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Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: SF-Junky on August 16, 2009, 07:05:36 am

Title: Random "Incoming Message" Head-ani
Post by: SF-Junky on August 16, 2009, 07:05:36 am

Is there some head-ani around which just shows some text like "incoming message". If not, how difficult would it be to make one. Is there something special I have to take care about?

Title: Re: Random "Incoming Message" Head-ani
Post by: Dilmah G on August 16, 2009, 07:23:37 am

I believe Wing Commander: Saga has one lying around. If you find a program that can export to .pcx, I think it should be quite easy. :) Also, have you looked up .ani's on the wiki? I believe there's some guidance on creating .ani's.

Title: Re: Random "Incoming Message" Head-ani
Post by: Spoon on August 16, 2009, 07:27:54 am

Once you know the procedure it's done with a minute
It's just that getting to know the procedure is a pain in the behind...

If you can't find one, I might be able to make one for you

Title: Re: Random "Incoming Message" Head-ani
Post by: 0rph3u5 on August 16, 2009, 07:41:08 am

Quote from: Dilmah G on August 16, 2009, 07:23:37 am

I believe Wing Commander: Saga has one lying around. If you find a program that can export to .pcx, I think it should be quite easy. :) Also, have you looked up .ani's on the wiki? I believe there's some guidance on creating .ani's.

If I recall that right, most of WCS comm.anis start with a sequnce like that....

Title: Re: Random "Incoming Message" Head-ani
Post by: Dilmah G on August 16, 2009, 09:06:24 am

...Oh yeah. It's been a while since I've played the WCS demo. :P

Title: Re: Random "Incoming Message" Head-ani
Post by: SF-Junky on August 17, 2009, 05:10:02 am

Okay, I've made a head animation (see attachement). The problem is now to implement it into the game. Just putting the file name into the "ANI file" line in FRED doesn't seem to work. I also can't find a .tbl that seems to be used for this...

[attachment deleted by Tolwyn]

Title: Re: Random "Incoming Message" Head-ani
Post by: Dilmah G on August 17, 2009, 05:22:19 am

IIRC, I think there's a table you need to modify in order for it to work. Have you placed it in data/hud?

Title: Re: Random "Incoming Message" Head-ani
Post by: zookeeper on August 17, 2009, 05:29:57 am

Quote from: SF-Junky on August 17, 2009, 05:10:02 am

Okay, I've made a head animation (see attachement). The problem is now to implement it into the game. Just putting the file name into the "ANI file" line in FRED doesn't seem to work. I also can't find a .tbl that seems to be used for this...

Well, funnily enough I very recently had serious problems figuring out how to get my custom head anims to work, so I added what I learned to the wiki just the other day. The biggest obstacle was realizing this (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Messages.tbl&curid=2799&diff=24977&oldid=23455), so you probably need to copy your file to create those variations and then refer to it in FRED the same way as they're referred to in that table. You might also want to make sure that the colour palettes are right (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Multimedia_Files&curid=3652&diff=24976&oldid=16259). I hope that's of some help, since I myself spent quite a few frustrating hours trying to figure all that stuff out.

I don't think you need to add anything to any table in order to be able to use the anims in FREDding.

Title: Re: Random "Incoming Message" Head-ani
Post by: SF-Junky on August 17, 2009, 11:41:08 am

Ah, yes. Making three versions of the .ani fixed the problem. Thank you. :)