A Challenge and Suggestion To Each of You

[Baelin Raddyx]

Splendiforous job, sir.

[Illrian Damaris]

Hm, I must say Vantus.. I absolutely love the animations you've already gotten added!
Wonderful job!

[Vantus]

I won't take any credit for making animations. Those belong to Raven/Lucasarts. I just took some of the heat off Soh and helped him upload them. Now everyone gets to enjoy them!

Crossarms is definitely around there... somewhere as I've seen one of the models using it in the JKA SP cutscenes. Nice to see some more animations available though, thanks.

Those are the ONLY Cross-armed animations that exist in the animation list.
I went through every single animation when I got home, frame by frame.
Left = /emwait
Right = Dual-saber taunt. (There are normally two sabers forming an "X" infront of the model, held by telekenisis.)

Any other Multiplayer animation you have seen with a "cross arm" pose or stance is either a custom animation, ported animation from JK2, or ported animation from JKA Single Player.

Anyone with access to Modview can easily go through the available animations by looking in the "sequences" tab in Modview.
It's all to do with the "_humanoid" model and animation list.

There are many single player animations that exist. Like Kyle Katarn offering a hand to Jaden who takes it and stands up. There's also that scene at the start of the game where Rosh and Jaden converse in the shuttle. Those special animations exist within JKA Single Player which is almost an entirely different entity from JKA Mulitplayer. As far I am aware, JKA Single Player animations cannot be called upon in Multiplayer. It just so happens that some Single Player animations have been included in the multiplayer's animation list, even though they are not used.
(/emconsole as an example.)

It's just a shame that not EVERY animation was carried over.

If anyone knows a way to successfully call on single-player specific animations, then please let me know so I can learn. I've yet to see it done without outsourced modding.

-Vantus

[Illrian Damaris]

Is it not possible to dig into the files for Single Player's animations, take them and then place the coding into animations for Multiplayer?

[Vantus]

Is it not possible to dig into the files for Single Player's animations, take them and then place the coding into animations for Multiplayer?

I wish it were.

The "spine" of Multiplayer animations is "_humanoid.gla" in the "_humanoid" directory. This is the "core" directory of the animation list which Multiplayer feeds from.
Single player animations come from separate animation lists called "_humanoid_academy1" or "_humanoid_taspir2" depending on the map/level to which those animations are found in single player.

Now, you can't open up these single player animations using Modview. It won't allow it as Modview needs "_humanoid" to display them in action.
I've also tried editing the animation.cfg to include some single player animations whilst keeping the "_humanoid.gla" active but Modview does not recognize them.

In short - I can't browse single player animations to actually pick which ones we'd use and because they are not coded like: "Most_popular_cross_arms_animation_ever", I can't find them.
It would be a stab in the dark, even if they were usable.

In the end, JKA multiplayer still has some animations I might be able to include, but as for porting in single player ones - It's a no-go.

.....For now.

[Illrian Damaris]

Hm, then I have another idea.. you say it won't recognize the "_humanoid_academy1" file, however have you possibly tried removing the "_humanoid.gla" file you have for Modview atm, and take the academy one and just changing the name so that it's only "_humanoid.gla" and see if that works?

[Vantus]

Hm, then I have another idea.. you say it won't recognize the "_humanoid_academy1" file, however have you possibly tried removing the "_humanoid.gla" file you have for Modview atm, and take the academy one and just changing the name so that it's only "_humanoid.gla" and see if that works?

As I'm totally up for suggestions I gave that a bash.
A great suggestion indeed as I was able to view the animations by renaming the file to "_humanoid".

There is, sadly, still the problem that we cannot "merge" .gla files.

However, I DO have a cunning plan...

Watch this space.

[Illrian Damaris]

Hm, I know there are ways to do some tweaking about, like adding things to one .gla file, however I am not exactly sure on how you do this, but I have seen it done a few times..

If I, or someone else, can learn how to do that, that might be a good solution.

[Vantus]

I'm going to need Soh...

[Vantus]

Sorry for the double post.


The problem is this:

Singleplayer deals with each individual SP Level by giving them it's very own .gla file and animation list. No two levels use the same one. This means that all of JKA Singleplayer's animations are split between many .gla files.

Multiplayer is seen in the eyes of the game as "One Level".
As such, it is only given ONE animation .gla and animation list to use.
That's where we get our animations from now.

I have spoken with Soh to see if there is a way that the game can call on animations from a different directory.
He explained that if player-made custom animations are ever introduced, it would require an alteration to RPmod that would require a new RPmod release as unlike the new animations that have recently been added, these custom ones would need to be hard coded.

This is more effort than it's worth seeing as many of the single player animations (beyond stances) are very conditional and similar results can already be achieved using our current animations.

"in MP, it is not possible (or very difficult) to use another file than _humanoid.gla for players"

So the short and sweet version:

"No Single Player Animations - Sorry".


-Vantus

[Alkur Tekeil]

He explained that if player-made custom animations are ever introduced, it would require an alteration to RPmod that would require a new RPmod release as unlike the new animations that have recently been added, these custom ones would need to be hard coded.

Which, to my understanding, would make the RPmod somewhat more incompatible with base JKA, which was something Fabien was wanting to avoid.

[Vantus]

Which, to my understanding, would make the RPmod somewhat more incompatible with base JKA, which was something Fabien was wanting to avoid.

Exactly.


We're talking about custom animations here and animations that are not intended (for lack of a better word) to be used in Base JKA. Currently, even with the new animations just added, the player does not need to download additional files. Those were live-updated without Soh even needing to restart the server or anything.


So infact, by NOT uploading custom animations and keeping with the way things are now, it further amalgamates RPMod with Base JKA which was the intent as you've just said.

[Ruluk]

I'd rather see JKA's own animations brought into RPMod rather than have amateur and buggy animations brought in and feeling that we must accept them simply to be polite.
As stuck-up as it may sound, if a buggy animation is introduced because we feel bad for the amount of effort put in to make it, it will just never be used and will have been nothing but a big waste of time.

Okay, I guess it's my time to have a word at this, don't you think?

Well, several things need to be cleared up. First things first! I agree with Vantus on that place where he matches Aslyn's thoughts. Aslyn said, we're better with few good skinners than with tons of mediocre ones. From my point of view, that applies to everywhere. You can't make good maps without prior practice. Don't expect to code like Soh at the first try. Your first model will probably have very jagged animations due to basic weighting. It's just how it works. You practice, you take it further, you get better.

Now, having said that, I believe that my Zeltron child and my avatar/signature made you underestimate me, Vantus.

As for JK2 animations. Those could, in theory, be taken and fixed to be applied to jka. However, given there is not much to take from JK2 that isn't better at jka already, plus the fact that it ain't such an easy process, I think we got more luck by simply redoing the animations we desire. It's simpler and probably hands better results.

As for unexisting JKA animations... That's what I'm here for. That which isn't fundamentally needed but could prove a nice addition, I'll do it (...or am doing it as you read ...or did it already).

As for multiple humanoids. Let's be clear on one thing: there are no sp humanoids + one mp humanoid. To make it clearer and more specific, there is a general humanoid (the one we all know) and model-specific humanoids for sp. The purpose of those additional humanoids is to give the cutscene animations. Most of those animations that are not used in mp but are included in the main humanoid were probably included for any of these reasons: (1) Such animation was used outside of a cutscene or maybe in a middle cutscene (not for the start or the ending). (2) The level it was going to be used for had already 50 CINs occupied (such as kor2). That is why animations like /emconsole or the different standing positions were included, because they are shown outside of the cutscenes, in actual gameplay (regardless of it being sp).

As for treating sp animations. Yes, you *can* view them. More profoundly, you *can* take them, migrate them to mp, and modify them further, if you desire. To Zeak: the crossarms animation you were thinking of is already adapted and looks good. Even further, I have already checked the most important humanoids for animations to move to mp. I'll gradually reduce my current choices and modify the ones that are left, but I indeed found very interesting results in my endless search (you can guarantee I checked more than 75,000 frames, no skipping).

As for merging glas. Vantus, you *can* merge files. However, unless you learn how to use the tools to animate, you'll only fill valuable bytes if you simply merge two base humanoids together, as 80%-95% of the frames included in the non-general humanoid will not be used.

As for using different humanoids in mp. By default, you *can* use different humanoids, even those created and named by yourself, but in sp only. To allow it to reach mp, some coding is necessary to allow other humanoids to be loaded. It may be a little mess to get done, but in my opinion the posibility of making wider varieties of animations could enhance your immersion to rp in interesting ways. And I'm not talking about adding cutscenes here. I'm thinking farther, of a few things I would modify for a separate humanoid... But that's a theme I'd rather discuss with Soh privately.

As to rpmod compatibility with basejka when adding new animations. I believe compatibility might (but just might) indeed be affected if we ever add support for different humanoids. However, you do *not* need new humanoids to have new animations, and having new animations does *not* add further incompatibility... at least not more than what we have already (we do have custom animations already, if you didn't know. But, they're just... simple small additions for ledgegrab, taken from OJP).

Now... This has been a long talk, hasn't it? I think all this chatter that you had to endure deserves a small prize. Well, since I don't want you to download large files, I decided to create a low-quality .gif image to show you one of the most desired animations... /embattlemeditate. Keep in mind that the low quality and small image size don't show it in all its beauty. But still, I believe this is a fair enough sneak peek to keep you all entertained for the time being...

Oh, and by the way, this animation above isn't even close to the best ones I've done for you so far.

[Baelin Raddyx]

Ohmygod Ruluk I LOVE you!! Keep up the awesome work!

[Zeak Dystiny]

Very nice, looking forward to the rest :happy: