Trouble editing animations in to descr_skeleton

[aleolex]

I made a custom animation set, and someone pointed out to me that it isn't compatible with the kingdoms campaigns or mods because it didn't have the flamethrower or mangonel animation sets. So I put those in, it crashes, I fix the issue in the log, start it again, it crashes. At this point it only ever gives me an unspecified error. The problem is in the descr_skeleton file, as I deleted it and it started up just fine. I also made sure to update the descr_engine_skeleton as well because of the mangonel. I copied and pasted the entries for the flamethrower and mangonel crew at the end of the file but that wasn't an issue for a previously created custom animation set in the attached file.

I'm fairly certain I have all the animations required, is it just an incompatibility with vanilla medieval 2? Or are there other factors that I'm missing?

descr_skeletonEANS.txt

[Gigantus]

You may want to try bovi's checker - it does a fairly comprehensive check on the animation files. For some quick testing (automatic DAT\IDX creation) give my dev kit a shot.

[aleolex]

So I downloaded Bovi's checker, but there's a trojan in it, so that's a no go. I'll give your dev kit a try later on.

[Gigantus]

Curious about the AV action - no problem from my side. I am assuming your AV is a tad overzealous as the checker creates log files from it's readings.

Edit: I ran the zip file through the online checker at virustotal.com and it came up clean.

[aleolex]

Yeah, It was overzealous. Downloaded it again and it was accepted with no issues. Now I just have to figure out how to use it, thanks.

[Gigantus]

There are instructions in the original thread - basically it's java based, so you need to have java installed, the minimum version is listed I think.

[aleolex]

So Bovi's checker wasn't particularly useful for figuring out what was wrong, all it told me was that no units used those animation sets, which I already knew. Luckily your devkit appears to have helped me a bit more to figure out where the error was caused, if not much else.

The error occurs when it comes to the Flamethrower animations:

12:35:16.777 [system.io] [info] exists: missing mods/devkit/data/siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Flamethrower_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints12:35:16.777 [system.io] [trace] file open,,data/siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Flamethrower_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints,163
12:35:16.777 [system.io] [info] open:   found data/siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Flamethrower_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints (from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War)
12:35:16.777 [system.io] [info] exists:   found mods/devkit/data/animations/MTW2_Musket/MTW2_Musket_basepose.cas (from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War)
12:35:16.778 [system.io] [info] exists:   found mods/devkit/data/animations/MTW2_Flamethrower/MTW2_Flamethrower_knockback_from_front.cas (from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War)
12:35:16.778 [system.io] [trace] file open,,mods/devkit/data/animations/MTW2_Flamethrower/MTW2_Flamethrower_knockback_from_front.cas,8945
12:35:16.778 [system.io] [info] open:   found mods/devkit/data/animations/MTW2_Flamethrower/MTW2_Flamethrower_knockback_from_front.cas (from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War)
12:35:16.809 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.

All of these animations existed even before I tried to put these animations in the descr_skeleton file. I'm not even sure what I could do differently, because the entries for these animations are pulled directly from the kingdoms descr_skeleton file.

[Gigantus]

Tip when reading the log: 'missing' is usually followed by 'found' - the former relating to it's absence in the mod's directory, the latter to it's presence in the pack files.

12:35:16.777 [system.io] [info] exists: missing mods/devkit/data/siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Flamethrower_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints
12:35:16.777 [system.io] [trace] file open,,data/siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Flamethrower_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints,163
12:35:16.777 [system.io] [info] open:   found data/siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Flamethrower_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints (from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War)

The log finishes with finding the animation - it's what happened after that which caused the crash. Have a look in descr_skeleton if this animation is followed by a custom entry, make sure it exists.
Another approach would be to keep a copy of the log, use the original descr_skeleton file and then, after running the dev kit again, search in the new log for that sequence of entries prior to the crash - it may give an idea what went wrong, eg the line after the 'found flamethrower animation' could give a hint.

Edit: weird I thought I had changed the generic error message to my trademark 'Uh oh, not sure what happened....'

[aleolex]

I was just referencing it from the beginning of the flamethrower entries, here's the error highlighted:

12:35:16.777 [system.io] [info] exists: missing mods/devkit/data/siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Flamethrower_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints12:35:16.777 [system.io] [trace] file open,,data/siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Flamethrower_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints,163
12:35:16.777 [system.io] [info] open:   found data/siege_engines/UnitModelsRefPoints/Flamethrower_Ref_Point.modelReferencePoints (from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War)
12:35:16.777 [system.io] [info] exists:   found mods/devkit/data/animations/MTW2_Musket/MTW2_Musket_basepose.cas (from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War)
12:35:16.778 [system.io] [info] exists:   found mods/devkit/data/animations/MTW2_Flamethrower/MTW2_Flamethrower_knockback_from_front.cas (from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War)
12:35:16.778 [system.io] [trace] file open,,mods/devkit/data/animations/MTW2_Flamethrower/MTW2_Flamethrower_knockback_from_front.cas,8945
12:35:16.778 [system.io] [info] open:   found mods/devkit/data/animations/MTW2_Flamethrower/MTW2_Flamethrower_knockback_from_front.cas (from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War)
12:35:16.809 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.

The program seems to read: [info]exists>[trace]file open>[info]open; and they do this within the same millisecond, so the issue would have to happen directly after the Flamethrower animation is opened.

Either way it's a flamethrower animation, because directly after this entry is flamethrower_knockback_from_back

I tested it further by commenting out the flamethrower lines in sequence to see if any of them worked, and all of them gave errors. When I commented out all of them, it launched with no issues, so the mangonel animations, and the custom animation set at the bottom of my descr_skeleton file, were acceptable. Only the flamethrower animations are giving me these issues.

Edit: I see in your devkit descr_skeleton file that the flamethrower animations have been replace by the handgun animations. Does that mean you also came across these issues?

[Gigantus]

Can't recall having edited anything in descr_skeleton, the file in the devkit is dated back to 2010. According to the header it's from: 'SigniferOne's M2TW Animations Pack v0.1' - the default descr_skeleton files does not to have the flamethrower animation in it to start with, only the crusade's one. And that one is using the flamethrower cas files.

Edit: I changed a single CAS file entry to flamethrower and that crashed - something definitely wrong with those cas files. Didn't even touch the evt entry as those files don't exist.

And then in the infinite depths of my memory I found this (the media fire link is invalid):

The animations for the Greek Firethrower are only in the animation pack of the crusades campaign. Is there a way to utilize it by adding it to descr_skeletons?

I was playing around with Vercengetorix's IDX Extractor a HexEditor and the crusades animation pack, the attachment was the result. It didn't unpack any EVT files and the CAS files an't be used by the looks of it: I failed to get an animerge with GOAT to work.

MTW2_Flamethrower Animations

I can only assume that the cas files do not extract properly, eg have a different format then the vanilla ones and hence don't unpack properly.

[aleolex]

Well great! I'm not one to be against essentially jury-rigged solutions, so if the handgun animations work, they work. Thanks for the help, appreciate it.

[Gigantus]

Pity no-one found a way a way to properly extract those animations - I even tried the 'modeler's toolbox' but it had the same issue. Being essentially 'kingdoms' animations there might have been a small change in their format that the unpackers can't handle properly.

There was talk of having a look with a hex editor (it could be a simple byte issue) but there was no follow up.