8 replies to this topic

[Argent77]

While browsing through my games I found a lot of animations in the Age of Wonders series which might look good in the BG setting.
Unfortunately I don't have the time and experience to do it, but I can provide the resources if someone wants to convert them into Infinity animations.

(Click on the pictures to show animations)


Elementals:

(Air/Earth/Fire/Water Elemental)


Animals:

(Boar, Dire Boar, Spider, Unicorn, Worg, Dire Bats)


Demons:


More creatures:

(Drider, Elder Brain, Manticore, Shadow, Will-o-wisp)

(Sphinx, some subterranean creature?, Treant, Hydra)


Machines:


(Ballista, Cannon)


There are a lot more animations, but most of them don't fit well into the Forgotten Realms universe or lack important animation sequences.
The shadows of the creatures are provided in a separate package and have to be added manually. There are also a lot of sound files for the various actions the creatures do.

Edit: changed animations into links

Edited by Argent77, 25 March 2012 - 06:13 AM.

[Miloch]

What format are they in? Are they natively animated GIFs? If so, those are fairly straightforward to convert into BAMs as most of the BAM editors support GIF import. Main issue is whether the animation sequences can map to those in BG2 or another IE format.

[Daulmakan]

They look really nice. Hope to see those one day playing BG2.

[Argent77]

The animations are in the proprietary ILB format, but I have found a nice converter which extracts them into individual paletted PNG files (mislabled as BMP files ). The exported frames are named like 'Boar_IDLE.1.01.png' or 'Boar_ATTACK.3.08.png' which is nice to tell the different animation sequences and directions apart. The GIFs in my first post are running at 15 fps, so the animation speed fits well into BG.

The shadows have to be inserted manually which could pose a problem because they are exported as 32-bit alpha masked PNGs. The sound files are in standard WAV format but have to be assigned manually as well. The sound mappings are in a format I haven't been able to decode yet (PFS format).

There are also a lot of humanoid races (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Undead, etc.) and flying creatures (eagles, drakes, dragons, etc.) but most of them lack casting animations, etc.

BTW the "subterranean thing" is a Karagh (some big goblin pet) and the animation is pretty cool, as is the Lord (a big demon) among others.

Yes, they are a real nasty lot. I haven't found a fitting counterpart in the Forgotten Realms universe yet, that's why I called it a subterranean creature.

[i30817]

I don't think these have all the faces IE needs (or vice versa, not sure).

Also, the flying dragons would look weird (a pity because the new ancient dragon on their new fanpatch looks very nice).

You also skipped racial units like the orc warlord... why? Also, suggest angels and black angels and the Giant Wyrm (the electric snake thing).

Another problem is that i don't think they have "miss" or "avoid" animations, just move, attack, die and being hit.

Also the game (Age of wonders: shadow magic + fanpatch 1.4) is phenomenal, recommended.

Edited by i30817, 01 April 2012 - 06:27 AM.

[Gwendolyne]

Just a few words to confirm that some animations of AoW dont "might look good in the BG setting", but are really great.
I have converted a few of them :

• The Phoenix here : http://www.baldursga...html#post280751
  
• The Pegasus : http://www.baldursga...html#post280257
  
• The Dark Angel : http://www.baldursga...html#post280920
  
• The Bone Dragon : http://www.baldursga...html#post279829 and http://www.shsforums...ost__p__526846. I renamed hit ""Draco-Lichette"".
  
• The Blood Dragon : http://www.baldursga...html#post281437

The shadows of the creatures are provided in a separate package and have to be added manually.
The shadows have to be inserted manually which could pose a problem because they are exported as 32-bit alpha masked PNGs.
There are also a lot of humanoid races (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Undead, etc.) and flying creatures (eagles, drakes, dragons, etc.) but most of them lack casting animations, etc.

Another problem is that i don't think they have "miss" or "avoid" animations, just move, attack, die and being hit.

I confirm that also. But you can play with the different animations to make the cast one. In fact, the real problem is that they have only 6 directions (S, S-W N-W, N, N-E and S-E). You have to "make" the East and West directions. Furthermore, some of them are too small and you have to resize them (20-30 %). Sometimes, it works, sometimes not. If someone knows how to rotate them (or use a perspective tool) without pixeling them, I would be very interested.

That's the reason why I decided to abandon the conversion of the Unicorn and replace it with the Oblivion Model (first shots : http://www.shsforums...post__p__534196 and http://www.shsforums...post__p__534224).

An other problem was the shadow : I did not know that there were png files providing them. I would be interested by having the resources.

I have also converted the ballista and try to use it to destroy walls. But that is another story.

They look really nice. Hope to see those one day playing BG2.

By the way, if everything goes well, you might play with them as soon as I finish and release my mod.

Edited by Gwendolyne, 05 April 2012 - 04:43 AM.

[Argent77]

Some of the creatures look really good in the BG environment. Especially the gargoyles, treants and dark angels are great.

the real problem is that they have only 6 directions (S, S-W N-W, N, N-E and S-E). You have to "make" the East and West directions.

Too bad there are no east/west animation sequences. I don't see how to generate them, unless you draw them from scratch. I doubt the developers of this great game are willing to lend us their 3d models of the units.
You could try to "blend" the NW/SW or NE/SE animations but I don't think that will look good. The only creature which doesn't need all directions is probably Will-o’-the-wisp.

An other problem was the shadow : I did not know that there were png files providing them. I would be interested by having the resources.

All shadows are packed in the file "Unit_Misc.ILB" in the images/units subdirectory of AoW:SM. The shadows consist only of an alpha-mask, however. You will also have to find the correct shadows for each creature first because the shadow frames have meaningless names.

Edit:  Unit_Misc.zip   62.48K   407 downloads

Edited by Argent77, 06 April 2012 - 02:08 AM.

[Gwendolyne]

Some of the creatures look really good in the BG environment. Especially the gargoyles, treants and dark angels are great.

Thanks. I guess tou have seen the Gargoyle on the same page as the Bone Dragon. In that case, it is a Diablo II conversion with the shadows. I have agandonned the AoW Gargoyle and opted for the Diablo one which looks greater.

Too bad there are no east/west animation sequences. I don't see how to generate them, unless you draw them from scratch. I doubt the developers of this great game are willing to lend us their 3d models of the units.
You could try to "blend" the NW/SW or NE/SE animations but I don't think that will look good. The only creature which doesn't need all directions is probably Will-o’-the-wisp.

I had a try : just forget it !

All shadows are packed in the file "Unit_Misc.ILB" in the images/units subdirectory of AoW:SM. The shadows consist only of an alpha-mask, however. You will also have to find the correct shadows for each creature first because the shadow frames have meaningless names.

As I dont have AoW, someone uploaded ILB files for me and I extracted them with IlbMaker and ILBEditor. Il you could provide me the shadows ILB files, I could try to extract them and merge them to my bams.