Animations in KoTOR, Is it achievable?

[Kelvin]

I've been wondering, and i think it would be really nice if we could modify or even add animations to the characters, it would make the game experience much richer and it could even lead to interesting scenes, emotive situations, and who knows what.

 

I saw a long time ago the revan's moving cloak, was it hard to do? has anybody discovered a good way to do it?

 

Is there anyway i can add or modify animations?

[Darth InSidious]

It's possible to add new animations to the character models, but getting the characters to then perform them is more of a problem.

 

Adding the animations involves editing the model to do the animation frame-by-frame, and so is laborious and time-consuiming in the extreme.

 

Getting the animation to run in-game is more of a problem. So far, aside from animations which always run (like the flowing cape, which required, as far as I know, editing every animation for the Revan model so it moves in all situations), it's been done by replacing existing animations (i.e., the "leaning" animation that was originally going to go into the TSLRP).

 

The problem for animations conversations/cutscenes and their scripting is that as far as I know, the animations which can be used in dialogues/cutscenes are pre-set by the engine and listed in nwscript.nss, and animations for use in scenes have to be drawn from this list, so adding new ones isn't really possible unless you replace some of the existing ones.

 

There are a few threads on the subject about, but because it's difficult and time-consuming, it's not really that well-documented as a subject:

Animation Fixes tutorial by Imptacular

Switching Model Animations tutorail by Ӄhrizby

Hunter's Run's WIP thread

 

So far as I know, these are the major threads on the topic. I'd suggest taking a look at these. It's not really my specialism, though, so take what I tell you with a pinch of salt.

[Hunters Run]

If you check my thread(bottom of the list), you'll see that It is possible to add new animations without replacing any. Still this so far only works with dialogue and cutscenes. Combat animations are a bit trickier. While it is possible to create new combat animations, getting the game to read them is a bit of a problem. Theoretically adding new lines to combatanimations.2da will let the game read new combat animations (note: the combatanimations.2da is all numbers and I am unsure of what the numbers correspond to) . However, you'll sill need to script them.

[Kelvin]

If you check my thread(bottom of the list), you'll see that It is possible to add new animations without replacing any. Still this so far only works with dialogue and cutscenes. Combat animations are a bit trickier. While it is possible to create new combat animations, getting the game to read them is a bit of a problem. Theoretically adding new lines to combatanimations.2da will let the game read new combat animations (note: the combatanimations.2da is all numbers and I am unsure of what the numbers correspond to) . However, you'll sill need to script them.

I've seen what you've done, simply awesome!! Although it ony works with dialogue and cutscenes, still it is pretty cool, and useful. But is it something you must animate frame by frame?

[Hunters Run]

No, you can skip frames. Animations from one frame play until they run into the next frame. If both the frames are of the same animation the character stands still.

[Kelvin]

No, you can skip frames. Animations from one frame play until they run into the next frame. If both the frames are of the same animation the character stands still.

 

If i modified one character, adding an animation, would others have that animation too? or would it be a custom animation that only that character can perform?

[Sithspecter]

Adding the animations involves editing the model to do the animation frame-by-frame, and so is laborious and time-consuiming in the extreme.

 

(like the flowing cape, which required, as far as I know, editing every animation for the Revan model so it moves in all situations)

 

 

Oh, this is so painfully true.

 

If you're going to work with animations, to be honest, you're just going to have to experiment with it a lot yourself, and see what works.

[Kelvin]

Oh, this is so painfully true.

 

If you're going to work with animations, to be honest, you're just going to have to experiment with it a lot yourself, and see what works.

 

Just wanna know what progress has been done so far, so that i don't have to do blind steps, about the third link up there, i've been reading and it says somthing about copying the code of one animation that looks kinda like mine ( i think i read that ).

 

What i had in mind, is that the game expressiveness could be improved, even the Bastila Revan kiss scene could be really performed! Not fading nor using old animations!

 

Just i read it worked better on scenes, so it would be cool to do something like that.

 

Just hoping.

[Darth DeadMan]

If i modified one character, adding an animation, would others have that animation too? or would it be a custom animation that only that character can perform?

That depends on WHERE you put your animation.

If you integrate it into supermodel it will be useable by all characters, who use this supermodel.

If you add it to one of the armor models - it will be useable by all characters, who use this armor model (but only when armor is equipped).

If animation is stored in specific character model (like Malak, Nihilus or custom made models like Sith Stalker) it's useable by this characters only.