Mod The Sims - Turning game animations into AVI files

WesHowe

7th Nov 2009, 06:17 PM

Here is a little guide for extracting and using animations from the game in AVIs. Of course, it isn't a complete guide, but a method you can learn from to do your own work. I've included all the files, except the tools, which are elsewhere.

So you need:

S3PE: Get it here (http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=362412).
Chaos' Animation Painting from here (http://linna.modthesims.info/download.php?t=356513).
The AnimTool from here (http://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=375945). (You need V0.04 if you already have this).
MilkShape (commercial product) from here (http://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/index.html).
The files I have attached to this post.

Note that SMD animations will play on fragmotion, but I could not make this demo work with the skin on it. It 'sploded.

Firt, we want to decide on something to do. I used Chaos' painting to play animations until I settled on the one called "Hips Shake".

Download and install any of the programs you need.
Then make a working directory somewhere so you can find everything.
Next, start S3PE and open FullBuild0.package.
Choose "Display: Names" and Sort (at the bottom of the page).
Click on the name column to sort by name... this may take a little while.
Scroll down to the names that start with "a_" (these are adult animations).
Select "a_dance_med_posAHipsShake_x".
Right click on it, choose export and to file.
Save this to your working directory.
Make sure you place a copy of the "rigfile.txt" I attached in your working directory, as well as the afBody4Anim.ms3d and the DDS files.
Start up the AnimTool and click on the "Clip -> SMD" button.
From the dialog box, choose the "S3_6B20C4F3_00000000_63C18DB33B9FAAF0_a_dance_med_posAHipsShake_x%%+CLIP.animation" that was saved from S3PE.
The AnimTool will make a file "S3_6B20C4F3_00000000_63C18DB33B9FAAF0_a_dance_med_posAHipsShake_x%%+CLIP.smd" from it.
Close the AnimTool, and start MilkShape.
Load the afbody4anim.ms3d file.
Then, choose "File, Import, Half-Life SMD" and choose the file AnimTool made.
The first dialog box will present some options about loading skeleton, triangles and so on, it matters not what you choose. But be sure and choose "No" to appending the animation, as this will cause a blank animation to appear before the one we are loading.
At this point, we are ready to see it. Click on the 3D window, and then press the space bar, which will set a single view.
Then click on the ANIM button and then on the ">" (play) button just to the left of it.

Here is what you should see (your colors may vary):
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9957/hipsshake.gif

To make your own AVI, stop the animation, then right-click on the window, choose "record AVI" from the menu, specify a filename and a codec, and you'll have one.

It the AVI is all white, it is a graphics card issue, and it can be corrected by downloading and installing the "mesa dlls" from the MilkShape site.

There are lots of alternative ways of doing all of this, including using fraps to record with. You can use Animation Shop (free) to edit the frames of the AVI with, turning it into an animated GIF. You can use external video editing software to remove the background and pose the animation over a different background.

So in the attachment I have included a MilkShape file of a whole-body sim, with textures, the game .animation file, a converted .smd file, and the rigfile.txt that I used to make the mesh and the animation. Matching both is the critical element in successfully making this work.

I will post more on the making of the afbody4anim file later, but right now it is ready for use.

Cocomama

7th Nov 2009, 07:28 PM

Dear Wes, I wanted to try this and it worked, well sort off.
My girl is a monster!!
I tryed several times, because uhh I'm a beginner but no ......
Your animation.smd included with the AnimDemoStuff did work correct.

Edit: Using the corerigfile that was included with the AnimTool, gave a good animation too.

WesHowe

7th Nov 2009, 09:00 PM

Well, silly Wes had the cart in front of the horse. :)

There is a new version of the AnimTool (V0.04) that I should have uploaded before I posted this. It corrects that issue, which happens because the old tool did not transfer values from the rigfile when any joint was not in the .animation file. While that works for making animations, it does not display well, as you discovered.

In general, some of the face bones, the breasts, and the Bicep and calf compress bones are generally not found in game animations, their positions are not changed by the animation, but by game logic for such items as fatness or fitness... or by such things as Delphy's Boobs Slider.

In the new AnimTool package is a special MilkShape plugin that you need to make the properly animatable base meshes from a rigfile. However, the only rigfile I have properly made is the adult female one. The rest will have to wait until I get them done or someone else wants to learn how to do it.

Sorry for the confusion. During the development process I had much worse looking gals appear at times. :)

Cocomama

7th Nov 2009, 10:21 PM

All is working well now, thank you.

Did you combined body, face and hair meshes to make the Milkshape body?
Only a_ animation Clips work? , how can you use the a2o etc in Milkshape?
I will have to read a lot more about animations, but this is fun!

WesHowe

8th Nov 2009, 12:41 AM

Yes, the base mesh was made from a shoes, hair, body, face, eyeballs, eyebrows and teeth meshes, and I extracted the textures and applied them as materials. However, I have to run a specific process to apply the data that is in the rigging file to the mesh, because you need to have identical base skeletons for the mesh and the animation clip in order for the animations to apply correctly. The copy I released of that plugin may not work correctly for everyone. I am reworking it, but it may not be possible until I finish that for anyone else to replicate making a new body mesh... but I want that to be a possibility, because people will want to be able to have different hairstyles, clothing (and maybe no clothing) and shoes. But that will make a topic of its own for a little lesson.

A least some of the a2o_ animations will work. Many have joints in them for objects, too, and without modifying the rigging they may not be exportable in a manner that allows them to work in the game... and that is another subject for qanother lesson.

I *believe* the tool will work for child and toddler, and also object animations, but those will require new, additional rigging files to be made. Most of the data can be derived from the .grannyrig files, but it is some detailed work.

I am planning on working my way through the child and toddler rigfiles. All objects are pretty unique for rigging, although many are very similar, such as one door or another. But door animations are all pretty much the same, one rotation arc serves as opening the door, playing the clip backwards serves to close it. All of the cars have wheel rotations and that is about it (they were more complex in TS2).

Anyway, I have a lot of work to try to get "lesson plans" for all of this, but I have made the process of extracting, modifying and replacing animations work here. There will likely bee some more polishing to do, but I want to get the tools and the skills out there for more users to try.

And yes, I think it is fun, too, which is why I work on this kind of stuff.

ChaosMageX

8th Nov 2009, 12:57 AM

This is awesome Wes. Maybe someday this animation tool could be combined with a graph style Jazz editing program and we'll basically be able to replicate the kind of animation testing we saw in the Behind the Scenes video from EAxis.

The biggest problem right now is extracting the rigging data for the sims and objects. If one doesn't have the money to afford Autodesk 3DS Max, all they can really do is manually copy the data from the GrannyViewer and write it into a more manageable format.

I've had brief glances into the provided source code for the GrannyRig import/export plug-ins for 3DS Max, but it can be a bit hard to understand, especially since its another one of those sources that has a ton of pre-compile macros and names with many, many underscores at the beginning, and other rarely used c syntax that I'm not familiar with.

The hardest part of converting those plug-ins to something compatible with Milkshape would be writing the code for re-exporting the rig to a grannyrig file, which isn't possible with the current 3DS plug-ins.

It's hard because one would have to basically study the code for importing the data from grannyrig files and use that to surmise the compression format for the data in a grannyrig file, and then use that format to write an exporter algorithm from scratch.

Unless, of course, there's a specification for the grannyrig compression format cleverly hidden somewhere on the internet that I don't know about.

orangemittens

8th Nov 2009, 01:09 AM

ChaosMageX

8th Nov 2009, 02:12 AM

Probably premature...but there will be a way to get animations connected to something other than a painting right?

Sorry for a post that isn't helping with immediate issues but jeesh...this is so adorable I couldn't help it.

Wes, don't you dare calling yourself silly. It makes people like me feel like we shouldn't even be allowed out in public.

OM

Animations can be connected to anything, but it takes more than just the clip files.

The act of playing animations, attaching accessories, playing sounds, creating effect swarms, etc, is a combination of the clip files themselves, and jazz state machines, and the MSIL game code.
It's not nearly as simple as TS2, but that just means that it's a lot more versatile.

The code that I used in my painting for the animations came from copied and edited animation interactions hidden within the game code. These interactions were among the many useful "cheat interactions" in the game found on certain objects, but nearly impossible to access without core modding.
I just copied their code, tweaked it to work with my painting, and then released it to the public.

These interactions were very versatile because they used a simple jazz state machine that could play any animation by just giving it the name of the clip file and the actor to play the animations.

The game already has several other generalized state machines for playing animations, but using them involves a delicate dance between the game code and state machine. I'm still having trouble getting my code to use the jazz file for reactions, in order to get sims to cry on demand, something many have been wanting.

My point is that at the moment we can't exactly create a new animation and slap it into the game, because we also need to create a new jazz file to control that animation and write game code to enter, set the parameters, and exit that jazz file's state machine.

orangemittens

8th Nov 2009, 02:47 AM

WesHowe

8th Nov 2009, 03:07 AM

all they can really do is manually copy the data from the GrannyViewer and write it into a more manageable format.

The heirarchy is the only part of the rig ingfile that isn't replicated elsewhere than the grannyrig. Except for moving joints in new object designs, having the grannyrig files as unworkable blobs is not that bad.

The global (final) joint positions and rotations for the geoms are in the .skcon files. I worked on extracting them and converting them back to parent relative position/rotation values, but I had trouble with the conversion to euler breaking on the clavicles and thighs. Gimbal lock, people call it. On euler rotations, a 180 degree X and Y are the same as a 180 Z rotation, but then you lose any rotations on the Z axis. The game uses quaternions, that do not have the rotation order issues, but MilkShape, well the SMD format, too, depend on euler rotations.

So I ended up hand polishing the rigging for the adult animations. I think it is pretty well done, and should work for all adult animations, because they all share the same rig in the game, so they should all be compatible with a single rigging setup. I have released the au data in the rigfile, and the format is very simple, you ought to be able to understand it merely by looking at the data.

I plan to work on the cu and pu rigs soon, when they are done I will give them out. While all the object rigging files will require some work, the good part is that, aside from the beds, most objects have no more than about a half-dozen joints. And most of the joints are merely markers for action targets.

I am by nature somewhat of a plodder, I have a work plan and I am working it through step-by-step. You remember how long it has been since you first made your animation painting... I set the work aside for a while, but I didn't quit, just deferred it.

There is plenty of room for more work and more worker bees. The AnimTool only alters the clip frames and names part of animations... all of the events stuff is copied over from the original unaltered except for a few offset pointers. With the proper rigging file you should be able to make animations that play, so controlling them with Smooth Jazz is very feasable.

I have seen you mention before about an EA preview you saw somewhere with a graph. Maya has graphing of several types in their animation system. But the existing SMD plugins for Maya are virtually impossible to work with. After I get the MilkShape stuff settled I may take that on as a project. I like animating in Maya, but so far the pipeline is unworkable... I thought MilkShape would have an updated FBX plugin that would help, but it still isn't released.

The CLIP spec on the wiki that Tiger did so much work on is pretty accurate. I tweaked it a little, and it is essentially an accurate roadmap of the file format.

ChaosMageX

8th Nov 2009, 04:02 AM

I'm hoping my question didn't offend you.

I just make meshes and don't really know anything about animations so I was just asking if the code you applied to the painting could be applied to other kinds of objects.

I understand that the whole thing is still in early stages...I was just curious about future possibilities.

OM

Your question didn't offend me. And I'm assuming what you mean is attaching the interactions of my painting to other objects. That is very much possible and has been for a while. You might try looking up Kolipoki's tutorial on adding interactions to objects.

Regarding the overall possibilities of animations, there is still a lot of mysterious data to decipher. For instance, judging by the wiki, there is little data known about TKMK files, which seem to be referenced just as much as CLIP files by JAZZ files.

Also, Wes, in regards to editing granny rigs, its not so much the fact that they have little unique data that worries me, but the fact that they're referenced by so many other files that already have the data for the joint positions.

I fear that they may act as a redundant check-point for the game when it comes to animations, slots, and other data. This was always a worry of mine, and the reports of custom cars' wheels screwing up in the game when you edited the mesh but not the rig reinforced that fear.

College has not allowed me time to test this, but I fear that the game may also throw a fit if the number and positions of slots do not match that of the corresponding joints in the granny rig file.

This is important to me, as I want to add additional routing slots to a multi-tile painting and assign different interactions to each through object components so the pie menus aren't as crowded.

WesHowe

8th Nov 2009, 04:20 AM

in regards to editing granny rigs, its not so much the fact that they have little unique data that worries me, but the fact that they're referenced by so many other files that already have the data for the joint positions.

I think the .grannyrigs are the source data. I also think they are fully readable using the granny.dll, except for the three GEOM rigs (auRig, cuRig and puRig), they have additional data on the head and tail of a .gr2 file to be stripped first.

However, in my opinion, and that of some others, using the granny.dll file for unlicensed purposes may not be entirely legal... certainly redistributing the granny.dll file would not be. So I am not interested in leveraging that file for anything I am planning on releasing to others.

Besides, figuring out how to do it is half the fun.

ani_

16th Nov 2009, 06:56 AM

ChaosMageX: So judging from your post I can asume custom animations on hacked objects is still far from reality? Jasumi (who by the way has exceeded their pm message limit which is why I coldn't send you a mesage of my constant failure with dex and your animations,*wink *wink) made me some custom animations for dex, and I'v been trying to get them to work through the custom jazz files but so far no luck. I was kind of hoping having them in the package and then just calling them through the jazz would do the trick but obviously not :/

Jasumi

17th Nov 2009, 01:41 PM

*oops, it should be empty now*

Wes, if I'm correct, you intended for additional animations to replace pre-existing one? Therefore, changing the name of .clip file after a conversion is not a good idea? I was under the impression I only needed to keep it's filename to attach a rig file to the .smd during conversion, but I suppose that is not the case?

WesHowe

17th Nov 2009, 03:46 PM

I haven't really gotten that far... what I made work was modifying existing animations, yes, as replacements. I figured once we got that working, then the rest could follow, as an evolutionary process.

Besides the "frames" part of the animation file, which is what we can replace, there is the names, which you can also change, and a script section for effects that we have no editor for (if someone else doesn't beat me to it, I will make something to edit that with).

I am not sure of all the steps creating a "new" animation, but you would have to start with another one and replace the animation frames using the AnimTool. Tiger left some documentation on the wiki about the way the names and hash values are used... the child anims have the same instance as the adult version, except the lowest order byte of the instance (which isn't the last byte because of little endian ordering) has the "c" x-or'd into it. At least I think that is what he meant.

If you're working on pose boxes or such, I think you need a Jazz script with your new names in it, and then the new animations, where the names and instances are properly matched. As I understood the process, the sim/object uses these Jazz scripts, and the Jazz script is what calls the actual animation to be played. But I didn't do any of that myself, I just used the ChaosMageX painting to trigger the animation.

As far as the name of the .clip files, that is something that should match the hash of the name of the animation. The SMD->Clip conversion uses the rigfile.txt that I provided (or any you substitute) to create the clip file from, so it doesn't care what you name the files, other than the fact that it makes the output name by stripping the extension and slapping ".clip" on the filename.

Digitalchaos

17th Nov 2009, 04:13 PM

I worked on extracting them and converting them back to parent relative position/rotation values, but I had trouble with the conversion to euler breaking on the clavicles and thighs. Gimbal lock, people call it. On euler rotations, a 180 degree X and Y are the same as a 180 Z rotation, but then you lose any rotations on the Z axis. The game uses quaternions, that do not have the rotation order issues, but MilkShape, well the SMD format, too, depend on euler rotations.
Man where's the asprin when you need it! :Pint:

orangemittens

18th Nov 2009, 01:47 AM

"Man where's the asprin when you need it!" Indeed. And if you have a headache now I highly suggest you don't look any of those words up because it will only get worse.

I'm still just trying to sort out what this tutorial creates and how it relates to the other animation post. The whole thing is rather impenetrable to my brain and base of knowledge. With meshing it's like there are baby steps you can take but with this it's more like you just have to know all about it to have the slightest clue. And, of course, without a clue, most people aren't going to wade in and ask for fear of appearing to be an idiot.

Direction to something approximating baby steps might help. I suggest this because I think the game could benefit from having stuff that is animated but as it stands the level of discussion is probably pretty much over the heads of most people who might like to try making something like that. Where should one go to get a glimmer of a start?

I apologize if the whole method isn't at a stage where some less technical direction is possible and I am suggesting something not feasible right now. But this has been sitting out there awhile now and I, for one, would like to see someone trying it out in the game or at least making a valiant attempt.

OM

WesHowe

18th Nov 2009, 02:14 AM

We did some basic animation tutorials for Sims 2. While the technical details at the file level are very different, the artist end is pretty consistent... although I tried to streamline the implementation.

Mostly, you can edit an animation. Not all of them import smoothly, some require special rigging because they depend on extra joints and objects, like getting in a car or on a barstool.

A lot of the animation work done for TS2 was poses... which are simple, one-frame animations where the arms and legs and such (including the face in TS3) are set into position.

There is a good tutorial on animation that comes in the help files for MilkShape itself (you may have to download those). If you start with that, you are most of the way there, because if you start with the rigged body I uploaded, you export your animation in SMD format (use the sequence option). Then you convert it with the AnimTool, which looks amazingly like the ObjTool, some grand cosmic coincidence, no doubt.

The math underlying the animations is difficult, yes, but the calculations to generate tangent (bumpmap) normals is difficult, too, but the artists never have to deal with the math. With animation, mostly you just need to replicate the joint actions a real body would use for a comparable action... elbow bends, waist bends, and so on. An animation sequence is just a set of poses strung one after the other... the software helps you because you need only set the start and end positions for a movement and the intermediate steps with be calculated for you (interpolation).

Of course, like meshing, how good it looks depends on good craftmanship, but the basics are simple enough.

orangemittens

18th Nov 2009, 02:26 AM

Ok...I went back through the tutorial at the top of the page and started there.

Initially got stuck until I remembered Cocomama told me how to open FullBuild0.package". I just used s3pe, opened and browsed to Program Files/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/Gamedata/Shared/Packages to find that.

Got stuck again at the load ms3d thing until I tried opening instead of importing.

So far this tutorial is pretty easy as Sims 3 things go.

OM

Post completely edited to remove dithering...lol.

And once again because I can't find the Anim button or the > to the left of it. And my girl has a snarl of blue on her face...will this go away if I can get her moving?

Ok, and this is completely off-topic and totally stupid, but how do I load the MS help files so I can look at them? This annoying thing just keeps not wanting to let me read it. And who knew MS had such a thing?

Cocomama

18th Nov 2009, 10:07 AM

Information about the Milkshape help files download and how to install/use them http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?p=2874941#post2874941

orangemittens

18th Nov 2009, 10:11 AM

Thanks once again Cocomama :)

OM

WesHowe

18th Nov 2009, 05:22 PM

And once again because I can't find the Anim button or the > to the left of it.

They are in the lower right corner, but you probably aren't seeing them because you don't have the menu item Windows -> Show Keyframer checked.

And my girl has a snarl of blue on her face

Those are the joints. There are many for the face... turn "show skeleton" (in the joints panel) off to look at the face without the joints. Adjusting the Joint Size a bit smaller (so that the circles do not protrude as far) may also help.

orangemittens

19th Nov 2009, 12:23 AM

I must have had the menu item Windows -> Show Keyframer checked because when I looked down there was the Anim button. In my defense it was 3 am and I had had only a single cup of coffee to perk me up at that point. I was focused more on the top bar which, in general, has all the buttons that make things work. Look down and right?...who knew?

But it worked! And the blue is gone :) This is just the cutest thing Wes. :)

But first the pleasure...then the pain. I'm off to read the MS tutorial and see if I can get the doll to do something else. If I do how do I save it? Do I just overwrite an instance of the thing that I imported into MS?

Has anyone managed to import something into the game with this yet? (well besides you)...inquiring minds would like to know but don't want to go all over the place looking.

Edited to add: I would like to know if there is some way of selecting the joint we want without having to search through the joints list to find it...is there some way of just selecting the joint in one of the windows that shows the model? I'm having a tough time finding her knees. < blush...ok...I found them...they just weren't named knees >...which isn't to say I wouldn't like an answer to that question. I still would like to know.

And what is that series of joints that is centered between her legs? What is it for? And no, that isn't an odd question thank you...I see the thing there and I just wanna know. If I get sent to my room over that then I'm taking you with me darlin'...

Edited to add: I've played around with this and I think I'm starting to get it. This isn't really hard per se...just tricky details the same as in meshing. I got my girl to do a high kick...lol.

So doing the thing that makes the new animation play (which I can't remember the exact details of yet) doesn't save it right? You have to then...export?...over the original? Is that right? Please give explicit instructions...exactly what to do.

And what is going on over in CAS tonight? It's like the Mongol hordes have descended. Any minute now we'll be hearing the LOW...thank goodness I'm safe over here in Meshing. :p

OM

WesHowe

19th Nov 2009, 06:22 AM

If you want to try your animation in game, you will have to export the animation as an SMD file (choose "sequence") from MilkShape, use the AnimTool to convert that to a clip file (overwriting the original), package it and place it in mods.

Then you need to find it and test it with ChaosMageX's painting (in teh downloads here).

Yes, it replaces the original... I haven't replicated the work that was done to make code that will add animations to objects. I expect to get there eventually, but there is just me working on this at the moment.

The stuff 'tween the legs is the root joint. The Pelvis attaches to that, and everything else attaches in some way to the Pelvis. The idea is that when you rotate or move the root joint, the whole model is moved or rotated.

The other thing is that you can save your work as a MilkShape file, and it will save the animation and the mesh in a new file. Or you can export just the animation as an SMD file, and then import that. When you import an SMD, you can choose to append the animation to the end of the file, in which case you have two animations, the second one will play at the end of the first one... it's like recording a second program on your VCR at the end of the first episode. The reason I said not to do that is that
at first, there is an empty animation. So the first time, you don't want to append, or you get that long blank pause.

This appending is a feature, and it can be very powerful, because you can build animations by appending little parts one after another, there is no minimum size, and maximum size is limited mainly by memory, in the past I have had thousands of frames loaded at once (but I also have a bit above average computer). But hundreds is probably not stretching any machine that will run TS3.

Mostly, for a good animation, you really only want to rotate most joints, except the root, breasts and most face joints... those you move. The game does not enforce this, however, so you can do all the deformation stuff they are doing with Delphy's sliders... because that is what his sliders are doing, moving the joint positions, instead of just rotating them.

While you haven't seen any demo stuff, animations also play on objects, but you can't use the rigging for a Sim on objects, and practically every object with more than one joint is unique. The good news is that while making rigging files is all manual work right now, most objects except the beds have very few joints that need put in there... two for the crib, five for the cars (root + four wheels)... simple stuff, really.

orangemittens

19th Nov 2009, 12:31 PM

When you say an imported clip file will replace the original I have no idea what that means exactly...the original what? What is the thing I exported to begin with? It looks like a part of the animation the Sims do when they're listening to music...so would I be overwriting that? Or did the tool create some new thing that gets overwritten?

This part is confusing too, "When you import an SMD, you can choose to append the animation to the end of the file, in which case you have two animations, the second one will play at the end of the first one..." Why would you choose to append instead of just creating the whole animation that you want to begin with?

Before I can try importing I first have to practice more with making the Sim move...it isn't hard to figure out how to rotate the joints (and it's very convenient that all the associated parts follow along...I'm glad that heavy lifting gets done for me) but having something that doesn't look ridiculous is a little more tricky.

OM

Cocomama

20th Nov 2009, 09:24 AM

Orangemittens, I think Wes means it will overwrite the original animation in the ChaosMageX's painting.
Appending animations is like making your girl make two high kicks in one animation. ;)
You can do something like cut and paste little pieces of different animations/clips into a new animation/clip file.
The start position for the second piece of animation to add, must be the same as the end position of the first piece of animation. Or/and you can make a transition animation yourself and have to move the joints into the same position, before the start of the next piece of animation.

orangemittens

20th Nov 2009, 10:42 AM

Thanks Cocomama. I was confused because that little segment came from the Fullbuild0.package but I think I'm getting the whole concept now. We're just borrowing it to work with and not intending to do alter the original source.

Your explanation of appending is helpful. We append while we're making the animation and before saving it into the game not using it to add things to something we've already imported which is what I mistakenly thought Wes was saying. I appreciate your help :)

Edited to add: And perhaps you have the patience for one more stupid question? WesHowe said, "We did some basic animation tutorials for Sims 2," but I have looked through the Sims 2 tutorial section and am having a hard time locating them. There is nothing there that seems on-topic and I was hoping you could tell me what the tutorials were named. If not, that's ok...I can struggle through this with just the MS thing probably...but any information is good information. Thanks for any help.

OM

orangemittens

23rd Nov 2009, 11:54 PM

I sincerely apologize for the double post (and I'm counting it as that since I moved my other post elsewhere.)

But I am wondering what this means:

http://jaue.com/om/animerror.jpg

I got this trying to convert a clip I got from the fullbuild from clip to smd.

Does this mean there are some of these things that cannot be converted? If so, is there any way of telling which ones those are? When I hit ok for that message it just reiterated the error message in the dialogue box which looks, comfortingly enough, very much like the one the ObjectTool has. I like the cosmic coincidence there. :)

Thanks as always for any help anyone can give and I truly am sorry if this is a stupid question.

OM

WesHowe

24th Nov 2009, 02:07 AM

It means that the source animation is longer than what I allowed for in the converter. Perhaps a future version will be more tolerant... the main reason those limits are in there is to reduce the likelihood of a crash by testing values in the source file for sanity.

And yes, aren't coincidences wonderful?

orangemittens

24th Nov 2009, 02:12 AM

I always hope for tolerance :)

And yes...coincidences are wonderful...

OM

orangemittens

24th Nov 2009, 02:32 AM

but I forgot to add my question again since you didn't answer it. I am compelled to add that I am not trying to be argumentative.

In regards to the clips we can export: is there any way of telling which ones those are? That is...those within the tolerance?

Your instruction on this is appreciated if you will post it.

OM

WesHowe

24th Nov 2009, 03:59 AM

While the error text is terse, it is saying that your animation has 121 frames, and the buffer has only 120 slots. All animations with more than 120 frames are going to be rejected.

The frame count shows in one of the boxes on the right on the animation time scale thingamabob.

orangemittens

24th Nov 2009, 10:17 AM

Thank you for the information.

It sounds like you're saying s3pe cannot tell us...only MS can...right?

And would it be correct to think that this rule works in the other direction?...that is...from smd-->clip? Not an issue at this point but good to know nontheless.

"on the animation time scale thingamabob"

hmm...I thought the technical term for that was thingymajingy...and here I've been using the wrong word all along...now I feel silly. :p

OM

Edited to add: Also, I am having this happen when I try to rotate (not move) the right hand...and it does not happen when I rotate the left. I'm not sure if it's me, MS, or something else since I am still trying to learn to move the model without making her look awkward. But this right hand is difficult to control. Do I have some setting set incorrectly?

The precise action which seems to be occurring is that, even though I have the rotate button clicked in the Model tab, when I go to rotate the right hand it's moving and rotating both at the same time. I only bring it up because I don't get this same action with the left.

http://jaue.com/om/righthand.jpg

ellacharmed

24th Nov 2009, 11:47 AM

OM, that long alieny (yes, another technical term there ;) ) hand doesn't make her look awkward? Heehee :jest: Are you hoping to smack someone upside the head with that alien paw?

I'm so happy you decided to test-drive this, so that when I finally get around to animation :turtle:, you'll be there to hold my hand..

orangemittens

24th Nov 2009, 11:54 AM

I've got a looong way to go before I can help anyone that's for sure...but if I ever get there I'll be happy to :) Lol...she was striving for an elegant yet casual gesture but, me bad, I made her look icky. :rofl:

And to clarify, the only hand-holding you would need would be the actual learning to animate part...although the MS tutorial isn't half bad. The export/conversion/conversion/import part is very simple though...and the tutorial (although initially I was imtimidated by a tutorial with no pictures) is blonde-friendly.

OM

WesHowe

24th Nov 2009, 05:17 PM

I have seen that before on the hands... it is MilkShape getting confused on a long chain of joints.

I usually get it resolved by setting the rotation options to "local" and "origin". While there is no way that any of the rotations of parented joints should be affected by this, it does seem to end the oddities.

orangemittens

25th Nov 2009, 12:15 AM

I just *knew* it was a settings thing but I could not figure out what. I've been trying for awhile now. Thanks so much for your help Wes. :)

I would ask why this happens on the right hand but not the left but I know I wouldn't understand the answer.

And this?..."And would it be correct to think that this rule works in the other direction?...that is...from smd-->clip?" Is this right? I apologize for persisting with this question...but these little clips take up quite a few of the frames so it is helpful to know how many there are to play with.

OM

WesHowe

25th Nov 2009, 12:36 AM

I looked in the source, and in or out is the same right now. Not that they have to be, but I did use the same value, 120, in both source files.

MilkShape itself will handle perhaps thousands of frames, depending on your computer, and those will save just fine in the .ms3d files. But they will not be able to be converted in their entirety unless I revise the code.

And the issue in MilkShape being on one hand and not the other is related to the direction of rotation being inverted on one side versus the other. It is a bug, and has been there some time, because we were having this issue with TS2 animations. Mostly it is just the hands and fingers, because they have a longer "chain" back to the root than the legs do.

orangemittens

25th Nov 2009, 12:46 AM

Thank you again :) That single smiley emotie grows tedious but well...that's the only one to choose from.

My computer is pretty good but I think but for now 120 is enough for me. My Sim-girl is a graceless clod and I've got a ways to go to improve her carriage.

I do apologize for asking you how to use MS yet again...I should have worked harder to figure that out.

I had noticed that her legs were easier to deal with...and for once I actually do get the explanation...perhaps I am improving.

OM

orangemittens

26th Nov 2009, 01:23 AM

I imported an EA clip easily enough. Now I am trying to make my own and the MS tutorial, well...it isn't helping me much after all. So I looked and found one by JohnBrehaut1 but had problems with that one crack off the bat...the way he says to select things causes deformation in my limbs.

My Sim-model is working very gracefully now with the new settings (edited to add: and now that I changed them I notice this affects her foot as well I think) but I can't figure out how to deal with the keyframes and I can't find a decent tutorial that is up to date with the new version. Is there such a thing?

More importantly, should I be starting my own animation with the EA converted clip in place or with just the ms3d model?

I know this is off-topic and I apologize for that. But I wasted so much time trying to figure out the settings issue on my own that I felt like this time it would just be best to ask for help. All I need is a decent tutorial that focuses more on the MS process than arranging the limbs. I can do the limb arranging on my own...I need directions for MS.

OM

sorry...I edited while you were looking....but I didn't know you were there or I just would have added another post.

WesHowe

26th Nov 2009, 02:06 AM

You are experimenting now, so you are on your way.

Importing animations is useful if you just want to alter something existing, a tweak so to speak. In essence all you do is move the slider or click the ">>" box to move to a specific frame, select the bone(s) you want, and rotate it/them to a new position, and then do a "set keyframe"... this will replace the current frame with the new, altered one.

Repeat as necessary.

However, there is a lot to be said for just making an animation from scratch. For example, if you moved the initial pose to arms at side, legs together, set a frame, move to frame 30 and set a frame with the identical position, move back to frame 15 and move the arms overhead and the legs apart (the move the root down so the feet are back on the ground), you would have a complete animation for a jumping jack, because MilkShape will "interpolate" between these positions across the empty frames between. When you export as SMD, these "interpolated" frames will be included in the export.

Now you may find that interpolating such a wide change in positions is not as smooth as you would like, and you can add intermediate steps to correct this, but it is not necessary to make every single frame for many types of animations.

orangemittens

26th Nov 2009, 02:21 AM

Thank you for your reply darlin'. Here is my problem...I cannot make MS play my sequence. I need a tutorial to tell me how. I get this weird thing where one of the viewboxes is just repeating the sequence (and the only way I can get that to stop is to close MS) but the model box in the lower right hand corner isn't moving. This doesn't allow me to see what she is up to.

I know I can move this model with halfway decent precision (all deficiencies my own). My issue is getting MS to cooperate, show me my work and save it. I need a tutorial...I've been experimenting for a while now and can't figure this out.

I follow the tutorials as much as the version change allows and still I get nowhere. Should I be creating my own animation with the model + clip or just with the model?

edited to add: Honestly, that MS tutorial is pretty long on cheerful chat about this and that and pretty short on explicit instruction about which button to punch and when. A list of things to do would be much more helpful. I'm venting again...ignore me. But tutorials without "1. do this 2. do that" just annoy me to no end. They're basically useless. The guy who wrote that thing needs to learn how to just instruct people like you do.

I don't need a tutorial in the spatial relationships of walking. I can manage the spatial relationships I think. What is needed is instruction on how the program works.

A tutorial would be helpful...it's just not what I wanted to have to ask for here...more MS information that is.

WesHowe

26th Nov 2009, 05:12 AM

While in animation mode, select the window you want to see the animation in and click on the play button ">". Click on the same button to stop the animation.

orangemittens

26th Nov 2009, 09:27 AM

I'm not even going to discuss 1. what I think about the wisdom of making a > button = stop or 2. how absolutely moronic I feel right now because I missed that. Thanks so much Wes...of course, that worked.

Edited to add: Ha...I did it...86 frames of pure poetry in motion into the game with no errors :bunny: Actually, the whole effect is an unappealling combination of muscle spasm and hiccups that I would show here anyway except I still need to figure out how to do that too. :rolleyes:

It is very nice that the clip file overwrites both the single action version and the looped version of the dance. :) You could have your Sim stand there and do the same thing over and over all day long if you enjoy viewing perseveration.

120 frames is plenty for me (86 about killed me) but my guess is that people who know how to animate Sims would like to have more at some point if that's possible...of course that's just a guess and I don't know much about any of this. People are going to want to get at some of the longer EA clips too probably...although again, that's just my uneducated thought and you know better than I do about it.

Thanks so much for helping me with Milkshape again...I promise I won't make a habit of pestering with questions about it.

Edited to add: ...but could I ask just one more? (I apologize)...if it is annoying you just say so and I'll stop interrupting the thread topic. When I move the keyframe slider to the next frame my model goes to the animation pose of the original EA clip instead of staying in the pose I have put her in. Is there any way around this or do I have to copy/paste the pose from the previous frame?

SiJ

26th Nov 2009, 11:50 AM

Hey,
It's the first time I'm working with milkshape, and when I try to load afbody4anim.ms3d it gives me these errors:

"Unknown subversion for vertex extra 3"
"Unknown subversion for joint extra 1610612485"
"Unknown subversion for model extra 1404895237"

And after I click OK, here's what I see:
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/1839/milkshapeerror.th.jpg (http://img694.imageshack.us/i/milkshapeerror.jpg/)

Any ideas why it happens?

EDIT: Fixed! I've installed the latest version of MilkShape.. :)

WesHowe

26th Nov 2009, 03:54 PM

When I move the keyframe slider to the next frame my model goes to the animation pose of the original EA clip instead of staying in the pose I have put her in.

That is because you didn't set a keyframe. I used to forget to do that myself often, and it aggravated me, but I have since decided since that it is a feature, because when you make a mess (easy enough) you can go back and then start over.

Doing a "set keyframe" is logically like saving your work.

orangemittens

26th Nov 2009, 09:40 PM

Well if you say it's a good feature I'm sure at some point I'll learn to appreciate it...right now I'll work on not letting it aggravate me...heh. Thank you for answering what was a silly question considering that if I hadn't forgotten to set a keyframe I wouldn't have had to ask it.

I tried another clip in the game after removing the first. This one came out a little weird in that, although I had not animated the model's head, in the game she kept pivoting it around. At least it didn't go all the way around...lol. I'm not sure what I did differently on the second one that caused this to happen but s'ok...I'm still learning. :turtle:

Edited to add: I'm wondering about all the other dance options in the painting...can those be overwritten like the one from your tutorial?

Edited to add: I'm also wondering about the MS playing of clips like Check Self Out Bottom. In MS the model sort of skates around but if you take the smd and make it into a clip/package without changes it plays just right in the game. Is this another MS settings issue that needs fixed?

Sorry if too many questions.

WesHowe

27th Nov 2009, 03:11 AM

While I haven't tested them all, animations other than those I show should work as replacements. You just have to be careful you get the right file TGI figured out... some of the names are not always obvious and for very many, there is a child version and an adult that vary just by two characters in the TGI.

Rigging is the issue in your other question. I made a generic rigging file that should work for most animations. However, some animations have additional joints or different rotation values which, when not included make the entire animation play improperly. The joints listing in the info button is there to help me identify the presence of the extra joints, but there is no tutorial written on how to add a joint into the rigging file, nor is there one showing how to remove joints to create an overlay animation. I made the rigging file format into a text file separate from the program itself so that it could be worked on without knowing a lick of C++ code, but it is still not something that can be tackled without a lot of understanding of how a skeletal hierarchy is designed and how animations operate on them.

But for now, we have just started working within the range of what we can do, using the basic rigging, although I admit that being able to build a package of non-replacement animations and being able to trigger those would be better. But we started meshing body meshes for TS3 with just replacement methods, and that evolved. It is likely this will, also. But it will evolve slowly if I am the only developer that is working on it, because I am more like the tortoise than the hare.

orangemittens

27th Nov 2009, 03:20 AM

"because I am more like the tortoise than the hare"...well attention to detail takes time and it's better to be right than be sorry.

Besides which...this game has been out 5 months and you have two game-tools out and working well. I'm not tryin' to be contradictory...but the speed with which tools have come out for this game has surpassed any other Sim game IMO.

I'll probably end up editing another 50 million times because I posted before my brain absorbed everything. :rolleyes: I suppose I should follow my own little statement up there.

Thank you as always for answering.

Yep...editing: So some of the animations may not be replaceable because they require rigging different than what the others generally use and I think there may be others which won't be because they have more than 120 frames. But the painting has at least a few I've seen in Fullbuild0 that might work within these parameters...with trial and error it shouldn't be hard to sort them out.

When you say correct file TGI do you mean selecting the correct CLIP from the list in the Fullbuild00? Or is there something else? Also, why are some of the animation sequences listed in the painting not in the Fullbuild0 list?

Lastly, I'm hoping I can squeeze in just one more little question about something you said earlier..."there is a lot to be said for just making an animation from scratch." How do we do that? The only way I've been able to get anywhere is by importing the EA clip-->smd and using that.

But when I do that it means that when I move forward a frame the EA pose is there and my model slides out of the pose I have her in and into the EA pose. So I have to copy and paste the keyframe from the previous frame each time. I tried just deleting all Keyframes but then all I have is the model and, for some reason, I can't get her to do anything...her limbs snap back into her start pose after I move them.
---> Ignore this last question...I figured it out...ha, I am improving :)

And what exactly is a Pose Box and what is it for? You posted about it earlier I think and someone else posted about it in your other thread. I'm not getting the concept...is it just a series of static positions triggered by an object? If so, I think the combination of your Animation Tool and the ChaosMageX painting would do the job. I've been browsing this thread and the Sims 2 section and this term just keeps coming up so I'm wondering.

I apologize again for asking so many questions.

WildTeamwin

12th Jun 2010, 11:09 PM

Anyone else getting Milkshape crashing when importing the .smd file?..

***UPDATE***

Nevermind, need the newest version of Milkshape! :)

ratking

9th Jul 2010, 02:55 AM

hey, i used s3pe to export the hip shake dance file, and then used anime tool to smd the file, then imported the smd file into milkshape, , opened the ms3d file, and all there is, is a mass mess of tangled wires everywhere, i tried to enable then disable wireframes, didn't help this wireframe appears to be circular and around the model, any idea whats goin on? milkshape version 1.8.4, anime tool version 0.04 s3pe version ???(latest as of 7.1.2010) :Pint:

http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx32/rat-king/weird.png

WesHowe

9th Jul 2010, 03:19 AM

You are looking at the joints (blue circles) scaled at the default, which is way too big for Sims 2 or Sims 3.

Go to preferences and change the joint size from 1.0 to 0.012.

<* Wes *>

orangemittens

9th Jul 2010, 03:23 AM

Jeesh...between you and HL I'm thinkin' my type hand must be slow...I was just about to quote you darlin' ;)

WesHowe

9th Jul 2010, 10:27 AM

We need you... someone more reliable than I.

orangemittens

9th Jul 2010, 10:15 PM

Tsk-tsk...if you go sayin' I'm reliable you're gonna ruin my reputation for being charmingly blonde Wes. :P

bexoalen

20th Jul 2010, 06:25 AM

I was trying to do this, but when I tried to open fullbuild0 it gave me this message...

"Could not open package:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\Packages\FullBuild0.package
Front-end Distribution: 10-0711-1434
Library Distribution: 10-0711-1434
Source: mscorlib
Assembly: mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089
Access to the path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\Packages\FullBuild0.package' is denied.
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)

at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)

at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy)

at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share)

at s3pi.Package.Package.OpenPackage(Int32 APIversion, String PackagePath, Boolean readwrite)

at S3PIDemoFE.MainForm.MainForm_PackageFilenameChanged(Object sender, EventArgs e)
-----"