-= Gametoast.com =-

So an animation bank is where animations are stored.

The max number of banks per map is 18.

Upscaled animations count as new ones, the game can't upscale the standard soilder animation for say, a gamorean guard.

As far as I can tell the max number of non-standard (custom animations and stock heros) animation banks is 13 (meaning there are 5 standard)

But can a single bank hold; run, idle, walk, sprint, fire, kneel, for both primary and secondary weapons? Or just one weapon? Or more?

How many animations can be in a bank? Is it one per weapon per function?

Can a solider use more than one new animation bank?

I really need these answered.

ARC1778 wrote:I really need these answered.

That doesn't mean you get to create another thread addressing the same subject when your original one is just a day old. Please have some patience.

As for your questions, have you done any testing to see what the answers are for yourself? You're clearly familiar with the limitations and the specific terminology, so why not put them into practice? Of course, once you run into a snag, that's when you can ask for further help.

AQT wrote:

ARC1778 wrote:I really need these answered.

That doesn't mean you get to create another thread addressing the same subject when your original one is just a day old. Please have some patience.

As for your questions, have you done any testing to see what the answers are for yourself? You're clearly familiar with the limitations and the specific terminology, so why not put them into practice? Of course, once you run into a snag, that's when you can ask for further help.

The forum has not been as active as late, and even when it was, animation was one of the things less attempted, it is also poorly documented (Plenty of tut for Making them, plenty for implementing ONE, but none for several) I felt that putting a topic with a title with something that might come up in an error log would mean more people who would bypass animation topics would look at this one as it's far more basic.

That would be foolish, I know there are 18 banks, I can see 13 unique animation sets in hero assault (if Han's side on shooting stance counts), therefore I can have atleast 12, now I had 14 planed with 3 free slots for heros, and 1 slot for locals, now, I do not want to go to the trouble of making an animtion set that there's no room for, I have 4 pistol animations planed, and 6 other weapons, (long-guns, short guns, MGs), special ones for magnaguard, B1 and B2 BDs and all of them stopped-framed with an action figure based on T.v. and movie poses of clones and droids, if it's less than 12 I need to replan and merge about half of them, none of the 12 have superfluous poses, so I can't just drop one. I don't have the asset I need to do the ones I NEED to do, I.e. that there are no animations for, or that the default ones that would clip.

This is really holding me off investing time in learning soft image/XSI, and I only know what I could find here. I AM being utterly impatient but every second I waste is another second closer to our deadline, a second that could be used on things that will make it.

(Yes we have actually have a deadline and something to show you -albeit limited atm with little of the final products scripting, and Commander Awesome is telling me the odfs will be ready in 2-3 weeks, so I need everything on this side -a map, classes, everything ready by the time he's done so we can start testing), and I want this to stand out in someway, ATM were giving a beta with a cool but likely still needing work map, a parically balanced side mod, a few new, but ultimately unused til now, assets which we were very kindly lent by the grace of our 3D modeling betters, and some clone wars music tracks, that's about all, on top of that, i am dosed out my skull which effects my work and a bunch more personal stuff I won't rant about.

I need four words, can I have them please, this is not the time for "learn it yourself" if I had unlimited time I'd happily mess around, but atm I'll end up hulk smashing my laptop. I'm doing this Right; plan, research, learn, implement. Don't do anything unless you know you can, you can mess around once it's finished. But if I can't get something new AND unique in that one of the team made just for this, then there's nothing there that makes it worth seeing, and re-skinned stock asset maps don't count.

ARC1778 wrote:...animation was one of the things less attempted, it is also poorly documented (Plenty of tut for Making them, plenty for implementing ONE, but none for several)...I'm doing this Right; plan, research, learn, implement. Don't do anything unless you know you can...

Tutorials and documentation, whether well or poorly done, do not just come into existence all by themselves. Instead, there is always an author who, seeing that there was little to no information on a given modding topic, takes the initiative and willing puts time and effort, possibly learning by trial and error, to figure out and detail the intricacies of that modding topic. You seem passionate enough about animation.

ARC1778 wrote:This is really holding me off investing time in learning soft image/XSI, and I only know what I could find here.

So you're holding off on learning a valuable transferable skill set just because you do not yet have answers to a handful of yes-no quantitative questions? If I may give you a word of advice: Please get your priorities straight. You can easily test out the number of CustomAnimationBank's that you want your map/mod to support without having the finalized custom animation .msh files on hand (just to be clear, by bank you mean rifle, pistol, bazooka, tool, and the like, right?): For example, you stated:

ARC1778 wrote:...I have 4 pistol animations planed...

Simply make three additional copies of all the animation .msh files related to the stock pistol animations and give them each a different CustomAnimationBank name. Then munge them all into the same .anims/.zafbin/.zaabin files. Although they all will functionally be the same as the original pistol animation bank, the game will recognize the three copies as unique. You may think this is a waste of time, but you're going to have to do it anyway once you have your finalized animation .msh files. Might as well set up all the essential munge files and folders, right?

Keep in mind that the game does not count by sets of animations but rather the number of animations in the set. For instance, loading the stock Bothan Spy and Clone Commander along with all the heroes in stock Hero Assault will hit the limit and cause the map to crash.

[quote="ARC1778""]...and re-skinned stock asset maps don't count[/quote]
One can work wonders with a map using stock assets....

Tutorials and documentation, whether well or poorly done, do not just come into existence all by themselves. Instead, there is always an author who, seeing that there was little to no information on a given modding topic, takes the initiative and willing puts time and effort, possibly learning by trial and error, to figure out and detail the intricacies of that modding topic. You seem passionate enough about animation.

Yes, and I intend to make an entire how this mod was made, and how to make another like it, but to do that the mod needs to be finished. But I was pretty sure it would have been done already, I mean animations aren't HARD to make, to get right? Sure. But to make? No.

So you're holding off on learning a valuable transferable skill set just because you do not yet have answers to a handful of yes-no quantitative questions? If I may give you a word of advice: Please get your priorities straight. You can easily test out the number of CustomAnimationBank's that you want your map/mod to support without having the finalized custom animation .msh files on hand (just to be clear, by bank you mean rifle, pistol, bazooka, tool, and the like, right?): For example, you stated:

WHY COULDN'T I FIND THAT LINK? You should add that to the faq.

I yeah i do, although not there, 4x Run, shoot, walk, sprint, etc, even jump,

Simply make three additional copies of all the animation .msh files related to the stock pistol animations and give them each a different CustomAnimationBank name. Then munge them all into the same .anims/.zafbin/.zaabin files. Although they all will functionally be the same as the original pistol animation bank, the game will recognize the three copies as unique. You may think this is a waste of time, but you're going to have to do it anyway once you have your finalized animation .msh files. Might as well set up all the essential munge files and folders, right?

Um, ah, yeah... I guess... I... I didn't think of that. I'm... kinda slow, and TBH, sometime I need my hand held for a moment or two, or point in the right directions, which I think you've given me, i'll get on that.

Keep in mind that the game does not count by sets of animations but rather the number of animations in the set. For instance, loading the stock Bothan Spy and Clone Commander along with all the heroes in stock Hero Assault will hit the limit and cause the map to crash.

Wait by set do you mean bank, or something else?? In that case what's the max number of sets, because the number of banks in that case is superfluous.

One can work wonders with a map using stock assets....

Yeah, like sea haven, which is amazing. but I doubt I'm that good, I've got two awesome trench systems facing each other, but no idea what to put in between them other than creaters, and i doubt mine will be all that even if I come up with something.

Wait, can the default animations be Replaced? I mean obviously the names need to be there, but do those particular files need to be, are they "water marked" some how, can they be spoofed, because I'm basicly replacing all of them other than tools?

ARC1778 wrote:Wait, can the default animations be Replaced? I mean obviously the names need to be there, but do those particular files need to be, are they "water marked" some how, can they be spoofed, because I'm basicly replacing all of them other than tools?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but all default animations can be replaced with whatever you want. You can switch around the animations that are already there or add your own as you've been talking about. You'll need to make sure they fit all the different requirements, though, if you make your own. I feel like there's a tutorial from someone around here on making your own animations for characters.

There's also an animation guide in the documentation.

ARC1778 wrote:Wait by set do you mean bank, or something else?? In that case what's the max number of sets, because the number of banks in that case is superfluous.

I consider the names of the animations listed in an .anims file (it can be opened with Notepad) altogether as a set. I consider bank to be a subgrouping of animations within a set (e.g. rifle would be a bank and pistol another).

Noobasaurus wrote:

ARC1778 wrote:Wait, can the default animations be Replaced? I mean obviously the names need to be there, but do those particular files need to be, are they "water marked" some how, can they be spoofed, because I'm basicly replacing all of them other than tools?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but all default animations can be replaced with whatever you want. You can switch around the animations that are already there or add your own as you've been talking about. You'll need to make sure they fit all the different requirements, though, if you make your own. I feel like there's a tutorial from someone around here on making your own animations for characters.

There's also an animation guide in the documentation.

No I mean can say human_rifle_stand_shoot_full be replaced with a different file with the same name? I have no need of it.

Where are the animins? In the assets?

Thanks guys. x

ARC1778 wrote:No I mean can say human_rifle_stand_shoot_full be replaced with a different file with the same name?

Yes.

ARC1778 wrote:Where are the animins? In the assets?

All soldier anims are stored in BF2_ModTools\assets\Animations\SoldierAnimationBank.

Marth8880 wrote:

ARC1778 wrote:No I mean can say human_rifle_stand_shoot_full be replaced with a different file with the same name?

Yes.

ARC1778 wrote:Where are the animins? In the assets?

All soldier anims are stored in BF2_ModTools\assets\Animations\SoldierAnimationBank.

Well that's a relief and no mistake.

No, I mean lists in the .anims file AQT, I can only see .msh file in that location.

Thanks again guys.

ARC1778 wrote:No, I mean lists in the .anims file AQT, I can only see .msh file in that location.

The .msh files you see there are the animations, assuming you're talking about a directory within SoldierAnimationBank.

Noobasaurus wrote:

ARC1778 wrote:No, I mean lists in the .anims file AQT, I can only see .msh file in that location.

The .msh files you see there are the animations, assuming you're talking about a directory within SoldierAnimationBank.

Yes... I'm looking for where they are referenced, which I am not seeing there, or in any subfolder. Just msh and munge bat files.

I would think that you would have already worked with or at least looked into basic .anims files before investigating all of these questions.

Anyway, those .msh files you found get munged into these .anims files (along with .zafbin and .zaabin files), and these .anims/.zafbin/.zaabin files get compiled into .lvl files for use by the game. You can find the pre-munged .anims/.zafbin/.zaabin files in BF2_ModTools\assets\worlds\***\munged and BF2_ModTools\assets\sides\***\munged.

AQT wrote:I would think that you would have already worked with or at least looked into basic .anims files before investigating all of these questions.

Anyway, those .msh files you found get munged into these .anims files (along with .zafbin and .zaabin files), and these .anims/.zafbin/.zaabin files get compiled into .lvl files for use by the game. You can find the pre-munged .anims/.zafbin/.zaabin files in BF2_ModTools\assets\worlds\***\munged and BF2_ModTools\assets\sides\***\munged.

Aaaaah, riiiiight gottcha! Thanks Cutie (I'm assuming that's what your name references, if not sorry if that was too familiar of me. )

Thanks, I think I should have all new animations for your christmas prezzie.