• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

BAB / Bitmap Animation Builder

Started by OverPoP, May 31, 2009, 07:43:22 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

OverPoP

Hi, all
My name is OverPoP(過密市長) from Japan :)
I have made a tool "BAB (Bitmap Animation Builder)" for making SC4 animated-props.
BAB is founded on the denham2010's "AnimatedProp Tutorial"
   
I analyzed and modified his method, and arranged it as a single software tool.
   

BAB can make your original SC4-animated-props.
   
BAB works with BAT and constructs SC4-animation using BAT-made pictures.
   
BAB's animated props are compatible with SC4 originals
   
If you want, you can make your city more active like ...
         

BAB's animations are not large, not good for the long stroke movements and not good for non looped animation (single action).
But there are many small looping movements in a real city.
If you want some of them to activate your city, now you have a tool "BAB" for that.
Enjoy! gmax-animation, BAB-animation, LotEditor-animation and SC4-animation  :thumbsup:


// DownLoad //
You can download BAB from the LEX #2082.
Please read Readme.chm before you start BAB.
If you cannot open Readme.chm, remove it's security-option or directly access my site's Readme.htm.
User's Manual is also on-line BABHelp.htm.
BAB only works with BAT(gmax), does not work with BAT4MAX(3dsmax).


User's Manual is not enough to explain all of BAB-animation, and also my English is not enough to do it.
But some BSC-team members were already testing BAB and got it's basic knowledge.
And moreover, there are not a few Japanese BATters and MODders in The SC4D.
So, I hope and believe they would help me(よろしくお願い致しします!).

And ...
HD? What's that? Is that delicious?
Sorry, SC4 bitmap-animation has no space and no pointer for the HD :'(.
SC4Lots by me --- but only 4 themes at:MayorOverpop's junkyard

superhands

OverPoP, thank you for taking the time to make such a useful tool. &apls
this will definitely be handy ;D


dave

TheTeaCat

OverPoP San

Welcome and Thank you for sharing this wonderful tool with the community.
It will change the game forever ;D ;D

:satisfied:
TTC
Kettle's on. Milk? Sugars?    ps I don't like Earl Grey  $%Grinno$%
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - If you're not part of the solution , you're part of the problem!
"Never knock on Death's door: Ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!"
Tales at TeaTime      Now A proper NUT      TTC plays GRV II

Pat

WOW Overpop you have made such a wonderful tool that I believe will make it easier for all BATter's to do animations now!! I only wish I could BAT now...

Don't forget the SC4D Podcast is back and live on Saturdays @ 12 noon CST!! -- The Podcast soon to Return Here Linkie

JoeST

Fantastic tool overpop, thanks for sharing it with us :)

Joe
Copperminds and Cuddleswarms

MAS71

&apls I praise your grand achievement the BAB !!  &apls
Congratulation to completion of the B.A.B and opened to public OverPoP san !  :)
SC4 is not yet end, and it would make some POSSIBILITIES thanks for your B.A.B as well, I belive that !!

I have some images of animated made by your BAB when we had beta-testing. "$Deal"$

-Sunken Road with traffics :
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/7797/animation05ur01du8.gif
-Night scene :
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1604/animation05ur02hk0.gif

Various Animation :
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4248/animation04go3.gif

Othres :
http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/7620/animation07bridge1fa2.gif



Pat

Mas-san those are some sweet test there!!! I love the sunken cars!!! Also the bowling alley, btw what was that crossing the canal?

Don't forget the SC4D Podcast is back and live on Saturdays @ 12 noon CST!! -- The Podcast soon to Return Here Linkie

MAS71

- Transparency PROP on the BAB -
It's already reported on BSC-Board by OverPoP san. "$Deal"$

I did try to make it for confirm to details, Look out this animated prop with transparency here.


You can understand about a stats of transparency with each number of Opacity in this pic.
They are able to displayed right from 100% to 60%, however they displayed without any different from 50% to 0%.





@Pat san
Quotebtw what was that crossing the canal?
Hahaha... :D What do you think abou it ?
This aidea was born from Callagrafx san and Hogmeister san . ;)
so I don't able to talk any more about it now... $%Grinno$%
This is a gondola carrying a car and a person to across the canal.

Bobbi

@OverPop san,
What a great tools! Interesting! :thumbsup:

And it's a pity because it can't make a HD animation prop. ()sad()
I hope it can make a HD animation prop in the future. ;)

---Bobbi

2010.8.4 - I get on SC4D with PSP. So cool.:D
2010.8.14 - I can get on the Internet at home.:)

Swamper77

Quote from: Bobbi on June 01, 2009, 06:17:29 AM
And it's a pity because it can't make a HD animation prop. ()sad()
I hope it can make a HD animation prop in the future. ;)

Animations created by this tool are like AVI video files that you find on the internet, they aren't really high quality. So it's likely that HD animations can never be made.

-Jan
You can call me Jan, if you want to.
Pagan and Proud!

Mrqs

Hi,

I have downloaded BAB and tried to install. I made the folder SC4BAB, and copied the  BABbox.ms into the gmax/gamepacks/BAT/scripts folder. The demo1.gmax into the scenes folder.
But when I started the BAB, after the BAT button and the BAT/gmax started - in the BAT rollout there's no BAB(export). Just the same as always BAT.
What have I done wrong?

This BAB version don't work with BAT4Max?

MAS71

@Mrqs
QuoteThis BAB version don't work with BAT4Max?
'Bat4Max'? This scptipts for 3dsmax, not for BAT(Gmax). ;)
btw, This version BAB is not compatible with Bat4Max(3dsmax) and others.
It's for only B.A.T(gmax) now. ;)
or
If you already installed other scripts(i.e Simfox's HD and more), You should remove(backup) them in each scripts folder beforehand. ;)


SimFox

#12
if i may...
i don't think it would be possible to make HD animations...
HD props/models basically fool the game utilizing two different measurement systems - pixels used for FSHs and meters, used for s3D. Since in animations only one system is used  - namely pixels the size you get is what you have.
Speaking about adapting it to work with ba4max - it should be totally possible...

OverPoP

#13
I reviced BAB-program before the releasing to save user's time of copying gmax-scripts into the BAB-scripts folder, but with considering of other modding scripts, it might be better to let the user to copy all standard gmax-scripts from zip :-[

If BAT4Max makes pictures as TGA in temp folder, BAB can catch BAT-pictures.
BAB forces BAT to stay and undelete all TGAs and SC4Models in temp folder, and after every frames are exported BAB picks up a picture one by one.     

Quote from: JanAnimations created by this tool are like AVI video files that you find on the internet, they aren't really high quality. So it's likely that HD animations can never be made.
Yes and a full-length-day&night animation(only 20 seconds) eats huge memories (13.5Mb) in spite of non HD :(
SC4Lots by me --- but only 4 themes at:MayorOverpop's junkyard

Mrqs

Hi,

It's me again  &ops

I have throw out my BAT, Gmax and so on. Then I istalled it from the very beginning. I have VB6 installed too. I was doing step by step from the BAB manual. But when I tried to load demo1.gmax I received the error: "The Scene XRef file: "C:\Program Files\gmax\gamepacks\BAT\scenes\startup\TB2_CameraLightRig.gmax" can not be found". I hope I have not to say that there is in THAT location the right camera light rig.  I don't know what I'm doing wrong.  :'(
I tried to make my own animation. I made it, it works in the gmax animation preview. But when I try to open BAB and export the animation, when BAB close BAT, on the bottom of BAB window I have the red error: "BMP-files not complete".  :bomb:
Please tell me what I have to change to make the BAB work properly?

MAS71

#15
@Mrqs
Yes.....I have a same error as you have. ;D but It's ok, please do not worry anymore. ;)

Please open again "demo1.gmax" ;)
Click a 'Browse',  'Add' and choose directry '....\gmax\gamepacks\BAT\scenes\CamRightRig' and click 'UsePath' and 'OK'.
and You should open again "demo1.gmax". :)

on next, You may be have other error 'Missing Map Files' in this time.
Naturally, We don't have their textures which used in this models. so You should ignore it. ;D
You should re-mapping for them with some texture-images which you like. ;)


And, Let my know how long Frames you have in your animation? and how many Steps ?
Does your all of animation-model within the SSB()what()

SimFox

Quote from: OverPoP on June 03, 2009, 08:31:11 AM
I reviced BAB-program before the releasing to save user's time of copying gmax-scripts into the BAB-scripts folder, but with considering of other modding scripts, it might be better to let the user to copy all standard gmax-scripts from zip :-[

If BAT4Max makes pictures as TGA in temp folder, BAB can catch BAT-pictures.
BAB forces BAT to stay and undelete all TGAs and SC4Models in temp folder, and after every frames are exported BAB picks up a picture one by one.     
Yes and a full-length-day&night animation(only 20 seconds) eats huge memories (13.5Mb) in spite of non HD :(

Inn a sense it not necessary to force BAB to work directly with bat4max, As long as all it needs is TGA images (I assume with alpha split), then it could be easily replicated on the side, so to say. The whole need for GMAX for Bat4max boils down to generation of SC4Model file. Since here we don't do that and all the IDs are assigned manually/separately it could all be done with rather simple script.
One thing I'm still a bit perplexed about, is that framing feature (Max Size; 248x248; 124x124) what is it function and why does it have to be there... I took a look at the denham2010's "AnimatedProp Tutorial" and didn't notice same feature/step there...
in terms of size.... does BAB do any compression of the images it uses as frame animation?

Mrqs

Quote from: MAS71 on June 04, 2009, 03:04:22 PM
@Mrqs
Yes.....I have a same error as you have. ;D but It's ok, please do not worry anymore. ;)

Please open again "demo1.gmax" ;)
Click a 'Browse',  'Add' and choose directry '....\gmax\gamepacks\BAT\scenes\CamRightRig' and click 'UsePath' and 'OK'.
and You should open again "demo1.gmax". :)

on next, You may be have other error 'Missing Map Files' in this time.
Naturally, We don't have their textures which used in this models. so You should ignore it. ;D
You should re-mapping for them with some texture-images which you like. ;)


And, Let my know how long Frames you have in your animation? and how many Steps ?
Does your all of animation-model within the SSB()what()


Thank you for your help. The first part (the wrong path) now works ok. But when I loaded demo1.gmax and exported it to the BAB (95f and 5f) - The BAB still says:"BMP-files not complete"
My own animation (which I mentioned in my previous post) is 100f long.

OverPoP

Quote from: Mrqs on June 05, 2009, 03:54:24 AM
Thank you for your help. The first part (the wrong path) now works ok. But when I loaded demo1.gmax and exported it to the BAB (95f and 5f) - The BAB still says:"BMP-files not complete"
My own animation (which I mentioned in my previous post) is 100f long.
It seems BAB has completed to convert all BAT-picture-files to BMP-files, then BAB saves a file-list as anim.inf in the "...\gamepacks\BAT\BAB\demo1" folder. And after that, BAB opens anim.inf to confirm all of the bmp-files are exist in the demo1-folder. Error:"BMP-files are not complete" means anim.inf is broken or some(or all) bmp-files are lost. How's in your demo1-folder, exsiting anim.inf and 840 bmp-files?
SC4Lots by me --- but only 4 themes at:MayorOverpop's junkyard

OverPoP

Quote from: SimFox on June 04, 2009, 11:41:52 PM
Inn a sense it not necessary to force BAB to work directly with bat4max, As long as all it needs is TGA images (I assume with alpha split), then it could be easily replicated on the side, so to say. The whole need for GMAX for Bat4max boils down to generation of SC4Model file. Since here we don't do that and all the IDs are assigned manually/separately it could all be done with rather simple script.
One thing I'm still a bit perplexed about, is that framing feature (Max Size; 248x248; 124x124) what is it function and why does it have to be there... I took a look at the denham2010's "AnimatedProp Tutorial" and didn't notice same feature/step there...
in terms of size.... does BAB do any compression of the images it uses as frame animation?

Thanks.
When I found TGAs in the temp-folder, I shouted  :o!...I could get non-compressed images to avoid to make double-compressed inferior pictures ( DXT3 to BMP, BMP to DXT3). BAB uses SC4Model to know all TGAs are made by the existance of SC4Model itself and refer the exemplar file to get occupant-size of the animation.

Max.Size: 124x124 is for the SC4 standard animation (true max. is 127x127, I made a limit for 4x4 DXT3-compression), and 248x248 is from my idea.
In the AVP-files...frame-width, frame-height, centering position(CP) x-offset and CP y-offset are all saved as signed-byte (0 to 127) . CP (links to gmax-origin) can be set freely in the 127x127 area and of course set at the corner of it. I thout If I could gather four of it having same CP, I could make a quad-size animation at onece. BAB makes that as 248x248.
SC4Lots by me --- but only 4 themes at:MayorOverpop's junkyard