[Testers wanted] Updated SmoothJazz animation editor for post-basegame

[pljones]

It's been a while since TigerM stopped by here. Unfortunately, he's no longer involved in the Sims community and hasn't been working on any of his tools. However, he has been generous enough to give all his source code to the community.

I've picked up the SmoothJazz editor and it's now working with EPs/SPs (and it was quite funny with the first version of the last patch...). The editor has had some testing already - thanks Leefish and Misukisu!

In addition, in the hoard of source code, was a small item Tiger called "S3Test" that, for clarity, I've renamed "JazzMe". Now, as I don't actually ever run the game, I don't know what this is but it looks like a tool for testing Jazz scripts in game using a new custom interaction. I would appreciate tests on this to see if it's (a) working and (b) useful. Details can be found in the thread below, which is where any feedback can be left.

You can get both over on the Simlogical forum "Misc tools by Inge and Peter & s3pi Associates (http://dino.drealm.info/den/denforum/index.php?board=38.0)", in the thread "[ALPHA] SmoothJazz 12-0310-0916" (date may change, of course, so look for the latest).

[Esmeralda]

Oh wow, thank you SO much for doing this!!!! I just had to use SmoothJazz yesterday to remake my No Coughing While Eating mod for Showtime and it is such a pain now that, since Pets, EA has started naming their new jazz script actions with Type:Group:Instance number string format names rather than in 'English' as they used to, and as you know by now, SmoothJazz is unable to cope with colons so it flags those new actions up as syntax errors and won't let you export the .package.

So, as I've been doing for the last two expansion packs, you have to delete the Type and Group numbers, then SmoothJazz lets you export the .package, and you then have to edit the package with s3pe by hunting and pecking through all the Chunk Entries to find the new-format animations and edit the Type and Group numbers back into them, a long and tedious process.

So this will be a godsend for those of us who use SmoothJazz - thank you again, and I'll go over and take a look at your new version.

[leesester]

Thank you Peter - this looks like a great add-on for testing Jazz scripts. I will test in a few days...

[Inge Jones]

Another animation-related tool that could benefit from testers (and it seriously is still at testing stage) is at http://dino.drealm.info/den/denforum/index.php?topic=862.0

[pljones]

Type:Group:Instance number string format names rather than in 'English' as they used toThe string was being looked up by SmoothJazz - the value in the JAZZ file is the number. The two changes I've made here are:

(1) The editor now understands what it puts on the screen (it was a bug in the parser). The group number is different per EP (as with many resource types) and now the editor can actually cope with this.
(2) There should be fewer numbers for the instance ID as I've also extended the look up to consider EPs/SPs.

I'm also interested in any feedback on the tool in general - any areas that could do with improvement. Comments over on the thread mentioned above, though, please. :)