It should animate by itself, because the "main" function runs as soon as you enter live mode. If you can post your package, then I'm happy to take a look and find why it's not working for you.

Hello from Germany

I didn't speak English very well, so please forgive me my mistakes.

I read the tutorial a few times and read the posts in this thread a few times, but I didn't understand a few things. But first of all I tell you what i've done yet.

I made the tutorial with the baseobject and everything went perfectly. Then I decided to make a flag set, which will be my first animated mesh set. So I started to clone the flamingo and extracted the GMDC and imported it into Milkshape. Then I went back and extracted the cres and imported it into Milkshape too. Then I built my flag and deleted all things, except the joints, from the old flamingo, which I didn't need for my new flag. Then I moved the joints from the flamingo into a useable position and added a few joints, which I also need to animate the flag. I renamed everything, so I would find it in SimPe. Then I saved a safety-copy. Then I assigned all Joints to the vertexes. Then I animated the mesh and exported the mesh with the AniMesh Exporter ANIM. I also exported it as a wavefront *obj. file, for the texture and the rest of the process. I went on with the standard mesh process, so i built a UV map and textured everything and imported all textures and the .obj File of my Mesh. Then I followed the Tutorial for the Animation and added the unkown ressource, which was my animation, which I exported from Milkshape. I made SimPE know, that this is my animation. I tipped in the name for the animation and commited the changes. Then I went on the Tutorial and fixed the integrity. Then I saved my file. I followed the tutorial to its end and tested my animation ingame. Nothing happens.

I don't know what I have to do, because I made everything like in the tutorial.
I would be very kind, if someone could have a look at my package file and tell me the extended steps, which I missed to do.

I'm not very familiar with the cres and the other lists in SimPe, like BHAV, slots and so on, but I learn very fast. The BHAV was very little explained in the tut and I understanded what I've done, but I didn't know what I have to do now.

I also wanted to thank everybody who has written into this thread to explain the special things, which I didn't always understand.

Greets from Germany

Daxter

Hi Daxter!

The reason you're having trouble is that the file I included in this thread to make the animation with was changed a lot before I posted it. It was cloned from a flamingo, but I made a brand new skeleton for it before posting, so that the parts of the flag can move properly.

The package you have uploaded still has the skeleton from the flamingo, so it does not have the same bones as the flag. The bones need to be in the CRES file and in the GMDC before the animation can play on them.

There is a bit of discussion in this thread about setting up a new skeleton. It is mostly between Rebekah, Jasana and me, if you read up a few posts. I have a tutorial which is half-written on how to make new skeletons, but it is not ready for sharing yet.

Thank you for the reply.

I think I understand what I have to do now. First I extract the Mesh from GMDC into Milkshape. There I delete all joints from Maxis, build my object, delete the old one from Maxis and add my joints. Then I should write down the coordinates from all joints. Then I should import my Mesh in SimPE again. Then I should went into the CRES and change some coordinates there, so Sims will find my Joints, for the animation. Then I should export the GMDC and the Cres and import them into Milkshape. Then I could follow the Tutorial again.

Is that the right way?

And here are a few questions, which you maybe could answer me :

Where do I find the coordinates for the joints in Milkshape ?

Where in the CRES can I change the Joints and their coordinates ?

What the right way:

First to finish the mesh with the texture and then animate it
or
to start with the animation and build the object and then integrate the object with the texture and the .obj file, so the animation is in the package before the .obj file.

Hopefully this aren't too much questions, but I really wanted to learn this animations.

Thanks for your time.

Greets from the rainy Germany

Daxter

PS: Sorry for my bad English.

...Well, I replied to your PM on Insimenator the best I could - but if you get conflicting information here, remember that Echo and the other people in this thread are more knowledgeable than I am about object animations

Okay, I bit the bullet and finished the tutorial. This:
http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=270622
should walk you through the process of building a skeleton.

It is written assuming that the base object is not already animated, so if you are using the flamingo (which is already animated in a very limited way) you can skip the following steps:
* "Open up each of the OBJD files in turn, then find "3D Object Type" under the "RAW Data" tab. Change this to the value 1."
* "Click on the "Practical - sculpture" node to view it, then under its 'cTransformNode' tab change the GMDC joint index to 0x7FFFFFFF."
* The section "Creating a new Joint" (but read it anyway, because it explains how to do the rest of the stuff).

I solved the problem with my custom skeleton, so I continued my work. I set up the BHAV and made all required changes to the package. I get the GUID for my object and went into the game. Then I searched for it in the menu and found the object in the decoartive things. But there was no pic and the object didn't show up in the game. I placed it in the house, in the garden and with the moveobjects on cheat, but it didn't show up. I searched for an answer to my problem on the internet, but most sites described the problem in the case of wrong downloads, but I made a brand new object, so I reallly don't now what to do.

Maybe someone of you will find the wrong code or a misstake.

Greets

Daxter

Hi Daxter,

Okay, a couple of things. I'm not sure which of these can actually cause errors, so I'll list everything I notice.
- You shouldn't have spaces in joint names. Spaces in pretty much anything is asking for trouble, and you've got a joint called "small flag".
- Since the object was already animated, you'd be best off leaving node 0 with the same name it started with, that is, "flamingo".
- It's completely fine to add nodes to the CRES, but is almost always a bad idea to delete them. As it is, I think you've deleted the thumbnailExtension node, which is probably causing you grief because the cResourceNode (small-flag-by-daxter) is still listing index 1 as a DataListExtension even though index 1 is now a Practical node. Not sure what the best thing is to do here, trying to re-add it, trying to remove it from the DataListExtensions, or trying to remake the skeleton in an untouched cres and importing that over the current one... I'll leave that decision up to you.

Hi again Echo! Thanks for replying, it's been a long time, but i have done the tutorial again, this time when i play Start my game, I then go to a lot, go to buy mode, and buy the flag, then i get an object error. (see Image)

(An Error Occurred in Object "FlagPole" #685
Error: Invalid Number Of loops...)


I uploaded the package and I hope that you will see it! Thanks Echo!

Hey

You're getting that error because your line 0x2 says
[prim 0x0002] Expression (Temp 0x0001 > Literal 0xFFFF)
when it should say
[prim 0x0002] Expression (Temp 0x0001 := Literal 0xFFFF)

The first is a test to see whether the value in temp 1 is greater than -1, the second puts the value -1 into temp 1.

Hi!

Thanks Echo, that error is gone, but i have a new one! it says:
"Animation speed cannot be zero"

That sounds like you haven't entered in the correct parameters to Animate Object. Copy the parameters exactly like they are in this tutorial, then only change things when you know what they're doing. The "Animation speed cannot be zero" error normally happens when you're missing the '20' in operand 4.

Hey Echo!

Thank you very much, you are a very nice person for writing this tutorial and helping me, I'm sorry if I'm bothering you! but i really want to learn about this thing.

I have no more errors, but the flag isn't animating. I've waited a few minutes, but still?? I uploaded the package, if you need it. Thanks again

You're very welcome! And I'm not bothered, I wouldn't have posted the tutorial if I wasn't happy to answer questions about it!

In your text list, you've got 'o-flagpole-[echo-3.7.2007-1652c]-wave' as the animation name, but the actual ANIM file is called 'o-flagpole-[echo-3.7.2007-1652c]' (no '-wave' at the end). Those two need to match, so I'd take the '-wave' off the end of the line in the text list and try that.

OMG! I really don't know how to thank you enough! I'm very proud of myself, and I'm very lucky that i Found MTS2 that gave me the skills that i have, and thank you very much Echo! I just made my first Object animation! I tried Some Of your tutorials, but they are so much fun that i want to do them all! Thank you Echo.

Yay! Congrats on getting it all working. :D

Thank you so much for helpful tutorial you truly kindness.

Woot, made my first animation
Thank you Echo for your explanation on how to!!!

Echo...you totally rock. Thanks for this tutorial and the tutorial for building the skeliton. I have one question, and I am sorry if it is answered somewhere in all these replys. How do I import animations that already exist for an object? For example. I am making a custom car, and the only part I want to change is the way the doors open. How do I get all the animations for the wheels, ext imported so that when I import the new animation for the doors, that all the other animated parts will still work the way they did before?

Unfortunately, there's no foolproof way to import existing animations. There are still too many things we don't know how to read in these files, so a lot of data can get lost when you export then import. Wes does have a plugin which makes it possible to read most non-IK animations into Milkshape though, you could try that. They're in the same thread as the other animation plugins, called 'msRawAnimationPlugins' or something like that.

That is unfortunate. I was really hoping to find a way to edit the door animations for my car. Thanks so much for your response.

I really going deep with the anim thing. Well, i'm still fixing my poses, and i tried to animate a object. This tutorial is amazing.

I needed to build a new joints, like the other tutorial. The animation works on Milkshape, i follow the BHAV instructions and, when i select the object in buy mode, its crash the game.
I think the anim don't like me.

I atach the package. and the .m3ds with the animation. It's a Newton's Cradle.

Hey electro!

The cres is broken - if you look in the hierarchy tab, you can see a red x at the bottom saying "Unsupported Child on Index 9"? That's the thing causing your game to crash (It's very unforgiving with broken cres files). The problem is that you haven't actually got a joint in position 9, you only go up to 8.

I can't believe that was it. O.o :$
Thanks again. :D

Humpf. I spooked too soon. i've fix integrity, fix the CRES problem... My animation don't play, and the object can't be moved/clicked (the hand don't appear - the pie menu don't work).