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AoP / CoAS animations in PoTC

Grey Roger

Grey Roger

Sea Dog
Staff member
Administrator
Storm Modder
Has anyone any tips on bringing animations from AoP or CoAS into PoTC? It must have been done for the "Devlin" model.

There are two reasons I'd like to do this. One is that there's a character model in GoF which I'd like to use for "Ardent". The other is that GoF has some musketeer models which, unlike the soldiers in PoTC, hold their weapons properly. If they can be given period-correct uniforms then they can replace the PoTC soldiers. (Though player characters using muskets will still wave them as if they were swords or pistols, of course.)
 
Grey Roger said:
Has anyone any tips on bringing animations from AoP or CoAS into PoTC? It must have been done for the "Devlin" model.
Click to expand...
I'm not at all sure how @Maximus managed to do that. If I recall, it wasn't easy.
I'm afraid trying to get the muskets to work correctly will be even harder.

Do the AoP/CoAS models you like work with the "new_man"/"new_woman" animations used for the current AoP models in PotC?

Also, some AoP models cause errors in PotC. We used to have more, but I had to take some out to avoid that.
 
The model I want to use does not work with any animation currently in PoTC, including "blaze.ani" which is the one used for the AoP "devlin" model. (Oddly enough, "Beatrice" which is another AoP import does work with "woman_sit.ani", the animation now used for almost all PoTC female models.)
 
Agh; that doesn't help?

How about "new_man" though? I thought that was the one used for most AoP-imports...
 
Grey Roger said:
No, "new_man" doesn't work either.
Click to expand...
:(

In that case, I think the way that @Maximus made it work was by taking the .an and .ani files and manually renaming the AoP animations used to existing PotC animations.

New animations from AoP that PotC doesn't know about are more difficult, though @Maximus did manage something with the sidestep.
 
Interestingly, I was able to import the Blaze and Danielle models into CT/AOP by preserving their POTC animations. But I encountered a problem when it came to fighting animations. I suspect the ANI files needed to be edited to bring them more in line with CT's ANI structure. I didn't dig further.

What do you get when importing the model with its original animations, @Grey Roger?

Edit:

Try what he said just before me above. ^ ;)
 
Danielle and variants are already in CoAS GoF. (And have some interesting new textures. Armoured Danielles)

As I only have the downloaded GoF mod, not the basic CoAS, I probably don't have the original animation. I did find one called "skeleton.ani" which is likely intended for a different model but works with the one I'm trying to use anyway - at least, it works in "Animation View". But it doesn't support all actions, in particular fighting ones, and probably for the same reason that the PoTC animation file for Danielle doesn't fight in CoAS/AoP. The reason is that, if you look in the .ani file, it defines actions, e.g. in "blaze.ani":
Code: 
[attack_1]
type = normal
start_time = 2
end_time = 18

speed = 1.5
loop = false
   data = "Blend time", "0.2"       ; sec
      
   event = "Attack_slash", 10, normal           ;slash
   event = "Sound_slash", 2, normal
Elsewhere, in PoTC, reference will be made to "attack_1". All PoTC animations must therefore have "attack_1".

The AoP version of "blaze.ani" doesn't have "attack_1". Instead it has:
Code: 
    [attack_fast_1]
   type = normal
   start_time = 2
   end_time = 18
  
   speed = 1.5
   loop = false
  
   data = "Blend time", "0.2"       ; sec
   data = "Dist", "2.5"   ; m
   data = "Ang", "10"   ; grd
      
   event = "Attack", 10, normal           ;slash
   event = "SndAlliace_attack_thrust1", 2, normal
   event = "Resact", 10, normal
So AoP is looking for "attack_fast_1" instead. There are other "attack" types, presumably to do with AoP's expanded combat system. Therefore, if you use an unmodified PoTC animation file in AoP, or vice versa, some animations won't be defined.

What I'm doing, therefore, is to start with PoTC's "blaze.ani" as that works and has all the animations expected by PoTC. Then I'm looking through GoF's "skeleton.ani" and finding the same or similar actions, and copying the numbers across. The end result will be a version of "blaze.ani", renamed to suit the new model, with all the right actions mapped to the right parts of the similarly renamed version of "skeleton.an". I've done about half of it so far, done a test, and it works - the original animation file didn't allow the character to attack, for the reason above, but the modified file does.

(By the way, "blaze.ani" isn't for the "Blaze" models. It's for "Devlin", the male player character in AoP. The "Blaze" models in PoTC use the basic "man.ani".)
 
In case you're interested, this is "Dartanian_huber", the model I'm trying to import:
Dartanian_huber.jpg

I need the big hair because after a shave, a hair dye and a change of jacket, he becomes this:
Chateaurenault.jpg

The face isn't accurate and I'm never going to get the armour onto a model with crinkled sleeves depicting loose fabric, but it's as good as I'm going to get for this guy:
François Louis Rousselet de Châteaurenault - Wikipedia
The Dauphin Royal, the big French ship you face at the end of the "Ardent" storyline, really existed and this was her commander. He had quite a successful career, though it wouldn't fit too well into our standard naval officer gameplay because he received smaller ships later on. (And, ironically, before he commanded the Dauphin Royal, he commanded a third rate ship of the line named L'Ardent. xD)

But if I can get an animation to work properly for "Dartanian_huber", it ought to work for "Dartanian" as well:
Dartanian.jpg
And I bet that model could be put to good use in PoTC...
 
Very cool!

Are you saying you don't have the correct animation file so you're using the skeleton one?
Surely someone can help you get the correct version though.
I probably have it hidden somewhere myself, if need be.
 
The "skeleton" one works, at least as far as "Animation View" is concerned. My guess is that "skeleton.ani" is based on the original file, whatever that may be called, with some sound effects changed to be suitable for skeletons. But all I need from "skeleton.ani" are the start and end positions plus correct values for "Speed" and "Blend time" - everything else will be from PoTC's "blaze.ani", including any sound effect lines.

Besides, I've already put in a lot of work copying that data from "skeleton.ani" into "chateaurenault.ani", which is the renamed and modified version of "blaze.ani". I'd rather spend the next similar time finishing the rest, rather than start from scratch. If you'd rather that "chateaurenault.ani" be based on whatever the "Dartanian" model really uses, you're welcome to do the same work. :p
 
I was mainly concerned that perhaps using the perhaps-incorrect skeleton one would eventually require you to run into issues.
But if it seems fine to you, then that's OK. :onya
 
I'm now convinced that "skeleton.ani" is a modified version of some other ".ani". Apart from some skeleton-themed sound effect lines, I found a commented out set of data for "death_afraid2" replaced by a duplicate of the data for "death_afraid1". Possibly someone felt that the original "death_afraid2" was inappropriate for a skeleton. Anyway, "Animation View" shows the segment referenced in the commented out bit and it looks alright, so I'm using it. If someone uses the model for a citizen, then scares him, then kills him, and reports that something looks weird, I can always put "death_afraid2" back to being the same as "death_afraid1". (If I have time, I may try to set up a citizen somewhere using this model just so I can scare him to death and see if anything weird happens...)
 
Update: success!

FreePlay character selection and character interface screen:
rousselet_select2.jpg rousselet_character.jpg
... I first produced my pistol, and then produced my rapier... :wp
rousselet_pistol.jpg rousselet_sword1.jpg

I had to change a few speed values to make them more sensible, using "blaze.ani" and a couple of other PoTC .ani files for comparison. Then I walked and ran around St. Pierre before getting into a fight and intentionally letting the other guy kill me so I could test out the combat and death animations. Movement is fine and the game doesn't complain when he fights and gets killed, even if he might want to complain about such treatment. :D
 
The basic idea was easy enough - use a PoTC file to get all the right action names, use the GoF file to get all the right places in its corresponding .an file, copy place values from GoF file into PoTC file...
Pieter Boelen said:
In that case, I think the way that @Maximus made it work was by taking the .an and .ani files and manually renaming the AoP animations used to existing PotC animations.
Click to expand...
... like that. ;)

Incidentally, "new_man.ani" is almost identical to "blaze.ani". The only difference is that they refer to different .an files. According to WinMerge, "new_man.an" and "blaze.an" are identical.
Pieter Boelen said:
Also, some AoP models cause errors in PotC. We used to have more, but I had to take some out to avoid that.
Click to expand...
Probably female models. They're never going to work, apart from "Beatrice" and "BeatriceA" - someone must have done some really impressive work to get those into PoTC because they now use the same "woman_sit.ani" and "woman_sit.an" as almost every other PoTC female model. But NPC models can't work, except possibly as passive NPC's, because their AoP .an file does not contain any combat animations. You can't have a .ani file reference actions which simply aren't there. ("new_woman.ani" doesn't work with them - in fact, I can't find a model it does work with. Maybe those were the models which were removed.)
 
Grey Roger said:
Probably female models. They're never going to work, apart from "Beatrice" and "BeatriceA" - someone must have done some really impressive work to get those into PoTC because they now use the same "woman_sit.ani" and "woman_sit.an" as almost every other PoTC female model. But NPC models can't work, except possibly as passive NPC's, because their AoP .an file does not contain any combat animations. You can't have a .ani file reference actions which simply aren't there. ("new_woman.ani" doesn't work with them - in fact, I can't find a model it does work with. Maybe those were the models which were removed.)
Click to expand...
I was referring to a completely different problem: When a "corrupt" AoP character model was loaded in a scene, everything would seem fine.
But on reload to the next scene, some garbage must have collected somewhere as it would result in a black screen and system.log would refer to nonsense for the location model.
Really bizarre problem. o_O
 
Grey Roger said:
The basic idea was easy enough - use a PoTC file to get all the right action names, use the GoF file to get all the right places in its corresponding .an file, copy place values from GoF file into PoTC file...
... like that. ;)
Click to expand...

Well done! It pays off to be systematic and persistent. :cheers Also, it really helps to have great insight and advice from others -- and I'm nudging towards Pieter here... ;)
 
It certainly paid off. A bit more experimenting shows that the same animation can drive most of the male character models from CoAS:GoF, and the ones it can't drive are mostly imports from PoTC anyway.

Now, as to your problem of importing PoTC models into AoP. For male models, you'll need to do something similar to PoTC's version of "man.ani" - compare it to AoP's version and rename where necessary, particularly the combat animations. PoTC has separate animations for "attack_right_1" and "attack_left_1", whereas AoP has a single round attack "attack_round_1" which you can probably make by using the start of one of the PoTC animations and the end of the other. "attack_round_1" will therefore end up as a combination of the left and right attacks.

For female models, use PoTC's "woman_sit.ani" as a starting point. Alternatively, I've found "woman3_ab.ani" in the CoAS:GoF files, which should be AoP compatible and which appears to drive the same PoTC female models as "woman_sit.ani", which is almost all of them. It does a better job of the various combat moves used by AoP but isn't so good at sitting. Whoever created "woman3_ab.ani" didn't manage to create a new .an file with sitting animations. Instead, the sitting animations are each one frame out of the jumping animation, which means I'd imagine that if a woman using this animation is sitting in a tavern, whether for quest purposes or because she's a random officer waiting to be hired, she's going to sit absolutely still. If you want to try it out, I can upload it here.

Also, female .an files don't have the special "gov" animations needed for a governor, so don't try putting a woman in charge of a colony, or the display is liable to go berserk if you then try to visit her. I did a bit of fiddling with "PROGRAM\Characters\characters.c" in PoTC so that women will use standard tavern sitting animations instead - not particularly ladylike or official-looking, but better than the complete mess which appears otherwise. You may be able to do something similar to AoP. Look at function "SetHuberAnimation".
 
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