Porting animations from CoD5/CoD4 to CoD2

[ElTitoPricus]

No, sorry for my rudimentary english
When you import a model and the arms and rigged together, that's what i call the animodel or base model
i make the xmodel_export with it and use it to conert the xanims

[Tally]

No, sorry for my rudimentary english
When you import a model and the arms and rigged together, that's what i call the animodel or base model
i make the xmodel_export with it and use it to conert the xanims

So, you first make an xmodel_export file out of the arms and anims? Then use that as the reference model file? How does it allow you to export anims as a model? Or is it just the arms that is exported as a model?

[the_law]

Pretty sure this is what he meant, but correct me if I'm wrong. :P

[ElTitoPricus]

That's is exactly

[the_law]

Maybe now would be a good time to detail the steps I go through to export the animations.

First, I fill in the beginning and ending frames of the animation.
Then I select everything and I click "set export nodes."
After that, I press "Export Selected Entries" and that should make my .XANIM_EXPORT file.

[the_law]

One strange thing I noticed is that CoD2 viewmodel xanims seem to use "absolute" but CoD4 viewmodel xanims use "relative." Perhaps that could cause a problem?

[the_law]

I finally got the animations sets for the Barrett M82 and the Mini Uzi at least partially working. I am currently unable to upload any images/videos and the internet connection is extremely slow, so I will go into detail about how I did it later.

Man, spending a week with a laptop but no internet connection actually helps me get a lot done. xD

[Ni3ls]

Looking forward to see a tutorial from you

[the_law]

I'll probably start working on a tutorial after I get a few other things working with my animations.

Currently, there are a few minor problems with my animations:
-The fingers are twisted (most notably the fourth and fifth fingers)
-Some ADS up/down animations don't work

Anyone know how to fix these problems?

[the_law]

Never mind, I got them fixed thanks to fellow modeller/animator Mch2207Cz. He gave me step-by-step instructions on how to do it, and I will quote him:

Quote:

it is possible to import anims from newer cods. In fact I found a way how to do it few years ago and then spread the knowledge to people who wanted to try it as well. Before Tom BMX made his xmodelutils and xanimexporter it was possible to import only anims from various cod mod tools. Thanks to Tom's programs any cod anim can be imported.

How to do it:

1. create a weapon rig using xmodeltility - choose a weapon to do (for example codwaw viewmodel_ger_fg42_lmg), convert it into MA, open the MA, rig the weapon's mesh using generated MEL script. Select the parent mesh group (containing weapon's mesh) and parent joint group (contains weapon's joints). Hit CTRL+C to copy them. Save it as a first person weapon (for example viewmodel_fg42.ma). You can also right now export the xmodel_export file using cod maya plugin (viewmodel_fg42.xmodel_export).

2. create a hand rig of the particular cod game using xmodelutility - choose a desired hand model from the game that your weapon is from (for example codwaw viewmodel_usa_marine_arms), convert it into MA, open the MA, rig the hand's mesh using generated MEL script.

3. paste the copied weapon into hand's MA file. Open hypergraph, grab the joint "j_gun" and connect it to "tag_weapon". Set all j_gun's position and rotation to 0. When you do it, your weapon should go right between the hands. Save the file.

4. open file/import and set the file type to "cod xanim". search for your *.tanim files which were made using xanimexporter. You can import only one anim at a time so you will have several MA files each containing just one animation segment (ads up, ads down, idle, fire, pullout, putaway, reload, reload empty, melee).

5. once you got all your anim segments imported and saved in their MA files you can start making the anim compatible with cod2.

6. first thing to do is ADS. each cod may use different joint to do ADS (for example cod4 uses tag_ads) . so you must open both ads_up and ads_down segments and check in hypergraph/grapheditor which joint controls ADS. to make it cod2 compatible you must use joint called "tag_torso". all other ADS animations on different joints must be deleted.

7. now you are ready to export all your segments into xanim_export.

8. now comes the most important step. you must make correct gunsleeves model. this model is used as a reference for anim compilation. it is extremely important and if done improperly you will end up with twisted fingers and other errors. you need to download a file called "cod2 viewsleeves" - available at wiki.modsrepository.com

9. once downloaded open it and search for "viewmodel_thompson_gunsleeves.ma". open it and "save as" to make copy of it (for example viewmodel_fg42_gunsleeves.ma ).

10. in the resaved gunsleeves file, select all thompson meshes, detach them from the joints and delete. then select j_gun and delete it.

11. now paste your first person weapon from step 1)

12. connect j_gun to tag_weapon and make sure j_gun has zero transforms (position, rotation). the weapon will move in between the cod2 hands. now you can make gunsleeves xmodel_export (for example viewmodel_fg42_gunsleeves.xmodel_export)

13. put your xmodel_export files into model_export inside cod2 installation folder (viewmodel_fg42.xmodel_export and viewmodel_fg42_gunsleeves.xmodel_export ).

14. put your xanim_export files into xanim_export inside cod2 installation folder (viewmodel_fg42_idle.xanim_export and so on).

15. open asset manager and compile.




I can clarify on my method of doing it if you ask. There were some steps where I used ElTitoPricus' way of doing it. In fact, the most important steps that I think did it for me were steps 9 - 12.