Play Animations in Variant Editor

[Arni the Terminator]

Hello there, I have a hopefully fairly simple question:

How can I make my own Variantmeshdefinitions play animations in the Variant Editor? Meshes loaded with "Load Uniforms" can, for my own VMD's there are only three options under Animation: Reference, Idle and Walk, none of these does anything.
I have released a small unit pack and would really like to play animations in front of a plain-coloured background so I can take screens to make unit cards.

Thanks in advance!

[dotvhs]

I need to disappoint you, but I've never got it working. There is a workaround though. You can export your model to 3ds max and then to fbx or something. Export also animations for Maya. Load both in Maya and render there (or other environment, it doesn't really matter - pick which suits you best).

There are pros and cons of this method. Pros are that you can get WAY better results, transparent background out of the box and full control over the model, textures, lighting and animation itself. There two cons though - it's a bit time consuming at first and also forces you to juggle between two (or more if you are using different rendering enviro) softwares.

[Arni the Terminator]

Alright, thank you. Since I never used either of these tools (I only use the Variant Editor to create the VMD's and do the rest via PFM/ GIMP/ HxD) could you please explain how I would do that in detail?

[dotvhs]

Oh man, that's quite a task you gave me. I'll see what can I do about it.

[Arni the Terminator]

Oh no worries man, I got a response from Sebidee whom I asked about the matter a couple of days ago and he told me it'd be best done using the Uniforms to build your unit upon and as long as its not saved they can play animations. So basically I'll have to rebuild my units for screenshots, but I suppose that's still a lot easier for me than to learn handling completely new tools. I suppose it also will also save you the labour of writing a step by step introduction for a complete newbie.

I thank you again for your time and your willingness to spend even more helping me out, it's very much appreciated!

[atademir]

total war attila assembly kits for equestrian units per card is not part of the animation?It does not seem horses
please help me...
What is the solution?

[Prince Richard]

Oh no worries man, I got a response from Sebidee whom I asked about the matter a couple of days ago and he told me it'd be best done using the Uniforms to build your unit upon and as long as its not saved they can play animations. So basically I'll have to rebuild my units for screenshots, but I suppose that's still a lot easier for me than to learn handling completely new tools. I suppose it also will also save you the labour of writing a step by step introduction for a complete newbie.

I thank you again for your time and your willingness to spend even more helping me out, it's very much appreciated!

Thanks for sharing how to do it, really helps.

[Vikus van de Merwe]

Yeah, loading custom uniforms doesn't work. But you can load an original uniform and attach your own meshes to it (this works for vanilla as well as custom models, and it's a nice way to test the rig of custom models without having to load the game).