Currently, Im trying to figure out how to pull social animations from the game and make them talk less (less moving of the mouth). So far, I have been unsuccessful, so if anyone knows any information on how to customize the way they talk, that would help out a lot.

I have worked with SimPE and milkshape both and am assuming that for what I am trying to do, I would need both.

Thanks,

-Futureactorjon

Most of the Sims2 animations include a section for facial animations, including the mouth.

There is almost nothing documented about how, but the values used for each frame can be modified using SimPE. Although there seems to be some variability, values of 4096 seem to be full open, and zero full closed. But you would need to check that out yourself.

There is also an animation dissassembler/recompiler in this thread:
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...ic,10220.0.html
You can edit the files with a text editor, and it has some documentation included. The main advantage of this tool is merely that you can cut and paste parts between files, such as replacing the entire facial animation and leaving the skeletal parts unchanged. It is not a visual editor, but it is a lot better than a hex editor.

<* Wes *>

Thanks! I will test that out and let you know if it works. Probably by tonight! Once again, thanks for your help!

The disassembler/compiler seem to work well, and are easy enough to use, in the sense that if you can follow the directions, you can take an animation apart and put it back together. But, just like a watch, there are all these little parts in there...
What is really missing is a lot of detailed information on what happens when the values are edited, although Marvine did some work which is included in the program notes.
So, futureactorjon, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to write up what you learned and post it.
I can give you some general help on using the program, although I would ask you read the program notes first.
Good luck.

<* Wes *>

Im am going to very busy! I'm currently trying to figure out the numbers part of it. I understand what files are which after you disassemble them, but basically what it comes down to is the figuring out how much a certain amount of numbers moves how much of the mouth (or whatever you change) in what direction. I will going in and out of the game alot! *freaking out*. I will let you know my progress and hopefully will be coming out with a nice hack that people can use for movie making (which is why I need to figure this out). "Off I go!"

Wes - probably a stupid question and sorry for hijacking the thread, but how do you (and Marvine et al) know that there are exactly 27 face blends? Are they in files some place? Or is there one blend per pseudo-face-joint?

Here is a quick question. After you change the values of the ANIM file, do I have to put it back in the sims00.package file or can I add it to the new file that I created?

Edit: I'm wondering if you don't type _anim on the end of the file, it looks for that animation within the download itself instead of looking in the sims00.package. Let me know if I'm wrong.

Futureactorjon, if you don't put "_anim" at the end of the name, I don't think that the animations can be recognized as such. You'd need to use a custom name of course if you don't want them to override the game's originals, keep the "_anim" suffix for the animations themselves, and then copy the name without the "_anim" part in the text list that your animate expression links to.



There is one blend per "pseudo-face-joint" (I'm somewhat relieved that I'm not the only one confused with the terminology ), you can see them listed in the files that contain face animations; there are also - blends? under the "*" at the bottom, for the eyes stretching (the iris, this is useful for fine expressions) and direction.
Wes has been dissecting files for long enough that it seems that he always knew all this, I'd swear that he mentioned it years ago...

Where do I put the animations once I have made them my own? Not back in the sims00.package right?

Edit: Forget this question, it's all a matter of a trial and a whole bunch of errors, but you finally get it! Things are looking good.

I'm not sure what you want to achieve exactly... If you want to just replace existing animations, then just put the edited anim files in a new package without renaming them, so this package when placed in the downloads folder will override the original animations.

As a rule, you should NEVER edit or replace the files in the Sims00.package (nor in any of the packages in that folder).

Now if you want your edited animations to take effect only when needed, you'll have to put together a mod or hacked object; in this case should search the modding forums for more indications and this section in particular, and possibly study existing objects of the same kind.

Oops, just noticed that you must have edited your post just when I clicked the "reply" button - glad if it's coming along fine, I still leave this post just in case

I get the original animation from the sims00.package and then edit the mouthing and facial and put it in the object file instead of putting it back in the sims00.package. Thanks!

The face blends are exactly the same thing as the body morphs from a data perspective. Some people call them vertex animations. The face file structure is the same as a body morph, but as you noticed there are 27 blends instead of 1 or 2.

The game engine just uses 'tweening' for the face pose. In this, the base mesh is the closed or base position, and the morph is one pole. For a part like the mouth, the numbers vary between closed (0) and open (4096), as a best guess. For other blends, you can have positive and negative values, which would translate to points along a line between the morph position, through the regular vertex position and then to the opposite (minus) position.

I never was able to do anything with the face meshes in UniMesh because if you want to go past four blends per group, you have to be able to record the blends along with the vertex, and I did not have any spare place to do that. Now there is a space, and I decided that it is just too much work, especially when you can just tweak the defaults in CAS and use it as a template.

If you wanted to completely eliminate mouth movements for a single sim, you could alter the morph name to something different for the mouth parts of the face GMDC in a hex editor, or the hex edit in SimPE. Since the game locates the morph by name, no match on a name simply means that portion of the animation does not get used.

I didn't mention this because jon said he wanted to reduce the mouth movements. But this would be ideal for a sim you want to be a mime.

<* Wes *>

Ok, so . . . there has to be an easier way at limiting the amount they move their arms and mouth. Like an overlay. Can you make an overlay like that or is it just going to hold them in a position?

There is nothing easy about animations. They are the likely the hardest part of any game to get right.

Overlays allow a second animation to be played on top of another independently. Almost of the Sims animations contain multiple parts already in one package, a skeletal animation, the face (includes mouth), the eye rotation and events. Playing another animation with mouth movements closed will probably just add these together, and may jump between the two, depending on the timecodes.

If you want to make an overlay and try it, you would take out all the other sections, and only keep the mouth parts of the face animation, turning this into a new, mouth-only animation. You would then compile it. However, you still have to modify all the BHAV parts of the social interaction(s) you are working on to play this animation together with the original one.

By editing just the mouth part and creating a replacement animation, you would not have to alter the BHAVs. I don't know which will be easier, but I have never had a lot of success with working on anything complicated with BHAVs. You will need another advsor there.

<* Wes *>

So, I have a question to add here, since it seems the right topic for it.
I've read trough but I'm not a born english speaker so I didn't catch the thing I'm looking for. If it is there, please point it out to me =)
Anyways, I'm looking for a way to create a facial animation, like the sim moving her/his eyes sideways. Would that be possible and how? I've read somewhere that you can only do "body animations" in Milkshape, Blender etc. Thanks for help =)

The facial animations have no visual tools available for animation work. They can be modified by manually altering values either within SimPE, by editing the facial blends, or using the AniMax animation disassembler/compiler and altering the text values.

Animax is one of the packages that are posted here.

There is no tutorial, but there is some explanation in the readme file in the archive, as well as in this thread. Little other guidance on this exists, and few people have produced anything beyond testing. Definitely in the advanced modding category.

<* Wes *>