Animation Clips for Modders (BETA) -- Instructions on Importing Animations From Blender (or Possibly Milkshape) into Unity

[birdyfly]

Hi,

I was a little hesitant to give these out due to the fact that I am not the best at creating things for the sims, but Srikandi encouraged me to post them. These are really rough (as stated in the bottom of the post) and I'm hoping to be able to change them more when I become more experienced with making animations.

What these are

These are animation clips for a child practicing the piano. You can use them for your mod so that you can get rid of the stretching child issue.
The animations include:
♦ Child getting ready to practice piano
♦ Child finishing practicing piano
♦ Child practicing piano

I am not a modder, so I do not know what files I should have packed. I just packed the .animation clips. If this is the wrong file, please let me know and tell me what one you do need in order to use them.

Issues

This is my second attempt of making custom animations. Even though this gets rid of the child stretching out during using the piano, there is an issue with the animations with the child getting ready to practice.
♦The child looks possessed when going to sit down to the piano. Even though it makes a great zombie child, I am planning to eventually fix this animation by cloning the dining chair animation so that it doesn't look like the child is hovering to the piano. I don't believe it is a huge issue since the two clips only last a few seconds, but that is something to be aware of. I am not sure when I will get around to fixing these two animations, but I deeply apologize for this.

With that said, I am hoping it isn't a huge issue and the modding community will find these animations helpful.

:new: Fixes
♦ Child no longer looks possessed and uses more natural animations when going to the piano. Hands are made to be up towards the keys in the end. This fix is in Child Piano Start Version 3.
♦Child has a more natural animation to stop playing the piano. This fix is in Child Piano Stop Version 2.

I will keep the original files up just in case. :)


Image Preview

Child starting to practice (again, sorry about the creepy hovering) :

http://oi51.tinypic.com/657klt.jpg

Version 2 of Child Piano Start:
http://oi52.tinypic.com/2hey8sl.jpg

:new: Vesion 3 of Child Piano Start:
http://oi51.tinypic.com/264khvd.jpg


Child stop practicing (I tried to get rid of the hovering in this one but it ends up making the child go through the stool) :
http://oi54.tinypic.com/accq46.jpg

:new: Child stop practicing Version 2 -- Even though the .gif does not show it, in the beginning of the animation, the child's hands are on the keyboard so it matches the loop of the child practicing. For some reason, the first couple of frames got cut off with the gif creator I used.
http://oi52.tinypic.com/121uzo8.jpg

Child playing the piano:
http://oi52.tinypic.com/o6mwc4.jpg


If there is something else wrong with the animation like strange stretching or an error, please let me know by responding to the thread. I play tested it last night and it worked fine with the animation player, but I haven't had others test these animations yet. Also, I'd appreciate any advice on how to make them better as well. Or if you want to comment on anything about them basically, go right ahead. I am hoping to be able to make more custom child animations as well to help other modders out with the stretching child issue. :beer:

I am hoping to now work on either making animations for children so they can do martial arts, or maybe the laundry animations. These two seem a little easier than trying to attempt the gardening animations right at this moment. I may still try to make the gardening animations, but I am a bit worried that the animation will look rigid.


Enjoy! :bunny:

[orangemittens]

It's really great to see this.

Does the blue background mean you're still working with MS? If so, consider moving back to Blender. It's a far superior animation editor and you could do a lot more with it than you can with MS.

Sorry for the free advice :P...glad you posted these CLIPs. :)

[birdyfly]

It's really great to see this.

Does the blue background mean you're still working with MS? If so, consider moving back to Blender. It's a far superior animation editor and you could do a lot more with it than you can with MS.

Sorry for the free advice :P...glad you posted these CLIPs. :)

Free advice is more than welcome OM! :)

I started make these before I started to work with Blender and decided to just stick with Milkshape for these particular animations. The hardest part right now is just going through S3pe and trying to find the child sitting animations. :rofl:

With Blender, even though I've been following Blendercookie for their animation tutorials, I'm still not the greatest with it and still am using Milkshape as a safety blanket. I'm hoping that the next set of animations I make will be made in Blender though so modders will have better quality animations to use. :bunny:

[orangemittens]

To learn animation with Blender...or actually anything with it, I highly recommend this tutorial:

http://silverjb.limewebs.com/index.html

It basically covers everything so you can skip to the part on animation. I'm glad to hear you're going to Blender. For poses MS is fine...but for sequence animation in S3 it isn't optimal.

[birdyfly]

Thank you so much! Blendercookie tends to go a little too fast for me, and even though milkshape is fine for animations like making the child play the piano, it is nearly impossible to make a good walking and sitting animation for it from scratch.

Do you know where I can find the child rig files for blender then? I could only find the milkshape files and I thought Cmomoney posted the blender equivalent somewhere.

[orangemittens]

To the best of my knowledge she has only posted about the pregnant Sim here at MTS and no one has made a child rig for Blender yet.

[birdyfly]

Since it will be a while for me to start posting Blender creations and becoming more comfortable with it, I will just use Milkshape in the mean time.

I fixed the animation for the piano start to make it look a little less creepy. I hope that this is an improvement compared to the last one. :)

The attachment is in the first post now. :)
Tomorrow, I will also work on making the piano stop animation look a little bit better as well as look over the blender animation tutorial.

[Shimrod101]

The hardest part right now is just going through S3pe and trying to find the child sitting animations. :rofl:

Presumably you have found these, but if not they are titled c2o_chairDining_getIn, etc. There are also a few titled c2o_chairLounge_blahblah. There is also c2o_picnicTable_getIn and getOut if these are more useful, as sitting at the picnic table is somewhat similar to sitting at the piano.

I'm very familiar with the names of all the CLIP files and the naming structure or system on these files; if you want help later on sometime with locating CLIPs, simply as a timesaver, feel free to PM me.

[birdyfly]

Thank you so much, Shimrod101!

I was using the a2o files like an idiot and caused the animations to stretch. This is why I shouldn't make animations at 1 AM. :lol:

[birdyfly]

Alright, I started working on the animation for the child board breaker. It is a little more complicated since I am using Milkshape in the mean time, but I am determined to get this to work. :bunny:

If someone wouldn't mind testing the child piano animations to make sure that they are the correct files, I'd greatly appreciate it. I can also rename the animations to give it a shorter name if that will help as well.

Also, does anyone want the original animations for any reason at all? If not, I will remove them and just keep up the final versions of the piano animations. If there is someone who wants them though, I will keep them up for you to use. :)




Now, on to the next set of animations:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Progress

I extracted the gardening and martial arts (board breaker and training dummy) animations and now focusing on that. I did extract some of the laundry animations as well, but only the clothes line and picking up the clothes.

Board Breaker: I have worked with the first animation and got the start and ending frame done. Right now, there is no animation, just the child posing similar to the adult. I am trying to think about how to go through with this with Milkshape since it is finicky when it comes to what animations do what.
http://oi56.tinypic.com/1zbz4pd.jpg

Training Dummy: N/A

Gardening: N/A


Goals

I am hoping to get these child animations that I stated above finished. I am also hoping to find a way after Pets comes out, to make child animations of them mounting and riding a horse so it's there for someone who wants to try to make it so children can horse ride can use these animations.

Even though my main focus is to get rid of the stretching child animations, I am wanting to be able to make other custom animations to help people out too. I'm also hoping to learn how to make custom interactions, but that will be a bit more challenging since it involves two people interacting with each other. That might have to wait until I start using Blender because as I know of, I can't place the two animations side by side in Milkshape without causing strange animations. If I am wrong and someone knows how to do that, please tell me so I can start making custom interactions as well for modders to use.


Sorry for the long post, but hopefully I do achieve what I stated in the goals above. I do have to take baby steps in order to be able to accomplish them, but I am determined to help make custom animations to help others out. :bunny:

[Shimrod101]

I get the following result when using these in-game.

http://i873.photobucket.com/albums/ab299/Shimrod101/AnimChildPiano1.jpg

http://i873.photobucket.com/albums/ab299/Shimrod101/AnimChildPiano2.jpg

Sim refuses to move in between the piano and piano bench or sit down. Belissama is definitely playing piano and she is learning the piano skill, this can be seen in the 2nd screenshot with the blue skill-bar over her head.
When she stops playing, she stands in that spot and does the movements from your CLIP while standing there:

http://i873.photobucket.com/albums/ab299/Shimrod101/AnimChildPiano3.jpg

[birdyfly]

Thank you for pointing this out to me, Shimrod.

I can't tell from the screenshots, but is it just the legs below the pelvis not working? Or are the arms and hands not working as well?

Also, which versions are you using for the starting and stopping animations? If you're using version 1 and 2 for the starting piano and version 1 for the stopping piano, then I think I know the problem, but if you're using the final version, then I need to delve deeper and see what I did wrong.

I will get this fixed for you and post them up hopefully soon. :)


EDIT:

Okay, I made a test Piano start version to see if it will now work. I added the bak00 file as well seeing if that is the problem. I didn't pack it the first time, and I also recloned the packages. The first time doing this, I didn't add the a_ to the front, and I'm thinking that is where the problem is.

[Shimrod101]

I used the newest versions of the Start and Stop. And the arms are working and moving, the legs are also moving: the sim takes a step or two, only glued fast to that spot. It doesn't appear that the sim attempts to sit though. I'll try the StartTest file.

[birdyfly]

Thank you, Shimrod. :)

I am guessing it might be because I forgot to add the a_ in front of it when export and renaming. Hopefully this current one works. The animation player is playing the animation clips, so I am wondering if I messed up on the animation itself.

[Shimrod101]

The new Piano Start Test clip gives me the same result. When entering the piano, the sim stands in the spot which the previous screenies show. Sim is moving her arms and feet (a couple of very small steps) as in your gif anims here showing the real animations. My guess is that the sim needs to enter the piano object in the middle, in between the piano/keyboard and bench, but can't do this, and moves as close as she can and does your anim clips there, standing at the edge of the object.

This would be different if your anim was to be used at for example, a computer; then the sim needs to move in between two different objects, the computer table and the chair. I don't know if there are 'slots' on objects which sims move into in order to interact with an object (or something similar). If there are, the sim here cannot move to the correct slot or position, so plays your anims in that closest spot.

You mention adding the "a_" onto the clip name. The name you use on the CLIP resource is irrelevant, as far as the CLIP functioning correctly is concerned.

Let me ask this: When you are using Milkshape to construct the animations, is the keyboard complete object or the piano object loaded in there together with the sim? Or in the vids you have above, the keyboard which is shown; is this simply a drawing, a representation of the keyboard object?

[birdyfly]

I am using Milkshape to construct the animations. I am planning to switch over to Blender when my friend has time to help me go through creating Blender animations with me.

The piano is a complete object and I used it as a reference to be able to make the animation. It is meant to be a representation of the keyboard object.

So, from what you've seen, it seems like the animation is getting stuck on the keyboard object? I deleted the object after I exported the SMD, but I doubt that is the problem.

With the slots, I do remember when I was playing around with TSRW that there were animation spots or event slots. The problem I'm running into right now is that I'm not sure how to fix the animation so it can get to those slots. Would that be something where I'd have to switch over to Blender? If so, I might have to put the piano animations on hold for a little bit until my friend and I can figure out how to export the child mesh and animation rig for Blender since there is only one for Milkshape.

[birdyfly]

Alright, after some thinking, I decided to postpone the child animations and create a new instrument animation to see if it will work better. I will go back to the child piano animations and the martial arts animations, but right now, I am stumped on how to get them working. The child piano animation is currently having me stumped due to what has been stated above. The child martial arts animation is going to require blender in order to make it run smoothly. I am still working on creating with Blender and am not yet comfortable enough to make actual animations with it yet.

The animation I am going to work on to create is the violin. I am not sure how far I will get with this one or if I will have to hold off with Blender again, so I can't promise anything. I'm hoping I will get this animation up and running and be able to get this one to work since the Sim will be standing.

I am going to either clone this from the guitar or the bass. I am not quite sure yet. Here are some things I might need help with though or just the goals that I have planned right now:


Violin Base Object
For the object reference, if someone wants to make a violin for me, then I will be more than happy to use it to try to get this to work. At the current moment, I am just going to use Aikea Guinea's decorative violin (http://mysims3blog.blogspot.com/2010/06/aikea-guineas-updated-violin-clutter.html) in order to make the animation clip for modders to use.


Violin Bow
I do not know much if this is something I should implement or if this is for the modder to implement. Looking at the magic mod (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=394684), it looks like something that is for the modder to attach with a script. I will just make the animation without the Sim having the bow in its hand.


Sound
This is one that I highly doubt I can do, but I am really wanting to be able to add the sound file as well for the modder. I have been looking at the How to Decode Sims Audio (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=418050) to see if I will be able to do this. If anyone has additional information on how to do this, I'll be more than happy to hear it. :) Any help would be great.

This is the list of guitar songs (mostly for me to come back to reference):

Name How To Learn It Cost
A Love Since Forgotten Learned at Level 6 N/A
A Perfect Moment Buy It $425
Dream Escape Buy It $1,400
Flamenco Fever Buy It $250
I Won't, if You Will Learned at Level 8 N/A
If I Had Two Hearts Learned at Level 10 N/A
If You Mean It Learned at Level 6 N/A
Improvise Here and Now Buy It $600
It Ends Now Learned at Level 10 N/A
Keep It Up Learned at Level 9 N/A
Keep on Raining Learned at Level 6 N/A
Master Track: Ballad of the Raider See Below N/A
Master Track: Kaitlin's Song See Below N/A
Master Track: So Epic It Hurts See Below N/A
Meet Me Downtown Learned at Level 9 N/A
My Porch, Anytime Learned at Level 7 N/A
One More Dance? Learned at Level 8 N/A
One Night on Powell Learned at Level 9 N/A
Pa Fights the Bear Learned at Level 7 N/A
Rails for Miles Learned at Level 7 N/A
The Southern Lady Learned at Level 10 N/A
Two Steps at a Time Learned at Level 8 N/A
Yes Ma'am, I Do Buy It $100





This is the outline that I have so far. I am not sure when I will have an actual update and maybe an animation. I am going to go through the sound thread in the mean time to see if I will be able to figure out how to make sound clips for modders to use since it would be strange to have guitar music coming out of a violin. :lol:

Sorry for putting the child animations on hold, and I am not sure if I will be able to make the sound clip appropriate for the violin, but I will try to make the animation for it. If anyone has any information on the sound and suggestions on the animations, I'd be more than happy to hear them.

[birdyfly]

I hope this isn't against the rules to add this, but I thought this would really help those who want to make their own custom animations.


I'll just copy what I said in the WCIF thread:

Personally, I feel Unity (free) (http://unity3d.com/unity/download/) is a happy medium between the too complexity of Blender and the too simple and limited animation options in Milkshape.

Here is the basic animation tutorial for Unity: http://vimeo.com/channels/151501#17228780

The only problem so far I've seen with Unity is that it doesn't seem to support .animation clips, but it supports .anim clips.
I am not sure if there is a program to convert .animation to .anim or vise versa.

There is a way to sort of get around it, but it is a lot of busy work.

Download the AnimTool (http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=375945)
Open S3PE and use the basic steps here on converting your .animation clip into an .smd clip for Blender. (make sure to get the Blender SMD Tools here (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Blender_SMD_Tools))
Import the SMD into Blender once you imported (or opened) the rig files.
Save as a .blender file
Open Unity
Make a new project (you don't need to import anything in the start up screen)
Go to import packages and import the .blend file (you can also place the .blender file directly if you'd like in your assets folder)
Open up the animation interface. (Use the tutorials stated above (http://vimeo.com/channels/151501#17228780) to figure out how to do all this)
Work on your animation and save it.


You should be able to take it from there with the tutorials on how to export it back into your game.
Hopefully someone will make an SMD extension for Unity soon so it will be easier to export the animation into Unity.
:bunny:


Hopefully this will help someone who wants to create animations as well. :) I've been busy so I have slowed down on making my own animations, but I'd highly recommend using Unity if you are intimidated by the Blender interface (like I am).

Note that there is also a PRO version as well, but for the animations you just need the free version.

EDIT:
Okay, it looks like you could import milkshape files into Unity if you play around with it enough.

Here are the supported files:
http://unity3d.com/unity/features/asset-importing

And here's a thread about importing Milkshape animations into Unity:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/37625-Milkshape-Import-Animation-Advice

Exporting as an .FBX file: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/142321/models-arent-importing-correctly.html

I have not tried this yet though, so I can't promise this will work. :)