Scaling up animations? (FAQ)

[authraw]

I've been told that it's possible to scale up animations via odf. I want to make the super battle droid bigger, but when I just scale up the .msh the model gets bigger, but the animation size stays the same. How do I increase the size of the animation as well?

[Caleb1117]

Look in the yoda ODF, theres some skeleton scale lines in there that might be useful.

[authraw]

Look in the yoda ODF, theres some skeleton scale lines in there that might be useful.

I tried adding the SkeletonRootScale and SkeletonRootScaleLowRes lines to my scaled-up Super Battle Droid, but they don't seem to do anything. Should they?

[trainmaster611]

Ask Fragme. He successfully scaled down an acklay while preserving the animation.

[FragMe!]

Well they weren't super successful but....

You can add a scale parameter to the munge.bat file for the concerned unit.

Code: Select all

@call ..\munge_animation.bat "/keepframe0 /scale 1.0 /dest acklay.zaf" Sides\GEO

Acklay for example.
So what you need to do is from the assets animation folder copy the folder of the concerned unit to your worlds animation folder. Change or add in the /scale parameter. If you are making a custom side, meaning putting it in a side folder other than where it would normally be, change the destination three letter code at the end of the line).

Next if you are calling the unit something other that it's original name (or it doesn't exist, you have to edit the munge.bat file that is in the root of the animation directory, putting the name of your unit in the proper location. The file is pretty straight forward.

You then have to run that munge.bat in the animation root, it doesn't get done automatically. To make sure it has successfully you can go to the munged folder of your side you just modified and check the file date/time stamp it should have changed to something close to the time you munged the animation.

Now this scaling does work but you may(will) have to still play with the scaling via an option file and the other odf parameters previously mentioned.

Good Luck and remember to back up files before doing any changes or this might happen

[authraw]

I think I understand most of that, but I'm confused at one spot...

Next if you are calling the unit something other that it's original name (or it doesn't exist, you have to edit the munge.bat file that is in the root of the animation directory, putting the name of your unit in the proper location. The file is pretty straight forward.

What exactly am I supposed to put in that file? My unit is called sep_inf_super.odf (or sep_inf_super.req). I opened up munge_animation.bat (in my Data_DTH/Animations/SoldierAnimationBank folder) but I'm not sure what to put in there.

Or did you mean for me to open up the munge.bat file in Data_DTH/Animations/SoldierAnimationBank/template ?

[FragMe!]

So reading, like I sometimes do but try not to make a habit of it , I assume you are trying to uses the super battle droid anims.

What is you sides folder name? SEP?

So what you would do is from the assets/animation/SoldierAnimationBank you would copy the sbdroid and sbdroidlz folders to your worlds animation folder. Also copy the three .bat files from the root of the animation folder to your worlds animation folder if they are not there already. (those would be clean.bat munge.bat and munge_subdir.bat

In the sbdroid directory edit the munge.bat file and change this

Code: Select all

@call ..\munge_animation.bat "/keepframe0 /dest sbdroid.zaf /comp_debug 0 /debug" Sides\CIS

to this (I would also suggest changing the name of the animation so it doesn't bugger the original, you also have to change the name of the directory to the same thing example sbdroid_big)

Code: Select all

@call ..\munge_animation.bat "/keepframe0 /scale 1.5 /dest sbdroid_big.zaf /comp_debug 0 /debug" Sides\SEP

That would make it 1.5 times bigger but you can put any scale number you want.

Then in the munge.bat folder in the animation root add in this:

Code: Select all

@call munge_subdir.bat SoldierAnimationBank\jawa
@call munge_subdir.bat SoldierAnimationBank\jawalz
@call munge_subdir.bat SoldierAnimationBank\deathstarleia
@call munge_subdir.bat SoldierAnimationBank\sbdroid_big
@call munge_subdir.bat SoldierAnimationBank\sbdroidlz_big

It should make one but just in case make sure you have a Munged folder in you sides directory.

You then run the munge.bat file that is in the animation root and you should get three new files in you Munged directory in the sides folder. sbdroid_big.anim sbdroid_big.zaabin sbdroid_big.zafbin. You then have to go back and do the same thing for the sbdroidlz animation. You can make the changes to these at the same time you do the regular files and just do the Munge once.

Oh and then in the units odf file you have to change the animation name to whatever you called the animation. But I'll let you find that

[authraw]

Ah, that's much clearer. I haven't tried it yet, but I'll get back to you when I do. Thanks a lot!

EDIT: Ok, I did it--it worked, kinda. The model and animations resized wonderfully. Unfortunately, the animations that I got were the regular soldier animations, not the SBD ones. Why would that be? When I munged, I got sbdroid_big anims, zaabin, and zafbin, but I only got a sbdroidlz_big zafbin. Is that normal?

[MetalcoreRancor]

I want to make sure I'm reading this right, but if its true, I can in fact make things bigger or smaller, and keep their animations?

Sweet.

[FragMe!]

@ authraw did you add the AnimationName = "putyournamehere" to the unit odf?

Oh and looking in the Munged folder for CIS yes looks like it is correct about the sbdroidlz_big.zafbin only

[authraw]

Yeah, I did. Here's a portion of my sep_inf_super.odf:

Hidden/Spoiler:

[GameObjectClass]
ClassParent = "cis_inf_default_sbd"
GeometryScale = 1.25

[Properties]
UnitType = "trooper"
PointsToUnlock = 8

GeometryName = "sep_inf_sbdroid"
GeometryLowRes = "sep_inf_sbdroid_low1"
SkeletonName = "sbdroid_big"
SkeletonLowRes = "sbdroidlz_big"

AnimationName = "sbdroid_big"

SkeletonRootScale = "1.25"
SkeletonRootScaleLowRes = "1.25"

I'm wondering if the SBD animations in the assets are wrong or something...

[FragMe!]

so I spent 10 minute on this before going out to my brothers to eat some turkey, and sorry to do this to you but...



It is twice the size and the animations are fine (well except it goes about 6 inches off the ground when it runs) and the fire points and camera positions need to be changed for the bigger size. But other than that.

All I did was in my junk map (everyone should have one of these) I did it in three steps so I could tell what was up for each. Should be said I did this to the unmodifed sbdroid in the CIS side.
First I made edited the cis_inf_sbdroid.msh.option file to put in the scale 2.0 and munged. went into the game and it was bigger but had funky legs.
Next I changed the cis_inf_rifleman.odf (this is the one used for the SBD) and added the SkeletonRootScale = "2.0" line. Munged again and it still looked funny.
Then I went and added the /scale 2.0 to the munge.bat in the cis/sbdroid directory
and added the AnimationName = "sbdroid" to the above mentioned odf (although that is only required if you have changed the default name of the amin file. And as seen in the picture that is what I got

[AceMastermind]

Now that really is a SUPER battle droid, nice work, very easy to understand.

Added to the "Everything you need thread" under "Sides"

[Adjuntant_Reflex]

Hidden/Spoiler:

It's Gojira Droid!!! OH NOES!

[authraw]

Hmm... Tried it again with the super battle droid and it still doesn't work. If you got it working, though, I must be doing something wrong. I'll try it from scratch sometime (I've been using my own heavily modified super battle droid odf) and I'm sure I'll be able to get it to work. I've been able to successfully do it with other models, so it looks like I'm probably just making some silly error somewhere.

Thanks for all of your help FragMe--I really appreciate it.

[skelltor]

where is the munge.bat at??

[Battlefiler]

what is this

[Teancum]

That's someone trying to use regular soldier animations on a battle droid. You can't do that, all of the pieces of the droid are separate and it requires special animations to look correct.