Animation Utilities: Version 1.1

[KnightErrant]

I've finished up the beta version 1.1 of animationutilities and have uploaded
it here:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...o=file&id=1469

The zip file name is animationutilties_v1_1.zip. It contains six files:

animationlibrary.py
animationutilities.py
ChrysophylaxDives.gif
meshconverterv1_0_4.py
armored_sergeants_tail_reordered.skeleton
UsersGuideAndTutorial.pdf

The first three are the actual animation utilities. The meshconverterv1_0_4.py is
an update to version 1_0_3 to be able to handle units with extra bones.
The skeleton file is simply included as an example of the .skeleton format
used to export new skeletons with changed bone sizes, like for dwarves, or
skeletons with extra bones, like armored_sergeants with two extra tail bones.
The User's Guide and Tutorial covers the use of the nine utilities.
The tutorial part goes through the procedure for getting a non-standard skeleton
unit in game, that is, making a new animation family from an existing one by
exporting a new skeleton to all the .cas files in a copied directory.

All of these utilities assume you are running with Caliban's animations directory
since these are the files that they manipulate. I won't go into details of each
of the utilities since that's what the User's Guide is for but here's a brief
overview.

Double-clicking on animationutilities.py will bring up a dialog box that looks
like this:



There are nine utilities, one can get a brief help by clicking on the little
"Info" button beside each one. animmerge and animextract are used to merge an animation .cas file with a converted .ms3d file and to extract a
modified animation back out to a .cas file. Extractskeleton pulls a modified
skeleton out of a .ms3d file for use in exporting to a family of animations.
(Think dwarf unit here.) Exportskeleton exports the modified skeleton to a
family of animations. Reorderbones will move weapon/shield bones after any
new bones that have been added to a model; necessary to get the animations to play in-game. Exportextrabonesskeleton does the exporting
of skeletons with extra bones. convertcastotxt will read a selected .cas
file and convert it to a readable ASCII decimal for. converttxttocas goes
the other way and turns a .txt file back into a binary .cas file. This was
useful for making flying dwarves and seeing how they interacted with regular
units in only a few minutes. Finally, there is a survecasdirectory utility that
is of use to researchers in this area.

Please read the User's Guide and Tutorial for more information. Hate to
post and run, but I'll be out of town starting June 20 through June 30 so
please post any comments and especially bug reports here and I'll sort
through them when I get back.

As always, the release is free of conditions, feel free to modify and use
as you see fit.

[Bwian]

Can't wait to try this out! going to give some skaven a tail

[SigniferOne]

Awesome stuff, gotta try it. As a nitpicking tip, could change "Extract skeleton" to "Import skeleton"

[Bwian]

Extract Skeleton actually does just that... it extracts a basepose figure from a non-standard model in MS3D. The export function then applies that to the animations to re-calculate all their movements. The more you do it...the more it makes sense!

I've probably done this more than most whilst testng KE's earlier versions whilst pestering him for certain functins and features!

Ultimately, the Warhammer Mod Team owe KE a huge debt of gratitude, since without this toolset, we would have no Dwarves and incorrectly shaped Orcs, Skaven and Lizardmen. It also allowed us to be the first mod team to put PROPER Dwarves in a TW game, rather than just scaled down humans.

This is without doubt the breakthrough that will make MTW2 the most moddable TW game ever!

[KnightErrant]

Sorry for the bump. I just want to test if code tags work ok
here. (Been having problems in the Guild's Wiki) Here's a code
tag:

serialization::archive
3 4 4 4
264 0
267 0 0 0
2 0 184.550750732 0
40 0 -7.09150409698 1.21208238602 -2.87348890305

Let's see...

Edit: Worked ok, alright now to fuss elsewhere. Apologies all round...

[Bwian]

KE ... Having a bit of an issue with creating new animations for mount units ... pm'd you over at the Org with more details. Everything is working just fine, with the exception of turning a modified MS3D file back into an animation CAS for a mount. Works fine for humans...just not mounts

[PartyElite]

animations don't export to 3ds max do they?

great work on the utils by the way!!

[Caliban]

animations don't export to 3ds max do they?

great work on the utils by the way!!

I havn't tested it, but you should be able to convert the .cas files to ascii and import them into 3dsmax?

I'm not sure if anyone has tried, but you should be able to. You might want to grab milkshape and see what formats it can export to that 3dsmax will import.

If you can get the animations into milkshape, you could try installing Valve's smd importer/exporter in both max and milkshape and share them that way.

[KnightErrant]

@Caliban and indian boy 90,
Certainly DON'T use my castotext converter and try
to import to 3dsmax. That's a private format that only
works with the utilities. There's a Milkshape ASCII format
etc. that might be tried. The .fbx binary format has been
used but with mixed success for meshes; don't know about
animations.

As a side note, I don't have 3dsmax but I was wondering if
someone who owned a copy could tell me what is the relation
of Max Script to 3dsmax. I thought Max Script was used to
write plug-ins to 3dsmax but is the only way to get Max Script
is to buy 3dsmax? I'm not a C++ programmer but I'd be willing
to look at the conversion process for meshes and animations if
I could see the API and what functions it exposes to do this.
The Milkshape format is well documented and .ms3d files could
be parsed to bring animations into/outof 3dsmax if a plug-in
could be written. I know Bwian has done some wonderful things
using Milkshape's keyframer but most modellers probably still
like 3dsmax better for things like this.

Just wondering, (more smilies, love it...)

KE

[PartyElite]

lol, it sounds so rude saying this but: u could always download the 30 day trial and work off of that?

having said that in a way that could be interpreted as self-centred [or'max-user centred'] i hope u don't feel offended or anything? u've done some really great work, and i admit that not all can just buy 3ds Max cuz it costs a crap-load. i just can never see myself getting used to ms3d.

but im just wondering, wasn't Creative Assembly [a long time ago] discussing releasing mesh convertors that export .mesh to .max and .max to .mesh? if i could just get my hands on those [insert evil laugh here].

well, cheers mate! ur doing some amazing stuff! 'keep it up' is all i can say...

[Caliban]

Hi KE,

You can get the 3dsmax9 trial and write maxscript from within there.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...112&id=5972446
It has a really good help and reference for maxscript and its quite straight forward.

Indianboy: You should try using KE's program to get your models into milkshape and then try exporting the model and animation to .SMD format.

Grab Cannonfodders SMD importer and exporter for 3dsmax here: http://www.chaosincarnate.net/cannonfodder/cftools.htm
and see if you can import the result from milkshape into 3dsmax for further editing.

The SMD format is valves format for HL and HL2. It is a very basic model and animation format that all 3d programs can import.
GOM suggested this a while back and I think at the moment this would probably be your best bet for passing models and animations into 3dsmax.

Caliban

[PartyElite]

ahh the negatives of having the latest version of software. those smd importers don't work on max 9. thanks for the tip though.

i'll see if there are other methods. Using FBX actually brings everything into max, but when u export fbx from max, the bones are missing, as are the vertex weights. i'll experiment some more till there is a 3ds Max convertor out there lol!

[vipez]

Great utility knighterrant

[KnightErrant]

Many thanks vipez. Hope to do some more.

@Caliban and indian_boy90,

Probably right, tried to reply last night but think I fell asleep
before submitting. Best to wait until animations and settlements
are complete before starting something new. Want to do the
most with the 30 day period.

KE

[Alletun]

Wonderful tool KnightErrant! works like a charm and the "info" buttons are really nice and informative.

i have a question though, regarding the export skeleton function. i've made a unit that uses a larger than normal skeleton. to make the animations fit i've used the extract and export functions in your tool. In the end it asks for scaling but i dont know what numbers to enter. You write in your guide that y is the distance from the pelvis to the ground. But are the the numbers relative to the standard skeleton size (so 1 is the same scale as the standard skeleton) or something different?. have read your guide and been experimenting alittle but can't really figure it out.

Cheers

[kungfuserge]

Sorry to intrude : but How do you Open a .Cas file in the MTTW2 animations Pack ( and converted into Ms3d )
....in order to edit the file with Milkshape so far I have tried
with animation utilities 1.1 with (extracted into the same working folder) When I use Animerge ; it doesn't generate a Ms3d file ...just an error report I am using the Pack called M2TTW Animation files.zip 76 (mo) in order to change the musket reloading into a breech reloading (as I have modded the rifle ...
Can you help please

[KnightErrant]

Hi Kungfuserge,

Let's try an experiment with one of CA's stock musketeer units first
to see if we can isolate the problem. Use GrumpyOldMan's mesh
converter to convert it to .ms3d format. Then run the animationutilities.
Click the animmerge button. The first filechooser is looking for a .ms3d file.
Mouse to where you have the converted stock musketeer unit and select
it. The second filechooser is looking for an animation .cas file. Mouse to
Caliban's animation directory and to the MTW2_Musket subdirectory.
Pick an animation .cas file to try and select it. Then a third dialog comes up
asking for a frames-per-second value. 5 is a good number for this.

If this all works without an error you should get a new .ms3d file with
a name like musketeer_animby_MTW2_Musket_attack_missile etc. See if
this opens in Milkshape. If so, click the anim button and run the
animation and see how it looks.

If, on the other hand, the script fails on any of these steps, please post
back and we'll proceed from there to find out the reason for the failure.
I'm working off-site today but I'll check back tonight to see what results
you've had.

[dome]

öhm

its not working for me, when I click on the anim utilitiis icon pop up a balck window for a sec and thats all...

d.

[Bwian]

Dome, have you got Python installed? The programs KE has designed use Python script to run. I think you have to have the software installed to run it. Also, check the version. They have just released a version 3.0 of Python which is not backwards compatable. Older releases are still available, so get 2.61 instead. It's a free download.

In any case, this is now pretty much a redundant tool. Switch over to the GOAT/GOAL program. Knight Errant is continuing the development of hte tools in that program which bundles up all the things you would want in one easy to use package. The animation functions are all in it along with some fixes and improvements.

[dome]

Thanx!

That was the problem I guess! Ihave python 3.0.
Anyways where can I find this goat goal program?

dome