Infinity Animations in GemRB

[neird]

Managed to install Vecna mod (which uses Infinity Animations) in Linux with only Linux versions of tools.

Runs fine using wine.

Since Infinity Animations patches original bgmain.exe which obviously does not present, GemRB works with 'glitches'.

When running game with GemRB all additional creatures looks like gnomes.

Can some GemRB override files be patched to properly run this installation?

[lynx]

if they added new animations, our avatars.2da files need to be updated.

[i30817]

And 1pixel productions?

[neird]

if they added new animations, our avatars.2da files need to be updated.

Does avatars.2da was generated from original bgmain.exe or writen by hand?

[Avenger]

if they added new animations, our avatars.2da files need to be updated.

Does avatars.2da was generated from original bgmain.exe or writen by hand?

There is no way to generate it from the exe. I have some method in DLTCEP to guess it from the dataset, but it is not complete.

[neird]

if they added new animations, our avatars.2da files need to be updated.

Does avatars.2da was generated from original bgmain.exe or writen by hand?

There is no way to generate it from the exe. I have some method in DLTCEP to guess it from the dataset, but it is not complete.

Looks like patch for avatars.2da can be derived from anims.list, animate.ids files inside Infinity Animations source tree.

Amount of work however is quite discouraging. Definitely not a weekend project.

[i30817]

Err, can't you just take the finished modded product and do a diff? Or are you trying to make it dynamic (by using the weidu source code from IA)?

 

And why can't you just use the files from the original game anyway?

IA modifies them, you use them, no problem?

[neird]

Err, can't you just take the finished modded product and do a diff? Or are you trying to make it dynamic (by using the weidu source code from IA)?

 

And why can't you just use the files from the original game anyway?

IA modifies them, you use them, no problem?

As stated in first post, GemRB works with 'glitches'.

IA patches bgmain.exe to enable additional animations.

In GemRB avatars.2da should be patched instead.

[Miloch]

Can someone attach an avatars.2da? In theory, we could look for it and patch it if present, but I think it makes more sense for GemRB to handle it, because there are a number of mods that might do this or similar things.

[neird]

Can someone attach an avatars.2da? In theory, we could look for it and patch it if present, but I think it makes more sense for GemRB to handle it, because there are a number of mods that might do this or similar things.

This one, i think

http://gemrb.git.sou...ars.2da;hb=HEAD

[SyntaxError]

that one is for BG2 only; there is one for each game.

 

i dont see why it woud make sense for us to patch it, however. We have our hands full as it is it would bloat and complicate the loading process if we had to do a check for each and every mod out there that does binary modification instead of each mod becoming gemrb aware. Probably a good way for bugs to get introduced too.

 

just my opinion. we'll see what lynx or avenger say.

[neird]

In my opinion, it is better if mod patch GemRB 2da files.

In this case different mod versions can be used independently of GemRB version.

This approach hovewer has one problem.

GemRB 2da files can not be overrided in game override folder.

Same problem for BGT and IWD-in-BG2 mods which should override GemRB clskills.2da file.

[Avenger]

If patching the .exe with custom machine code was feasible, it should also be feasible to modify a known 2da format in a different directory.

 

On the other hand, if something weird and strange should work WITHOUT patching the exe, we should make efforts to implement it in gemrb.

We could rarely implement exe hacks into gemrb (especially if it is also in ToBEx), but these shouldn't significantly affect original gameplay or other mods.

I mean, if there was a community wide accepted animation pack that is used by 10+ mods (probably also supported by ToBEx), we would be more than pleased to incorporate it in avatars.2da

If there are only a few mods, especially if they are conflicting, it is not possible to support them with a single 2da. There is no way to implement that in our release, it should be handled by the mod (or the user). Adding/replacing a few lines in a 2da isn't terribly complicated.

[Miloch]

We could patch the 2da as long as whatever folder it's in works like an override folder (i.e. if we patch it, it recognises the changes). Which would mean I need to know which folder it'd be in. Also would need to know the definition of these fields. Is there something like the IESDP for GemRB-specific files?

AT_1 AT_2 AT_3 AT_4 TYPE SPACE PALETTE SIZE

Edit: incidentally...

if there was a community wide accepted animation pack that is used by 10+ mods

That's kinda Infinity Animation's whole purpose, and it supports all known mods (hell, even Improved Anvil) specifically including the dozen or two massive megamods that are *not* compatible with each other without InfAnim (because they overwrite each other's animation slots).

[Avenger]

Description: This table lists the avatar animations. PST has a slightly different animation scheme, this could be turned on by the OneByteAnimationID option (in gemrb.ini). When it is on, the high byte of the animation ID will control the palette flag thus eliminating the need of the PALETTE column.

 

[ Note: apparently, PST is more complicated than that:

Foundry gears: 0x2000

Iron Golem: 0x3000

Mortuary ghost: 0xD400

Pillar of Skulls: 0xF000

black abishai: 0xE000

 

The only normal one of them is black abishai, the others are all somewhat special. For example, Pillar of Skulls consists of two BAMs, POSMAIN and POSSHAD (the pillar and its shadow, both animated). See ANIMATE.IDS. ]

 

 

Columns: AT_1 - first armour level animation prefix

AT_2 - second armour level animation prefix

AT_3 - third armour level animation prefix

AT_4 - fourth armour level animation prefix

 

TYPE - the animation scheme

 

0 - Many files, this is the avatar animation of BG2.

1 - The whole animation is in one file. Scheme is: [NAME][G1]. There are 16 orientations.

2 - The whole animation is in four files. Scheme is: [NAME][G1-2][/E].

3 - The whole animation is in two files. Scheme is: [NAME][G1][/E].

4 - Many files (simular to 0), but all with G. Scheme is: [NAME][G][1-2][1-6].

5 - ?

6 - BG2 style animation. Scheme is:[NAME][ACTIONCODE][/E]. The G1 code contains many sequences. (5 orientations).

7 - Bird animations, one file, only movement with orientations.

8 - Six files contain the whole animation. Scheme is:[NAME][G1-3][/E]

9 - IWD style animation. Scheme is:[NAME][ACTIONTYPE][/E]. The main difference from 6 is that instead of G1, it has separate bams for many actions. (9 orientations).

10 - The whole animation is in two files [NAME][G1][/E]. Used for some low res static BG1 animations like the horse and cow. It lacks the walking animations of type 3.

11 - large 2x2 animations (wyvern and balor)

12 - huge 3x3 dragon animations

13 - 15 reserved for non pst anims

16 - full PST style animation. Scheme is:[C/D][ACTIONTYPE][NAME]

17 - stand still animation (no orientations)

18 - stand still animation with orientations

19 - full PST animation without different stc/std sequences

 

SPACE - the personal space of the creature

PALETTE - set it to 1 if the animation has its own palette (0 for fake colored avatars). 2 characters for custom BMP palettes

Not needed if OneByteAnimation was set.

SIZE - Used for selecting possible weapon animation BAMs.

Not needed if OneByteAnimation was set.

 

Rows: each row begins with a hexadecimal Animation ID. One or two bytes.