: in one of the last lines of my post I mentioned the export_descr_unit.txt file. It was a mistake: that file was involved in a former CTD i already managed to figure out.
The files involved here are
"descr_model_battle.txt"
and
"descr_skeleton.txt"

[Makanyane]

I don't think descr_skeleton.txt is used by the game, if you are using the LOTR animations in the desrc_model_battle.txt file you need to use their animation packs which will be in the data/animations folder.

btw if that's the mod I think you mean they are working on a campaign version for Alexander see: http://lotrtw.com/

[Seth Krn3ll]

I don't think descr_skeleton.txt is used by the game, if you are using the LOTR animations in the desrc_model_battle.txt file you need to use their animation packs which will be in the data/animations folder.

Thanks a lot Makanyane :)
As expected, my noobiness comes out I've been misleaded by this statement I found in descr_model_battle:

skeleton indicates which skeletons should be used for these models
; must be followed by id name string (cf descr_skeleton.txt);

Ok, I worked around that and found out what was the real problem: here it goes:

the RTW-LOTR have his own animation packs files: pack.dat, pack.idx, skeletons.dat, skeletons.idx

The 1.2 RTW have its own too, so if a load the LOTR-Mod the game does not work while missing all the models of the basic units of RTW, and if i run the Base Game i'll find no trace of the new modeled unit of LOTR.

I guess there is a way to unpack them and make modifications: if and when I'll learn how to i'll try to make new animation packs with all the units for the game, both the modded and the basic ones.

As far as now I chose to cut off all the base units from the game, so I'm working on the export_descr_building.txt adding slaves as base recruitable units for all factions and the custom units just for the appropriate factions, just to see if and how it will work.

btw if that's the mod I think you mean they are working on a campaign version for Alexander see: http://lotrtw.com/

Yes that's the Mod.
The last release works with RTW 1.2 though, that's the one I'm working on.
I read they are supposed to be working on a full campaign map planned to work with alexander expansion, but again they seem to be a bit late, or maybe they just dropped the project:

Rome Total War has had an expansion released called Alexander which brings the game to version 1.5. The final released version of this mod will utilize the expansion pack but the mod will require a copy of Rome Total War and for the full version (you get extras) Rome Total War: Alexander.

The Lord of the Rings: Total War has been in development since May 2005 and in currently a work in progress. A public beta which features one Historical Battle (The Battle of the Last Alliance), Custom Battles and multiplayer battles can be found in the Download section. The public beta of the Campaign Map is expected to be released somewhere in the middle of 2006.

Anyway, I'll go on with my noobish tries, lets see how far i can go :)

[Roman_Man#3]

You must realize that total conversions take a lot of time. Alexander has unique generals, so they also had to wait for that. Don't worry, private beta is nearly done, it looks great. You can find screens and AAR from the beta aroung their home forums, and TWC, not sure about here though...

[Seth Krn3ll]

You must realize that total conversions take a lot of time. Alexander has unique generals, so they also had to wait for that. Don't worry, private beta is nearly done, it looks great. You can find screens and AAR from the beta aroung their home forums, and TWC, not sure about here though...

LOL I'm discovering how much time and energy it costs :) But well, its still fun, so I'm going on.
Working on the export_descr_building.txt right now, adding all the custom units to appropriate buildings al leves and conditions. Later I'll do some partial tests to see how many errors i just made LOL

Anyway, soon I'll surely be here asking for some help :)

[Seth Krn3ll]

Here's next problem :)

I have now a CTD message error that says:

Script Error in data/export_descr_buildings at line 23 column 44
Unknown unit type specified: gondor_militia2

So, i cheked:
- export_descr_unit_enums.txt
- export_descr_unit.txt
- export_unit.txt
- descr_model_battle.txt
- export_descr_buildings.txt
tga, cas and sprites.

But gondor_militia2 is present in all of them.

I made a test by switching the gondor_militia2 with another nuw unit, and now the error talks about the other unit. So of course its not a problem of the unit itself but some steps i missed somewhere.

Any hint where or what to check?

[Squid]

Any line before that one is suspect unfortunately, but on the bright side it's only 23 lines.

[Seth Krn3ll]

Any line before that one is suspect unfortunately, but on the bright side it's only 23 lines.

there is abutely nothing itho 23 lines. There were some comments (; prefixed which i have now deleted) and the basic lines of edb:

;This file is generated from a spreadsheet
;Please do not modify by hand


hidden_resources sparta rome italy

building core_building
{
levels governors_house governors_villa governors_palace proconsuls_palace imperial_palace
{
governors_house requires factions { barbarian, ct_carthage, eastern, parthia, egyptian, greek, roman, }
{
capability
{
recruit "elf_light" 0 requires factions { egyptian, seleucid, }

I think I missed something somewere else... Any idea?

[Seth Krn3ll]

Gotcha!
In the export_buildings.txt I was using the unit's dictionari names (elf_light) but it works with the type name (elf light)

Ok, lets go changing all them now.. 300 or so

[Seth Krn3ll]

Ok, long way but its done.
Finbally, the game starts with no CTDs. It loads with the LOTR background, LOTR starting movie, LOTR backgrounds and all seems to work fine as far as I try to start at least a custom battle: here it CTD and give no messages.

Any hint about what to check now?

(waiting for some ideas i'll go on adding music and sounds)

[Seth Krn3ll]

Ok, now i REALLY need to learn to unpack, modify then repack the skeletons .dat file to add the skeletons of the new units.

(or, if there are workaround to add new skeleton animation without unpacking them, let me know plz)

[Seth Krn3ll]

Ok, given no one yet answered I went on with tes and finally woked it out somehow. I used a pack extractor by Verci and somehow i was able to unpack the two skeleton.dat files and repacke their contesnts into one sekelton.dat

No more skeleton message errors, hurra!
But.. well.. now animations are the problem.

I tried the same procedure and the first pack.dat unpacked succesfully, but the second one does not. The unpacker says: "not a valid idx archive" or something like that and stops.

I tried leaving the animations of the first pack unpacked and using the pack.dat of the second in animation folder, but the game CTD without even a error message :(

So now I'm wondering if there is someone around SO NICE to try to unpack that pack.dat - pack.idx file for me