GOAT and GOAL: A collection of modelling and animation utilities

[Spartos]

You need to download python, its the environment the script uses to run. I think KE links to it from his download pages for his utilities.

[Eothese]

Is it the stat model converter for milkshape users? Will it work for 3ds max?

[SigniferOne]

KE, here is a model (I think) that did not correctly work in GOAT's mesh converter, but worked properly in GOM's.

http://files.filefront.com/Boii+Equi.../fileinfo.html

[KnightErrant]

Downloaded the files. GOAT can't convert the .mesh file because the
secondary bone assigment is 255 (that is also -1 for an unsigned byte).
I guess GOM's converter will take Milkshape's definition for unassigned bones
and go backwards into a .mesh file and that works, I did not know that.
Here's the only experiment I can think of, I'll take the .ms3d file, delete
Grumpy's composite bones, substitute the six weapon/shield bone strings
parenting the four weapon bones to bone_rhand and the two shield bones
to bone_lhand and then back converting. This should produce an identical
.mesh file except the secondary bone assignment will be to the root bone
or bone_pelvis with zero weight. Then I'll try the forward and backward
conversion to see if that produces an identical .mesh file. All the vanilla
.meshes always have a secondary bone assignment, so I'm not going to
worry about this too much if the experiment works.

Wrong thread, but you had asked if you really need to export extra bone
skeletons to ALL .cas files to get extra bone animations to work. The
answer is yes. A colleague has gotten extra bone skeletons to work
in-game and you do have to make all animations in that family have the
extra bones entry or else the game crashes. Slightly disappointing, but from
my viewpoint certainly OK since I had assumed that from the start.

Hate to be redundant across threads, but will anyone sign up for chariots?

[Rorarii]

ME!! .. if your looking for takers?

BTW, I remember SHREDDER posted some pictures of M2TW chariots but said they were YEOMANS .. and he said he was working on the animations .. obviously he hit a brick wall. You might want to talk to them?

Wouldn't it be great if TW series had cart units, these could be used to hold supplies in strategic map and to be looted in the battle map.

R

[KnightErrant]

Excellent, I was hoping for a willing victi..., uh volunteer.
I think the first thing to check is if we can see the clipping of the model in-game that
Bwian described last year when he was doing his chariot work. If this can't be fixed then
that sort of shoots the whole idea down. So let's not worry about fixing weird animation effects
or doing extra bones or anything hard, just make a simple test model and see what happens to it.

I'll use mount_heavy_horse just as an example. I convert it over to .ms3d with GOAT and then
I do a duplicate selection to get two horses and move one to the left 0.4 meters and the other
to the right 0.4 meters so they are really close together but not touching, like this:



Just for fun though, lets look at the walk animation. Animmerge with fs_horse_walk.cas
and you see the distortions of the front leg that Bwian found. This is due to the offset
of the right horse's mesh away from the origin of bone_RightFingerBase. I've tried to
sketch the coodinate system of that bone in this picture.



Now we need a surrogate for the chariot. It needs to have markers on it to see where the clipping
occurs (if it occurs), so just with boxes, scaling, duplicating and regrouping you can make
some kind of yoke like this:



It's also good to look at the walk anim for this one too. I thought I would see too much bouncing because
the yoke is so long, but it really wasn't bad.



I think something like this would be a good test model. Let's say we call it something like

mount_chariot_horse_lod0.mesh

The duplicate horse will have multiple group comments so they'll have to be fixed.
I settled on something like

Body
Horse_Big_05
0

and the yoke of course doesn't have a comment so put in something like

Body
yoke
0

This doesn't take that long to make but I'll upload the model here if you
want to skip doing this part.

http://rapidshare.com/files/14804365...lod0.ms3d.html

The modeldb entry could look like this:

19 mount_chariot_horse 1.12 3 
60 unit_models/Mounts/Heavy_Horse/mount_chariot_horse_lod0.mesh 10000

with whatever factions you want to try it out on.

Then pick a horse rider unit and substitute mount_chariot_horse in place of his regular
mount and see what happens. The rider's placement will be all wrong but we'll deal with that
later. What do you think as a first experiment?

[Icedie El Guaraní]

I am interested in this i have merge the chariot with the horse and assign the bones as well but i am nor sure if will work.
i saw your mount_chariot_horse weight and i think what we should try is to intercalate the horse skeleton to the body parts, like right front leg of the horse in the left use the same bone as the left front leg of the second horse and so on, so that the animation may move them acordingly , but this may be just useless tip for you guys, it was just a thought, i don´t know how hard it is to assing the bone to the horses i only try it with foot units, but what i am trying to say is if you can make the bone look like in a mirror rather than a copy of it, will this work?
so here is another
Mount_chariot_horse
and chariot_1horse
i hope this help.

EDITED
Ok here is what i found out
i use my merged chariot bla bla, and i assign the sadle bone to the chariot, it moves weird in battle, the horse on the left of the model the one with separate body part appears in game but the one that only has one matterial it invisible and the serial is
one horse on the left rider - chariot and horseon the right missing
one chariot one rider- 2 horses missing

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

,

the second test
i assign the spine to the rot on the back of the horse and the chariot to the sadle and weighted 50/50 but it didn´t do much change.
and the secuence was the same :
1 horse on the left 1 rider/ 1 horse and chariot missing
1 chariot 1 rider /2 horses missing

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

,

The good things
the animation for walk is the one you were talking about is still the same but the running animation its good(normal)
When the horse die the chariot flip over or stand still with the horse in front a good think.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Next time i will try to assign the head bone to the yoke and the neck bone to the chariot and see what it does, also is there a way to move the z and y coordinates to position the rider on top of the chariot, i know this is possible but would it mutate the animation of it? or just make a pappet attached to the chariot but there will be no animation for it, i think here is where you come to work KnightErrant.
Cheers

[Rorarii]

WOW, there's 2 of us trying to get chariots working, good start IceDie

Here's my effort with KE mesh. (I needed to change the class names in all comments)

Back view




Far way back view




Front View




Side View - standing




Side View Bucking (end of pole moves like a catapult .. WHOOSSHHH!!!) Some weight will need to be added to the rear




Side View Walking - legs appear wobbly (strange) but not too bad?




I've also noted, horse animations are same for both horses .. which is expected i suppose (minor point) and when they die, horses lay on their sides, on top of each other .. looks ok, one is half buried.


Now what KE?


R

[KnightErrant]

Wow, great job both of you. Rorarii, what did you have change class
names to in order to get it to work? That might help Icedie of South.
I don't see any clipping so my failing neurons must have manufactured
that memory. The next thing is to try and change the attachment point
for the rider. I'll dig up Bwian's posts at the guild and see if he talks about
this or maybe its in an old PM. I think it must be done with the animations.
Both the horse and the horse rider anims have a string called
CaozSceneCustomAttribNode in them which I think defines how one is
attached to the other. Now there is a way of modifying these animation
files without having to animmerge them. Using GOAT click the
Convertcastotxt button and then select an animation .cas file. This will
produce a .txt file of the same name. I'm thinking the most likely file
to try first is (this is for Rorarii who looks like he's using hr_lance)
hr_lance_ready.cas, which is probably the standing around default when
not fighting.

After you've converted to .txt you can open it with any text editor
like notepad. The bottom line looks like this:

106 1 1 CaozSceneCustomAttribNode_1 1 0 1 0 0 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0 0 -1 0 0 1 16 2 0 0 16 3 0 0 16 8 0 0 16 10 0 0 12 5 0 12 12 0

I'm betting (but I don't know) that some of the red floats have something
to do with offsets from the attachment point, and that modifying these
and putting the new animation in game will change the position of the
ready animation (but not any of the others of course). If we figure this
out, or someone who has already tried some of these experiments posts
their knowledge (hint, hint), then I can write a quick script to change
all the anim .cas files in a directory to use the same values.
I don't know any other thing to try but change one of the 0.0 values to
-1.5 or something, use the converttxttocas button in GOAT to convert it
back, and put the changed anim in game by rebuilding the animation
packs, and see what happens.

Do both of you know how to rebuild the animation packs, that is,
pack.dat, pack.idx, skeleton.dat, and skeleton.idx?

Later we'll fix the goofy front leg animations using the same .cas to .txt
trick but that's just a cosmetic thing we can ignore for right now.
The dead horse problem always worried me too. Maybe that can be
changed too, not sure.

[Rorarii]

No, I don't know how to use the animation packs.

Change the attachment for rider?

Wouldn't it be better to add in the chariot (and remove the pole) .. and find out why the Chariot is a uni-cycle?

I thought of changing the M2TW Cross-wagon mesh (already has wheel animations) but GOM's tool didn't work for this

R

[KnightErrant]

Oops, my bad, I probably should have asked that question first.
You don't actually rebuild the packs yourself, you back them up by
moving them or renaming them, and then when you launch the game
it can't find what it wants and it rebuilds them from Caliban's unpacked
animations directory. But if rebuilding animation packs is unfamiliar, you
probably don't have Caliban's stuff in your data directory.

So I had better explain what this investigation is mostly about. Other
than making a cool looking chariot at some point (which I can't do, I hardly
model at all), it's really about manipulating animations. Bwian started this
by working with the horse for the mount, although we waffled a little bit
between camel and horse when the anims on the front legs got wonky but
I think I understand that now so those can be fixed (except for dead pairs
of horses, another problem).

The cross-wagon mesh, if it's the same thing
as great_cross_standard, that I'm familiar with. Teia used that to make a
much bigger Carrocio (sp.?) but the anims didn't work. I exported a new
skeleton to the anims to get it to play right in game but it just has a few
anims, doesn't really interact much, and you can't get riders on it to
fight.

What I'd like to try and help someone create is a rider that can either
fight with a lance from a chariot, or if that doesn't work, at least an archer
that can shoot from a moving chariot. That's a very classical style of
fighting. Rereading some posts back at the Guild Wiki, someone had also
suggested making a puppet for the driver (meaning an un-animated
human mesh that's just part of the chariot) and then the actual fighter
is the rider attached to the chariot. Interesting idea. But to make any
of that work, it has to follow the way M2TW works meaning leveraging
off the existing mechanisms for attaching riders to mounts. That's the
bit about the experiments for playing with the floats around the
CaozSceneCustomAttribNode_01 string.

If this is beginning to sound really NOT modelling but rather "yuck, I don't
think this is what I want to work on", fair enough. But if still interested,
go look in your data\animations directory and see if you see the files
pack.dat, pack.idx, skeleton.dat, and skeleton.idx. These are the packed
files that contain all the animations used by vanilla. Caliban's directory,
available for download, contains all the individual .cas files that were
used to create the packed files. The cool thing is the game will repack
them again for you, and so if you change them, your changes will show
up in the game. That's the idea for this, mess around with rider placement,
see if it works. If it does, make a nice looking chariot. Then, FINALLY,
try and fix any animations that look bad. After that, (do I not know what
the word FINALLY means?) make a new animation family just for chariots
and modify skeleton.txt to add that in so regular horse animations don't get
messed up for the rest of the horse riding public. Sorry if that sounds like
goobledygook, I certainly don't mean we'll do this all at once, but in
stages.

[Icedie El Guaraní]

I got a question here, for KE ; does the numbers( 0.000000 0.00000 0. 0000 ) are positioned like this (x , y , z ) 1.00000 (0.00000 0.00000 0.00000) X, Y, Z ? and what animation should i open for Mailed and Feudal Knights?
I use Caliban´s animation folder and the first test did not work but no ctd so i guess i am gonna have to try more.
The idea for the chariot attached rider i already suggested that, and for the rider i was thinking on making a new animation family, take a dismounted archer and use it as HR but with out the sitting animation, when ever the X;Y;Z coordinates are change the animation will be standing on the chariot.(I hope you were not reffering to me in the cool looking chariot comment, that is not what i intended)
So what i am gonna try for my self if no one is interested anymore is try to find the Z coordinates offset of that rider, or if not create a new family and see if the standing rider can work aswell.
Edited
I read the animation utility manual and what i need to know better is how does the .dat, .idx files are pack and what is the procedure to repack it.(hints)
Nothing happen when i did this (-1.50000 -1.50000 -1.50000 5.00000 -1.50000 -1.50000 -1.5000) so now i am sure my

[util]
no_animdb = true

itsn´t working can anyone advice please(hint)
None of the Chariot_cavalry animation work the horse seems to just move the head, like in a shake motion.

[Rorarii]

@KE

ok, i've downloaded the animation CAS files, what tool do i use to play with them, I assume Milkshape and attach the CAS files to a MS3D file somehow? How do i link the animations and the mesh?

I'll try to see what i can do with animations etc but I'm way out of my depth! .. and i'm too old to learn new tricks .. my head hurts everytime i try to learn something new!

R

Note, i do see a CHARIOT_CAVALRY sub folder in animations .. I assume a left over from RTW.

[SigniferOne]

KE, let me ask you this before you dive completely into the .world files:

1) Did you get the horse mesh fixed in GOAT? I missed if you did or not.
2) What's the fix for model seams? Do we just fix it by hand?

[KnightErrant]

(1) Not sure on that one, my neurons may have misfired again. I thought
horses were ok, especially because Rorarii gets them back in game and they
look ok. I thought the problem was that unit which worked ok with GOM's
converter but not mine. I can't convert it from mesh because it has -1's
for the secondary assignment, so I had meant to delete the Grumpy bones
from the .ms3d file and put in the six weapon and shield bones and try to
back-convert it and then forward convert it, and if that worked I would be
happy. It's on the list but I've sort of over-extended myself on my
obligations. (Oh, where have we haven't heard this refrain the last two
weeks. Sorry, observational comment on current financial events.)

(2) Seam problem. Totally up on this one. If it is in the face or under the
arm, it can be fixed with GOAT by operating on the .ms3d file. You
select the verts where you want the seam fixed in Milkshape and
save the file with the seams selected. Then use the PlanarizeSeamNormals
button from GOAT and it fixes the seams. (Details in the User's Guide.)
The best fix, if 3ds Max is an option, is to select the vertices and turn
them into explicit vertices using an EditNormals modifier. There's an option
to turn on handles and then you can manipulate them any way you want.
This way you can fix seams not on the face or under the arms, whereas
the Milkshape solution is kind of special purpose for this. Basically, you
just want the normals to point straight out from the mesh and then the
lighting does what it should do and the seams disappear.

[Rorarii]

@KE, anyone, any hint at how to link CAS and MS3D files in milkshape .. FIXED, Thanks ICEdie .. I now have something to play around with.

As to the US economy, The Princes of NewEngland who run Wallstreet have really screwed you guys up, Have you seen this, hope it's not true!


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=TQb3os...eature=related


As the chinese proverb goes "..may you live in interesting times"

R

[SigniferOne]

I thought the problem was that unit which worked ok with GOM's converter but not mine.... It's on the list but I've sort of over-extended myself on my obligations.

No problem at all! Just wanted to know where we stand on this.

(2) Seam problem. If it is in the face or under the arm, it can be fixed with GOAT by operating on the .ms3d file....

The best fix, if 3ds Max is an option, is to select the vertices and turn them into explicit vertices using an EditNormals modifier.

Ok this is pretty sweet. Even if Max is an option, isn't there no way of exporting the rigging, so that we would have to rig all of the mesh to the skeleton once we bring it back from Max?

[Rorarii]

I don't think this is going to work guys .. not withsanding the problem with merging the horses with the chariot, causing the missing chariot parts (I've renamed the classes), it looks really strange when the horses move and the chariot flips up and down like a leaf.












R

[KnightErrant]

Ok, apologies to all, by which I mean Icedie, Rorarii, and SigniferOne. Been
so swamped with Performance reviews at work (mine) and settlements I
haven't been revisiting my threads.

For Icedie and Rorarii,
Repacking means renaming these four files: pack.dat, pack.idx, skeleton.dat,
and skeleton.idx. Depending on how youv'e organized the game and your
mod folder(s), these should show up in your data\animations directory.
If you haven't downloaded what is called Caliban's animations directory,
this is a moot point. You can't repack if you don't have the animations
directory because there is nothing to rebuild from.

This is the way it should work. If you download Caliban's directory and put
it in your animations directory (vanilla or mod, depending on how you do
things), then when you rename the "packs" to something like pack.dat.orig,
the game can't find them and then it rebuilds them from all the .cas files
in Caliban's directory. This is called "rebuilding the packs", or at least for
animators it's called that. It's nothing you have to do yourself other than
the renaming to force the game to do it. Often people say just delete them
but to me that's rather drastic and assumes that it always works. I'd rather
rename them and if something bad happens, they are still there and you
just rename them back to recover your original configuration.

It takes awhile for this to happen, like 60 seconds or more depending on the
speed of your machine so don't worry if the hourglass spins a lot.

@Icedie
I think the [util] noanim_db=true is fine. Just don't know if it is truly needed.

@Rorarii,
Sounds like Icedie hooked you up with animmerge so you can test out
anims in Milkshape. If I can pick up a DVD player so I can test in-game
again, I'll try to check out the moving horse riders back onto the
chariot. by changing the the floats about the Caoz string.

@SigniferOne
I'm confused by this. The whole idea of the importer/exporter script was
to preserve the skeleton and its bone assignments. (This assumes that the
jargon rigging is synonymous with bone assignments.) An exported model
should be fully assigned, weighted, etc. when brought up in Milkshape.
An exported model with modified animations should also be viable in
Milkshape and a candidate for animextract to put modified animations
in-game. If this isn't working, I'd definately like to know, and try to fix
it. As a side note, DisgruntledGoat has posted that assignments made
with my BoneAndWeightInfo.ms script, do not always hold on export,
and he often reassigns bones in Gmax where they do hold. I've never
been able to reproduce this, but it might be a version issue.

Side note: Sox are up 2-1 over the Angels in the seventh. I'm just
saying...If I were Joe Torre, would I be happy or sad?

[Eothese]

Just a little note on Caliban's animations directory, it contains info from pre May 07. This means that if you are using a modfolder with something like Greek Firethrowers (MTW2_Flamethrower in descr_skeleton) the anims are not included and the game will throw an error.

The alternative is to attempt to use the Vercingetorix's IDX extractor to extract them manually. This was originally intended for Rome, so needs a little tweak.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=74055
I haven't tried this myself, but may need to in the near future.