Modding Saber Stances

[Debaser203]

I've played with a couple of mods that change the saber stances, though none of them have satisfied me completely. I'm looking for help with this (or a link to an existing tutorial...though I couldn't find one). If this is pertinent, I'm really only interested in modding for SP mode, but if it does both, no problem. I'm familiar with modding in general, so you wouldn't need to explain from the very beginning.

Thanks and ,
Debaser

[Trauma Sensei]

You can change the saber stances in 2 ways. Change the standard stances, or add a single stance to a saber file. In any case you will need modview, you will find that in the Raven official SDK (look for it at jk2files.com). With modview you need to open a .glm file (a JK model file), so you can check what are the animation frames, once you have got there reply, so I can keep explaining.

[malrak_dossta]

i donno about that last guy, but im sure as hell interested! explain on? please?

Kuchiki Malrak :P

[Debaser203]

All set. Please, continue.

[Trauma Sensei]

Ok then, you have opened your model on modview, so you have something like what you see in the first pic. Note that I have highlighted in red the part where the frame number is, for every frame is a different animation or sequence. In this case I have choosed the frame 7075.
Once you know what frame is the one you want for your animation, you will need to find the animation.cfg file, this file is located on assets1.pk3 in the following directory /models/players/_humanoid

Will continue in a bit, dinner time.
***Keep in mind that if you want to open a model using modview, you need to place the model and the _humanoid.gla (/models/players/_humanoid) directory in your gamedata/base directory***

[Debaser203]

This is great stuff so far. Thanks. I forgot to mention, I'm looking to replace the standard stances (blue, yellow, red, dual, and staff). Also, just a side question, is it possible to adjust the speed at which the saber travels? Like, make red faster? Again, this is just for my own personal use in SP and I plan to modify the damage done next to compensate.

Thanks again, Master Trauma.

[Trauma Sensei]

Well, if you want to make the red swings faster, you can always modify the animation.cfg file, I will explain how to do that and how to replace the animations later, I am busy with uni work at the moment.

[Debaser203]

Sounds good. No rush. I'm having fun with ModView in the interim. I'll write up a tutorial for this (giving you full credit) upon completion. I'll also tackle the problems that users have with the error messages in getting ModView to work right.

[Trauma Sensei]

Ok, time to make good use of the SDK http://jediknight2.filefront.com/fil...y_SDK_MP;20909
After you have installed the SDK, look for the animatable.h file, it can be found in the /projects/jedi_academy_sdk/codemp/cgame directory. That file contains the proper animation sequences (just the names) that you were able to see with MODVIEW, this file will be of great help when you are editing the animation.cfg file, because the in the animatable you can read a description of every sequence, for example :

	ENUM2STRING(BOTH_A2_T__B_),	//# Fast weak vertical attack top to bottom

Anyway, now open the animation.cfg file, and let us say that you want to change the Single Red saber default stance, search for the following line:

BOTH_SABERSLOW_STANCE	13123	2	-1	60

The first part of that line is obviously the name of the sequence, the first set of numbers is the number of frame that is going to be played, the second set of numbers (2 in this case) is for the number of frames that will be used in this sequence (but I am not totally sure about this one because it has been so long since the last time I did this, so do not mess with that number), the third number is to make the animation loop (-1 loop, 0 no loop), and the fourth set of numbers is for how fast the sequence is going to be played (useful if you want to make the red go faster as you mentioned, look in the animatable for the single red attack sequence)

Since we already know what frame we want to use for the stance, we simply replace the current frame (13123 in this case) with the number of the frame we want (7075) so the sequence line should look like this:

BOTH_SABERSLOW_STANCE	7075 	2	-1	60

Now all you have to do is compile the animation.cfg to a .pk3 file like you would do with any mod (remember to keep the correct directory). Good luck.

[Debaser203]

Thanks so much. That wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. Attached is a test stance. Now that everyone who reads this knows how to do it, I hope to see more stance mods. 20000+ frames are a lot to go through.



-Debaser-