Custom new races

IkMarc

Adding new races including animations to the game. Is it possible and has it been done yet?

Mikkel

Anything's possible I suppose, but I don't think it's realistically do-able for most modders, since it would be quite a lot of work not only code-wise but also in terms of creating the graphics required - To my knowledge it hasn't been done yet, either.

Moomintroll

Unlikely that new animations will ever be added to the game. Look at the "controversy" over the beautiful new portraits that have been added to the game, now imagine new art being added into gameplay animations!

IkMarc

So is it possible to replace animations for a race? For example switch dwarf animations with a space hamster race

Moomintroll

Groundhogs are in the game aren't they? all dwarfs could be replaced with those.

Abel

Yeah, everything related to art/animation is definitely the hardest thing to create. I remember someone released a how-to create sub-races via script though.

IkMarc

Abel said:

Yeah, everything related to art/animation is definitely the hardest thing to create. I remember someone released a how-to create sub-races via script though.

But is it possible at all to change ingame animations for characters? (not only the paperdolls). I figure they are all separate image files with mask colors and animation commands per image addressed to them?

Mikkel

Possible: yes.

But I wouldn't know the details of how you'd go about it from a technical POV, assuming you had the skills required to make the images in the first place. If you're asking if there's a tool for it or a tutorial on it, the answer's probably "no".

Cuv

Yes, Animations have been externalized and anything is possible now with those. Will post about that with instructions when the forums calm down and the game gets better patched for everyone. Don't want to throw other possible things into the mix that could generate unnecessary bug reports just yet.

Cheesebelly

Didn't Oster say in one of his tweet (indirectly) that they MIGHT add sub-races for post ship? :P

Also, I believe he mentioned that the Half-Elves aren't anymore hardcodedly tied to Elves as animation, correct?

Cuv

Will post this as a teaser of things to come with modding in new creatures. I have PST and IWD creatures in the Friendly Arm here:


This is now accomplished with the EXTANIM.2da and modifying the ANIMATE.ids

IkMarc

Cuv said:

Will post this as a teaser of things to come with modding in new creatures. I have PST and IWD creatures in the Friendly Arm here:

This is now accomplished with the EXTANIM.2da and modifying the ANIMATE.ids

Cool. I can make images with Photoshop and I can make models and animations in 3D Studio Max. In Starcraft it was possible to mod sprites by replacing the individual images for every move associated with the right name of the image. I suppose it works the same in Baldur's Gate? And which files in Near Infinity are those? Or do I need another exporter? Are the .ids files related to the character/creature animations and how do I open them in Photoshop?

Edit: I checked and the .2da and .ids files seem to contain information about the animations. I suppose these are relating to .BAM files with the actual animations? Or is there another file type that contains the animations?

Cuv

@lkMarc Animations are the BAM files, yes. Difficult to create new animations, but not impossible. First you will need to create your models and snapshot the frames/sequences. Open up one of the BAMs and export any bmp image to get the exact indexed color to make your background before you snapshot. So 3dsMax (or Blender/Gmax/Poser/zBrush/etc) and your PS (or other image editing program that can work with bmp or gif). You will need three tools in to build the BAMs: DLTCEP, BamWorkshop I and BamWorkshop II. BW1 and BW2 are almost identical... but one does and allows some thing better than the other and vice versa. You will have to play with it.

IkMarc

Cuv said:

@lkMarc Animations are the BAM files, yes. Difficult to create new animations, but not impossible. First you will need to create your models and snapshot the frames/sequences. Open up one of the BAMs and export any bmp image to get the exact indexed color to make your background before you snapshot. So 3dsMax (or Blender/Gmax/Poser/zBrush/etc) and your PS (or other image editing program that can work with bmp or gif). You will need three tools in to build the BAMs: DLTCEP, BamWorkshop I and BamWorkshop II. BW1 and BW2 are almost identical... but one does and allows some thing better than the other and vice versa. You will have to play with it.

Great, that sounds doable.

A few more questions if that's ok:

How many image files does one creature or character require? Because if the amount is limited, editing existing animations would be on option and 3dsMax would not be a necessary requirement. Because I assume the original images were not made with a 3D editor right? This would also perhaps make the scripting easier, because parameters with references of the "old" animation could just be copied.

Will I need different images for different armors etc on the characters or are those separate images used as an overlay on the character image?

How will I set the colors for hair, skin, major and minor? By using a specified layer in the image file?

Thx!

Mikkel

The original animations were prepared in a 3D editing software (likely 3DS Max), and then rendered out to the sprites that make up the in-game animation. As for how many, we're talking hundreds of sprites per race most likely, and while hand-editing them isn't totally impossible, it's not likely to be a task many people would have the time or perseverance to complete. Assuming you have the skills to model, animate and subsequently render from a 3D software, creating new ones would be possible, in the manner outlined above.

IkMarc

What the f! They are (crappy rendered) 3d images!!!!! How could I not have noticed all those years?!

Paheej

This was the standard fare in the late nineties and early 2000's. You made high polygon 3d models attached them to a wireframe and had prefixed animations along with a image capture script to generate what is essentially a huge gif. Then you have config files (based on game engine) that would assign certain frames to certain actions in the game.

We did this *all* the time for Red Alert 2 infantry and buildings. We'd also gank models from half-life mods which greatly reduced our need to generate loads of models. The same fashion worked for Starcraft, Kohan, and many other RTS games.

Probably converting some stuff from Diablo II would be the best bet for conversion of graphics outside of the Infinity Engine family of games.

Mikkel

Agreed @Paheej, that was the go-to solution for a whole host of games, even high-profile ones like the ones you mention. It allowed for high-poly models at a time when the average gaming PC couldn't handle anything like it, the downside of course being the limit on the number of weapon types / other "customization" it allowed, and the difficulty of messing with the generated images once done (the second one would not necessarily be considered a downside from a developers POV really, assuming you had the whole pipeline automated - which anyone who wouldn't want to go insane would have).

CoM_Solaufein

Did you get Fall-From-Grace in there? Having a real succubus avatar would be awesome.

Cuv said:

Will post this as a teaser of things to come with modding in new creatures. I have PST and IWD creatures in the Friendly Arm here:


This is now accomplished with the EXTANIM.2da and modifying the ANIMATE.ids

Cuv

@CoM_Solaufein Hehe... not yet. This was just a test with 25 of my converted PST animations, some IA animations and some straight over from IWD2. But good thinking... need Fall From Grace for sure.

Cuv

IkMarc said:

How many image files does one creature or character require? Because if the amount is limited, editing existing animations would be on option and 3dsMax would not be a necessary requirement. Because I assume the original images were not made with a 3D editor right? This would also perhaps make the scripting easier, because parameters with references of the "old" animation could just be copied.

Will I need different images for different armors etc on the characters or are those separate images used as an overlay on the character image?

How will I set the colors for hair, skin, major and minor? By using a specified layer in the image file?

Thx!

1. That depends... most animation BAMs have between 17-25 sequences with 8-10 frames. For the IWD style animations there are 24 bams for the entire animation (12 west and 12 east facing). So if we take the absolute bare minimum on those numbers you would need to create 3264 images for a single creature animation. For a character animation -> that number will increase by a factor of 8-10 ie: 26,112 images. But if you have a script to take the images for you... doable. But painting by hand, forget it:D

2. Anything different in the animation would require you to make addition versions. Unless you can align everything with the existing structure.

3. Colored hair, skin, major and minor colors are handled with paletted animations. They are just extra indexed colors added to the animation images.

IchigoRXC

@Cuv do you have a Bariaur animation set from PST?

Cuv

IchigoRXC said:

@Cuv do you have a Bariaur animation set from PST?

Yes, well @Erephine made a conversion for that one for IA. The animation works, but the paletted colors look funny in BGEE right now. It might need to be reworked.

IkMarc

Cuv said:

1. That depends... most animation BAMs have between 17-25 sequences with 8-10 frames. For the IWD style animations there are 24 bams for the entire animation (12 west and 12 east facing). So if we take the absolute bare minimum on those numbers you would need to create 3264 images for a single creature animation. For a character animation -> that number will increase by a factor of 8-10 ie: 26,112 images. But if you have a script to take the images for you... doable. But painting by hand, forget it:D

2. Anything different in the animation would require you to make addition versions. Unless you can align everything with the existing structure.

3. Colored hair, skin, major and minor colors are handled with paletted animations. They are just extra indexed colors added to the animation images.

Mikkel said:

Agreed @Paheej, that was the go-to solution for a whole host of games, even high-profile ones like the ones you mention. It allowed for high-poly models at a time when the average gaming PC couldn't handle anything like it, the downside of course being the limit on the number of weapon types / other "customization" it allowed, and the difficulty of messing with the generated images once done (the second one would not necessarily be considered a downside from a developers POV really, assuming you had the whole pipeline automated - which anyone who wouldn't want to go insane would have).

Alright great. So I suppose it would be feasible to take models from other games (WOW, SC2 etc) and alter these so it won't be necessary to make all the animations from scratch?

Methuselas

@IkMarc,

Make *ONE* rig, to start. Bones, here, aren't an issue, 'cos you'll be turning your animations into sprites, but make sure you have adequate bone structure in the spine, for bending. Shy away from extra fluff controls, like fingers, eyes, toes, etc. Make the rig scaleable, so you can re-use it. Once you do that, all you have to do is animate the rig and then bind as many models as you want to it, provided they follow the structure of the rig (ie, bipedal, quadrupedal, etc.)

Feel free to jump into my Creature BAM file thread, if you're serious about wanting new animations.

-M

IkMarc

Methuselas said:

@IkMarc,

Make *ONE* rig, to start. Bones, here, aren't an issue, 'cos you'll be turning your animations into sprites, but make sure you have adequate bone structure in the spine, for bending. Shy away from extra fluff controls, like fingers, eyes, toes, etc. Make the rig scaleable, so you can re-use it. Once you do that, all you have to do is animate the rig and then bind as many models as you want to it, provided they follow the structure of the rig (ie, bipedal, quadrupedal, etc.)

Feel free to jump into my Creature BAM file thread, if you're serious about wanting new animations.

-M

Great thanks! I will make time for it it this weekend.