Breaking News: I HAVE unpacked animation files!

[zxiang1983]

Extracting pack.idx/dat is quite simple indeed!

1) Use a text editor ( for me, I use the Ultra Editor) to open the pack.idx file and open RTW's animation\pack.idx file, too

2) Replace the first 16 bytes of the M2TW's pack.idx with RTW's(See pictures)


3) Use the Vercingetorix's IDX extractor to extract them!!

4)mod, but I don't know how

5)Pack them using Vercingetorix's IDX. If you want them to work you have to replace the first 16 bytes with your original M2TW's pack.dat & pack.idx's


For those who want to extract skeleton.idx & skeleton.dat:

It appears that we can easily use Vercingetorix's IDX extractor to do this job. BUT, in fact, there will be something wrong! If you do so you can check the file list. Then you will find that one file is MISSING! that is "MTW2_Halberd_Primary". Actually there'er TWO "MTW2_Halberd_Primary" files but we are able to extract only one of them.

So, Here is the relatively correct step:
1) open skeleton.idx, again using UltraEdit. Find the string "MTW2_Halberd_Primary". There will be two. Edit one of them to, for example, "MTW2_Halberd_Primara".

2)Extract them using Vercingetorix's IDX extractor.

3)mod, but I don't know how

4)Pack them using Vercingetorix's IDX extractor.

5) Open your repacked skeleton.idx/dat, repalce the first 16 bytes with the original M2TW's. And don't forget to find the string "MTW2_Halberd_Primara" in your repacked skeleton.idx and change it back to "MTW2_Halberd_Primary".

[turd]

hacked by the chinese
good stuff, now textures!

[severdhope]

Agreed, I'm waiting on textures. Is there a way we can create a modified plugin that simply ignores the first part of the hex, so it acts as a .dds file without the conversion? Or if that's not possible, anyway I can edit .dds with Jasc Paintshop Pro? I found the plugin for Adobe, but I don't have that.

Keep up the good work. It's things like this tah drive the community!

[VaultDweller]

How were you able to get them working after packing them again?

[HorseArcher]

that's quite simple indeed!

1) Use a text editor ( for me, I use the Ultra Editor) to open the pack.idx file and open RTW's animation\pack.idx file, too

2) Replace the first 16 bit of the M2TW's pack.idx with RTW's(See pictures)

3) Use the Vercingetorix's IDX extractor to extract them!!


Edit: I have to admit there's still some problem to mod these files, cuz when I pack them again I got a CTD. Still working on it~~

Edit2: Now the first problem is fixed. I can extract them and pack them again and make them work. The problem rest is how to mod them.

Excellent!

I guess it's the same deal like the .texture files, someone else did similar with the hex editor and he was able to convert the .texture files to .dds

zip it up and pass it on! (I don't feel like hack ...erm...hex editing)

[zxiang1983]

How were you able to get them working after packing them again?

Well. You have to replace again the first 16 bit of your packed pack.dat & pack.idx with the original M2TW's. It will work well.

But if I mod some of the extracted files. I will get a CTD. So frankly speaking, I still don't know how to mod them.

[VaultDweller]

Well. You have to replace again the first 16 bit of your packed pack.dat & pack.idx with the original M2TW's. It will work well.

I did, but it still crashed to desktop... maybe I made a typo.

Will try again.

As a point of semantics: it's 16 bytes, not 16 bits.

[zxiang1983]

I did, but it still crashed to desktop... maybe I made a typo.

Will try again.

As a point of semantics: it's 16 bytes, not 16 bits.

Thank u for correcting me

Maybe I did not emphasize that step. The fact is, when you extract them you only have to change the 16 bytes in pack.idx. But after you packed them, you have to change back both pack.dat and pack.idx. Again I don't know why.

[VaultDweller]

Actually, the problem was that I still had the files open in my hex editor, thus they could not be written to, and thus they were not updated properly when I repacked.

I'm able to get the game working with the repacked pack.idx/dat now, but I'm also having trouble making it work with changes.

I can add animations to a unit (which don't seem to be used), but if any of the default animations are removed, it barfs.

[redmark]

I don't have the demo, so I can't complete the check - but I think I've managed to get a couple of 2HSwordsman animations into the 2H_Axe unit in game; i.e. not just changing the soldier unit used, but having the existing 2H_Axe animations complemented by a couple of 2HSwordsman ones.

With the demo - do you have visibility of the descr_skeleton.txt file, as well as being able to unpack the animations? If so, I think I can detail a walkthrough on how to get the 'missing' animations into the game.

[Caliban]

You should also be able to run the game without re-packing the animation files. If you add :

[util]
no_animdb = true

or

no_animdb = 1 (i cant remember which one works)

To your config file, this should run the animations straight from the .cas files and not the pack files. I think after you extract the .cas files, you can delete the idx and .dat files too. The game should re-build them next time its run as long as the .cas files are extracted.

[HorseArcher]

You should also be able to run the game without re-packing the animation files. If you add :

[util]
no_animdb = true

or

no_animdb = 1 (i cant remember which one works)

To your config file, this should run the animations straight from the .cas files and not the pack files. I think after you extract the .cas files, you can delete the idx and .dat files too. The game should re-build them next time its run as long as the .cas files are extracted.

and the legendary Caliban shows up to give us a hand!

(changed your usergroup to reflect your position here)

Please stick around, or at least visit us!

[InferiorBeing]

1) Use a text editor ( for me, I use the Ultra Editor) to open the pack.idx file and open RTW's animation\pack.idx file, too

2) Replace the first 16 bytes of the M2TW's pack.idx with RTW's(See pictures)

3) Use the Vercingetorix's IDX extractor to extract them!!

4)mod, but I don't know how

5)Pack them using Vercingetorix's IDX. If you want them to work you have to repace the first 16 bytes with your original M2TW's pack.dat & pack.idx's

Whoa. Way, way, way, way, way too complicated for me.

[Angmar_nite]

And here I am thinking Shogun is the only guy with that spiffy badge. Always good to see CA here.

[zxiang1983]

You should also be able to run the game without re-packing the animation files. If you add :

[util]
no_animdb = true

or

no_animdb = 1 (i cant remember which one works)

To your config file, this should run the animations straight from the .cas files and not the pack files. I think after you extract the .cas files, you can delete the idx and .dat files too. The game should re-build them next time its run as long as the .cas files are extracted.

But there's one problem. As I mentioned, the skeleton.dat/idx cannot be extracted as easily as pack.dat/idx. There're TWO files in it with ONE same name. Actually, the names are "MTW2_Halberd_Primary"(about 37k) and "MTW2_Halberd_primary"(about 2k). We can not extract and make them exist in a same folder. So we HAVE TO change one of their names, extract them, repack them and change the name back, if we want them to work.

Any advice? Thanks a lot for your help

[SigniferOne]

zxiang, have you had success editing the animations themselves? I followed your process, but animations appear very jumpy when imported into 3dsmax.

[Trajan]

Moved to Tools, Tutorials and Resources.

[Trotski12]

animations appear very jumpy when imported into 3dsmax.

So you mean that you can import theim in 3ds max??

Personnally i cannot... vercingetorix tool don't want it...

[zxiang1983]

I myself know little about 3dmax...so can't help you guys~

[Trotski12]

o you have visibility of the descr_skeleton.txt file, as well as being able to unpack the animations?

with unpak tool, yes.

But sadly this file isn't used anymore