Animations and meshes... How to work with them?

francot514

francot514

Well-Known Member
Ive read about TSO animations and meshes files in the wiki niotso, but im little dissapointed becuase, there are kind different with the sims 1 animations, by example: The objects animations in sims 1 are a collection of files that are based in skins like the .cmb or .bcf files, this includes all other like skelents, suits, inside their offset, and are added into far files. read this: http://simtech.sourceforge.net/tech/bcf.html.

But when i research for the TSO animations, i only found all the different file types added to .dat files, and skins are replaced, now there are only .anims, .bindings, .skels, .mesh. And there are not convertable to the previus ones, becuase this are extended from ther other and are orderder in byte endians.

Any of you currently have noticed and worked with this, or there are any suggestion you can give me to make the conversions...
 
I've noticed the switch in animation and mesh formats between TS1 and TSO. I'm guessing the old .cmd and .bcf formats had some limitations. TS1 was in development during the late 90s, soo.
 
It isn't really that difficult.
The *.mesh is basically a *.bmf (format changed slightly, I thiink, but not substantially), and the *.anim, *.apr, *.bnd and *.po make up a bmf.cmx file.
I think the cmx.bmf file might also have contained the skeleton (*.skel in TSO), which is really stupid because there's no need to duplicate it.
 
They all use the same kind of system, so using the info on niotso wiki in conjunction with the bcf docs you should be able to make a converter.
 
I no have time to make converters right now, also i understand about the files from tso are separated from original skin mesh, but none has tried to convert it before then i have no directions to...
 
Directions?
Why would you need "directions"? This isn't magic - in fact it is quite easy.
The BMF format is almost an exact match, field for field, of the mesh format, aside from the texture reference stuck up top.
Then you have your BCF format, which contains a bunch of stuff that was divided in TSO. It starts by describing one or more skeletons. The skeletons follow the same format as in TSO. Then it describes a suit name and a suit type (these can be ignored), as well as a skin name and a bone name. You attach the skin (mesh) to the corresponding bone.
Then it lists a number of skills.
Each skill has an animation name (which is contained in *.cfp files in The Sims) so you can load it. Then it lists the duration and distance of the animation, as well as some flag (can probably be ignored). Then there's the total position and rotation entries, they allow you to loop through the animation file. Then it lists a number of motions, which are inside animations in TSO. The motions are the same, and they are described here.
Then there's the CFP format, which is equivalent to a anim in TSO, minus the motions.
The link to CFP describes how to decompress it (the values for TS1 animations are delta compressed).
If you want to convert TSO animations to TS1, I would try leaving them uncompressed to see if they load. If they don't, then use the formula suggested by SimTech.

There - I just gave you directions. Now run, Alice, run! Down the rabbit hole!
 
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I understand you, but is not easy like you say, beucase i have tried exporting animations and trying to load in sims 1 wont work, also converting .anim files to .cmx.bcf also wont work, the only way out is trying to recreate the anims using the same mesh and skins, that is possibly only way...
 
How were you attempting to convert it? It should definitely work if you get all of the resources required packed in the correct format and loaded however TS1 does it.
 
Rhys is right. You can't convert a *.anim to a *.bcf.cmx. Most of the info in the anim goes into a *.cfp (compressed floating point) file. Name, Duration, Distance and IsMoving goes into a *.bcf.cmx, but that's like 1% of the information in the *.anim file. Look at the formats, it isn't hard!
 
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