[Rolf]

I have a problem, AniViewer works great but I do not know where the ANIs are, I do not know which folder they are in, it is a bit annoying.

I was wondering if one of you guys could tell me where the ANI files are so I can view them, Thanks.

Also I was wondering if there were any other way to get FS2 without the "Open installer", that just wouldn’t download and was to complicated, I have the disk but it's quite scratched and whenever I play it's very laggy.

I was wondering if there was any other way to get it, there is a thread about download links, but it is quite old and many are broken or torrents.

[Jeff Vader]

The anis are in Tango1_fs2.vp, Tango2_fs2.vp and Tango3_fs2.vp. You'll need to use a vp viewer, such as VPView to extract the anis from the vps. After that you can use AniView.

If you have FS2 installed, keep it that way. You can use Turey's FSO Installer, since you can select what to download with it: you don't have to download everything, but you can tick the options you want and skip the rest. Basically, if you only want to play FS2 without the disks, get the FSO executables and the Launcher. If you want graphical improvements, get the MediaVPs. If you want to play the FS1 campaign with FS2/FSO, get FSPort. After that, there are usermade campaigns that you can download but that are not necessary in any way.

[Rolf]

Thanks, I'll try that.

[Titan]

 

is it a problem with the installer, or with your comp itself?

[Rolf]

The anis are in Tango1_fs2.vp, Tango2_fs2.vp and Tango3_fs2.vp. You'll need to use a vp viewer, such as VPView to extract the anis from the vps. After that you can use AniView.

If you have FS2 installed, keep it that way. You can use Turey's FSO Installer, since you can select what to download with it: you don't have to download everything, but you can tick the options you want and skip the rest. Basically, if you only want to play FS2 without the disks, get the FSO executables and the Launcher. If you want graphical improvements, get the MediaVPs. If you want to play the FS1 campaign with FS2/FSO, get FSPort. After that, there are usermade campaigns that you can download but that are not necessary in any way.

Still won't work, it only seems to use the "SCP", that has different graphics, I don't need (Or want) any of that. And whenever I try to play it there is just a bunch of error messages.

It just makes no sense, I need a more simple method.

[Herra Tohtori]

Still won't work, it [1] only seems to use the "SCP", that has different graphics, I don't need (Or want) any of that. And whenever I try to play it there is just a bunch of error messages.[2]

It just makes no sense [3], I need a more simple method. [4]

I'm a big confused now...

[1] What exactly does the "it" refer to?

[2] What error messages are you getting exactly? If you want to use FS2_Open with retail data, it should work without any problems, so I would guess it's more of a hardware/system/setup related problem...

[3] Many would claim to the contrary, including me. The data system used by FreeSpace2 is one of the most comprehensive and modder-friendly ways to provide information to the game engine.

[4] Simpler method... to accomplish what exactly? I'm a bit confused. Your initial message seemed to suggest that you just wanted to view the ANI's but the latest one seems to suggest some problems getting the game working in the first place (?)...


If you want to view ANI's with ANIView, you first need to open the appropriate VP file, which is a container file format used by FreeSpace, FS2 and consequently FS2_Open.

To open a VP file, you need a VP viewing/extraction program. VPView, as mentioned by Lobo, works perfectly well in most cases.

After opening the ppropriate VP file, you need to navigate to the appropriate animation file and either open it directly with ANIView (should work directly from VPView if you have installed Descent Manager Tools correctly...) or extract it to a directory of your choice, into your computer's file system, then opening the single file with ANIView.

If there's something else you want to do beside watching the ANI's (like getting the game working in general, or extracting frames from ani's and editing them, or even making new ANI's), you'll get help better by describing your intentions and problem a bit less ambiguously. We can't very well magically make more simple solutions for problems that we don't know practycally anything of.

[chief1983]

If you can play retail already, why does it matter that the discs are scratched?  They'd only be read while playing the movies (which you might be able to copy to your hard drive, I don't know if you can do that with retail).  Unless you didn't do a complete install, if not, shame on you.  If your computer can't handle that, it sounds like you have more problems.  Turey's installer does indeed install the updated version of the game exe, as well as updated graphics (if you want them, you don't have to use them).  You can also use it to download the retail game content, and possibly the retail exes, not sure.  Again though, if you can already play, it sounds like you already have the retail exes, so you shouldn't need anything else if that's all you want.  Turey's installer isn't going to give you anything that you want, that the discs don't have.

[Jeff Vader]

A few points.

1. As was said, the disks are read only during cutscenes. And those cutscenes can be copied to the HDD and be read from there, regardless of whether you are playing FS2 or FSO. The trick is to copy all the .mve files from the \data\movies directories of all the disks, and place them to \freespace\data\movies. Because the game engine reads the data folder first, there is no need for the disks if the cutscenes can be found from the \data\ folder.

2. Your original problem was solved a while ago. Get VPView, get AniView and so on.

3. If the Installer really fails for some godforsaken reason, you can get the necessary stuff yourself. Just download Launcher 5.5d and fs2_open_3_6_10-Xt_0314. Extract both .rars to your \freespace\ folder, run the Launcher, point it to fs2_open_3_6_10-Xt_0314 (click Browse, select fs2_open_3_6_10-Xt_0314 and click Open), click Apply and Run. Easy.

4. Actually, before running FSO, make sure you've installed OpenAL, available here and here.

[Rolf]

Sorry, yes everything seems to be working now... And I forgot to mention that the solution to the aniview problem worked perfectly, thanks guys.