.mul info request.

[Romanez]

Hi, I´, creating new anims and I need to create a little program with python to let me create anims at a faster way.
This way I can skip more than 10 hours per animation.

The thing is I dont know at all how anim.mul works.
Can any of you tell me how to get this info? I´ll share the program when I end it.

-What will do the program?
Its just auto-replace every anim picture directly into the mul, reading the name of the bmp to know where it goes. Same as Uofiddler Replace command but completly automatic. You dont have to do it one by one saving 2-4 hours.
Also the great thing is that you also skip positioning every picture to fit it saving you many many hours.
How?

Imagine you want to increase or decrase the size of an npc anim, for example a to do a smaller ogre.
In less than 10 min you would have it into your mul... all you had to do would be:

-Export ogre animation as bmp in a folder using fiddler
-Use a free-program to resize every picture in the folder doing it smaller
-Use my program to replace again each picture directly into the anim.mul respecting original positions.
-Enjoy new smaller ogre.
-Export as .vd if you wanna share.
*Only in ten mins.

Or imagine you want to do a new weapon or clothes. In this example is where we really safe many hours cos we dont have to fit the position of every picture of the anim.
An example to do a new pants:

-Export a pants anim as bmp into a folder.
-Paint your new pants over the old ones. (long work 4-24hours)
-Use my program to put it again into mul respecting original position.
-Enjoy new pants.

If I get the info I´ll publish the .exe, the source and one tutorial about how to use it and some tips to skip as many work hours as you can.

Just plz, Need someone to show me how anim.mul is structured. Is there any program that can show me it?

Ty

 

[Po0ka]

http://uo.stratics.com/heptazane/fileformats.shtml

That page has a shitton of informations about the file formats, which reminds me i should save that page locally...
View the right section and code it, i guess.
For my part i can't really be of any help with Python and animation in general if you need support regarding that.

 

[Romanez]

Thx for the link, looks to be what I need.

It dosnt have to be with python, but I dont know any other code. Also I dont know python I´m starting trying this xD

MAybe there are other way to do what I want.
-Extract all images from an anim as bmp.
-Import again back into mul but not one by one.

What i want to skip? Positioning every frame. I want to use same position from original anims.
I just want to extract with fiddler, paint over original frames and put them all back into mul.

Then I need a program that read each name of the bmp and put in the right place again.

Doing monster anim its quite easy right now, but wereables anims are humungus work. I want to find a way that all i have to do is paiting.

ty

 

[Feynman]

The Mulpatcher has exactly what you need
There are two options called "Save to Directory" and "Load from Directory".
This will export/import all the animation's frames and a list with the positions (liste.txt) into/from a folder.
But the animation will be slightly wrong positioned if it's just shrinked and the old positions are used.
Depending on the width, each frame's center will be shifted to the left by a different number of pixels:
(old frame width - new frame width)/2
If the width in an animation cycle does not change that much, it might be not a big problem.
And you could just correct the positions with your program when you do the resizing.

4-24 hours means about 14-82 seconds per frame. That seems ambitious

 

[Romanez]

OH nice. didnt know mulpatcher can do that... I didnt like that program. xD

I´m not shrinking any image just paiting over it or erasing a part. Shrink is only possible for monster anims. I´m doing wereables.

Yes It is very ambitius and unhealthy... this work burns a lot. So I ever try to use less time possible. This is how I´m doing it to safe all time I can.

For example for a new platemail chest anim I just erased the bottom of the chest. (5 segs per image)
I want to recreate a pirate platemail chest (if you know what kind of platemail chest I mean.)

For Heavy rifle I just erased the bow of a crossbow. (8 segs per image)

For lightsaber I just painted a "false white" over the gray blade of a longsword using paint (8 segs per image)
then in tile data make partial hue and.... This saber takes me less time cause lightsaber will be only visible in warmode, so no frame for corpse, for walking... this safe me a lot of work and I think will be a nice feature.

This is what I already have done but not tested.
When I finaly export them into mul, if everything goes fine I´ll do expected fixes and start this two new anims:

-Military Pants:
I did not start new pants but I try how much time takes per frame... (18 segs), I´ll start it when I find a way to do it in less than 15 segs, I´ll have to use gimp2 instead paint fot this.

Mordern Leather Armor: Remove shoulder and little part of the bottom of leather chest armor. (11 segs per frame)


For me its not possible to do each frame from zero. No time, no mental health for that. So All anims I´m going to create will be paiting over other images.

There is another project I want to do weapons anim in less than an hour. I´ll post it. Maybe there is people interested

Ty for the help! i´ll try mul patcher