18 replies to this topic

[lefty2000]

The attachment is the first release of a package of scripts to import and export The Movies Game animation file to and from Blender.  The zip file contains instruction for use.

 

I am working on an improved version and I would appreciate to hear from beta testers.  Feel free to try the scripts out an report any anomalies here so they can be dealt with in the next release.

 

Attached Files

•  anmedit.zip   9.84KB   12 downloads

[MikeDBoing]

Gonna give them a good run ...digitally speaking of course

[Rocco]

THE MOVIES 2

 

Has officially BEGUN!!!!!

 

Thanks to the DYNAMIC DUO

[Beowulf71]

I've posted the link for this thread on the French and Spanish forums, hopefully you'll get more testers. 

[Dibujantetm]

Hi lefty2000,

First of all, we have to thank you for the scripts you provide to us, which opens the possibility to import our own animations into the game, something we didn't expect it could happen at all. You did a great job, there're still lot of 'players' playing this game and this mean a significant and an additional motivation to play it increasing our edition skills. Now let me show you a few doubts I have, and excuse my ignorance because I'm not even something near to a programmer.

I use the same Blender version (2.49b) and I cannot load the export.anm script, looks like it doesn't appear in my Export scripts. It works with the Import ones. I followed carefully your instructions in 'readme' to load the animation and it officially worked for me, then I had this issue to export it. Later on, I edited your script adding some description lines, copying them from the import script. Then it worked. So I already exported my animation, here's when I have my questions:

 

With this tool we're supposed to load new animations into The Movies game (as new scenes, for example) just editing the movements from the same bones?

-How's the procedure when I export my animation? It loaded a "n_" file (as you wrote in the readme file) then I just edited the name to the correct animation file and loaded it into the game. I openned the scene in which the animation should be played, but it still loaded the original game animation.
-Could you upload any screen or photo with your own findings inside The Movies Game? Regarded to this.
-Would be awesome if someone makes a videotutorial to explain how it works.

Thanks for your patience (my english is not perfect ), and thank you for sharing your findings with this little community we belong. Thanks!

[lefty2000]

Dibujantetm,

 

Thank you for contributing to the project.

 

Your comment revealed an error in the export script.  In order to see the script in the blender export menu, the first line must be !BPY.  If you look at the original script as posted, the first line is: import blender.  The fix is to move this line down after !BPY.

 

As for why your animation did not show up in the game, it is hard to say.  One thing I have not tried is replacing a game animation file entirely.  The old anm file is always there in the PAK file and if for any reason the program does not find your file, it defaults back to the original.   A lot of things can go wrong.  If you have not already done so, you should familiarize yourself with flmreaderzero and create a new scene with your animation in it.  This program allows you to swap out animations and view the results in the game.  A good place to learn about flmreaderzero is here.

 

The tools in the package allow you to make a copy of an anm file and change the rotation data, and that is all. 

 

To use your new animation, you need to create a new scene, create a new version of the *.flm file and edit it to reference your new animation.   I would recommend that you give your new anm file a unique name.

 

My experience has been that it is best to take very small steps.  First create a new scene with a new name, but do not change it.  Once you get it to work, then change the flm file to reference your new animation.  Please let me know how you are doing.

 

Thanks again for participating.

[Dibujantetm]

Hi again,

Thanks for your continued support. I'd like to be more precise with these facts I'm exposing, but I'm just amateur here. I don't know if my non-existent experience could help you with this   


Yeah, I fixed it and loaded my own animation into the game. I didn't learn yet how to use flmreaderzero, so in his place I tried to load new animations as autoanimated props, which worked. This should confirm it works. 

 

I'd like to take some practical applications from your script. It looks like we have to manually edit the animations bone per bone. It would be nice if, for example, I load some premade animations into Blender and export them for the game. The difficulty is that those animations belong to a different skeleton, so I don't know exactly how could I link premade animations with TM bones. Is there any possibility to edit the skeletons or import new ones into the game?

 

I mean, manually editing it's OK, but for players who are not experienced on this, it's a slow process and produces inaccurated movements. This is how I'm trying to load premade animations from the Internet. Anyway, I started loading some animations from the game and introducing them a few variations in the moves, so it doesn't look ugly for me.

 

I will try to read some about flmreaderzero and keep on my tests. I'll contact if I find any significant advance in the process.


Thank you again for the tool, because indeed it opens the possibility to import new animations. It's a real jewel, never thought you would be able to edit animations until you appeared with your script. I will try to help you with all tests I'm able to lunch.

We're in touch.

[regolero]

Hello, thank you very much for the scripts. (Sorry for my English, I'm from the Spanish forum, and I use google translator)

 

I have a problem with the scripts, they do not work for me, it gives me an error when I run it, I do not even see the dialog box to choose the animations to import.

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, Dibujantetm gave me some animations created by him, and I managed to introduce them in the game with the flmreaderzero.

 

 

 

[Rocco]

 

Hello, thank you very much for the scripts. (Sorry for my English, I'm from the Spanish forum, and I use google translator)

 

I have a problem with the scripts, they do not work for me, it gives me an error when I run it, I do not even see the dialog box to choose the animations to import.

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, Dibujantetm gave me some animations created by him, and I managed to introduce them in the game with the flmreaderzero.

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing!!!

[Dibujantetm]

Hi again,

After a few weeks, I was able to manage FLM program and built my own scene with the animation I performed in Blender, same result as Regolero shows in his screens. It works fine, thank you very much Lefty.

 

Now we're trying to find a long framed animation to create animated props or scenes in one step. I found a 550 framed .anm which is "actor_check_facelift.anm". I'm aware you're still developing more updates for your scripts, so I think you fixed that "more than 1 armatures" error. The thing here is that I'm not an expert animator. There're lots of free anm files such as .bvh format in Google, but they contain different bones than TM. Is there any possibility to make such as "bones animation change"? Or any kind of script to load free animations into TM bones. That would be awesome, have you tried it?

 

We're in touch

[lefty2000]

Dib:

 

There is a script in the script library to read in bvh data, but you would need to go through a process similar to what I did to figure out how to apply it to a movies game armature.  That's a lot of work.

 

I doubt if you will find a richer source of ready-made animations than are already available to you in The Movies Game.

[Dibujantetm]

I see,

Well I'm trying my own animations into the game, so I selected a 550 frame .anm to load a long duration animation made by me. The thing is (and I've already tried with long frame animations) the export script gives me error, it specifies "Number of frames does not match" which isn't true after I try to update the same anm I loaded before. The thing is, when I repeat this process with a 60 frame .anm it updates perfectly. The error always quotes "line 339" I don't know the reason. This happens with long animations.

 

Would you be able to load "actor_check_facelift.anm" into Blender and try to Update it without doing any change to see if it works?

[lefty2000]

Dib:

The test fails, as you have reported.

 

There are two problems with the script.

 

1.0  The script incorrectly computes the framecount of the target file.

2.0  The script does not work with multianimation files.  The file you are using has a prop animation which is not being copied over from the target file to the updated file.

 

The first problem is an easy fix.  The second one will require some thought.

Line 226 should read:

    framecount = ord(anm_header[6])+256*ord(anm_header[7])

 

This will allow you to update animations longer than 256 frames, provided no more than one animation is present.

 

Thanks for your help.  I'll post an update when I figure out a fix.

[Dibujantetm]

Hi lefty,

Thanks for your fast response. I tried your fix but it still loads the same error message. I'm trying to load some long frame animations to see if it works. Nevertheless, It would be great that you figure out a fix and post your updates, although it will take lots of work for you. Thanks for all the effort you put into this and shared with the community.

[lefty2000]

New inportanm and exportanm scripts are now available to address the problems discovered by Dijujantetm.

 

1.0  The new scripts can import and export multiple animations.

2.0  The new scripts will work with anm files which have prop animations (however, you cannot edit those as they are not imported to Blender).

3.0  The new scripts allow you to edit the root bone position data which affects location of the actor on the stage in The Movies Game.

4.0  The new scripts will work for animations longer than 255 frames.

 

For consistency, be sure that you are using version 3.3 (look in the info block at the top of the script file).

 

To obtain this package, goto

http://lefty2000.com...me/index.shtml

and download the latest version of the zip file.

[sexymaria]

New inportanm and exportanm scripts are now available to address the problems discovered by Dijujantetm.

 

1.0  The new scripts can import and export multiple animations.

2.0  The new scripts will work with anm files which have prop animations (however, you cannot edit those as they are not imported to Blender).

3.0  The new scripts allow you to edit the root bone position data which affects location of the actor on the stage in The Movies Game.

4.0  The new scripts will work for animations longer than 255 frames.

 

For consistency, be sure that you are using version 3.3 (look in the info block at the top of the script file).

 

To obtain this package, goto

http://lefty2000.com...ame/index.html

and download the latest version of the zip file.

I must be doing something wrong. Seems they are still REV 3.2 

 

 

 

So I turned the actor_fight_idel.anm into caught_with_binos.anm     

 

 

 

                             BEFORE                                                                 AFTER

[lefty2000]

I messed up the update.  Try again, you should get the right zip file.

[lefty2000]

Version 4.0 of the importanm and exportanm python scripts for Blender 2.49b can be downloaded at http://lefty2000.com...ame/index.shtml.  These scripts have several new features which give the user more control over animations in Blender as well as in the game.

Using these scripts, the user will be able to modify header parameters such as compression, destination, and origin.  The importanm.py script stores these properties in the ID property browser in Blender where the user can view them and change them if so desired.  The exportanm.py script uses these values when updating the target file.

The destination location in the animation header file tells the animation to move over its cycle; this is used for the walk animation.  If you set the destination values to zero, the walk animation will turn into a "walk in place" in the game.  If you set the destination angle to a non-zero value, the animation will rotate from zero to the specified angle as it plays.

Although the import script does not use the origin or destination values to set up the animation in Blender, you can manually use them to create a very nice walk cycle in blender with no foot sliding.

Another new feature is the append mode of the import script which allows one to load additional animations from the game at the end of the current animation.  The append mode is activated by setting the "append" property to 1 in the ID property browser.  This could be handy if one wants to film in Blender and needs to set up a very long animation with various phases.  Many of the anm files are designed to work in sequence and can be chained together smoothly to transition from one action to another.

If you download the zip file, you will find it contains a readme.txt file in addition to the python scripts.  The readme file has some additional information and instructions.  I have not done very much testing in the game, as yet, so there may be errors and if you find them, please let me know.

I will do another update to fix any errors discovered in this version.

[greysword]

Thank you so much i am missing this game <3