Editing Animation folder

[Tanauser]

It was finally shorter than what I have expected



a discreet movement from the wrist : I moved the Left elbow first than selected the rifle and rotate it counter-clockwise to make it appear still ... Now the file must go in a new folder containing all the animations of the musket LESS the reloading

[KnightErrant]

Ah excellent! It's not really hard once you get the hang
of it. I'm working on something else right at the moment.
I'll try to give you the rest of the steps tomorrow on getting
your modified animation in game. Once you've got the whole
procedure working, it really is just using the keyframer on each
animation you want to mod and voila! a custom animation family
for your bluecoats.

[Tanauser]

I'm just going guessing
I have extracted the modified animation from the Ms3d file under

USspanish_dragoon_lod0_animby.cas

Put it in a new folder

America/data/animations/Winch_HR_Mod/USspanish_dragoon_lod0_animby.cas
along with all the others from the same family -minus- the one I am replacing

that is "HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_release.cas" (this is the .cas I have modified) -minus the original reloading file (the one I don't want to see in the game by the top of the gun) that is :

anim attack_missile_reload data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_reload.cas -evt:data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_reload.evt

............................


I have 2 US blueCoats units
Cavalry gives , in modeldb
.....1 5 Horse 16 MTW2_HR_Arquebus 13 MTW2_HR_Sword 2 19 MTW2_Musket_Primary


Infantry gives:
...1 4 None 16 MTW2_Fast_Musket 20 MTW2_Non_Shield_Fast 1 19 MTW2_Musket_Primary 1 18 MTW2_Sword_Primary
so MTW2_HR_Arquebus and MTW2_Musket_Primary are the animation family

lets take the first one
if I open descr_skeleton.txt it gives for MTW2_HR_Arquebus


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;



type MTW2_HR_Arquebus
reference_points siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/HR_Arquebus_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints
parent MTW2_HR_Crossbow
no_deltas
in_awareness 135.0
in_zone 135.0
in_centre 45.0

;;; HR_Arquebus attacks


anim attack_missile_ready data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_ready.cas
anim attack_missile_hold data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_hold.cas
anim attack_missile_release data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_release.cas -evt:data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_release.evt

anim attack_missile_reload data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_reload.cas -evt:data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_reload.evt




;;; Weapon

type MTW2_HR_Arquebus_Primary
suppress_refpoints_warning
in_awareness 135.0
in_zone 135.0
in_centre 45.0

anim default data/animations/HR_Arquebus/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas
anim stand_a_idle data/animations/HR_Arquebus/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas

anim attack_missile_ready data/animations/HR_Arquebus/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas
anim attack_missile_hold data/animations/HR_Arquebus/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas
anim attack_missile_release data/animations/HR_Arquebus/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas

anim attack_missile_reload data/animations/HR_Arquebus/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas



;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;

Just guessing
So now I should
replace

anim attack_missile_release data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_release.cas -evt:data/animations/HR_Arquebus/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_release.evt

by my new animation USspanish_dragoon_lod0_animby.cas


but What about the .evt ? can I keep the same ?

Than I need to change that path in that descr_skeleton.txt
but if my file is in the America/Data folder is that OK ?
should I repack it or can I use the Animation from dl from TWC ?

[Tanauser]

Could you tell me if I need to repack ? ...and in which DATA folder (MTTW2 or AMERICA)

[Tanauser]

I got CTD upon CTD , I don't know in which DATA/Animation/ folder I have to put the new one MTW2_Winchester ;
also what do I do with the pack.dat inside of each


This is how I have put it in the skeleton.txt

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;

[B]type ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;

type MTW2_Winchester
reference_points siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/HR_Arquebus_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints
parent MTW2_HR_Crossbow
no_deltas
in_awareness 135.0
in_zone 135.0
in_centre 45.0

;;; HR_Arquebus attacks


anim attack_missile_ready data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_ready.cas
anim attack_missile_hold data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_hold.cas
anim attack_missile_release data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_release.cas -evt:/data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_release.evt




;;; Weapon

type MTW2_HR_Arquebus_Primary
suppress_refpoints_warning
in_awareness 135.0
in_zone 135.0
in_centre 45.0

anim default data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas
anim stand_a_idle data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas

anim attack_missile_ready data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas
anim attack_missile_hold data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas
anim attack_missile_release data/animations/MTW2_Winchester/weapon/w_HR_Arquebus_default.cas



;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;


I have removed the anim reloading line (this one concerne the old reloading sequence animation maybe it's here the mistake )....in the new folder and in the text file

indicate 15 MTW2_Winchester in the modeldb instead of 16 MTW2_HR_Arquebus, I have put the New folder in each Animation folder beside the 2 pack.dat

What else ?

Time is on my side

[KnightErrant]

Hi Tanauser,

Sorry, was busy all day. I replied to your e-mail but didn't check this
thread. I was assuming you were running unpacked but I should have
checked. Do you have Caliban's unpacked animations directory as
your vanilla \data\animations directory, or are the only items in there
pack.dat, pack.idx, skeleton.dat, and skeleton.idx?

The way I run unpacked is:
I renamed my original \data\animations in the vanilla install to
\data\animations_orig so I have a safe copy of those four files.
I then put Caliban's directory as my vanilla \data\animations
directory.

Then I went to my mod folder, let's call it America to follow your notation.
If you have those four files in \America\data\animations you need
to save them somewhere else and remove them from that directory.
Note that we haven't yet put anything new in the game. Now start
your mod game and see if they get rebuilt. This process takes longer
than the normal load, like 60 or more seconds, so don't worry. If the game
loads everything is working as it should. All of this assumes you are
using io_filefirst and all that.
I can't remember if this makes a difference but my cfg file has this:

[util]
no_animdb = true

Caliban told us to do this but I think it didn't make a difference.

Now to test your animation in a simple way, simply back up the original
.cas file that you used for your modification. Then rename your
modded file to that name and put it in the right folder under the vanilla
\data\animations. (This assumes that the unit you are going to test
in-game uses this animation in its animation family.)

Now go to \America\data\animations and again move those four files
that got recreated out of that folder to a safe place. If you now start
your mod game it should rebuild using Caliban's unpacked .cas files only
now including your modified animation.

Later, when you want to create a whole new family of animations for your
bluecoats is when you get into copying and renaming folders in
\data\animations and editing descr_skeleton.txt and creating new family
entries there. It isn't that bad, it just takes a fair amount of editing and
there is always the possibility of making errors and getting CTDs that take
a long while to track down. This is why I'm outlining the simpler approach
above for testing a single animation in-game.

[Tanauser]

Hi
thanks for your advice and patience It's working more or less



so the animation reloading IS CHANGED ! but I don't know why those guys are standing on there horse while doing the Clutch

So I have extracted the Whole Animation pack inside my /DATA/vanilla MTTW2 directory .......Rename My MTTW2_Winchester to HR_Arquebus (save HR_Arquebuse)

inside the HR_Arquebuse folder i Have the file I have moddified under the name of the reloading one that is: HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_reload.cas = This one is actually the HR_Arquebus_attack_missile_release.cas that I have taken for base to mod and rename after

I have to make tries , and tries to figure out what went wrong in the file
But it's a first result, I 'm happy

descr_skeleton not changed yet