Properly transferring animations

[Xonok]

I'm wondering what programs people would use for transferring existing animations together to a single unit.
The reason I'm asking is that I want to make a better version of the 40-animation-villager. A version that would have a full set of animations(spells, slams, etc) for most weapon types.
Also, how do I know which bones are used as reference for animations? I'm sure not every bone has animations assigned to it, but rather most should move because other bones connected to them move?

 

[Hantoo]

Simple Answer..
Matrix Eater by Retera
of course

 

[Xonok]

I've tried with that, but remapping the bones is a pain. That's what those other questions I asked are prompted by.

 

[Hantoo]

u mean matrix eater+no remapping bone?i think that is almost impossible xd

 

[BlinkBoy]

Oinkerwinkle's animation transfer did transferings without remapping by just matching the bones itself. Obviuosly it not always worked but it did some very fine jobs.

You can find it in the tools section.

 

[Xonok]

I have also tried oinker's tool, but it usually doesn't work when transferring anything other than entire sets of animations.

 

[Hantoo]

isn't that matrix eater can do that?
if the bone name is same, simply click motion for or in the bone (if the bone name is not same.. i don't think it will work)

 

[NhazUl]

If you're a masochist like me, you can do it manually in Magos, making new sequences on the target model and cnp-ing each and every bone animation data set. It's efficient but time consuming.

 

[BlinkBoy]

Hmn if oinkerwinkle's anim transfer fails on an animation per basis but works on full transfers. It means that both models use different interpolations.

Just linearize both models using MDLVis optimizer before doing the transfer.

 

[Hantoo]

what does linearize animation do?
i only know it reduce the filesize and sometimes changes the animation.. xd

 

[General Frank]

That is actually not true. oinkerwinkle's animation transfer tool can transfer single animations.
You transfer the wanted animation, convert the resulting model to .mdx, then back to .mdl as a different name.
One problem is that geoset animations, event objects and other animation frame related stuff is not properly transferred or altered

 

[Hantoo]

now.. in my opinion though matrix eater is magic xd

 

[BlinkBoy]

what does linearize animation do?
i only know it reduce the filesize and sometimes changes the animation.. xd

Well that's a bit simple topic that can turn into a complex one to be honest.

If you open a model in magos from the game and you go to a node and look at it's rotation keys. You'll see that most of the times the keys use an interpolation called "Hermite" and that for each key you have an OutTan and an InTan. This interpolation type is a non-linear interpolation type, if you change the interpolation type to "Linear" the OutTans and InTans are removed. This is fine, the animation will keep it's escence but it will lose quality.

That process is called linearizing.

The contrary process is delinearizing but there aren't tools to that. Unless you import to 3dsmax/gmax.

 

[Xonok]

Is there any way to save me the trouble of guessing what bones the animations or oriented by?

I guess I'll just lay out my project here.

Base model - Villager. Some animations are unused and thus, I removed them (flesh).

This is what animations I intend to use.
anims
I took the first one in the list (the unarmed attack from the dranai) and it won't come through properly. It's probably because bones are named differently.
The thing is, I don't know what is what in the dranai model, because everything is called a joint, while the villager has understandable names.

I can transfer the animation, but it won't know what bones to use and will simply ignore most parts of the animation.

 

[Anvil]

In Blizzard's models, usually the helpers hold the main animation data, and the bones is where the mesh is attached, can be exceptions, where bones hold animation data and mesh.

For models which not have helpers or bones called "Bone_", you'll need to check one by one manually. Pay attention on attachments, to find the main bones(Chest, Pelvis, Arm1_L, Arm1_R, etc).

 

[Hantoo]

it will be easier if we make modified a mpq that has common bone name for moddler...
that would be.. perfect

 

[BlinkBoy]

it will be easier if we make modified a mpq that has common bone name for moddler...
that would be.. perfect

Actualy it would be better to have an animation assets depot where all the models there follow certain combentions so you can easily transfer.