Tutorial: Learn Model Animation in 30 minutes

[gotenkz]

Ok many of you already know how to use Animation Transfer from http://www.oinkerwinkle.com/tools/download.html but how many of you know how to remove/replace animations or animate on a model with no animations? In this tutorial you will learn how to animate models without any animations applied yet. You need to have a basic understanding of how Oinkerwinles Animation Tranfer program works and also how to rename Bones in Notepad. If you don't there's a tutorial on Oinkerwinkles site for that. Anyway here we go:


Step 1.
Lets use this model as example model we want to completely redo animations on:
http://www.wc3sear.ch/?p=Models&ID=2691
Convert that model to MDL format.

Step 2.
Copy the following into notepad, and save as nothing.mdl
//Begin copying
Version {
FormatVersion 800,
}
Model "Nothing" {
NumAttachments 3,
BlendTime 150,
}
Sequences 1 {
Anim "Birth" {
Interval { 667, 1333 },
NonLooping,
}
}
Attachment "Origin Ref " {
Visibility 2 {
DontInterp,
667: 0,
6833: 0,
}
}
Attachment "OverHead Ref " {
Visibility 2 {
DontInterp,
667: 0,
6833: 0,
}
}
Attachment "Chest Ref" {
Visibility 2 {
DontInterp,
667: 0,
6833: 0,
}
}
PivotPoints 3 {
{ 0, -0.00240378, -0.191778 },
{ 0, -0.00240378, 110.227 },
{ -0.365332, -0.0457303, 58.9949 },
}
//End copying

Step 3.
Open Animation Transfer, set the DBZModel as the base model, the animation model to Nothing.mdl, and transfer to entire animation. This will effectively, make the same model but without any animations, the birth animation is there simply so you can view it in WC3, but it will not move so far. Second add this to your new DBZModel without animations to every bone.
Rotation 18 {
Hermite,
}
eg.
Bone "Bone_Pelvis" {
ObjectId 0,
Parent 22,
GeosetId 0,
GeosetAnimId None,
Rotation 18 {
Hermite,
}
}

Step 4.
Find another model you want to copy animations across to (eg. Extract Beastmaster and Blademaster models using WINMPQ or something similar), Covert these to MDL format.

Step 5.
Open Animation Transfer again, set your new DBZModel without animations as your base model, set the animation file to Beastmaster (or whatever you chose) and put a tick on Transfer Single Animation, set the first blank text field to the animation you want to transfter (eg. Stand or Walk), the second field isn't as important, set that to stand or whatever it needs (stand or a matching animation name usually works). Now transfer the animation over by pressing transfer.

Step 6.
Congrats, if you open your model up, you should see that you model now has a standalone Stand animation (or whatever you chose), if not, don't panic, there are bugs with the Animation Transfer program, do the following to fix this:
In notepad search for this,
Sequences 9 {
Anim "walk" {
Interval { 667, 1333 },

If you animation name was "walk", take a good look at the interval numbers, make sure the interval numbers, match on your bones, eg.
Bone "Bone_Leg1_L" {
ObjectId 2,
Parent 0,
GeosetId 0,
GeosetAnimId None,
Rotation 77 {
Hermite,
667: {
833: {
933: {
1333: {
See the last 3 lines 667, 833 and 933 etc? Make sure those numbers match from before, if these numbers are out of range your animation won't work.

Step 7.
Repeast from Step 5 to add new animations. From here on, you can add new animations as you wish.

Hopefully this tutorial helps explain how to not just add new animations but remove/replacing animations by starting all the animations from scratch.

I'm making more tutorials on Vertex Modifier too at:
http://www.dbz-tribute.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6107