GTA:Martial Arts

[AK-73]

 

An Inspiration for R*, Part II

 

The latest version is: v0.9.0.1.

 

The GTA:MA mod aims to make GTA Vice City more like Beat'Em Up-Game. In its first beta release version, the GTA:MA allows modders to add new (fighting) animations to the game, to set-up different martial art styles and assign them to the various types of actors in the game (player model, cops, civilians, various gangers, prostitutes, etc). Future versions intend to tie various moves to button combinations, turning VC into a real beat'em up, including guard moves.

 

GTA:MA is the second installment in my An Inspiration for R* series. The goal of this series of mods is to introduce various established videogame genres into Vice City. As such it is a case study for how computer games of the next generation might work like. As I envision it, computer games of the future will have:

 

a) strong roleplaying game elements

(GTA San Andreas does have that already with its various player attributes.)

b) will be compromised of various sub-engines, enabling the mission/level/scenario designer to 'pick' the engine for the scene that he has in mind. Does he want a shoot-out with the druglord? He sets the mission up so that the player goes into First-Person Shooter mode at some point. Or does the scene he has in mind involve a fistfite? Then the Beat'em-Up engine will get launched. Maybe it will even require a switch between engines in the midst of battle as armed reinforcements arrive. The main point is to merge videogame genres and *to make them serve the story*, instead of having the story serve them.

(GTA San Andreas does have a slight slant towards that, especially with the many mini-games within.)

 

Combined with my the first part of the series, GTA:FPS, the GTA:MA mod does work a bit toward that end. Having both of these mods installed in Vice City (or the GTA:LC total conversion), you are going to have a racing game, a first-person shooter, and a beat'em up all in one game.

 

The third installment of the series is in planning already too. Although it is not a genre in itself, it puts a twist on the racing part of Vice - GTA:RoadRage is supposed to add the ability of attacking other bikers, vehicles, etc from the back of your own bike with melee weapons, just like in the old RoadRash series.

 

The GTA:MA page on www.gtagarage.com also offers the following martial arts packages for download:

- San Fierro Kung Fu (taken from GTA Sa) (do not download if you don`t own a legal copy of GTA San Anreas)

- Liberty City Streetfighting (taken from GTA3) (do not download if you don't own a legal copy of GTA3)

 

Also available is a Demo package that shows how as a side-effect GTA:MA v0.9.0.1 and upwards can be used to play any animation (including non-fighting anims) on any actor from scipt or as "walkstyle". New custom animations (that is .ifps) can be created with the help of my IFP Suite for Gmax. So from now on, as a side-benefit, it is possible to play any animation in Vice City via scm scripting.

 

You can download GTA:MA on www.gtagarage.com, right here.

 

that's all for now,

Alex

Edited August 14, 2007 by AK-73

[SteaVor]

Look, ceedj, here it is!

 

I wonder how the CFG will look and if it's as error-prone as seen in the other mods.

I think this config file will be edited more often than the Weather/Traffic modules and thus should be more stable. Either way I'm definitely looking forward to this.

Edited May 8, 2007 by SteaVor

[AK-73]

 

Look, ceedj, here it is! 

 

I wonder how the CFG will look and if it's as error-prone as seen in the other mods. 

I think this config file will be edited more often than the Weather/Traffic modules and thus should be more stable. Either way I'm definitely looking forward to this.

 

The reason I have not published it yet is because I am still writing on documentation. And that in turn has its reasons: the stuff is complex. In some sense more complex than the other .cfgs. And that is because the custom .ifps (which the modder has to create as a first step - but converting anims from sa to vc is dead easy), the fistfite_gtama.dat and the gta_ma.cfg all mutually depend on each other. Add to that, that you first have to set-up a Form (which is directly connceted to the anims in the .ifp), then set-up Styles (which draw from forms) and then you can assign styles to pedtypes.

 

The how-to is going to be a few pages (it's more a tutorial than a how-to, with quite a few examples) and might look a bit too complex at first glance. But once one has put one or two moves in-game, it should be fairly simple to handle.

 

Alex

 

PS Yes, the .cfg is just error-intolerant as the other .cfgs. It's based on the same source code. Worse, since it is a bit more complex, errors will find it easier to hide. Even worse, the coding is partially more complex which will make it easier for bugs within my .asi to hide. However, I have been using the .cfg for some time now and it's like I said: once you get the hang on it, it flows pretty much off the cuff.

 

 

[GTAdedan]

looks amazing! I also tried to edit the ped.ifp with some cool fightning moves from SA but it had alot of bugs very good job

[Stene]

This...This is madness!

[james_root]

nice work

[lord fido]

This...This is madness!

I second you

[Gouveia]

Wowa dude, you're what, GTAVC god or something? sh*t, you gotta get a job on Rockstar, you can mod those engines very well... Looking good, love to beat dumb people with a taste of Fu...

[simkas]

This...This is madness!

Madness? THIS, IS, SPARTAAAAA!!!

 

(sorry, I just had to)

[Jackoozy]

Madness? THIS, IS, SPARTAAAAA!!!

 

(sorry, I just had to)

Yep, and Tommy strikes some bastard with his leg!

 

Great work guys! Looks EXELLENT!

[Stene]

Madness? THIS, IS, SPARTAAAAA!!!

 

(sorry, I just had to)

Yep, and Tommy strikes some bastard with his leg!

 

Great work guys! Looks EXELLENT!

Claude makes the kick almost just like in 300

[Blackadder.]

Wow, looks great! This adds doesn't replace right?

 

If so, I'm wondering if we could recreate the LCS/VCS sprint with heavy weapons whilst keeping the normal run for lighter weapons...

 

Great job anyway

[AK-73]

Thanks, folks.

 

In case you haven't noticed yet, GTA:Martial Arts has been released. See the first post in this topic for details. For those who want to just make use of it, if you want to do it legally, you must own a copy of GTA and/or GTA SA. You download either martial arts package or both and install them as instucted by the respective readmes (make sure you read the GTA:MA readme through first though).

 

For those that install both, just but both .ifps into the anim subfolder and use the _full_suite_ files in place of the normal ones. For those who only use one package, you use the files that come with the package.

 

For those that want to actually do their own thing with GTA:MA, my advise is to read the rather lengthy howto once. The stuff is not complicated but needs to be understood once and it needs to be followed then with precision.

 

As a side benefit GTA:MA allows to add new animations to the game. Not just fighting animations but *any* animation. Converting animations from SA is especially easy. But before you go jumping hoops, let me tell you: while even with the present version new animations can be brought into VC, there is at present no mechanism to fire them otherwise. The next release of GTA:MA will see an opcode for firing off these animations through main.scm script. But even then not everything is possible in the sense that, yes, it will be very much possible to make Tommy use the swimming animations of SA. But that isn't too useful without the *physics*

behind it.

 

Still in theory from that moment on (after the release of the opcode), it will be quite easy to make Tommy (or Claude in LC) to perform any animation that you can create in gmax/3dsm. Climbing ladders or lighting a cigarette and stuff like that will be all doable.

 

Also I forgot to include the source code in the current release. Most of it follows the pattern of my other mods and might not be of too much use to the average modder. However this time I coded the attack animation selection algorithm in c/c++ and not in assembler. That means anyone who has basic knowledge in that language is going to set up their own selection algorithm, their own AI if you will.

 

I will include the source code in the next release somewhere down the line or, if there is instant demand for it, I'll update the current release next time around.

 

 

Alex

 

PS I haven't looked into LCS/VCS animations yet but they can be brought into gmax/3dsm, then yes it will not only be possible but very easy to make use of them in VC. And no, this doesn't replace anything. It *adds* new animations.

[ceedj]

Your timing could never have been better. I'm very serious (I have a fight scene to shoot by Sunday so I can get the girls to do VO for it), so thanks for this.

 

 

GTA:RoadRage is supposed to add the ability of attacking other bikers, vehicles, etc from the back of your own bike with melee weapons, just like in the old RoadRash series.

 

Oooo, now I want to have your kids.

 

 

[SteaVor]

I'll probably give it a try today, together with FPS (never had a chance to try it ...) in LC, because I'm doing a major testing session to find the perfect values for Traffic.

Since there doesn't seem to be a noticeable performance loss I'll probably play with huge density indicators...

 

I've only skimmed through the config file once, but I didn't understand anything yet.

It's probably due to my current resolution (800x600) that prevents me from seeing the big picture that is undoubtedly hidden behind all those hexadecimal values. I'm confident though that I'll figure it out eventually.

 

 

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that I can now download your mods from GTAG again! I don't have any idea why it didn't work lastly, but the issue's luckily solved itself.

[simkas]

I'm not quite getting how do install this to my game. I downloaded the main GTA:MA mod and I the only thing about installing in the readme I found was that I have to put the 4 main files in my main game folder. I did that, but it didn't work, I had the regular fighting animations. Can someone give me a step-by-step instal instruction? (I'm installing it on GTA:LC, by the way).

[AK-73]

 

Well, this topic is for asking questions. If anyone doesn't understand how something works, feel free to ask. I am not going to explain hexadecimal numbers though, nor will I explain how flags are being used within computer languages. If you don't know either, you will need to research that on the internet or elsewhere. It's not that difficult.

 

simkas: GTA:MA itself does not contain new animations. GTA:MA itself provides means to configure moves (which ped gets to use which moves under which circumstances, for example if an enemy is behind you, or at long range, etc) *and* it provides means to get new moves into VC if one has readied the animations for it.

 

So to make a long story short: if you want new animations, you need to have them in an .ifp file, which is what the animation packages which are available on the gtagarage are for. So if you want the GTA3 moves, download the package and install the .ifp in it and use the .cfg and the .dat that are in it as replacements for those that come with GTA:MA (backup the original GTA:MA ones though). Same with the San Fierro Kung-Fu. If you decide to download and install all packages that are available on the GTA:MA page on gtagarage, the .cfg and .dat that come with the package won't help you because those can be used to install that single package only. However, to make it easy for you, GTA:MA will always come up with these _full_suite_ .cfg and .dat which can be used by those people who have *all* the .ifps that can be downloaded via the GTA:MA page on gtagarage (at present these are the LC Streetfighting and the SF Kung-Fu only).

 

So if you own GTA3 and GTA SA download both the packages (after installing GTA:MA), put the .ifps in the anim subfolder and use the two _full_suite files that came with GTA:MA itself (by renaming them to gta-ma.cfg and gta-ma_fistfite.dat). If you don't own them, you can still download them but it would probably not *legal* to do so. Not that I am an expert on copyright law, but that is my understanding of it.

 

The _full_suite_ config makes the SF Kung-Fu style the default for players, I believe. You can switch that in the .cfg. There is a line that says:

 

1000 0x02 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //player1

 

This makes the player always to use style 02, which is SF Kung-Fu. 00 is the default VC player fighting style, 01 is the default VC ped fighting style. 03 under the _full_suite config is the LC Streetfighting style. So if you want to have that for your player, make the

above line read:

 

1000 0x03 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //player1

 

Tweaking GTA:MA is not for the faint-hearted though. If there are any questions left after reading the documentation supplied with the files, this is the place to ask them.

 

Alex

 

 

 

[jp245]

dont have much time to type cuz im at skool but i still dont sry get it i own all 3 gta games on computer

[simkas]

I think I get it all now.

One last thing, I have to put the .cfg and the .dat file inside the main game directory (where the exe is located), right?

 

EDIT:

 

I think I did something wrong. The only change I see is the fighting stand. The hitting moves seem to be the same as they were before installing the mod.

Edited May 11, 2007 by simkas

[SteaVor]

The DAT file has to be placed inside the DATA dir of the game.

 

[simkas]

Uh... The player is doing the regular moves, but the pedestrians use the kung-fu moves... WHAT THE HELL?

[AK-73]

simkas:

 

This segment of the .cfg sets-up which pedtype uses which ma style (assuming you use the _full_suite_ version):

 

1000 0x02 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //player1

1000 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //player2

1000 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //player3

1000 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //player4

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //civmale

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //civfemale

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //cop

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //gang1

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //gang2

1000 0x02 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //gang3

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //gang4

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //gang5

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //gang6

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //gang7

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //gang8

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //gang9

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //emergency

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //fireman

1000 0x02 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //criminal

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //unused

1000 0x02 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //prostitute

1000 0x01 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 0 0x00 //special

 

where after the 1000 is a 0x00, that pedtype is supposed to use player-default (as in VC), 0x01 is ped_default, 0x02 is SF Kung Fu and 0x03 is LC Streetfighting. If you have that set-up and it doesn't work right, some files are not in the right places.

 

A short summary (on how to get the full package working) might help:

 

-gta-ma.asi into the Vice directory(the one with the gta-vc.exe)

-rename gta-ma_full_suite.cfg to gta-ma.cfg and put that also into VC directory

-rename gta-ma_full_suite_fistfite.dat to gta-ma_fistfite.dat and put it into Vice dir (make sure you got the names right)

-vcversion.dll belongs also into VC directory.

 

-gta3.ifp belongs into anim sub-directory

-kungfu_sa.ifp also belongs into anim sub-directory.

 

GTA:MA without the packages is basically a blank installation. The individual martial arts packages come with files that allow the installation of that single package only. The _full_suite versions that come with GTA:MA allow installation of all packages.

 

I hope this stuff works for you, I tried it at home under 3 different versions and unless there has been last minute hiccup, it shopuld work for any of you also.

 

 

Steavor: so that might be why GTA:MA isn't working for you. The .dat isn't supposed to be in the data subfolder. Please reread the Installation instructions. All files come into the Vice directory. Only the .ifps from the packages come into the anim directory.

 

 

Alex

 

[SteaVor]

I really should stop juggling with so many files at once (other modules, main.scm backups etc.).

Of course you're right and the error might very well lie therein.

It works now!

[ceedj]

Hey Alex, great little package, but I hope you can answer this for me. Exactly "how" are the moves determined? For example, I load up the examples you gave, and the player uses these moves some of the time. Is this where the probability comes in? Just trying to understand it before I start plugging in numbers and animations (paging Dr. Fox, Dr. Fleef Fox please!!! ). My aim is to have at least 3 or 4 styles in addition to VC anims - Jessica doing the VC spin-kick is just too damn cool.

 

I'm not too sure how the forms work either. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if I can make a blend of styles in one style, and have it weave in and out of the added moves and the VC moves. Speaking of which, I know for LC, the ped.ifp was modified to fit the GTA III idle stances and such, but I use the original ped.ifp, because my imported VC actors look really goofy doing this. Does this mod refernce back to the idle stance in the ifp I'm using, or is it in the ifp of the downloads from your example?

 

I should note I only need this for the player and for the special actors (my cast are all set up as special actors, eg, player6, shootrb, etc).

 

I should probably just send you a PM on this stuff, since I have a bunch of source questions for you too (compatibility with my Studios mods). I know, all this work for a 2 1/2 minute fight scene, but I'd really like to have some variation. I figure if I shoot enough footage (I figure a good 10-15x more than I'll need) and cut it all together, it'll look WAY better than just the standard animations. I have a goal, but no real choreography in mind (c'mon, it's GTA ). But I think with your mod I can pull this off really nicely.

 

Ok, sorry for that. What I'd like to do is have the gta3, SF style AND VC style available to the player/actor at all times. Do I need to combine my ifp's or is there a switch I can set? In other words, I'd like to, with one new/load game, have all three styles (forms?) to use at once, so that sometimes the player uses the SF spin kick, sometimes the GTA3 kick (tee hee - boy that looks silly) and the VC kick the rest of the time. Or is this further in development? Thanks.

Edited May 12, 2007 by ceedj

[Freakorama]

This would come in handy some way for Leela in my Gta new new york mod

hmmmn

[simkas]

It still doesn't work for me... I give up...

[ceedj]

Nevermind, I figured it out. Man, you have saved me a TON of time by putting this together, nice job!

 

For anyone who wants to use it, here are the changes I made for my files. The PLAYER_NEW style has a fairly even blend of all three styles, while PED_NEW uses more of the VC/GTA3 stuff, with a minor chance of using the SA stuff. These are my styles: (watch your formatting when pasting; this assumes your using the full install and have downloaded the example ifp's).

 

 

##    Close	Mid	Long	Lock-On GroundSTYLE	PLAYER_NEW	0.95	1.4	2.0	2.7	1.2Idle  0x02 0x00  Idle2Norm  0x1F 0x00  Shuffle_f  0x03 0x00  Running	0xFFFF 0xFFFFGround(Close)	0x11 0x00  Ground(Mid)	0x11 0x00  Ground(Long)	0x11 0x00##  Close1  Close2  Close3  Close4  Mid1  Mid2  Mid3  Mid4  Mid5  Mid6  Mid7  Mid8  Long1  Long2  Long3  Long4Front	1000 0x04 0x00	0 0 0      0 0 0  0 0 0  125 0x07 0x00	125 0x06 0x00	125 0x08 0x00	125 0x20 0x3D  125 0x21 0x3D  125 0x22 0x3D  125 0x29 0x3E  125 0x2A 0x3E  225 0x08 0x00	225 0x09 0x00  225 0x24 0x3D  225 0x2C 0x3EFwdLeft	1000 0x0A 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0A 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0A 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0BackLeft	1000 0x0E 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0E 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0E 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0Back	1000 0x0C 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0C 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0C 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0BackRight	1000 0x0F 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0F 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0F 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0FwdRight	1000 0x0B 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0B 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0B 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0######    Close	Mid	Long	Lock-On GroundSTYLE	PED_NEW	0.95	1.4	2.0	2.7	1.2Idle  0x02 0x00  Idle2Norm  0x1F 0x00  Shuffle_f  0x03 0x00  Running	0xFFFF 0xFFFFGround(Close)	0x11 0x00  Ground(Mid)	0x11 0x00  Ground(Long)	0x11 0x00##  Close1  Close2  Close3  Close4  Mid1  Mid2  Mid3  Mid4  Mid5  Mid6  Mid7  Mid8  Long1  Long2  Long3  Long4Front	1000 0x04 0x00	0 0 0      0 0 0  0 0 0  200 0x07 0x00	200 0x06 0x00	200 0x08 0x00	75 0x20 0x3D  75 0x21 0x3D  75 0x22 0x3D  100 0x29 0x3E  75 0x2A 0x3E  350 0x08 0x00	350 0x09 0x00  100 0x24 0x3D  200 0x2C 0x3EFwdLeft	1000 0x0A 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0A 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0A 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0BackLeft	1000 0x0E 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0E 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0E 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0Back	1000 0x0C 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0C 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0C 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0BackRight	1000 0x0F 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0F 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0F 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0FwdRight	1000 0x0B 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0B 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0  1000 0x0B 0x00	0 0 0  0 0 0  0 0 0##

 

 

What I did was copy the PLAYER_DEFAULT to a new entry, and added entries to the Mid and Long sections, using the data in the SA style and the III style. So my new PLAYER_DEFAULT entry is renamed to PLAYER_NEW and now this style has a blend of all three. For the second entry, I copied PLAYER_NEW, renamed it to PED_NEW and adjusted the probabilities to have more focus on the VC/III styles.

 

You should now have 6 style entries (in the Stylelist section); the two orginals, the two examples (III/SA) and the two new ones from above. In the GTA:MA Styles, for my use, I set the player to 0x04 (PLAYER_NEW) and the civmale to 0x05 (PED_NEW), since all my created peds (using Liberty Studios) use civmale as a defualt when creating them. I set the special setting to 0x04 (PLAYER_NEW) as well, since I have some of my cast set up to spawn as special actors. This gives me a choice when filming; for the most part, I want Mary to use the VC/III styles, but having it on special too lets me create Jess AND Mary as specials, in case I'd like Mary to get the upper hand for a bit. Doing it this way also lets me avoid reloading the whole game to get a style change; I only have to respawn the actor as a normal ped or as a special.

 

I know it's kind of specific, but maybe this will help others "get it" for their use.

 

EDIT: Interesting note: the special actors seem to move a hair quicker than the peds, and will likely dominate fights between them and normal peds. I haven't tested this against other pedtypes (cop, gang, etc), but if I get the chance, I'll look into it and post back.

 

EDIT 2:

 

To begin with you need a custom VC .ifp file, the file format GTA uses for its animations. These can be created, for example, with gmax,

kam's import/export scripts and a hex editor.

 

Can you elaborate on this a bit?

Edited May 13, 2007 by ceedj

[AK-73]

 

Before I get to reply to you folks, let me first give you an update on the latest developments. GTA:MA v0.9.0.1 is out. Let me quote from the readme what is new in this version:

 

- added an opcode (0x0673) to play any animation on an actor (see the howto for details)

- Source Code has been included, of particular note might be the determineStandingAttack()

procedure as it handles the fighting "AI" and is written in C/C++ (unlike most of the rest

of the mod, which has been written in machine code)

 

The first point might raise an eyebrow or two. Yes, indeed it is from now on possible (as a side-benefit of VC to play any animation (that fighting or non-fighting, original VC or custom ones) to play any animation on any actor from script. Works something like this:

 

0673: play_animation on actor $PLAYER_ACTOR animgroup 64 anim 512 blendfactor 30.0

 

To that end, I have also made available a new demo package. This contains two ifps. One contains only one animation from GTA SA, a dancing move. See if you can make Tommy or Claude dance after studying the instructions in the accompanying readme. The second ifp file contains 5 animations from SA, cj's walking-style. While you can't set it on the player just like that, you can set it on any ped.

 

Finally, I must admit that the two available martial packages contain a slight bug: due to an error in my export script, the left elbow didn't receive any animation. I had already written an update for both packages but I left them at home, it seems. I'll upload them next time around.

 

Alex

 

[AK-73]

simkas: it's hard to determine the error from here. Especially since it seems to work for others. Maybe you have some other mod installed that collides with GTA:MA.

 

steavor: how about gta:fps? Did you get it to work too?

 

ceedj: I can implement an opcode to switch styles from script. Final version of GTA:MA is supposed to allow switching "stance" (=styles)

by button press and to configure styles from an in-game menu (hope modelling man helps me with that). But for now an opcode should do fine. Didn't test special actors yet. *But* I know where the speed of fighting animations gets set, so that *can* be tweaked.

 

 

How to convert animations from SA to VC

The basic process is simple. You import the Vice player model (check 'A' for autoskin before importing) with Kam's scripts. Then you load some SA .ifp with Kam' IFP script. Apply an animation of your choosing to the VC model (yes, the VC model). Then export the animation as normal. Just like I said: dead-easy.

 

As to how to create an .ifp from scratch. At present I do it with a hexeditor and a command line tool I have written for myself that patches the (saved (in a .txt-file)) listener output from gmax over an existing animation in an .ifp file. What I do to start a custom .ifp from scratch is to create the header manually (it's just a few numbers), then create the animation header manually (also via hexeditor), and then patch the custom animation over that with my ifptool.exe. That's sub-optimal but better than nothing.

 

If there was someone with some c/c++ knowledge who was interested in adding some functionality to my tool (like adding new animations instead of replacing them or deleting anims or starting ifps from scratch), I'd help them with that. They wouldn't have to know anything about .ifp files, just have some medium skill level at c/c++.

 

That's about it for now.

 

Alex

 

PS Yes, a double-post - but it made sense to make a clear distinction at this point.

Edited May 14, 2007 by AK-73

[Squiddy]

Wow, from what I have seen on the screenshots and read here, this looks awesome.

 

Makes me want to go back to modding.