Incorrect attack animations in ITM files

AndreaColombo

As described in this very informative post on SHS.

Quotes from the post:


Attack animations can be adjusted by tweaking values in abilities of weapon ITMs. These are:

Overhand swing: [%] (SLASH animation/sound effect)

Backhand swing: [%] (BACKSLASH animation/sound effect)

Thrust: [%] (JAB animation/sound effect)

The values are percentages; they represent the chance for each animation to be played along with the sound effect assigned to it in the 2DA soundset.

[...]

If a monster is wielding a weapon with disabled animations, it won't use the frames and sound effects that had been previously designed specifically for it.

Take a look at the Dancing Sword animation (Code: MDSW; e.g., Ras or Spectral Blade). It has frames for slashes, backslashes and jabs. [...] Now look inside SWORD02.cre (Ras) and SWORD68.cre (Spectral Blade). They both use weapon ITMs with disabled JAB animations. The player never gets to see the JAB animation or hear it's accompanying attack sound effect.

[...]

And unfortunately, there are quite a few creatures suffering from the exact same issue. It's typically because the devs re-used exisiting item templates or assigned generic weapons to special-case creatures. For example, Githyanki wield two handed swords in one hand. The Githyanki animation (MGIT) has all the attack frames (SLASH, BACKSLASH and JAB), but the majority of CREs using the animation have generic Bastard or Two Handed swords assigned to primary weapons. These weapon ITMs are usually 50% SLASH and 50% BACKSLASH -- again, no JAB animation/sound effect.


Note that this affects BG:EE, SoD, and BGII:EE in equal measure and spans across almost all CRE/ITM files.


Beamdog ticket BGCS-3405.

@Galactygon FYI.

GraionDilach

I might be the devil's advocate here, but wouldn't it be possible/better to just get (the relevant bits of) Infinity Sounds merged into 2.7 akin to how 1PP got in? Is @skellytz even around these boards to discuss terms?

I appreciate the thoughts and work in this, but exactly that's why I'd nominate this to be merged as-is, because it is extremely obvious you know what you're doing here and you should be involved in the official fix as well.

I also guess that this probably affects IWDEE as well.

AndreaColombo

GraionDilach wrote: »

Is @skellytz even around these boards to discuss terms?

I shared a link to my bug reports with him, so he has visibility on these.

Keep in mind that, as far as I'm aware, Infinity Sounds only covers BG/SoA/ToB; even if the merge were to happen, SoD/IWDEE/PSTEE would need addressing separately by Beamdog.

I do agree that this is the kind of fixes I would expect an enhanced edition to possess, however they get there.

GraionDilach

I've lurked out your hideout which is why I started with the "devil's advocate" remark - I can imagine this cooperation finicky just from the reactions gathered there.

I would participate in debugging SoD and IWDEE (notsure how hard the engine split on PSTEE is or what are the plans on that one, it's handled separately for certain and I also have an OCD when it comes to sounds) but I prefer transparency which a closed beta does not have.

To put my OCD in context, atm I'm campaigning/submitting patches for mods to fix the rare-select/action slot inconsistencies between BGEE and Tutu/BGT now that 2.6 utilized most of the unused CRE soundslots for the actions missing from BG/BG2/IWD individually. Which I believe is something you'd consider a step in the right direction.

AndreaColombo

I'm OCD about sound as well, which is one of the reasons why Infinity Sounds is now a must-have in my every playthrough. By the way, it also fixes rare selection sounds.