Unit Animations

[Maths]

Hello everybody,

I have some troubles with aligning unit's animations. In order to clearly explain my problem, let's summarize the whole process.
I want a new animation which has a new sound but the same graphics (same weapons' burst...).
Once the sound file is ready, its name and the name of the associated graphical animation must be the same. As I said the graphical animation already exists, so I copy it and rename it with the name of the sound file.
If I want my units to use this new animation, it has to specified in efx file. But here is my problem : whatever may be the figures I put in the corresponding offset cells, the graphical animation always appears in the center of the hex and not aligned with the weapons.
Can someone help me ?
Thank you in advance !

Greetings,
Maths

[cw58]

It sounds like you have a good understanding of how the attack animations and sounds work together. If you are not already using it, I recommend Dwight's Camo Shop. There's a bit of a learning curve but it takes out all the guess-work of aligning animations.

From your post, I get the impression that the location of the attack animation never changes; that no matter the (x,y) values you input, the attack animation stays in the same place. If this is the case, then there is definitely a problem. If you would like to upload the efx file and the animation file, I or one of the other modders, could take a look at it for you.

[Maths]

Hello cw58,

I am very busy currently so I had no time to check the forum for a while and it's likely that I will not be able to spend much time on modding in the coming days/weeks; so sorry for the late reply

As for my problem, I remember trying to use DCS but as I was able to align animation with unit facing right, when I switched to the left the unit to set the corresponding offset values I did not manage to rotate the animation too. In a word, the unit was then facing left but the animation still firing from left to right.
Also, the values sometimes bahaves weirdly as you said : whatever you set, the animation stays in place.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17S8WzR ... sp=sharing here is the link to the efx file. The current values are somewhat messy though.

As for the animation file I know their names match with sound files because animations can actually be seen on screen (as well as the associated sound). I remember that when I began editing animations, a problem related to different names between sound and animation cause both graphical animation and associated sound to be utterly missing, that's not he case here.

Thank you very much ! I'll try to check the forum as often as I can but as I said it's not sure.

Greetings,
Maths

[cw58]

Hi Maths

I understand about time constraints; sometimes I have plenty of time to mod, other times not so much.

Like you, I have never been able to make the DCS work with the left-facing icons. I don't know if it's operator-error or if its a bug in the program. But as icons are mostly mirror images, it's usually good enough just to swap the first number value from positive to negative, or vice versa.

Looking at your file, I'm going to guess you're editing in notepad or something similar. I recommend editing in some kind of spreadsheet. I'm attaching 2 pics; first one shows your file and the second with corrections.

efx1.jpg (64.48 KiB) Viewed 3327 times

efx2.jpg (67.26 KiB) Viewed 3327 times

Hope this helps. Edit: Disregard the pic below. I'm having issues with attaching pics.

[Maths]

Hi cw58,

I just got the time to check the forum and to see that you answered : great ! Thank you very much !
However I can't test the new modifications you did now but I will do it asap.
I will also keep you aware of what happened when I will have done the testing.

I use Excel for editing such files (on your advice, given in a previous message from another thread where we discussed transport categories additions), but Excel did not accept the "(2,0)" offset value by example and always automatically set it to "-2" ?!?
As it was done automatically I thought the computer would understand a modification HE did but it seems he didn't...

I'm happy to hear that the left facing icons problem is not my fault.
In a nutshell, we just have to set the values OK for facing right units and swap to negative the first coordinate as you described ?

Again, thank you for taking a look to my issues over time to time ! You are always of a great help !

Greetings,
Maths

[Maths]

Also, if you are using Excel too, how do you force it to keep things you typed in the cells as you typed them ? I mean, how do you prevent Excel from doing what he did with me : changing (2,0) to -2 and then messing up the file ?

Thank you !

Greetings,
Maths

[cw58]

I don't use Excel currently and have very little experience with it so I cannot tell you why it's automatically 'correcting' your inputs. I use a program called OpenOffice and haven't faced the issue you're having.

You are correct that reversing the first coordinate for the right-facing icon will give you the value needed for the left-facing icon, in nearly all cases. Asymmetrical icons or icons improperly positioned would be the exceptions.

[glaude1955]

You must format your cells in Text format.
CTRL A then Right click on one cell and select cell format and choose Text.

[Maths]

Hello,

Thanks a lot for your messages, as I said I have no time to do the testing right now but I will fix Excel cells issue thanks to glaude1955's advice and implement the cw58's modifications of my efx file and report back here when finished.

Greetings,
Maths

[Maths]

Hello guys !

I was finally able to do the trials of the modified efx.pzdat file but unfortunately despite of glaude1955's advice to switch Excel cells to "Text" format, the spreadsheet keeps automatically changing the values I input. For example, the -30 displayed in Pioneers' lines is actually typed (30,0) put it is always changed to -30 by Excel.

Then, I don't know what to do but I'll continue to look for a clue. Apart from that, the modifications suggested by cw58 will work..frustrating !

Greetings,
Maths

[glaude1955]

Hi Maths,
Could you attach your file so that we can review it?
Yves

[nono hard et heavy]

Hello guys !

I was finally able to do the trials of the modified efx.pzdat file but unfortunately despite of glaude1955's advice to switch Excel cells to "Text" format, the spreadsheet keeps automatically changing the values I input. For example, the -30 displayed in Pioneers' lines is actually typed (30,0) put it is always changed to -30 by Excel.

Then, I don't know what to do but I'll continue to look for a clue. Apart from that, the modifications suggested by cw58 will work..frustrating !

Greetings,
Maths

Hello Maths.
When I need to change a value, I use Notepad ++. And then I check via Excel.
Greetings from France.
Bruno

[Maths]

Hi,

Ok thanks ! I'll try this out.
In a sense, animations are not a very core concept, I mean a vital aspect, but the game looks strange without them though. I once thought about deleting the animations but didn't really want to do it in the same time.
I hope your solution will put an end to this problem in which I'm stuck for a while now.

Salut de France également !
Maths

[glaude1955]

Le mieux est de joindre ton fichier efx.xlsx que je puisse regarder et te dire ce qui ne va pas !
Je n'ai aucun soucis avec Excel alors il y a aucune raison que tu en aies.

[Maths]

Super ! Merci beaucoup !

Je ne l'ai pas sous la main tout de suite mais je le poste ici (lien Google Drive très sûrement) dès que possible. Ce sera sûrement fait d'ici demain soir ou vendredi au pire.

Le problème est vraiment étrange, je pense que mes messages précédents sur ce l'expliquent bien, en réalité, je n'ai jamais eu un tel souci auparavant mais, cette fois seulement, Excel change le contenu des cellules (d'ailleurs pas toutes les cellules d'offset : encore plus bizarre...). Quand je change le Format de Cellule de "Standard" vers "Texte" et que je rentre le tuple (30,0), cette valeur reste affichée mais avec un message d'erreur disant que la cellule contient un type de donnée non conforme au format réglé. L'exemple (30,0) n'est qu'un exemple et le tuple (2,0) est aussi changé en -2 si je ne passe pas vers le format "Texte" (auquel cas s'affiche bien (2,0) mais avec le même message d'erreur).

En tout cas, j'espère que tu pourras déterminer l'origine du problème parce que je commence à être à court d'idées.
Comme je le disais, j'ai pensé à supprimer purement et simplement l'aspect visuel des animations que je suis incapable d'aligner correctement (concrètement en mettant des .png vides et transparents en lieu et place des .png d'animations) mais c'est malgré tout dommage.

Cordialement,
Maths

[Maths]

Salut,

Voici le lien vers le fichier efx défectueux. J'ai joint à la fois le .pzdat et le .xlsx
Merci encore pour ton temps !

Hi,

Here is the link to the broken efx file. I posted both the .pzdat and the .xlsx files.
Again, thank you for taking your time to read this !

Greetings,
Maths

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[glaude1955]

Bonjour Maths,
J'ai regardé ton fichier Excel, tes cellules avaient encore le format standard.
Je te l'ai modifiè, maintenant elles ont le format texte.

efx.7z

(10.17 KiB) Downloaded 54 times

Tu ne devrais plus rencontrer de problème.


Yves

Lorsque tu crées ton fichier Efx dans Excel, au début tu sélectionnes l'ensemble de tes cellules en cliquant sur le bouton supérieur gauche comme dans la photo.

1.png (500 Bytes) Viewed 2914 times

Ensuite un clic droit sur le bouton et tu choisis format de cellule.

2.png (10.53 KiB) Viewed 2916 times

[Maths]

Salut,

J'ai bien reçu la pièce jointe, j'ai téléchargé le fichier efx mais malheureusement le problème persiste.
Il semblerait que le fichier .xlsx est indépendant du .pzdat.

Quand je modifie le fichier .pzdat (le seul qui est lu par le jeu) au moment d'enregistrer les modifications, Excel propose de "conserver les fonctionnalités (...)" en disant que certaines d'entre elles peuvent ne pas être compatibles avec toutes les utilisations. J'ai alors le choix entre oui et non; le non enregistre le .pzdat et aussi une copie en .xlsx et le oui n'enregistre que a priori le .pzdat.
Ainsi, si le .xlsx se comporte bien (accepte de passer les cellules en format Texte...) , le fichier réellement important .pzdat refuse toujours de se plier à ces changements de formats de cellules, d'où le problème.

En tout cas merci beaucoup à tous pour votre temps et votre aide ! J'utilise désormais l'artillerie lourde : Notepad++. Ce sera sans doute moins confortable qu'un tableur mais au moins il n'y aura plus de prise de tête avec ces différentes extensions de fichier Excel qui tantôt coopèrent tantôt pas.

A+
Maths

[glaude1955]

Bonjour Maths,
Tu dois enregistrer ton fichier Excel de la manière suivante :
Enregistrer sous
Autres format
Text Unicode (*.txt)
Ensuite tu changes le nom de ton fichier obtenu en Equiment.pzdat ou efx . pzdat

2020-10-21 09_12_46-Window.png (2.08 KiB) Viewed 2820 times

Excel est indépendant du jeu, c'est juste un outil permettant de modifier facilement les données.
Ce qui compte c'est le fichier -*.pzdat à condition de le mettre au même format que Panzer corps !

[Maths]

J'ai regardé et c'est déjà sous ce type "Texte Unicode" que cela s'enregistre. Excel propose alors de faire une copie... ce que j'ai expliqué hier.

Décidément, rien ne semble possible , tant pis... Avec Notepad++ au moins il n'y aura pas de problème. En plus, si je trouve que pour equipment.pzeqp utiliser Excel change tout (plus de lignes et de colonnes à gérer...) pour efx.pzdat la quantité de données est beaucoup plus gérable donc Notepad++ suffira.

Encore une fois, je vous remercie pour votre aide mais je pense abandonner la piste Excel en ce cqui concerne l'efx.pzdat

A+,
Maths