[REL|ASI|BIN/SRC] GTA Studios

[FLeeF]

I haven't had any crashes with 3.3, but I've been using 3.3c while testing a new character I'm TRYING to model.

 

3.3c seems a little slower to react to animation calls, but that could just be my impatience and frustration tonight (3ds and player dffs are stinky bedfellows).

 

I did notice that it only displays PL: Basic 1 in the lower left corner even though you have switched to another bank.

 

And, I still cannot get the player to enter the Misc 2 bank. I've had that problem with 3.3 since I started using San An Studios. CJ can get to all the banks except Misc 2 (CapsLock + P). And I can also get any spawned ped to all of the banks. It's just CJ and it's just Misc 2. I even remapped camhack away from the P key, but it still doesn't work.

 

I hope you had a great holiday season, ceedj. I've been meaning to get by Pawfect and give well wishes and happy new years to all the members, but I am so slammed with work and we're remodelling the $#%& house.

 

HELP! I'M LIVING IN THE MOVIE "THE MONEY PIT!!"

[ceedj]

The "P" problem: whoops. Was assigned to NUMPAD 0 (geeky code: was 0x60 - should be 0x50). Really dumb of me, sorry.

 

The Player bank view: you have to turn on the SA Text (INSERT + T) to see the changes, and they only change after you change the bank and start a new animation. Forgot to put that in the docs. Again, sorry. The reason for this is that the ped panel is set up differently than the player one. I've left it on by default so people know that it's there.

 

Thanks for finding these; I'll update it tomorrow.

 

And thanks for the well-wishes. Sounds like things are going well for you too.

[thewaytahgo2]

The "P" problem: whoops. Was assigned to NUMPAD 0 (geeky code: was 0x60 - should be 0x50). Really dumb of me, sorry.

 

The Player bank view: you have to turn on the SA Text (INSERT + T) to see the changes, and they only change after you change the bank and start a new animation. Forgot to put that in the docs. Again, sorry. The reason for this is that the ped panel is set up differently than the player one. I've left it on by default so people know that it's there.

 

Thanks for finding these; I'll update it tomorrow.

 

And thanks for the well-wishes. Sounds like things are going well for you too.

my game crashed wen i pressed page down for ped creating.....other than that it's fine.

[RainingAcid]

Think you can make it so that you can have the planes fly to the Dummy?

 

Something like 7+C or something.

[RomanX5]

DAMN!!!!!!!!!

can u ppl help me?

My insert almost not working!!

i'm pressing insert + 1/2/3/4/5(ahh..doesn't matter)

i'm tring 2 create a ped but he's not creating

and that mini tutorial isn't working 2!!!!!!

insert + backspace isn't working,only delete is working well.

and sometime he's making that f*ckin' dummy..

PLZ HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(bad english)

[ceedj]

Support for non-US keyboard layouts are dicey at best.

 

Feel free to use another tool that better suits your expectations...

 

@R-Acid: Possbily. Actually, the entire engine will get a good re-build this summer. I'll see about including this.

[OG_GhostDog]

guys, i need some help with 3.3c .... i can create peds etc, but i can`t set their animations. How do i do it? what do i press?

 

For example, if i create ped1, and press Left shift + E, CJ jumps and changes his weapon, but nothing happends to the ped. :-s what`s the problem?

 

EDIT: lol, dumb question, sorry i got it now

Edited March 24, 2007 by OG_GhostDog

[Master Yayo]

I tried clicking on SA studios, but it keeps saying "Can't open SA" I don't know what is wrong help please

[ceedj]

You MUST have version 1.0 of the game for SA Studios to work. A little more info would be helpful too.

[ph0rum]

ceedj, I've been impressed by the mod, especially by your maximization of the available keys. One thing I've been thinking about is whether it might be possible to have SAStudios managed over a network, using a GUI on another machine -- this way you wouldn't have to worry about available keyboard keys. By doing this, it would be easy to manage up to 600 animations, without worrying about "banks", etc.

 

I realize that this is a significant modification of your existing code, but I'm wondering whether you've considered it -- or do you have a plan to upload the 3.3c source, so that I can take a crack at it?

[ceedj]

It's an interesting proposition, but I don't quite "get it". Could you go into a little more detail? I'm not even sure what to ask...

[ph0rum]

Let me just start by reiterating that I'm thoroughly impressed by what you've created -- I couldn't begin to do what you've done.

 

My thought is that for heavy-duty machinima creation, "directors" are going to want easier control over things, rather than the keyboard control. Such users would probably have access to two computers networked on a LAN. Furthermore, this would free up the keyboard on the computer running SAStudios to control the game (and CamHack).

 

In its simplest form, the changes would be as follows:

 

SAStudios would listen on an open TCP/IP port, rather than listening for keystrokes -- this change would not be too hard. I've been looking through your code, and it seems like this would be a rather minor change.

 

Then, you would have to create a "client" which would run on another computer. My vision is that this would be a small VB program with buttons or menus for creating and animating each ped or car (drop down boxes, etc). When you select something in the client, it would just send that data over the network to SAStudios. The details of how to setup menus and creation can, of course, be changed. Menu options for setting the time, the weather, etc. would be much easier to control than the current setup.

 

 

In a more complicated form, this opens up all new possibilities if you can make the necessary changes to SAStudios: Using all 600 animations you mentioned having found. Being able to easily script multiple simultaneous actions. Being able to manually set the x,y,z for a ped -- I noticed that this would be especially valuable for having peds "lie down" which, right now, often has them lying above or next to the bed.

 

I can try to flesh out the entire idea into a more complete spec, if you're interested.

[ceedj]

This is a really solid idea, but there are a number of issues that have to be addressed.

 

1) Listening on a network: leaving aside the code changes (which would be much more than you think), the problem is this. When you compile the c++ code, what it's doing is generating a small script that gets injected into the game. I believe it's treated as its own thread, and although I've done my best recently to elminate any global variable conflicts, there still exists a potential for crashes when using the tool on a mission. Not really relavant to this discussion, but the process is.

 

When the "script" is compiled, it converts it to a format San An can process, and even though it "runs" live, it's still a pre-generated script. So while I'm looking into the possibility of a config file to be included, those varibles (the animations) would only be applied at startup. So I can provide for access to all the animations, but you're still only going to get about 60 or so at one time, unless you want to make a change and reload the game (quit the game and restart it completely).

 

2) Script size: because the script is "injected", there comes a point where it's starting to brush up against the script size wall. There are a number of workarounds recently discovered, and I have toyed with the idea of a hybrid setup that uses the injector AND a modded main.scm. This would give a lot more flexibility to it as I can run mutiple threads from a main.scm, but the roadblock here is that no one has managed to put together a "stripped complete" script, that is much like the script Barton provided in his VC mission builders. And I can understand why; changing the external scripts looks like it would be a nightmare to do. The appeal of doing the mod using op9080's hook is that it runs alongside the current main.scm, unlike Vice and Liberty studios, which replaces (in process, the real main.scm is never touched) the mission script. So I don't need to worry about recreating all the "stripped" part of it. This gives the user maximum flexibilty in shooting, since you'd never have to worry about creating "background actors", like those seen in the Casinos, stores, bars, ect.

 

3) Because of the way the script gets injected (remember, I did NOT create the framework SA Studios is built on, op9080 did), I have NO idea how to pass data from one program to another. Hell, I have a hard enough time passing data to the game itself. The reality is, something like this is WAY beyond my capabilities.

 

4) More network: the Studios program is a bit laggy as it is (thought I'm always working on improving it), and adding the transmission and recpetion of data over a network is just going to slow it down even more. It won't be much, but I suspect it would be enough to annoy. Also, network burps can cause burps in recording with FRAPS (I tend to disable my network when filiming after figuring out why I was dropping so many frames).

 

5) The "lie down" animation: this is an issue because noone has found an opcode to start the lie down process; every refernece in the original R* script creates a no collision zone for the bed in question, then creates the actor there and applies the animation. There are over 100 beds in the game, so checking for a spcific model ID all the time if you're in an interior is out of the question.

 

Fleef (of Fling Films) found a partial workaround - he found one bed in the entire game that doesn't have any collision data. So he did his work there and was able to make it come across very convincingly. I also suspect he did a bit of animation modding (he likely found the sit up in bed animation, and switched it with one that would normally be referenced in SA Studios - probably renamed it). He sent me the info on that; I'll see if I can dig it up.

 

What I think a lot of people forget (and I'm not refering to you specifically) is that GTA was NOT made for doing machinima. Although it's a great engine to use visually, the scripting engine just isn't designed to do what a lot of people want (a fancy GUI, more options but less keys). I've tried to do as much as I possibly can with it, but it's simply beyond my abilities to do anything like that.

 

The other thing, in realtion to your idea, is to make it simple for the general public to use. I'm sure the use of networked computers is always on the rise, but I can't count on everyone having two computers to pull this off. There's already a roadblock with the second edition not being able to run SA Studios (because of the changed memory addresses), so I don't want to shut any more people out of it.

 

It's a great idea, and if you think you can pull it off (or find someone who can), by all means, go for it. My code is always available, just not always updated. You can use 3.1 source for now; it may be a month or so before I finish the 3.4 update, which I'll release code for.

[ph0rum]

You're absolutely right on all points -- I definitely don't take for granted that what I'm suggesting is a substantial piece of work, and you're right about the limitations.

 

1) You're right that this would be a bit of work, but I don't think it would be as bad as you think. There are good libraries out there for handling the network listening. Then, if the data is packaged well it should require a minimum of processing to unpack.

 

2) The script size is something I hadn't considered, and that definitely poses a big problem if one were trying to get all the animations available.

 

3) Passing data from one app to another wouldn't be an issue -- it would just be implemented by having SA Studios listen on a port. Shouldn't be that tough.

 

4) The issue with FRAPS is one I hadn't encountered. In general, any lag over the network would pose a problem. I have had some problems with SAStudios being laggy, mostly because I'm running on bare minimum hardware at the moment.

 

5) This problem occurs with a number of animations -- lie down, sit down, I heard someone also complaining about the hugging and shaking hands. All of these would be helped by tighter control of ped coordinates. I haven't yet figured out quite how ped coordinates are controlled in your code, so I can't tell how easy that would be to change.

 

You're right about GTA not being intended for Machinima. I just wish R* would recognize the potential of this medium (including the potential for their profit!) and provide better support for the community (like not making it more difficult to do this with v2.0).

 

You're also right that my suggestions would probably make this a less user friendly tool -- a big problem, for sure. I guess I'm thinking more about the higher end machinima like Peds and less about the newbie who wants to play around with this -- maybe I'm being a bit misguided or elitist.

 

FYI, I own v2.0 and managed to get SAStudios working fine using the exe downgrade tool and a v1 main.scm easily found on the net.

 

As I have time, I'll try to start piecing this together and I'll let you know when I've made some progress. I'm very interested in the 3.3c source code (especially since it gets rid of the creation/animation mode) and I'm looking forward to seeing it posted.

 

Again, the work you've done is really impressive. SAStudios is really the only tool out there of its kind for GTA.

[ceedj]

 

3) Passing data from one app to another wouldn't be an issue -- it would just be implemented by having SA Studios listen on a port. Shouldn't be that tough.

I think you're missing a big point here: SA Studios get injected into the gta_sa.exe file. So when you alt-tab-delete to bring up Task Manager, San An Studios doesn't show up, gta_sa.exe does.

 

The problem (as I see it) is that the game doesn't even really know the mod is there. So how do we get data from a process that doesn't exist, that the game doesn't even know about? Then, how do we attach the data returned by the "listening" app back into GTASA, without disrupting the process as it is?

 

Not trying to discourage you at all; maybe you'll come up with something I missed. Just wanted to point this out though.

 

And the network listening part wouldn't be hard, but there's a LOT of code that relies on what key(s) you press at any given time. This is turned into a number, and I have to use a GTA local variable to set it. For example, say you want ped 1 to do the Idle Chat. Here's the process:

 

1) The code checks to see what modifier is pressed down, in this case, left shift.

2) The code then checks to see if which "bank" is set. If it's the default, it sets a variable (AnimSet1, I think), which determines what animation path to use.

3) This is the tricky part, and a good reason why it took so long to get from my initial 1.0 release to the 3.0 release last April. In order to keep the code size down and to aviod repeated code, I set up a series of gosubs. I know, no gosubs in c++. But they ARE in GTA scripting, and that's how I can bounce around so well.

4) Once the proper path is determined, the code finds that path and checks a second key (in this case, "D", which is defined in the key setups near the bottom of Custom.cpp). If it finds it, THEN the actor performs the animation.

 

I'm not exactly crazy about the idea of a networked app; I wonder if it would be easier to build something inside the hook to be a somewhat proper GUI. But this would go into DX stuff, which is even further out of my league than the other stuff I mentioned.

 

Good discussion though. If nothing else, maybe this will help make the program as it is more effcient.

 

EDIT: Oooo, I may have figured out the "config" file part. Might add this as the "feature" for 3.4...

 

EDIT 2: Getting and coordinating coordinates (heh) with the actors isn't hard at all. What you're asking for is essantially a timeline. You'd like to select some events for actor 1 to do, adding some waits in between, and doing the same for actor 2, then running them at the same time. Being able to move this stuff around would be super-sweet, no? I know what you want, but I have NO idea how to do it. BUT, if there were a way to insert a script while the game is running, I have a thought about that.

 

What I was thinking is a grid, kind of like a NLE tracks display. As you create actors and cars, the GUI would be listening for this, and add tracks to the timeline with an actors/car discriptor. For the sake of simplicty, say we have three animations amongst two actors. We create actors 1 and 2 in the game, and the GUI create the tracks. Now, we alt-tab to the desktop and start adding animations, using drop down menus. The result would be a media track in appearance (think like a blank wav file), with end point handles. This way, we could adjust how long the animation will go (the GUI can record this number). We could add a wait command to "space" the animations, so actor 2 would get a different animation, and actor 1 would simply wait until the next animaton is applied. Once we're happy with the basics, we press a "compile" button, that generates a text file (scm code) that can be read by San An Studios.

 

Now we go back to the game, and everything is ready, so we press record on FRAPS and do a key combo (say, insert P) that would load the script that the GUI generated and run it. Of course, I wouldn't record it until I was sure the animations lined up properly, so we can alt-tab back to the GUI, make changes, then recompile the script.

 

Of course, this assumes a LOT. First, we have to be sure that the mod can take a text file and spit out something the game can read, real time. Second, is the coding of the GUI and the passing of the parameters from the GUI to SA Studios and back again. And I'm guessing a ginormous amount of work. But if the above two problems can be gotten around, this might be a way to go.

Edited April 14, 2007 by ceedj

[jurv]

This is a great mod, atleast the features look very nice i havent fully worked with it cause of a problem.

 

This might be something silly and i might be overlooking something. But whenever i want to try the ped modifier keys (left alt/ctrl/shift whatever) and a key nothing happens the peds keep standing still only thing happening is CJ doing his moves. Maybe im forgetting something could someone enlighten me?

[ceedj]

Hi jurv. Don't worry, these little questions show up from time to time. One thing to remember is that when creating peds, when you have the ped you want, you need to press backspace to confirm your choice. When you do (in SA), the ped will drop again and, in the case of Ped 1 (INSERT + 1), "BASIC1" will display on-screen, indicating the currently selected animation bank.

 

Can you confirm you're getting the "BASIC1" screen? If you are, can you provide the following:

 

SA Version

Whether it's patched or not

Keyboard settings (what country are you from?)

Any other mods you might be running on your game

 

Thanks.

[jurv]

Yes i am getting 'BASIC1' (and even BASIC2 and BASIC3) on screen and indeed i use backspace to confirm the ped(s). I can select everything, change weather, etc. Except the animations. I basically just want the peds to drive atleast 2 police cars from A to B.

 

My SA version is the normal 1.0 (dont know the exact numbers but its not patched)

Keyboard settings are problaby on US/NL (i am from the Netherlands)

I only have one car mod and one skin mod (Batman Tumbler and Batman Begins skin both from gtagarage.net)

 

I'm really not seeing what i'm doing wrong i just press left shift for example and CJ begins to jump, using shift+q doesn't change a thing he still just jumps but the peds aren't doing anything.

[ceedj]

Ok, first things first. Remap your keys to a joypad if you can. If not, assign your player keys to the top row letters. This will help avoid things like the player jumping when trying to animate.

 

Second, the reason I have you use the top row is because in San An Studios, the letters Q-P are Bank Select keys. There are no animations attached to these keys. The animations keys themselves are (mostly) A, S, D, Z-? and a few others. F through L are the animations affected by the banks. In bank 1, BASICS1 (Q), using the F key would produce a laugh animation, while with bank 2, BASICS2 (W), the F key produces the gang chat animation. See SAGAMEKEYS.txt for the full list of what each bank contains.

 

Example:

 

Ped 1 (left shift modifier)

Ped 2 (left ctrl modifier)

Bank 1 (q) BASICS1

Bank 2 (w) BASICS2

 

LEFT SHIFT + F, BASIC1 = Ped 1 doing Laugh animation

LEFT CTRL + F, BASIC2 = Ped 2 doing Gang Chat animation

 

Let me know if this helps.

Edited April 18, 2007 by ceedj

[jurv]

I haven't tried it yet, but i just wanted to thank you for your good responses, really cool. I will let you know asap.

[jurv]

Well i tried what you suggested but the peds aren't moving anywhere.

[stan101]

Will this work with other GTA: SA mission scripts? Like San andras Back to reality (In the mission coding forums)? Cause in vice city, i don't think it allowed new Scripts and it ran on it's on without interpreting the main script.

[ceedj]

It might, it might not. The process is completely different from VC. (with SA, it hooks into whatever the main.scm is at run-time - this is why it crashes with a stripped SCM) It SHOULD work, but I can't account for any variables that the modded SCM uses. Best advice I can give is try it and report back.

[Pelle]

Fucck man, this looks so nice, but I can't install it, cause I have 2.0...

[_F_]

i cant enter to cars as passanger when i am player ( P + . )

Edited June 9, 2007 by _F_

[Sweet J Lou]

Okay, how do you create text inserts in the game to create interesting movies with text to help tell the story?

 

For example: Claude: “Ok, but if I’m going to be working with you, you have to pay me.”

 

I would like to use that in a movie i am making .

PresidentKiller, let this be a hint for you.

 

I need help please this is urgent!

 

Thanks to whomever can help me out.

[RockJocetti]

Okay, how do you create text inserts in the game to create interesting movies with text to help tell the story?

 

For example: Claude: “Ok, but if I’m going to be working with you, you have to pay me.”

 

I would like to use that in a movie i am making .

PresidentKiller, let this be a hint for you.

 

I need help please this is urgent!

 

Thanks to whomever can help me out.

Use a video editing program like windows movie maker.

[QerD]

Can I set them to kill all people around? somehow?

[morbidxxx]

Can anyone please tell me why any of the player keys for the SA version doesn't work?

[morbidxxx]

bump