Since there are no tutorials for animating objects directly in SimPe, can anyone that knows how share their knowledge with me? This is really important, if I don't learn how I might have to (gasp) PAY for Milkshape.

Someone should really write a tutorial for animating in SimPe.

wait, actually can't you animate with Blender 3D?

The issue is not the animating per se, it is getting the data back and forth between the game and what you are using to work on your animations with. I have not seen anyone produce any plugin tools for using Blender to do this.

Animations do not exist by themselves. They are basically just a set of movements or rotations to be applied to the joints in the object in a certain order at specific times, which have the effect of changing the shape of the mesh.

In SimPE, for an ANIM file there is a raw tab that shows the values used in the game animation. By way of example, if you had a r_thigh movement with an X rotation value of 10 (degrees), changing it to 15 (degrees) and replacing the entire animation will change that frame by 5 degrees.

This is a very complex and difficult process, because you have to figure out yourself what values you want and then type them in. But it can and has been done, although all of the hand-edited animations I know of will not be posted here because of their nature.

So what you need to do is define what it is you want to actually do, and perhaps reduce that to making one small but noticable change in an animation and getting that to work in the game before deciding to rewrite all the walk animations or something.

<* Wes *>

I'm just trying to make a lever on an object go up and down on command. Could I find out all those values in Milkshape(expired demo so I can't save in it) and put them in SimPe?

There is some complicated math to convert the values from MilkShape to the ANIM file (what you see in SimPE). I spent a lot of time working through that to make the animation exporter plugin. For simple objects, like you described, this would be easier math, though. If there is no parent joint and no default rotation on the joint, the math works like you would expect.

What I don't know is where you would get the starting files from. To make an animation, the object needs to have some joints, and the mesh parts have to be assigned to the joints. So you need a joint for the bulk of the mesh to be assigned to that stays still, and another for the lever, which I assume would be the axis for the lever to rotate on (unless you want a sliding movement).

Then you need an existing animation that just has a simple movement in it like you described, so you can edit it.

You would probably be able to make the jointed object in XSI modtool and import it into SimPE via the SMD importer. I have only limited experience with XSI modtool, but there are others here that use it.

<* Wes *>

So Bobcats Blender Importer and Exporter wouldn't work for this? I'm gonna see, but first I'll have to get SimPE to stop freezing on me.

Bobcat's import/export? Not sure what you're referring to? This thread was about manually editing animations using only SimPE. If you want to create animations in another tool and import them, then I'm fairly sure you need to be using Milkshape.

Well, I read a tutorial on Blender Foundation on creating animation. But the problem is getting it imported into SimPE. Someone's made an Import and export animation plugin for Blender I believe, so I'm gonna try to use it. Blender3D is a free program that does the same thing as milkshape. Milkshape might have a little more things but Blender is easy to use... well for me. I tried Milkshape and couldn't even make a mesh.

The Sims does not use a standard animation file format. Unless the animation export in Blender is one custom built for the Sims 2 (which I doubt) then you won't be able to import it into TS2.

Sorry for the necromancy, but I succeed in importing a Blender animation in the game, using MICHE converter. However, it's quite a long struggle to do with the .smd file (editing in .txt format). One got to be very patient : I've made it with 5 frames, but what if the animation was 60 frames long or even more !