.DAT Animation Mod

[Tidane]

Sorry to those who thought I had modded an animation, but I have a question.

Why have I been told it is impossible to edit the animations, when I'm very sure I've seen Mithra animation edits floating around (other than the original /sit .DAT). I know there are several that were taken from NPCs, but isn't it possible for others to be edited? I'm assuming the problem lies in the fact that it would require a massive project (weapons, battle poses, and weaponskills) to get a decent looking update.

For example, the Hume Male Bow stance is bothersome, to say the least, when you can look to your left and see an Elvaan hold it a "better" way. From what I have seen, it would require you to change the animation so it is holding the bow the new way, then change the weapon .DATs to fit the new pose.

Not knowing exactly how the weapon .DATs word, I'll ask this: wouldn't it be possible to find a common centerpoint in all of the Elvaan bows and write a program to resize the .DATs to fit a Hume based on the centerpoint? Or do all of the .DATs (and only God would know why) have different centerpoiints?

[Deo]

Re: .DAT Animation Mod

Nope, those were definitely swapped from npcs with the same skeletons. If you swap those from another race, any of the similar dots they use would move by how they look.

Lemme give you an example. I took bahamut and shrunk him down to wyvern size. No action, he's fine but when he starts animating, all his points move in the exact direciton and length as it did when he was big, and his skins for his whiskers and shoulder blades start going all over the place making him look like a spikey scribble.

Also, I just downloaded VRS and all I can see is the "Weight" Skeleton. So not only do they use different points, they also have differing controls on their physics (Mostly solid lines that stretch and shrink and influence the other lines attached to it that may or may not be shrinking at the same time).

If anyone got close to trying to make something, you'd probably end up with something wierd like a galka swinging a stretched elbow instead of a sword. It's normally best to just do things copy and paste style with what is given.

[Tidane]

Re: .DAT Animation Mod

No, I'm not talking about swapped models. I looked through the NPC motions and couldn't find them. They were on a Japanese site, I'll see if I can find it again.

Maybe I wasn't clear in my original post, as I was talking in theory (since I haven't actually been able to do much with the models), but from what I know, the motion is saved in the actual .DAT file. I'll assume that the motion is stored in each .DAT file.

What I'm asking is, why can't a point analysis be done to match the points from one model to another, and convert the animation. IE, every model has motion, but not the same structure. If we were to take Elvaan models, shrink them to Hume size, and match the similar points of motion, would we not have an Elvaan style model that changes the motion on a Hume? No matter how SE coded their animations in, there is a way to change them to suit ourselves. I'm not saying its as simple as editing textures, but in theory, it should be possible.

[Korith]

Re: .DAT Animation Mod

Theoretically, I would assume it is possible to edit animations. I'm fairly certain the animations are not stored on each .dat file, they are stored on a .dat file designated for animations.

To answer your question in your first post;

wouldn't it be possible to find a common centerpoint in all of the Elvaan bows and write a program to resize the .DATs to fit a Hume based on the centerpoint?

Yes. It wouldn't do what you want though. In fact, the model file for each race is the same size. If you were to export a tarutaru greatsword and galka greatsword in metasequoia and compare them, you'd find the the models are actually the exact same size. So, the resizing would be very easy; you wouldn't have to do any. Next, you would have to convert the skeleton weights, which would be easy as well. In the case of a bow, the frame of the bow is all connected to the same skeleton. The arrow and string are all connected to another skeleton. You would merely have to change the two skeleton weights to the proper ones for the other race.

The problem is that this would result in the same animation that Hume's normally use, not the Elvaan animation. The only way to work around this is to edit the animation .dat. To my knowledge, there is no program out there to edit it (you'd have to find the right .dat too). The JP player base might have made one though, they've been at this a lot longer than we have.

There is no way to have a bow still connected to the Elvaan animations while it is on a Hume (other than using the race converter, which would result in you looking like an Elvaan too).

The short answer to your entire question is: Animations are not stored on the individual .dat files. Knowing that, you can probly see what you would have to actually edit the animations.

What I'm asking is, why can't a point analysis be done to match the points from one model to another, and convert the animation. IE, every model has motion, but not the same structure. If we were to take Elvaan models, shrink them to Hume size, and match the similar points of motion, would we not have an Elvaan style model that changes the motion on a Hume?

IE, every model has similar structure, but not the same motion.

That is more correct.

All weapon .dats are the same size. Yes, the galka GSW and taru GSW files are the same size (and shape). The different animations that are applied to them cause them to shink and move differently. Because the animations are not stored on the .dat file, once you make it a Hume .dat it automatically uses the Hume set of Animations, not the Elvaan ones.

If you were determined, you could copy the elvaan animation files over to Hume. Then you would have to edit every piece of equipment to make the skeleton weights match. Doing this would cause your Hume to move like an Elvaan for every animation. The only way to change just a part of the Hume animations would be to edit the animation .dat. Like I said, I know no way to do that.

Hope that made sense.