GelatinGhost Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 So I'm trying to edit a few animations (using Eshme's animation import/export tool), but running into a bizarre problem. I extracted the largest anims.erf file which is where I assumed all the animations were (and sure enough the animation files contained within show up in Gmax). However, exporting the animation files back to my override folder yields no changes. And here is the truly puzzling part: when I delete the anims.erf file from my Dragon Age installation, the game still runs completely normally! I would expect that nothing could animate, but everything still has their animations! So where exactly is the game finding these animations if not the anims.erf file? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevoSegalovic Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Idk much about animations but i know this: Animations are stored in anims.erf You probably did but i have to ask: did you use same file names when you exported them back to override folder?Can you preview (see how they look like) your edited animation in dragon age toolset? My guess is (this could be completely wrong) that they are also stored in database that toolset is using. There is animation event editor that always seem to be the same no matter if you add new animation or not... I still don't know enough about animations to tell this for sure. Anyway if you find out something please share your solution. There are almost no tutorials about animations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GelatinGhost Posted July 23, 2012 Author Share Posted July 23, 2012 You know, I had a suspicion that the database was the cause of my problems. I was actually considering uninstalling the toolset for this reason, but upon waking up today I realized there is probably a way to just temporarily disable the database (must have been tired last night, heh). I'll let you know if it works when I get home from work today, and maybe I'll make a tutorial if I can get everything working swimmingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GelatinGhost Posted July 23, 2012 Author Share Posted July 23, 2012 AHA, I've figured out the mystery! It was the database that was messing with things (I disabled all the SQL services and changed the name of the DAOB folder to be safe). However, that's not all: the game itself apparently does not pull animations from the anims.erf file, but from the global.rim file! Moving the global.rim file from it's proper directory indeed causes the animations to stop working in-game (when the database is shutoff). Now I just need to see if I can override the animations or if I'll have to actually unpack the rim and repack it with what I want... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevoSegalovic Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I was playing with animations for a while and i figured out how to override them - finally :D Database wasn't the problem for me. You have to use animation blend trees if you want to replace some animation (if you want different name of your animation file) or just to preview them.Once you put your animation files custom.ani and custom.gad in your override folder that new animation will show up in animation event editor next time you start toolset.From event editor you can add events to animation - equipping and unequipping weapons, adding sounds etc. and you can export to local .evt file. Making animations shorter (cutting part of it) or faster or merging 2 animations together is still a mystery to me but i believe that some of it can be done in toolset. And for making new animations i guess you have to use gmax or 3dsmax. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GelatinGhost Posted July 24, 2012 Author Share Posted July 24, 2012 (edited) Yeah, I've found that it actually wasn't the database. I did something slightly different from what I had done every other time: I moved anims.erf and global.rim at the same time. It seems global.rim serves as a backup in case anims.erf (and probably other erfs) are missing. My theory is that global.rim is only used in such "emergencies" because it is more heavily compressed than erfs and thus probably takes longer to load in game. BTW which override folder are you using? Edit: Hmm, well I CAN see my custom animation name appear in the event editor, but how can I actually use it in game? I HAVE successfully replaced names in the ANIM_BASE.xsl file in order to replace animations (with already existing animations), but the names in that file don't correspond to the names of the animations exactly. Edited July 24, 2012 by GelatinGhost Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GelatinGhost Posted July 24, 2012 Author Share Posted July 24, 2012 Well, magically I've got everything working now... for some reason my override is now working without having anything changed from my original setup. Probably something stupid like using the wrong override folder before, or maybe replacing a wrong animation file. I did also get it to work by replacing files in the erf directly too, which is now completely useless :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevoSegalovic Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 You shouldn't change original files only add to them using GDAs or override files using override folder. Im glad you got it to work :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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