How to merge animations from 2 different mods

**Lifthrasir** · December 22, 2015, 12:59 AM

I've started to have a look through your files. So far, I' haven't found the problem.
But I've notice the strange "behaviour" of the software when unpacking the pack.dat file. It could be due to the amount of files in it (quite numerous actually

). But that's just a guess.

Edit: Is your game running fine without the BreUnor animations? I'm asking because I've spotted some differences between your entries in the descr_skeleton file and the original one from the Myth.

**gosho** · December 22, 2015, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by Lifthrasir

I've started to have a look through your files. So far, I' haven't found the problem.
But I've notice the strange "behaviour" of the software when unpacking the pack.dat file. It could be due to the amount of files in it (quite numerous actually

). But that's just a guess.

Edit: Is your game running fine without the BreUnor animations? I'm asking because I've spotted some differences between your entries in the descr_skeleton file and the original one from the Myth.

The mod works fine without breunor units, the problem starts when i put the entry of the unit in the battlemodel_DB of MOS. the desc_skeleton its the one of mos 1.70.
A funny thing is that they already have implement some animations of myth and the wolf unit. It's very strange that breunor unit cause a lot of problems.

**gosho** · December 22, 2015, 05:06 PM

Do you know the purpose of these lines and numbers?
I found them only in the beginning of the descr_skeleton:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Basically this unit of MOS are very similar to the breunor unit.
The differences are the shield lines, but both units don't have a shield in the game.

Infact the breunor:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Lifthrasir** · December 23, 2015, 02:34 PM

The fs_test_shield has something relating to the animation of the shield if I remember it correctly. I can't remember precisely and I'm unable to find the source where I read something about it.

The number you highlighted is to tell the game how many entries are following. For the Breunor, it's a "1" because there's no shield. For the snaga skirmishers, it's a "2" because of the shield. For more info, read the tutorials about the modeldb file. It's explained in a much better manner than mine

Regarding your problem, I haven't found anything wrong with your modeldb file or descr_skeleton file. With what is mentioned in your log, I think that there an error in one of the relevant skeleton for that animation. It might take a while before I find out. But no worries, I'm not forgetting you

**gosho** · December 24, 2015, 11:53 AM

Thanks to the Gods of modding and the great holy Ape

I have play with the unit in custom battle without crash!!!
It was exactly that missing line about Shield which cause the problem, infact i put the lines like the snaga skirmishers and it worked:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

It woulb be interesting thing understand why these units like breunor and snaga skirmisher needs a shield entry but they don't have it ingame.
If you play the breunor unit in the Myth mod, it doesn't need the fs_test_shield line, it works perfectly but in the TATW mod no. Why?
However thanks for your support and i whish you merry christmas and happy hollydays!!!

**Lifthrasir** · December 25, 2015, 03:55 AM

Glad you made it work.
Yep, I don't see why that line is that important. If I find something, I'll let you know.
Merry Xmas.

**Melooo182** · July 30, 2017, 12:08 PM

Hello!

Have any of you tried the game's .exe native packer for animations and skeletons?
The engine successfully creates the .dat and .idx files but however not all the animations seem to be packed and must remain outside loose in the folder...
not sure why this happens and haven't seen any thread addressing that so that's why I'm writing it here.

Any ideas, past experiences?

Also, I've noticed something weird, the binary data doesn't match when packing with the game engine and unpacking with Zarathos' tool
in fact the unpacked animations from SS6.4 apparently causes CTD right away

**rafmc1989** · July 30, 2017, 12:48 PM

About inserting new animations...
When editing the anim files, apart from the extractors for anims/skeletons, as well the .txt lists must be edited for all new additions and the path of the extracted anim files must be changed via Notepad++ (as when passing anims from one mod to another, the mod path needs to change as well), and of course the descr_skeleton... all must be done synchronically, otherwise CTD at game start...

**Melooo182** · July 30, 2017, 02:26 PM

Ok upon further testing, the animations not packed were actually not referenced in the descr_skeleton.txt, which makes sense...so that part can be disregarded.

I have managed a working .dat and .idx using original animations and other animations files which were provided in loose format (not packed)

However I still have a persistent problem, animations unpacked with Zarathos' Tool (v0.6) do seem to cause CTD when you try to pack them with the Engine's native packer.

So my question is this, have anyone else experienced this?
Do I have to forcibly repack with Zarathos' Tool again?

**Lifthrasir** · July 30, 2017, 02:59 PM

I haven't used the Zarathos' tool v0.6. I'm fine with the previous version (v0.5) as I've never encourtered any issue with it while unpacking/packing the animations. There are several posts mentioning issues with the v0.6 and I don't know if it has been fixed. That might be the reason.

Another point is that there are a bunch of useless animations in SS6.4. Basically, you just need the pack.dat, pack.idx, skeletons.dat and skeletons.idx files and the folder named engine. All the others can be removed. I have no idea why bit the folder "engine" has to be kept or the game crashes.

Now, I'm not sure to get what you call "the engine native packer" but if it is the tool included in M2TW, I think that it is incompatible with the Zarathos' tool as the list of animations (once unpacked) should be in different formats in both tools.

**Melooo182** · July 30, 2017, 03:24 PM

And upon further investigation, I came across this post:

Originally Posted by Morfans

This tool actually works fine.

My mistake was to assume that any animation in ".cas" format was equal to M2TW, which is not the case.

Animations in .cas format that tools (like Milkshape/Goat) can handle or the database CA released (here) are different from those packed in .dat/.idx databases. You can directly see that through a hex editor.

I wanted to create a "idx" package by assembling animations in both formats, but that's not possible.

I solved it by :

consolidating all "Goat" format animations with the CA package
letting the game assemble a new idx from the consolidated package
unpacking the idx with this tool
merging all idx animations (those natively availabe in idx format and those converted by the game) into a common folder
repacking with this tool

**rafmc1989** · July 30, 2017, 03:56 PM

What I can say is that when I edit animations and customize them, I use the xidx, and the batch files of extract_animations/extract_skeletons, pack_animations/pack_skeletons so as to obtain the new .dat and .idx once I did all necessary changes to implement them... and never encounter problems with it.

**Melooo182** · July 30, 2017, 08:46 PM

@Lift: Yeah I figured out about the "engines" folder thing, since the engines animations are referenced by descr_engine_skeleton.txt, it is irrelevant for the packed files, which essentially only deals with descr_skeleton.txt
And the CTD when the folder is missing happen because it contain the mangonel animations and events which are nowhere else to be loaded because it was added with the Kingdoms' Teutonic Campaign, all other engines anims are stored in the main Data_#.Pack files.

About the useless animations in SS6.4, well they are in "editable" CAS format, which is the one that the game's native packer can read as well as GOAT/GOAL tools, so I suppose the devs had them there for future editing or whatever, but it's true that they can be removed without any impact on the game whatsoever.

@rafmc1989: So you're saying you've actually managed to get editable animations from the files extracted? do these work with GOAT?
I've used XIDX for extracting sound files successfully, however about using it for the animations/skeletons I've read several posts discouraging it's use because it corrupts the data...not sure how bad it is though.

**rafmc1989** · July 30, 2017, 11:55 PM

Melooo I use the Vercingetorix tool most of the time
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downl...?do=file&id=32
and never had problems about other data files... just need to edit the lists for skeletons and animations, plus modifications in the descr_skeleton and it's done... Moreover, I usually do manual editing to the d_skeleton for some animations that I want to look different , like cutting the reload sequence to javelinmen, adding a sequence variety to maces/axes and so on (and finally report the new edited animations in the .db)... Works with zero issues.

And as you said, I use it for customized music as well, and no problems.

**IGdood** · November 11, 2017, 05:12 PM

Thank you for the guide.

However I cannot see the screenshots you have posted due to bandwidth issues on photobucket's end.

I seem to have problems with skeletons because when merging the packs the newly merged pack of skeletons cannot be loaded without CTD when starting the game. Logs tell me nothing.

Also when editing a skeleton file with notepad ++ is there a way to make the formatting neater? All I see are NULL NULL NULL directory NULL NULL...

**rafmc1989** · November 11, 2017, 06:42 PM

always check to have the corrected path of the new folder where the animations are included when you edit with Notepad++, as well as updating the descr_skeleton and the txt lists generated by the extraction of animations...
CTD means one of the processes is not correct, it's a delicate manouver... To avoid continuous errors, try merging one animation at time and you pack again, then unpack and add another one, etc...

While, the NULL NULL stuff it's the coding itself, what matters is the correct path of the folder containing the animations...

**Lifthrasir** · November 12, 2017, 01:43 AM

@ IGdood, thanks for reminding me that bloody new Photobucket policy. I'll re-upload them somewhere else

For the rest, it's what rafmc1989 said. The only interesting part in these files are the paths. All the "fancy" font/letters/words don't concern us for the job.