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Forum » Features » Animation » Dragon Tutorials (dragon tutorials)
Dragon Tutorials
katanamaruDate: Thursday, 2009-05-07, 8:41 PM | Message # 1
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Here are some tutorials that I got off filefront forums over Dragon. The big one was made by HeavymetalGungan who works on the JAU mod.
The second is a list of commands for Dragon.
*edit* Seems I can't attach the files.

Someone asked how to get animations in game, after I'd told then I was so proud of my answer I decided to share it with the world!

1. Open your stance/animation in dragon.

2. Make sure that your character's feet are on the floor, otherwise in game you'll be flying.

3. Type into the console: savegla filename. Make sure it isn't the same name as the original dragon file.

4. Copy and Paste your .GLA file into your _humanoid folder, if you don't have one you can make it:
Base\Models\Players\_humanoid.

5. If your made a new folder copy and paste the _humanoid.gla file, animation.cfg file and animevents.cfg* file from assets1.PK3 into your folder, if you already had it miss this stage.

6. Put the glamerge.exe file in your folder as well, it should be located in the same place as dragon.exe.

7.Open notepad and make a file with this in it:
@ECHO OFF
"glamerge.exe" "_humanoid.gla" "Put your filename here.gla" -o
PAUSE
EXIT
Save it as gla_merge.bat file in your _humanoid folder.

8. Check every thing is where it should be:
_humanoid.gla
GLAmerge.exe
gla_merge.bat
Your .GLA file

Then double click on the gla_merge.bat file.
You should get a message asking for a file name, if you don't then you have probably miss-typed something somewhere or don't have a file in the right place.

When typing in your file name DO NOT add .gla on the end or Glamerge will have a tantrum.

9.When GLAmerge has finished look in your _humanoid folder, you should now have a new file.
Delete the _humanoid.gla file then rename the new file _humanoid.gla.

10. Now open Modveiw (Comes with this Modeling/Skinning Guide and Tools, Jedi Knight 3 Downloads, Jedi Knight 3 Modding Tools)
and chose the animation/stance you want to replace.

11. Once you have chosen, find the animation in animation.cfg. If you are using a completely un-edited copy of _humanoid.gla, change the first number to 21376, this the starting frame of your animation. If your are using an edited copy of _humanoid.gla then find the newest animation added by looking at the final frame number of the animation right at the bottom of the list of animations. Put this new number instead of 21376. Also if you are using a changed _humanoid.gla you should also have a changed version of animation.cfg. Edit this instead of the default one.

12. Change the next number across to the amount of frames in your animation.

13. Change the 3rd number across to 0 if you want your animation to loop over and over until it is told to stop (eg. walking animation) or -1 if you want it to only play once and stay on the final frame until the event is over. For 1 frame stances either will work.

14. Change the final number across to the speed you want to play at. The default is 20, the dragon preview speed is 12. Negative numbers will make your animation play backwards.**

15. Save and close the animation.cfg file then open up Modveiw again. Scroll right to the bottom of the list of animations and you should find the animation you wanted to replace. Double click on it to veiw it.

16. Package your new _humanoid.gla file and animation.cfg file into a PK3 under. Models\players\_humanoid

17. Save and test!***

*Putting animevents.cfg in is not nessesary for this tutorial but can be usefull in other circumstances.

**When testing in modveiw the animation can only play at 20 and -20 fps, so don't be worried if it's going too fast/slow.

*** In SP it is best to load a new map instead of loading a saved game as sometimes JKA will try to load the old animations. Once they've been loaded once they should work on saved games.
____________________________________________

Note: If you have already added an animation to the game you can miss out stages 5, 6 and 7. Just change the gla_merge.bat file to suit your new gla.

Once you've got used to it it's easy to get animations ingame. I can now do it in about 2 minutes.

Added (2009-05-07, 8:38 Pm)
---------------------------------------------
Another one:
_______________________________________________________________________
Create a hierarchy of folders. Base -> Models -> Players -> _Humanoid.

In the _Humanoid folder, you should have the following files: GlaMerge.exe, Gla_Merge.bat, _humanoid.gla, and the gla you made in Dragon.

For the Gla_Merge.bat, create a text file in Notepad containing this:

@ECHO OFF
"glamerge.exe" "_humanoid.gla" "X.gla" -o
PAUSE
EXIT

Replace X with the name of your gla. Save it as "gla_merge.bat" (with the quotes)

Open the BAT file. It will ask you for the output filename. Whatever you call it, be sure to put .gla at the end.

Now, the gla you made is merged with the rest of the motions that were in the _humanoid.gla

Move this new GLA to Models-> Players-> _Humanoid, and rename it "_humanoid". This will replace the default one.

The next step is to mess with the Animation.cfg to get your desired results.

Then you just pack it, along with the modified Animation.cfg, into a PK3.

Hope that helps.____

HOW TO IMPORT ANIMATIONS!!

Ah, that is quite a simple matter:

1. Go into your dragon folder and replace JA_humanoid.gla with the _humanoid file from your base.
2. Find the startframe and length of the animation you want to edit.
3. In dragon type the following into the console
Impframe "Startframe" "length" (remover quotes)

You only ever have to do step 1 once. You don't have to do it each time your import a series of frames.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Added (2009-05-07, 8:41 Pm)
---------------------------------------------
Hit T to load up the dragondefault.cfg and get started! - You can also add "exec dragondefault" to your autoexec.cfg file, so that it'll automagically load up from now on.

Finally. This test has the bone tree list, with scroll bars, rotates like usual, the list has some functionality to change the interpolation of bone blending, and lets you enable/disable blending for a bone with a click. You also get to hit TAB to complete commands, which seems to work for the most part. It'll list all the commands if there's several to choose from. There's some bugs, but it's also a lot of improvement.

Also, I added a command to list all the possible console commands, "cmdlist" - here's the output, I'll be expounding upon this list and organizing it so that it can be incorporated in to the manual.

Dragon Command List (added some descriptions 10-18-2006)

Dragon General Commands
echo - prints out everything after 'echo' to the console.
quit - exits dragon.
exit - exits dragon.
exec - executes a configuration file. Functionally the same as the 'load' command.
cmdlist - with an argument, prints out a list of commands that start with the argument. Without an argument, it prints all commands.
screenshot - takes a screenshot. If there is no 'screenshots' directory, this crashes dragon. Dragon now attempts to create a screenshots directory when it loads up, if there isn't one.
texflush - flushes the textures, which causes Dragon to reload textures.
togui - toggles the UI, good for screenshots Smile.

Dragon Animation commands
finsb - Insert a frame before the current frame.
finsa - Insert a frame after the current frame
fblend <number> - Inserts a number of frames between the current one and the next one, they are all set to blend.
fnext - Goes to the next frame. If you're already at the end, adds a frame.
fprev - Goes to the previous frame.
fcnext - Goes to the next frame. If you're at the end, it goes to the start.
fcprev - Goes to the previous frame. If you're at the start, it goes to the end.
fcpy <number> - Copies the given frame number.
fcpynext - Copies the frame after the current frame.
fcpyprev - Copies the frame before the current frame.
fdel - Deletes the current frame.
animset <sequencename> - sets playback animation to sequencename. (needs animplay)
animnext - sets playback animation to the next sequence in the animation config. (needs animplay)
animprev - sets playback animation to the previous sequence in the animation config. (needs animplay)
animmake - Tells dragon you want to make an animation for the currently selected scene member.
animplay - Tells dragon you want to play animations for the currently selected scene member.
bonesel <number> - Picks bone by number.
boneprev - Picks the bone before the currently selected bone.
bonenext - Picks the bone after the currently selected bone.
bonereset - Resets the posing information for the currently selected bone.
limbreset - Resets the posing information for the currently selected bone, as well as the bones below it in the hierarchy.
boneallreset - Resets the posing information for all bones.
mbtog <number> - Turns bone blending on and off for either the currently selected bone (no arguments) or the bone specified (by number).
mbtype <type> - Sets the blend type (linear, sin, cos, sininv, cosinv) for the currently selected bone.
mbcycle <number> - Cycles bone blend type for either the currently selected bone (no arguments) or the bone specified (by number). Cyle is: linear, sin, cos, sininv, cosinv, manual
seqnew <name> -
seqsel <name> -
seqname <name> -
seqdel <name> -
seqnext -
seqprev -
frame <number> - Jumps to frame
bone - Used by the save/load system to save a bone's transform info.
fspeed <number> -
impframe -
impseq -
save <path> -
savegla <path> -
load <path> - Functionally the same as exec, exists as a partner to the 'save' command which saves the animation sequences for the currently

Dragon Scene Member commands
smcreate <name> - creates a scene member with the given name. If there's already one with that name, it'll just select that one. If you dont' give a name, it'll make up one, such as Dragon000, Dragon001 and so on.
smmodel <path> - loads a model at the given path. If there is no model there, it won't load it, for obvious reasons.
smanim <path> - loads the animation file at the given path.
smskin <path> - loads the model's skin at the given path.
smflag <flagname> - sets a flag for the current scene member. Currently the only flag is "noautoload", which affects the way the model loads. If it's not set, Dragon attempts to automatically load the models specified animation file. For player models (JKA) this path is models/players/_humanoid/_humanoid.gla
smclearflags - this clears flags for the current scene member.
smbolt <scene member target> <bolt name> - will attach the current scene member to 'scene member target' at 'bolt name'. To attach a gun to the 'hand' tag on a scene member 'Bob', the command would be 'smbolt Bob hand'. You'd use smcreate to select the gun scene member first, though.
smrotz <number> - adjusts the Z rotation (ie, the direction the scene member is facing) for the current scene member.
smorg <position x> <position y> <position z> - adjusts the origin for the current scene member, ie where the member is located.

Dragon Spoon Onion Skin Commands
spnonitog - toggles the display of the 'onion skin'. An onion skin basically shows the positions of the bones in the frames before and after the current frame. Can be a big aid in posing.
spnoniback <number> - specifies a number of frames for the onion to display prior to the current frame.
spnonifore <number> - specifies a number of frames for the onion to display follwing the current frame.
spnoniforecolst <red> <green> <blue> <alpha> - specifies the color of the onions for the frames before the current frame
spnoniforecolen <red> <green> <blue> <alpha> - specifies the color of the onions for the frames before the current frame
spnonibackcolst <red> <green> <blue> <alpha> - specifies the color of the onions for the frames after the current frame
spnonibackcolen <red> <green> <blue> <alpha> - specifies the color of the onions for the frames after the current frame

Dragon Interface Scripting commands
litinfo <position x> <position y> <position z> <position val> - sets the lighting origin.
litambi <red> <green> <blue> <value> - sets the ambient light color.
litdiff <red> <green> <blue> <value> - sets the diffuse light color.
bgcolor <red> <green> <blue> <alpha> - sets the background color.
textcolor <red> <green> <blue> <alpha> - sets the text color. Doesn't affect the UI boxes.
newbutton <name> <command down> <command up> <rate_in> <ref_in> - Buttons have the power to move around smoothly, and execute commands on keypress or key-release.
bind <key> <command> - key should be in upper case (though I'll fix that someday), the rest of the line is a command you'd enter normally.
bindname <filename> - filename is the name of your binds save file. That way your key binds are preserved across sessions.
r_fullscreen <number> - 1 = fullscreen, 0 = not fullscreen. Changes the mode right away.
rfull - changes to and from fullscreen.
r_znear - changes the near extent of the view, setting it reasonably can help the depth buffer. Some nVidia cards had problems with really high values.
r_zfar - changes the far extent of the view, setting it reasonably can help the depth buffer. Some nVidia cards had problems with really high values.
r_fov - changes the 3d view's field of vision.
r_mode <number> - set screen size. Dragon will attempt to 'reel in' the UI boxes. Sizes are: 0 = 400x300, 1 = 640x480, 2 = 800x600, 3 = 1024x768, 4 = 1280x1024.
r_maxfps <number> - will limit the framerate of Dragon. Too low is bad, around 24-96 would be good.

Dragon Spoon Scripting commands
spnbone
spnexp
spntype
spnmaster
spnlen
spnrad
spndist

Dragon UI scripting commands
ui_style_border_width
ui_style_border_color
ui_style_bar_height
ui_style_bar_ext
ui_style_bar_color
ui_style_box_color
ui_st yle_label_color
ui_style_widget_color
ui_box_make
ui_box_kill
ui_box_nodraw
ui_widg_make
ui_widg_kill
ui_widg_color
ui_widg_img
ui_ widg_cmd
ui_widg_drag_x
ui_widg_drag_y
ui_widg_sync_x
ui_widg_sync_y
ui_widg_label
ui_widg_label_align
ui_widg_label_color
ui_widg_s cissor
ui_widg_list
ui_widg_list_generate
ui_widg_tag
ui_widg_scroll


My pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/
TotSL pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/Tales%20of%20the%20Sith%20Lords/


Message edited by katanamaru - Thursday, 2009-05-07, 8:35 PM
 
kal01Date: Thursday, 2009-05-07, 11:31 PM | Message # 2
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Thanks for the tutorial mate, someone who needs to make something small like bliz with maybe a new animation of detactching saber that lion mentioned dont know if its possible.

what do you think katanamaru, would it be poissible to great a brand new animation so that when you press lets say J your double bladed character has a detactch animation to turn it into a duel saber?


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katanamaruDate: Friday, 2009-05-08, 0:01 AM | Message # 3
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It is possible to animate, but to get the actual function of splitting the saber would require code...

Unless you set the 'seperate' animaiton as an ignition for the duals. If you bind two keys, say 'U' for two singles and 'I' for the staff. When you press the keys the game switches to that saber and plays the ignition animation. So if the ignition animations were replaced then it could look like the character was seperating the sabers and rejoing them. Downside it that if the player ever turned them off and then turned them back on it would play the seperating animation.

Ohh another way! Replace a flourish or taunt or something unused like some of the sp cinema's animation with the new 'seperate' and 'attach' animations. Then make the bind look like this:
bind u "saber single_maul single_maul; taunt"
bind i "saber dual_maul; taunt"

That would make the game switch sabers and immediately play the animation that is replaced with the 'seperate' or 'attach' animation! biggrin cool


My pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/
TotSL pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/Tales%20of%20the%20Sith%20Lords/
 
kal01Date: Friday, 2009-05-08, 1:56 AM | Message # 4
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Thanks mate, it will look so good.
Maybe when your done if you dont mind working on attactch detatch animation? but only if you dont mind, i know we might have give you a lot and if so i excuse myself


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katanamaruDate: Friday, 2009-05-08, 8:49 AM | Message # 5
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I could give them a shot but it will be awhile yet for those.

Would you like them to be practical or flashy? I like practical, but I'll do what ever the team would like to see.


My pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/
TotSL pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/Tales%20of%20the%20Sith%20Lords/
 
kal01Date: Friday, 2009-05-08, 11:21 PM | Message # 6
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just practicle will do, a normal unclikc and click of sabers.

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katanamaruDate: Saturday, 2009-05-09, 1:12 AM | Message # 7
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Roger roger.

My pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/
TotSL pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/Tales%20of%20the%20Sith%20Lords/
 
bliznezDate: Saturday, 2009-05-09, 5:59 PM | Message # 8
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Dude, thanx a LOOOOOOOOT, im gonna enjoy this now twisted

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katanamaruDate: Sunday, 2009-05-10, 8:33 PM | Message # 9
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When you start making animations I would recommend that you don't rotate the root bone to view the animation from different angles. Instead if you use the , . / keys those will rotate the model. You can change their values in the 'bindsout.cfg' if I rememeber correctly. Only thing is make sure it is in values that are divisible by 360 degrees. I use 15, -15 and 30, -30 to rotate my animations.

You can also use the middle mouse button, but I have not found a way to reset the camera. The middle mouse button is easiest too.

Added (2009-05-10, 8:33 Pm)
---------------------------------------------
Last night I tried the bind method to see if it would work and so far it didn't. I tried:
bind j "saber kyle kyle; taunt" -> and that would only give me two kyle sabers.
bind j "saber kyle kyle; wait 20; taunt" -> once again only two kyle sabers.
bind j "saber kyle kyle; wait 20; saber kyle" that would start the two saber ignition but would only give one kyle saber.

I'll keep playing around to see what I can do. Any ideas would be appreciated.


My pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/
TotSL pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/Tales%20of%20the%20Sith%20Lords/
 
bliznezDate: Monday, 2009-05-11, 0:10 AM | Message # 10
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Ok, basically, when i trn saber on, my walking animation does not work, when i switch it off- it works....

I changed the both_run1, is that all?
or do i need to change, say, run2 ?

Pls help me


"The Jedi are considered to be lame."
Chancellor palpatine, LAME version of ROTS.
 
KRSONEbgDate: Monday, 2009-05-11, 0:30 AM | Message # 11
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Well, I'm not very good in animations, but I think that you have to change others like run2, because I think "both_run1" is only for unarmed running.

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Anakin: Ani.
Windu: Ani? Ain't that a girl's name?
 
katanamaruDate: Monday, 2009-05-11, 0:48 AM | Message # 12
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B_run1 is for guns, unlit saber, bombs, and no weapons.
B_run2 is the single saber (blue,yellow,red,tavion,desann styles).
B_runSaberStaff is the staff run.
B_runDualSaber is the duals.

B_walk1 is unlit saber, guns, bombs, and no weapons walk. It was used in JO as the saber walk as well.
B_walk2 is the single saber.
B_walkStaff is the staff walk
B_walkDual is the duals.

These are the forward and strafing animations for walking. There are another set for going backwards. They are mostly the same but with a 'back' descriptor in the name ie. B_runBack2 or such.


My pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/
TotSL pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/Tales%20of%20the%20Sith%20Lords/


Message edited by katanamaru - Monday, 2009-05-11, 0:55 AM
 
bliznezDate: Monday, 2009-05-11, 2:51 PM | Message # 13
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i bow politely

Ur Animation knowledge is deep indeed. I'll try ones right away.


"The Jedi are considered to be lame."
Chancellor palpatine, LAME version of ROTS.
 
katanamaruDate: Monday, 2009-05-11, 6:50 PM | Message # 14
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Doh I forgot something. The game uses the same runback for everything. It's B_runback2. It is used for the single sabers, staff, duals, no weapon, and every gun. So if you try changing that it has to look good for everything. This is going to be the biggest hinderance when it comes to making Secret Apprentice aniamations.

My pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/
TotSL pics: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww303/katanamaru/Tales%20of%20the%20Sith%20Lords/
 
kal01Date: Tuesday, 2009-05-12, 1:10 AM | Message # 15
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well im still trying to helpo out on this, hope il get an anser soon from the guy, i know we can add an animation for only one character without affecting the others. and when we figure out how it will be fanatasic and we will be able to make Secret apprentice work perfectly. biggrin

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