Essentials Series/Custom Animations

Essentials Series
Introduction Industrial Park basics Editing Assets Templates Links Dispatchers Tikis and Enemies
Sound and Music Extracting Models Custom Models/Textures Custom Animations
Boulders Buttons Cameras Counters Conditionals Duplicatotron Particles Platforms Portals Simple Objects Slides Springboards Stage Controllers Talk Boxes Timers Triggers User Interfaces
Porting a GameCube level to Xbox

This page is part of the Essential Series modding tutorials. In this guide, you will learn how to create custom ANIM assets for BFBB, and possibly other Heavy Iron games, using the BFBBAnimTools script for 3ds Max. You can get here.

Importing Your Model

If you don't have your rigged model in 3ds Max already, import it from the DFF (see Extracting Models).

File:CustomAnimGuide Step1.png

Imported DFF Model

Running the Script

Next, once your model has been imported, click the utilities icon (the wrench in the corner of the tools panel.) and find the "MAXScript" button, and click on it. Then, another panel called MAXScript will open up, with the buttons "Open Listener", "New Script", "Open Script", and "Run Script." Click the "Run Script" button and then a file menu will open up, browse to the "BFBBAnimTools.ms" file, and click "open". Now another option in the utilities drop down will appear labeled "BFBBAnimTools". Click on it to open its options. Now you have the BFBBAnimTools open!

File:RunMaxscript.jpg

The steps to run the MAXscript file.

Exporting the Animation

Once you've edited the animation to your liking, you can export it using BFBBAnimTools and import in Industrial Park. You must use the Asset Header Editor for this, either on an existing ANIM or a new one.

Using the Animation

If you're importing over an existing animation, this step is not needed as the new animation will replace the previous one. Otherwise, you'll need to add your animation to a ALST asset (you can place an ALST template with IP, or use an existing ALST). Then, add the ALST asset ID to the Animation_AssetID field of the Entity asset you want to have that animation (the model must also be the one with the proper skeleton!). You can send the PlayAnim or PlayAnimLoop events to the Entity with the index of the animation in the ALST on the first argument to play the animation when you need to. If you are confused, you can check an existing animated asset to see how this is done in the original game (a good example is the checkpoint, it has multiple animations and you can even place a Checkpoint template to look at it).