Custom _humanoid.gla file - I want to replace A FEW animations with modded ones taken from different mods

[AmazingDamien]

Hi guys, 

 

I want to make a pretty professional and unique walkthrough for Jedi Academy so I decided to install a lot of mods. It took me a few days but I learned how the game files work and how to make different mods compatible with each other. Now I'm stuck with the final thing I want to mess with - the animations. 

 

So here's the thing. I downloaded a few animation mods that I like but they can't all be applied at once because each one changes _humanoid.gla file so they keep overwriting each other.

 

What I want to do is edit the base game vanilla _humanoid.gla file and replace a few select animations with the modded ones taken from different mods. And I don't want to simply merge all the modded .gla files too because I don't want all the animations they change, just some.

 

To give you an idea. For example I want:

1. from "Clone Wars Stances and Effects Mod" https://jkhub.org/files/file/753-clone-wars-stances-and-effects-mod/:

-the landing after jump animation

-walking, running and standing (with saber disabled) animation

-walking with an ignited single saber animation

-staff saber stance and running animation

 

2. from RPmod Animations:

-the blaster pistol stance and shooting animation

 

3. from Walking Animations mod https://mrwonko.de/jk3files/Jedi%20Academy/Mods/Animations%20and%20Stances/67664/:

-walking with ignited two sabers and staff saber animations

 

4. from Small Animation Fix mod https://mrwonko.de/jk3files/Jedi%20Academy/Mods/Animations%20and%20Stances/103011/

-all included animations (melee stance and jetpack animations)

 

I downloaded blender and the extensions that allow to import Jedi Academy files but since I never worked with a program like that it really goes over my head. I expected to find a list of all animations inside the file and just swap the ones I want to change. It feels like it should be an easy task but I can't seem to understand how to do this. Can you guys explain to me if this is possible? And if so, please keep in mind that I'm new at this so try to explain it to me as straightforwardly as possible. I'm a quick learner, I promise. 

 

In summary, I don't want to create any models or animations. I just want to get inside the .gla file and swap a few animations for other ones so that I end up with a custom _humanoid.gla file.

 

Cheers

[AshuraDX]

@@AmazingDamien You will have to extract the animation sequences you want based on their frame numbers,  which are specified in their respective animations.cfg file, from each gla file, save them as individual glas then merge those individual glas with a stock _humanoid.gla and edit a stock animation.cfg file to use your newly merged sequences.

Edit:
The classic tool to use for this would be Dragon, although Blender might be the more sophisticated option provided it allows you to import only specifc sections of a gla file. I don't use Blender so I can't say anything about that bit.

[Noodle]

You can import specific animations with Blender, just make sure to select the "range" option, starting frame and duration of the animation and voila!

[AmazingDamien]

@@AshuraDX ok, I understand what I need to do in theory. I downloaded Dragon and I managed to extract a few animations from modded .gla files. So I got a few new .gla files contaning 1 animation each. Now I'd like to merge these new files with the stock _humanoid.gla. I'm trying to use the "glamerge.exe" I found on the site but I can't get it to work for some reason. 

 

I put 2 .gla files (stock and my new one) in the same folder as the glamerge.exe file and I try to run it but the window opens for a split second and then disappears. Do you know why that might be? 

[AshuraDX]

@@AshuraDX ok, I understand what I need to do in theory. I downloaded Dragon and I managed to extract a few animations from modded .gla files. So I got a few new .gla files contaning 1 animation each. Now I'd like to merge these new files with the stock _humanoid.gla. I'm trying to use the "glamerge.exe" I found on the site but I can't get it to work for some reason. 

 

I put 2 .gla files (stock and my new one) in the same folder as the glamerge.exe file and I try to run it but the window opens for a split second and then disappears. Do you know why that might be?

You need to create a new textfile in the same folder as your glas and glamerge.exe

Fill it with this content:

 

glamerge.exe firstfile secondfile
pause

save it and then rename the resulting .txt file to .bat and run it.

[AmazingDamien]

Ok, I'm making progress. I managed to successfully merge 2 .gla files - the stock one and the one with modded pistol stance animation. 

Then I edited animation .cgf file and did what the instructions for Dragon said: https://jkhub.org/files/file/1227-dragon/
 

I found the stock pistol stance animation: 

 

"TORSO_WEAPONIDLE2    15456 1 -1 20"

 

and I added a new line to the file AFTER all animations and BEFORE "root":

 

"TORSO_WEAPONIDLE2 21376 2 -1 20

 

ROOT                21374 2 -1 29"

 

21376 - because that's the next frame after the last in stock

2 frames - because that's what the custom cfg said

-1 - because it's not supposed to loop

20 - cuz it's the standard speed

 

So it looks like everything should be fine. I made a .pk3 out of my custom .gla and .cfg files and tried to run the game with it. It clearly does something because now the pistol stance animation is changed but it's a T pose instead of the animation I wanted. Why is that? I mean when I was in Dragon I made 1 blank frame with a T pose before the animation because the manual said it needs to be there for the merge to work and then it will be deleted. 

 

Does it have something to do with "unblending bones" that the Dragon instructions mention? Here it says: https://jkhub.org/files/file/1227-dragon/

 

 

 

Anyway, the tricky part is that Dragon currently has a blending system that 'wraps' around the animation - if the last frame of animation has blended bones in it, they blend with the first frame. This helps with walk cycles, but makes exporting to gla format pretty tricky. Since 'unblending' bones does not destroy their position, save your animation, then unblend each bone of the first and last frames, then finsb on frame 0 - you should now have a blank frame 0 and the rest of the frames are working fine

 

What does it mean? To be frank this manual for Dragon seems a bit unclear to me at times. I'd be grateful for further assistance. I'm so close. 

[minilogoguy18]

Not sure where you went wrong but the animation you're trying to merge with the _humanoid one has to have the ROOT pose as it's first frame so that it can reference the bone transforms properly in GLAMerge.

[AmazingDamien]

Yeah, I know. When I imported a modded stance into Dragon I added a T-pose blank frame at the beginning so that the merge can be successful. I then merged my new .gla with the stock humanoid.gla, made a proper .pk3 out of it and ran the game. It did change the pistol stance in the game but it's a T-pose now xd
I don't understand what went wrong. Maybe I screwed up something in the animation.cfg file...

[minilogoguy18]

Check it in ModView.

[AmazingDamien]

Ok, I finally made it work like I wanted to. Thanks to your help I figured it out.

 

It turns out you don't actually need to put a blank T-pose frame at the beginning of an animation in Dragon before merging glas. When I was doing that it kept screwing up my animations. When I left them as they are it worked fine though.

 

This is actually pretty cool stuff and I thank you @@AshuraDX for suggesting Dragon because it turned out to be much easier for me than Blender. Importing animations and even making them smoother is really easy with that tool. I know next to nothing about modeling and animating but after a few hours I managed to use Dragon to do what I wanted so I guess it's not as hard and anyone can do it. 

 

There are a lot of animation mods for JKA but you need to know how to edit them to combine cool animations you want from different mods. Unfortunately the manuals I found were quite confusing at times. Perhaps I'll make a straightforward tutorial combining all the info I got from different tutorials and from you guys explaining how to do this. It could help people who don't know a lot about modding

 

Peace

[AshuraDX]

I'm glad to hear that!

You might be better of with looking into making animations in Blender, it is a more complex but far superior tool when compared to Dragon.

 

Feel free to ask if you happen to come across any further problems!

[minilogoguy18]

Ah, you know what, I used dragon way back in the day and I think it automatically adds the ROOT pose for you when you save a GLA since it was made knowing that it was needed for GLA Merge to work. When you added it before you had 2 frames and your CFG file was just pointing to one of those frames that had the ROOT pose rather than your actual animation.