Author Topic: A new one wants to help  (Read 3644 times)

A new one wants to help
« on: 2018-02-14 22:16:36 »
Hi, im a big fan of ff7 and what you guys  did to upgrade it.
I wouls like to know what program i can use with chimera to make modification of the animation and reput it in the animation in 7th heaven.

Thanks :)

obesebear

  • *
  • Posts: 1389
    • View Profile
Re: A new one wants to help
« Reply #1 on: 2018-02-14 23:56:43 »
Nothing. Right now kimera is the only program that can edit animations. And it is not an easy task

Kaldarasha

  • *
  • Posts: 2449
  • Prince of Model Editing
    • View Profile
Re: A new one wants to help
« Reply #2 on: 2018-02-14 23:57:46 »
When I feel more healthy then I will answer your questions as good as I can. But now I feel to sick to have a clear thought.

UpRisen

  • *
  • Posts: 236
  • Again... AVALANCHE is born again!
    • View Profile
Re: A new one wants to help
« Reply #3 on: 2018-02-15 01:33:33 »
Basically what you have to do once you have 7h and kimera

1. find a model you want to fix or redo animations for
2. unpack the iro
3. open the model in kimera
4. edit the positioning for every piece in every frame of every animation to make sure it works
5. repeat step 4 because some characters have way too many animations
6. save the model (save frequently because kimera likes to crash after using for a while.
7. pack the updated files into their iro
8. profit.

thats the very most basic steps in order to do this.

Kaldarasha

  • *
  • Posts: 2449
  • Prince of Model Editing
    • View Profile
Re: A new one wants to help
« Reply #4 on: 2018-02-15 11:11:11 »
Alright lets do this step by step.

First open with a text editor (notepad) and set UNDO_BUFFER_CAPACITY to 1. A higher buffer let you undo more actions but it also drastically increase a crash of the program.

When you have a model you want to work on its animation loaded into Kimera, then you have to click on the show frame option button on the lower right of Kimera's interface. Now you can edit the animation to your liking.
Here are some explanations:
Root translation - this places the models into the room. You will usually see x and z set at 0 and only y with a value. It's mostly used to define the high between bottom and the hip bone (or the root). There are animations which does have values for x and z, though. These are my personal nemesis because a.) they most times very long and b.) they were probably made in the script engine Square had back then which makes it hard to change them without the proper background there are meant for. Anyway y is the most important value because it let you correct the standing through bug of the new models.
Root rotation - Similar to root translation but here you can rotate the model. It's most times used for turning animations or some freaky animations.
Bone rotation - here you can change the rotation of the bones. This is a very tricky to use, since there is no visual feed back where the axis currently are and y and z seem to change the same rotation. It's something you have to learn for yourself. For me is it still trail and error. But you can get a feeling for it.
The Propagate f. check box - one of your best friends and sometimes your worst enemy. If you check it, it will port all your changes to the next frames. This really helps a lot. Though, it can become a problem if it is accidentally checked and you want only to make changes to one frame or you make changes and forget to check it.

Here some advises for an easier work with animations:

Find key frames and erase the in between. Key frames have two types.
Type One: These frames have the maximum expression of the movement. This can be tough to find them sometimes, because some bones haven't reached their maximum, while the whole movement is going to a new direction.
Type two: These frames are the middle of the movement. They are needed to tell Kimera in the interpolation process which way the bones should take.
Edit the key frames. It's simply easier to edit a few frames and using the interpolation feature of Kimera rather than editing every single frame.
Use interpolation wisely: Interpolating is a great way to let the animation look smooth, but it can make also an animation to look a bit unnatural. As example sometimes when I deleted frames, lets say 6, I only interpolated 4 and the other two are interpolation between the last interpolated frame and the key frame (usually are these type one key frames). This slows the animation down a bit. If the slow down is to drastic I would kill the 4th and 5th of the new interpolated frames and interpolate them back in. Sounds a bit confusing but it really saves time and giving very good results.
Save often.

Re: A new one wants to help
« Reply #5 on: 2018-02-15 15:14:10 »
Thanks for all those great info. I will try those when i get home tonight. Around 5pm estern time.

Re: A new one wants to help
« Reply #6 on: 2018-02-15 22:39:13 »
How to unpack animations ? i got kimera to work. just missing that part :) thanks im looking via forums but i see theres a way to open all bin files ... but when i start 7th heaven... will it overide the .bin new saves ?.. thanks for the reply :)

Also i can't seem to make the videos to work in the game. I tryed to put ff7_mo.exe in 7th heaven. i have to right order of everything.. i tried to download them via mod list but all of them are outdated
« Last Edit: 2018-02-15 22:41:32 by Philippecadieux88 »

Re: A new one wants to help
« Reply #7 on: 2018-02-17 14:07:21 »
so, i found how to unpack .iro but i can't seem to repack it
« Last Edit: 2018-02-17 16:16:24 by Philippecadieux88 »