How do i make a custom animation for a model made by VALVE or decompile a model - Developers

How do I make a custom animation? How do I decompile it to change the $bbox Which one is easiest? I've never modelled. I'm also not sure if this is the right place to put it.

You have to find a valve biped skeleton, import it into whatever modelling prgam your using, make an animation by moving the bones to different positions (by rotation or move) at different points in the timeline. Then you export it as a sequence (animation) SMD file, after that you need to have a model to reference your animation as a sequence in its qc, which you can then use the console to play your animation once you've compiled said model for in-game use.

Woah! Modelling is Hard! screw that! thanks for the help anyway :)

[QUOTE=IRN Zombie;17643001]Woah! Modelling is Hard! screw that! thanks for the help anyway :)[/QUOTE] ok? @.@ np ^^

Just decompile the model you want to give an animation to, import the reference smd, animate the bones how you want them, then export the animation as an smd and add it to the qc, then compile.

What, you thought it was gonna be easy?

[QUOTE=KingKombat;17656431]What, you thought it was gonna be easy?[/QUOTE] never said that said it sounded hard.

This is a question that i am also interested in but all I seem to get in return is vague descriptions, badly written tutorials filled with holes during key steps, and buggy results. I have contemplated emailing valve directly to ask if they would kindly share their documentation (if any) which runs through ALL the steps of making a custom animation. For example, if i wanted to make a new custom taunt for the scout: 1) What programs do i need in order to complete the task, including plugins that I need for the variety of different animation programs such as Maya/3DSMAX/Other 2) What files do i need to extract/decompile/edit in order to set up a workspace (New Folder) 3) What do all the different types of files mean to me and how are they important. ie what is an smd, what is a dmx, what is a mdl, what is a qc, which files are the models, which are the skeletons, which are the animations, how do all of these files relate to each other. 4) How do I recompile the animation that i have created back into the game. What steps must i go through in order to get my custom animation to 'play' in tf2 (what qc file must i edit and how do i edit it) 5) Once it is all set up, what commands do i then need to know within the tf2 console to see my animation working. For example, how would I spawn a scout bot and get it to play my custom animation in game. These are just some of the steps that i have come up with at the top of my head, there are probably more steps needed in between those mentioned. If someone can write up an easy to understand tutorial, i believe that i am not the only one who would gladly appreciate it. Thanks.

Custom taunts are easy, what confuses me is blended animations, and walking. I toiled for many hours trying to create a custom walk cycle for a zombie I modelled, but it never happened.

Damn i'm really gonna have to do one (a tutorial), but the issue will be that I only know how to use Milkshape for the modelling/rigging/animating bits, I would not be able to help with the bits for XSI/Blender/3dmax/ect (though I do know how to convert between the formats of most of those which you can actually convert). However I should now be able to help with most compiling issues due to having had most of them now :P So keep a look out as I will try to do some propper basic tutorials for stuff (as they are desperately needed) if and when I get the time and the insperation (and can figure out how to translate what I understand to a form others understand), but if you want anything more indepth for a particualr modelling program, you'll have to scour the web for that :S (Milkshape seems to have especially low levels of documentation i'll just add at this point ¬.¬) If your desperate to know something in particular I can probberly help on most simple things, and will likely have said them before (though all over the place due to replying on different threads).

Modeling and animation is an artform that can not be put into words, and the variety of animation programs can take years to master. Thats understandable. What i am interested in mostly is........ hmmmm..... (going back to year 12 computing studies) - i think is called a development cycle. ie: Planning - Extracting - Modeling - Compiling - Implementing - Testing - (Back to Step 1)

No he wants to know how to put them in game.

[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=501102&highlight=jannus]Here[/url] is a good place to start for compiling models.

The animations I mean

Decompile another model with anims and see how its done in that (thats how I figured it out). Also try [url=http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$sequence]here[/url] (alot more confusing though) How come i'm the only one posting links? ¬.¬

I think what I'm trying to say is that there is a mosaic of tutorials and links out there, but these are all individual pieces of the puzzle. Your links are very good and useful SS thank you but overall - As a representative of all newbies - i want all the steps in between. How to put the puzzle together piece by piece. We see individual tutorials out there that are very good in accomplishing specific things, but we need a flowchart of steps to take... As an example, that jannus flash tutorial showed how to compile an mdl, but whats next? where do i go from there?

How do you animate in Max? I know how to move bones and shit, I just don't know how to actually make keyframes and then play it back.

[QUOTE=Silver Spirit;17642857]You have to find a valve biped skeleton, import it into whatever modelling prgam your using, make an animation by moving the bones to different positions (by rotation or move) at different points in the timeline. Then you export it as a sequence (animation) SMD file, after that you need to have a model to reference your animation as a sequence in its qc, which you can then use the console to play your animation once you've compiled said model for in-game use.[/QUOTE] Silver, when you decompile a model; let's say I decompiled Alyx and wanted some custom animations for her, would I have to re-facepose her as well?

I was able to find the very last piece of the puzzle in this tutorial: [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HcOt7aDiHQ[/url] at the 9 minute mark he explains how to play an animation within tf2 using console commands.

[QUOTE=Dr Doppler;17701970]Silver, when you decompile a model; let's say I decompiled Alyx and wanted some custom animations for her, would I have to re-facepose her as well?[/QUOTE] Thats a good question, some you do some you don't, but usually the decompiler screws up the left eyelid flex no matter what :( (but i've seen recompiled ones that claim to work so maybe you can get it not to mess them up, or another idea, have you checked through the SDK content for something like it, i'm sure theres some sort of VTA in there, though it may be for a citizen i can't remember).

[QUOTE=Silver Spirit;17708146]Thats a good question, some you do some you don't, but usually the decompiler screws up the left eyelid flex no matter what :( (but i've seen recompiled ones that claim to work so maybe you can get it not to mess them up, or another idea, have you checked through the SDK content for something like it, i'm sure theres some sort of VTA in there, though it may be for a citizen i can't remember).[/QUOTE] You wouldn't happen to have any good tutorials for animating in Source would you? I have 3Ds Max 9 and I'm seeing a couple right now. Just wondering if you could reccomend any.

Infact I do not know of any i've not actually thought of looking for one :S All I know of animating I worked out from random animating tutorials for things like [url=http://www.moddb.com/groups/noesis-interactive/videos/animation-with-the-softimagexsi-6-mod-tool]XSI Mod Tool[/url] basic stuff (as its pretty cross platform apllicable) and playing around with the functions in Milkshape ^^ If [i]you[/i] could recommend any good ones i'd be happy to take a look :P

I started using 3DSMax... Then when i heard that most valve animators use Maya, and are going to release most of their source animation files that support Maya, i started giving that a trial run. Its actually alot easier to use than 3DSMax, for me anyway. One problem though (i dont think its related to Maya but its a problem with the class in all animation programs) is that the Heavy that they just released to the public, is showing up nice in the program, but when you render it, its hands are missing. I read somewhere that you need to cut the hands from somewhere else then import it back into him but im not a rocket surgeon... theres gotta be a better way of fixing it.... Heres a quick animation i created to show what i mean.... [url]http://www.tf2update.com/heavy.avi[/url] (you might wanna put it on repeat)