Animation Tutorial (Concept)

I am not going to go through each and every detail, because alot of it is already out there and alot of it is experimentation. First of all, animation is not as hard as you think it is, you just have to really want to learn how to do it. The actual animation bit is not actually too hard, that’s all down to the ability to animate, the only bit that really requires a bit of loaf is the BHAV, pie-menu strings, text lists etc. But as with everything else, once you learn it, it’s relatively easy.

Tools

Milkshape
SimPE
Wes AniMesh Plug-Ins
Dr Pixel’s Base Body Meshes

Animation

Animation is the creating of a timed sequence or series of graphic images or frames together to give the appearance of continuous movement. In the Sims 2, the body meshes are suprisingly real-looking and so you need to take advantage of this when animating. The first tip I can give you is you need to be able to creat a natural look tot he pose or animation. For exmaple, a simple walking animation is not just the legs and the arms, it’s the leg’s, the arm’s, the hip, the head, the top body etc etc. So you need to remember that. Take time on your animation and test it in the game, then go back to milkshape and edit, then go back onto the game, then back to milkshape etc. It’s tedious, but worth it. Another tip, for moving animations; don’t try and change the movement at every single key frame, because the animaiton will come out jaggy, start with a pose on key frame one and then say, at key five, then set another pose. Now press play and notice the movement is much, much smoother. One last thing there is no limit to what you can do, so just beleive it and you can do it.

Order of Service

The basic order of creating an animation and then using it in the game:

- Clone an object in SimPE e.g. pauls reaction tester. Have everything ticked apart from ‘Pull Animations’.
- Update the scenegraph to whatever you want e.g. ‘depression-[trendyhendy]-animbox’
- Clean out the BHAV’s apart from ‘Init’ and ‘Main Function’
- Clean out the ‘Text Lists’ (leave Anims-Adult, Object-Model Name and Anims-Object) , ‘Pie Menu Strings’ and ‘Pie-Menu Functions’
- Save it under any name you want e.g. ‘Trendy_Hendy-depression-animbox’
- Create your animation in Milkshape. Save it and export it, using the AniMesh Plug-Ins.
- Make sure, for overlay, it says ‘Body Overlay’ under ‘ANIM Type’.
- Choose your ‘Lenght [ms]‘ (animation time) 1000=1 sec.
- Create a new package in SimPE, name it something and add your animation file to the resource list.
- Under the ‘Resource’ tab, make sure it the group is ‘0×1C0532FA’ and type is ‘0xFB00791E’.
- Name the animation file a-x-x-[x-x]-x-x. Fill the x’s with something e.g. a-depression-male-[trendyhendy-13.7.2008]-floor-insecure. ‘_anim’ should be at the end aswell.
- Now save the package. ‘Ctrl C’ the animation name. Goto ‘Animation Height’.
- Open the package you saved earlier. Goto ‘Text Lists’, click ‘Anims-Adult’, click Add and ‘Ctrl V’. The anim name should now be in the list.
- Now goto ‘Pie Menu Strings’, click add and type what you want the interaction to say in the game e.g. ‘Shoot Self’ or if you want more organisation, put a / in between the names e.g. Male…/Shoot Self.
- Now go into BHAV’s. Clone ‘Init’. Now read another tutorial about BHAV’s….haha, I ams o evil. I might add something here, but not now, it’s too detailed to go into right now. I leraned how to do overlay by pure experimentation, and it is very rewarding when you learn how to do it on your own, so just have a play around. For now though, I reccomend Echo’s Custom Object Animation Tutorial , JohnBrehaut1’s Miche Anim Tutorial or for beginners Beginners Basic BHAV tutorial -in wysiwyg form-
- Once you have BHAV’s sorted, goto ‘Pie Menu Functions.’ Click Add and under ‘Pie String ID’ find the pie string you made earlier. Now, under flags, tick ‘demo child’, ‘adults’, ‘elders’, ‘teens’ and ‘visitor.’ Under flags2 tick the third question mark down from the left.
- Now, under ‘Action BHAV’, click the arrow and find the BHAV you made under ‘This Package.’ Click it and click ‘Commit File.’
- Finishing touches, edit the texture image (recolour it) to your own style. I am presuming you know how to recolour.
- Goto ‘Object Data’ in the resource list, ‘Rection Test’ and choose where you want your hack to be in the game catalogue and you should be done now! Well done.

Animation Height

This will drive you nutty, especially when using sitting animations. This is all about preventing the sims from floating in the air. I will give you templates to work with, and you must then test and edit, test and edit etc. Under the plug-in veiw of your anim file, in the drop down arrow next to ‘Joint:’ find ‘root_trans (trn, x, x, x) and click on the first translation, and click ‘Z:’. Now make sure ‘Linear’ and ‘Parent Shrink’ is ticked and take a look at ‘Parameter’. This is what you are goin to change.

Stand: 1036
Sit: Anything between 400-800, seriously, it’s a pain. But to start with use 530.
Floor (Lying Down): Usually just 0
Floor (Sitting): Usually 80
Sofa: X= -10, Y= 90 and Z= 430. This is a good template to start off.
Bed: Varies, but usually around 630.

Well, that just about wraps it up, hope you enjoy making amazing animations and poses and good luck!
Oh and go for natural looks and realism, look at photos and films.