5 replies to this topic

[Sam.]

Unfortunately, it is much easier said than done, and there aren't that many people with experience in this area of modding (thus the lack of response). Do you mean a new melee weapon animation, or do you mean new attack "sequences" for the character animation itself? (The first is far less difficult than the second, although neither will be easy.) If you are serious about wanting to do this and don't mind putting in the non-trivial amount of time that it will undoubtedly take, then register on the forums and I can add you to a private forum and several PMs (Personal Messages) that contain at least some of the information that you are looking for, then we can go from there. I'm not trying to keep the information private or anything, there's just far too much discussion on this and related topics for me to try to quote for you here.

[bsapaka]

I PM'ed you

[Sam.]

I would like to create new attack sequences that incorporate actual medieval fencing techniques. I don't mind tediousness or self-learning.

Oh... Perhaps a bit of an explanation as to how the animations are set up in the Baldur's Gate series is in order. First of all, the animations in the game aren't 3-D animations, they are many series of many 2-D frames. Also, the animations for the weapons, helmets, shields, etc. are each rendered separately from the character's animation (they are in their own files, and the game overlays these animations on top of the character's animation as they are played.) Now, being 2-D means that in order to change the motions of a character's attack animations, you will have to re-render every frame (~14) of every sequence (9) for every type of attack that you want to change (if just 1-handed swords then there are 3) of every armor level (4) of every class (~5) of every gender (2) of every race (5) in the game. That means that you will have to render (largely by hand) and then assemble on the order of 75600 separate frames in order to do what you want, but even this is only half the battle since you will also have to re-position or perhaps re-render all of the helmet, shield, etc. animations so that they match the characters' new movements.

With that being said, are you really still interested? I don't mean to scare you off, but you need to be aware of the scope of the task that you are proposing to do before you start making commitments or putting time into it. This would effectively require you to remake the entire character animation system of the game. You would almost certainly have to start by creating 3-D models of the characters from scratch (in all the varieties listed above), as well as all new weapons, helmets, and shields which would require no small amount of talent as an artist, but also skill with 3-D modeling software. Then you would still have to create 2-D renders of all of it, and then convert it all into the Infinity Engine animation format (.BAM).

Edited by Sam., 17 June 2012 - 07:34 PM.

[bsapaka]

Holy damn, that's insane! I don't think I can take on a task like that lol. Thanks anyway for your consideration