187 replies to this topic

[Tassadar88]

Oooh - I wonder: maybe one of this possibilities may lead to a big(ger) PS:T resolution in the future? I wish it were possible...

My line I was giving it a lot of thought the past week as well.

[Cuv]

Well... I don't see why not. As you can see from the pix, I am running the PST areas with the BGII engine at 800 x 600... the color of the areas looks fantastic.

I don't know... I could see somebody making a mod to translate the whole story over to the BGII engine. If someone is interested, I can show you easily how to make the areas compatible.

[Cuv]

Okay... can't seem to let it go

I managed to do this without making mirrored East facing images of the animation sequences:



How? Easy enough. There are several types of creature animation formats used in the IE:

1. A1, A1E,A2, A2E,DE,DEE, GH, GHE,WK,WKE, etc. Where the E series are the East facings
2. 1, 2. These are normally massive files unused by BG2, but they work. Unused Death Tyrant is an example.
3. g1, g2, g11, g12, .... g21, g22, g23, etc. These are used by mostly the animals like deer, moose, a few monsters.

It is the #3 format that I used with a minimum of work. The engine will automatically generate a mirrored copy for the east facing directions. I believe that I am a genius sometimes...heh.

Comments? Flames? Suggestions?

Cuv

Edited by Cuv, 29 September 2007 - 11:23 AM.

[Tassadar88]

I believe that I am a genius sometimes...heh.
Comments? ...
Cuv

Oh yes, you are

[Cuv]

Next round of tests: Nameless One

All with NO east facing animations







In case you are wondering... I am using the Deer animation slot for my testing. This is getting really interesting. This one took me all of 15 minutes to get crudely working in BGII.

Cuv

[Cuv]

Okay... last ones today... I promise. Converted Morte too... got them both in my game. Made portraits for them and installed them for some head smashing good times.







Next phase will be finding animation slots to put them. LOL... I gotta get to bed now

[vilkacis]

That's pretty much awesome.

But why are you using Keldorn as a test dummy...?

[Chronis]

I recently converted Fall from Graces animation so I thought I would write a brief walkthrough on how I did it to save other people some work if they want to try.

You need three programs to make it work

1. A program to rip the original BAM files from PST (I used Near infinity beta but others are ok)
2. DLTCEP (you will do the majority of your work here as the BAM workshops screw stuff up)
3. BAM workshop I for one step that DLTCEP cannot do it

don't use BAM workshop II its useless

Step I (grabbing the animation files)
First grab the bam files you want from PST. These will be to big, and missing three orientations that will need to be manually added

Step II (making the e.BAM file)
Second, create the missiing orientations. In BGII each aninimation action has two files for its animations. PST animations are missing the _____e.BAM files. These files are basicially the animations for North East, East, and South East. To make a torment animation work in BGII you will need to create an _____e.BAM file for each of the original BAM files taken from Torment.

To do this quickly and efficently you will need two programs, DLTCEP, and BAM workshop I. Most of our work will be in DLTCEP and BAM workshop tends to screw up the shadows.

To create the ____e.BAM file you should do the following.
Open DLTCEP and load a copy of the BAM file you are interested in.
Create eight blank new sequences at the bottom of the BAM
The first five should be left blank.
For the last three, make a copy of the animation sequence you will need to flip
in sequence six you should copy the south west animation (flipsto)--> north east
in sequence seven you should copy the east animation ---> west
finally in sequence eight you should copy the north east animation -------> South west
When this is done save the file with the appropriate e.BAM file name

Finally we need to do the one thing DLTCEP cannot do without screwing up your file, remove the extra sequences. Open BAM workshop I and load your e.BAM file. BAM workshop can deleate whatever your extra frames. You final file should have eight sequences, five empty ones, and three mirrored animations.

Congrats you now have a fully functional BAM file that can be imported into BGII.
However since torment animation files are a lot bigger then BGII it will need to be resized.
(unless you want it to be huge)

Step III (resizing the animation)
This should be straight forward as someone has developed a great program that does this called BAM resizer, unfortunatally the docummentation that comes with this program is wrong so getting it to work pratically requires inside knowledge.

To get this program to work you need to open a dos prompt, go the the directory where you copied the resize program and use the following command.

bamresize -p 75 C:\bams\*.bam

75 means reduce in size by 75%, and the directory should be changed to wherever your BAM files are. 75 is a good default number and worked for fall from grace's animation but you can adjust this to whetever you want.

Step IV (optional step) style points
the resizer is not perfect. Sometimes in the resize process it can shift things in a frame by one pixel. This is not noticable when the character is moving, but can be seen when the are standing still as a slight shift up and down kind of like they are levitating.
For fall from graces' animation conversion this was only a problem in one BAM file, the one where she was standing totally still.

This BAM file had 12 frames per direction of which 3 or four had the funky shift.
I fixed this by deleating the funky frames and making a copy of the frames on either side of the damaged ones. This can be done in BAM workshop I

Original..........Fixed
1...................1
2...................2
3...................3
4...................4
5...................5
6...................6
7 - funky....... 6 (copy)
8 - funky........11 (copy
9 - funky........11
10 - funky......12
11
12

This fixed the shifting without changing the overall animation run time much and looks quite good.

You will need to look at your animation in game after you resize it to see if you need to do step IV as some animations may not need it.

Step V importing you animation into the game

I am assuming you know how to do this. If not shoot me a message and i'll refer you to other tutorials that have been posted that do a good job describing this

Good luck on your animation.

Edited by Chronis, 30 September 2007 - 01:21 PM.

[Cuv]

Thank you very much Chronis... that actually helps alot. I will stick with the workaround version of Morte and Nameless that I have... they work just fine in the other format slots, but will give you technique a try.

Yep... I have and know how to use all the tools you listed. Hehe... about BW2... you are right... that thing is totally useless except for viewing bams.

Cuv

[Deathsangel]

So I assume we can now order animations? Just joking

edit: argh, even in such a short sentence a typo...

Edited by Deathsangel, 30 September 2007 - 09:47 AM.

[Caedwyr]

You are still going to run into the issue with a limited number of animations slots unfortunately. Still, having a nicely detailed method of bringing the PST animations over is going to be useful.

Has anyone had any further luck with getting death animations to work for the "invisible creature with a visible weapon that is the actual creature animation" method?

[Cuv]

You are still going to run into the issue with a limited number of animations slots unfortunately. Still, having a nicely detailed method of bringing the PST animations over is going to be useful.

Heya Caedwyr... been a while

Well, actually the animation slot issue is not that much of a problem any more. With Galactygon's work on Bestial Animations by using the weapon animation slots of each creature... this actually gives us more potential slots than we have creature animations.

The problem arises with the method I am using above, there is only one unused slot for this animation type: Hula Wizard, and three unused slots of the other type: MDK2_MAX (which I already use for the repaired Death Tyrant), MDK2_KURT and MDK2_DOCTOR. These slots work... you just have to use the correct animation sequence format.

I am currently trying to see if alternate slots will work with the none E series bams... and also seeing if weapons animations attachments can work for them, I believe they can as there is some precedence for it in the IE.

Has anyone had any further luck with getting death animations to work for the "invisible creature with a visible weapon that is the actual creature animation" method?

I haven't even tried to address this issue yet Hehe

Cuv

[minotaur_in_maze]

I've long since given up on the idea of modding myself, but I can recognize Talent when I see it, regardless of the fact I have no clue as to what is being talked about.

Which, is my own backward way of saying GO FOR IT!

I would love to see Mort and Annah as NPC's for BG/BGToB

I expect that converting them all is rather...involved, from the one word in fiv I am getting. I just vow that, should you get this project done, I will be First in line to DL.

Not only is it a nice thing animation wise, but it opens up entirely new realms for modding.

Minotaur Et All.

[Cuv]

I would love to see Mort and Annah as NPC's for BG/BGToB

Well, still can't let it go

Got Annah working too... same method as the others. She does have death animation, and just recycled one of her other animations for spellcasting. Use Ellesime's slot.... moved her to MDK2_KURT slot. Remember, this is just for fun... they arent complete animations.. but they do work in the game and seem to function.






And Vilkacis... I am sorry to keep picking on Keldorn... but he is close by in the PP

[Pandæmonium]

I'd love to use Annah as a replacement Fade avatar.
I'd imagine Ignus might make an interesting Fire elemental replacement, too.

So many possibilities.
Do you plan to makes these easily importable to BG2 eventually?

[Cuv]

I'd love to use Annah as a replacement Fade avatar.
I'd imagine Ignus might make an interesting Fire elemental replacement, too.

So many possibilities.
Do you plan to makes these easily importable to BG2 eventually?

I am really not sure just how useable the animations in this state will be... this is mostly just a theory excercise.

Gonna release all three of the animations soon in a little mini mod I am making for a brief appearance in ToB. Once it is available... anyone is free to do anything they want with the content. Anybody who wants, can continue the work on the animations. I will have slots for them without conflict... just some shuffling around of personel.

[Solar's Harper]

Hm, I don't know about replacing Fade's avatar with Annah's, to me it kind of looks too wrong with the modelling of some features. (well, save for the tail and hot outfit of course tho I'd prefer it more black leathered etc erm, too many details. )

Anyways I'm in agreement about that Ignus idea tho, well at least so we can differentiate some enemies of TOB, y'know those Burning Men in Yaga Shura's temple? And if you're at a very high level, outside the temple too.
Personally I always pictured them somewhat different to Fire Elementals, seeing how Elementals are actually embodiments of their assigned element (water, fire, wind, earth etc). The name of Burning Man sings more towards the Ignus idea methinks.

Anywho.
Its looking nice Cuv.

[Sir BillyBob]

PST areas transfer over to BGII with little or few problems. Doors are my biggest problem. They reverse the open/closed concept from SoA. So a door that is "open" in SoA is "closed" in PST, both the animations are reversed and the ambient sound of opening/closing are wrong. I have several PST areas in CA. I had to change all the damn doors because of this.

Cuv, can you fix the shadow problems with those animations? As anyone here can see, they have a pink shadow. This is a result of BAMWorkshop. If you use DLTCEP (nothing like using the most difficult product to do the simpliest of things) the shadows work. I only have 2 animations in use in CA right now. I am running out of animation slots so will probably look to using the Beastie mod also inside my team's work.

As for animations sizes, as long as you are going to use the NPCs as creatures and not avatars, who cares how big they are? Actually, I don't know if you can use them as avatars for joinable NPCs or the PC anyways. Can the paperdolls port over to SoA? Has anyone tried?

[Cuv]

PST areas transfer over to BGII with little or few problems. Doors are my biggest problem. They reverse the open/closed concept from SoA. So a door that is "open" in SoA is "closed" in PST, both the animations are reversed and the ambient sound of opening/closing are wrong. I have several PST areas in CA. I had to change all the damn doors because of this.

Hmm... I didn't notice any problems with the area conversions at all. will take another look. The doors opened and closed just fine in the Mortuary area I converted in about 10 minutes. I removed all creatures, ambients and animations though... left all containers, doors and wall polygons. Just ran the area through IETME.. then did a little minor tweaking in DLTCEP.

Cuv, can you fix the shadow problems with those animations? As anyone here can see, they have a pink shadow. This is a result of BAMWorkshop. If you use DLTCEP (nothing like using the most difficult product to do the simpliest of things) the shadows work. I only have 2 animations in use in CA right now. I am running out of animation slots so will probably look to using the Beastie mod also inside my team's work.

Only the prostitute has a pink shadow... Morte, TNO and Annah have perfect shadows. Did those in DLTCEP with my little copy sequence trick... over and over again until there are 53 sequences.

Yeah... I have a similar problem with RTW and animation slots. I am going to rework everything... and try to come up with some kind of standardized Animate.ids that everyone can use to avoid conflicts. Been in contact with Galactygon about the slots... we will eventually work out something mutual.

Since yours is a TC... CA can pretty much use any and all slots you want. If you want some ideas on how to patch some together to save IDS space... I will take a look at CA (have it) and shoot you a PM with some suggestions if you like.

As for animations sizes, as long as you are going to use the NPCs as creatures and not avatars, who cares how big they are? Actually, I don't know if you can use them as avatars for joinable NPCs or the PC anyways. Can the paperdolls port over to SoA? Has anyone tried?

I agree... I got no problem with the size of these animations, they are only slightly bigger than a human PC. I dont know about the paperdolls. PST doesnt use PLT files... it uses a BAM file that is split. I havent gotten that far yet to try to reconstruct PLT's from the Bams.... but I dont see why it wouldnt be doable.

Cuv

[Kulyok]

It looks like Annah avatar would look really out of place next to a, say, half-elven PC. Which is really a pity. There's no option of resizing, is there?