Hacking character animations?

[ShockSlayer]

Anyone ever do anything with animations? Can't seem to find anything out there or here.

I'm mostly interested in just swapping pre-existing animations around, like swapping Ganon's taunt out for his sword swingin' win pose, or something similar.

Not too sure how feasible any of this is, or where the information is stored in the iso, so not sure where to start I guess.

SS

 

[_Liquid_]

I've noticed in Melee: SD Remix Samus's up-smash animation has been replaced by her up throw animation, so it's definitely possible, I just don't know how they did it.

 

[ShockSlayer]

Interesting. Now I know who to talk to, thank you!

 

[danaplz]

I've noticed in Melee: SD Remix Samus's up-smash animation has been replaced by her up throw animation, so it's definitely possible, I just don't know how they did it.

"They" is a guy called phish-it, who contributed his Samus upsmash animation hack to the SD Remix mod. You can find more of his awesome animation hacks on his Youtube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8carGl5P7o

 

[VietGeek]

phish-it posted a guide on how to do such animation swaps some time ago. Here it is: http://smashboards.com/threads/melee-hacks-and-you-updated-1-7-11.247119/page-101#post-15136472

 

[ShockSlayer]

Oh man, this looks awesome, thank you so much.

 

[phish-it]

I haven't had luck using victory animations over attacks; the game either froze or the character stood idle (but the victory sound effects sometimes worked). Let me know if you figure out a way to do it.

 

[ShockSlayer]

Messed around with this a bit, I managed to swap around some sound effects but couldn't find the pointers for the win/taunt poses, as far as I can tell masterhand doesn't list them. I guess I'll have to mess around with it a bit more when I get the chance. This is super neat though, definitely gonna have some fun with this.

 

[ShockSlayer]

Had some time to mess around with this. I certainly got some...interesting results.

I wrote down a bunch of stuff too, I can kind of show what parts of the ID for the animations go where in Masterhand, and I noticed that setting the yellow byte to 40 constantly loops the animation, and I think there were a few other things. I couldn't get anything solid from the victory poses, just what's seen above.

SS

 

[ShockSlayer]

Melee hacking is great in small amounts. I'm glad I'm not trying to kill myself over widescreen so I can do more random junk like this:

And of course, files:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/sexxdqcnm4w4z7f/GanonV3.zip

Haven't messed around with the victory poses anymore, I want to but I'm not really sure what to try next.

Also, I think it'd be possible to make a sword based Ganondorf moveset, that'd be pretty awesome.

SS

 

[Yogibur]

Very cool I hope melee gets more hacking attention

 

[Steelia]

phish-it posted a guide on how to do such animation swaps some time ago. Here it is: http://smashboards.com/threads/melee-hacks-and-you-updated-1-7-11.247119/page-101#post-15136472

So I actually gave this a shot & followed the tutorial, changing Bowser's dair to his aerial-down light throw. The first half of the move works out just fine. But when it reaches the 2nd half of the move, he withdraws into his shell! So it's like he's performing part of his dair. I was able to change his landing animations, and those work fine (swapping his dair land with his fair land). What could be causing this?

Nvmd, got it. Kind of odd how he turns around after performing the move in the air, though.

 

[phish-it]

Yeah the shell withdraw is a model mod located where the attack is.

 

[Quillion]

It's impossible to create new animations, correct?

Animation swapping is a thing, but what about creating animations?

 

[Stratocaster]

It's not impossible, but it is an unknown at the moment. Here's what I can tell you. The animations are stored in files that say Pl__Aj.dat where the __ is a character ID like Fx for Fox. It is also possible to see where each animation in the file starts and ends and which animation it is for. Now as for what the hex means or how to change it... no one knows. There is a list of offsets at the end each animation which are pointers, but they don't line up with like the # of frames or anything, but they are definitely a hint. Just changing stuff and seeing if it doesn't freeze and you get some change is honestly the best place to start. Or go find out how Brawl animations are stored because they may similar.

 

[Goatlink]

It's not impossible, but it is an unknown at the moment. Here's what I can tell you. The animations are stored in files that say Pl__Aj.dat where the __ is a character ID like Fx for Fox. It is also possible to see where each animation in the file starts and ends and which animation it is for. Now as for what the hex means or how to change it... no one knows. There is a list of offsets at the end each animation which are pointers, but they don't line up with like the # of frames or anything, but they are definitely a hint. Just changing stuff and seeing if it doesn't freeze and you get some change is honestly the best place to start. Or go find out how Brawl animations are stored because they may similar.

is there a guide on how to identify the animations in those files? Like, what is an animation, what is not, when do they start and end in the file.

 

[Stratocaster]

No, I figured out what I know on my own. I don't know that anyone has posted this before. Go to masterhand (I assume you know what this is) and on a subaction there is a place it says unknown offset 1 and 2 under script offset. I believe unknown offset 1 is the offset of the animation in the animation file. This is from memory, but it's definitely the longer of the two offsets. Anyway, the offset there is slightly shifted by 0x20 because of the header I think. Go to the next subaction and that tells you where the next one starts. The one before will end approximately before that one starts. The file is only animations, and they are in the same order as the subactions are (which you can see in masterhand).