Help wanted to implement the animations

**Dekhatres** · June 13, 2015, 01:41 AM

Since we talk about animations here i am going to use this opportunity and ask. How can i make units expand during combat like in vanilla med 2 ? in this submod just like in SS units are staying packed and dont move at all when fighting, resulting in battles looking very small and units blob a lot, i couldnt find a skeletons.txt guide explaining stuff, and even after i changed a few things in there the new problem is that i couldnt make animations packs regenerate, if you could point me some good guides or tell me exactly what i need to do that would be awsome!

**Lifthrasir** · June 13, 2015, 08:13 AM

I've never been able myself to make the game able to re-build the animations myself. To unpack and pack them again, I use this tool. It's easy to use and works well.

I'm not sure to understand exactly what you want to implement. As I couldn't find anything too, I've made this tuto based on what I found during my numerous attempts. It might help you. This one is also good to understand a few things.

If you need more info, don't hesitate to contact me

**Dekhatres** · June 13, 2015, 12:55 PM

yeah i will take some screenshots one of these days and explain better what i want to do

**Lifthrasir** · June 30, 2015, 03:21 PM

I'm done with the axe animations: all done and checked.

Next step: the crossbow animation. Same as for the axe one, I'd be grateful if someone can make a list of the units that need to be implemented. Many thanks in advance.

**Lifthrasir** · July 11, 2015, 02:54 AM

Quick update: I've implemeted the crossbow animations (for mounted and infantry units). At present, I'm starting to work on the relevant unit models as most of them requier some changes (extra bone, crossbow string, texturee zadjustment...).
Below, the list of the units that use that animation (C for cavalry and I fir infantry):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

If you notice any miss or mistake, don't hesitate to correct me

**Lifthrasir** · July 23, 2015, 07:40 AM

1st post updated with a short video showing the new crossbow animation

Note that I've mostly implemented all units using the crossbow. However, some of the models still need some work to be fully ok.

**MWY** · July 23, 2015, 03:56 PM

Looks pretty good.

Nice job lifth!

**Geoffrey of Villehardouin** · July 24, 2015, 11:29 AM

The videos with the animations look great. Well done Lifthrasir! +rep

Among the things that bother me with animations is the sliding as if fighting on ice one sometimes sees or the running in place when a unit is running but some enemy soldier is in the way. I am amused also by men running through dead elephants, horses having epileptic fits when stuck in dense blobs, horses trying to run through horses (these probably have to do with density issues), pikemen moving too fast and spearmen swinging their spears as if they were swords.

Something that would be really nice to fix is the fire-by-rank animation. Historically the deeper the ranks, the faster the musketeers fired because the rate of rotation at the front increased. That is so badly implemented that using the fire-by-rank animation actually makes things worse for these units rather than better. Maybe something got deleted by accident or given the wrong name when the game was released and it was never fixed. If there are 3 ranks, the unit should be firing 50% faster, with 4 ranks, twice as fast, etc. In principle this could be achieved by changing the animations of the guys who are just standing into loading animations. Nobody would have been just standing, if fire-by-rank was used. I expect that would fix the firing rate problem but I have no idea if one can selectively replace the animation of the guys who just stand with the loading animation. Of course having loaded their muskets, those musketeers would move to the front and fire, then walk to the rear.

**Lifthrasir** · July 24, 2015, 02:08 PM

The main problem with the animations is that I can't make GOAT able to convert all of them for editing. Also, I'm just starting basically and my knowledge is quite limited. Anyway, for now, I'm just implementing the SSHIP animations with some existing ones but yes I agree that some of them still requier work.

**Lifthrasir** · July 28, 2015, 01:15 AM

Another quick update: I've completed the modeldb file update with the new crossbow animations. It has been tested and it works fine. However, most of the concerned units needs to be implemented (add the string and move the quiver for some of them). In order to know exactly which one I need to modify, I'm starting to add the Western Units Overhauln v4.0 made by GeMiNi][SaNDy for DLV (Real Shield Project by nikossaiz included). As his units already use these crossbow animations, that would "clarify" the situation a bit