Can anyone give me a list of the animation a biped actually needs to work ingame and what information must be in which frames? This is my first biped that does not use a pre-built bone-set so I have to make all new animations for it but I'm not sure what I need to test it, and what is just extra.

Also, the biped will only use one animation for one type of weapon and one type of vehicle.

use cads animation importer in max a look at the looooooooooong list of animations XD

First, the importer is bluesteak. Second, I was asking what animations that were required to actually work in game AND what information is needed for each frame(like how a vehicles aiming animation has it looking in different directions and ranges as specific frames) Last, importing an overlay animation through bluestreak causes the biped to become deformed an makes it extremely hard to tell what each frame is doing.

If I could get the information by simply using the animation importer, I would not have bothered making this thread.

Oh, good, I thought it was just me.

I really, really need to know how to compile/set up third person animations, too (making a new weapon class).
I'm not sure exactly which ones are required, but I think aim-still and aim-move are required, because without them my set of animations didn't show up. I tried duplicating and using rocket launcher overlays, those didn't work.

It depends on what you want the biped to do. There are few "rules", but I'll do my best... There are more "patterns" if anything else.

Animation names: animations are identified by [unit] ([weapon]) ([weapon-label]) animation-name, going as far down the heirarchy as necessary. Ex: "stand look", "stand rifle idle", "stand rifle ar fire-1", and so on.

Aiming overlays: bipeds generally use 9-frame aiming overlays unless you're doing something really, really, really weird that needs a turret that rotates 180 degrees without the biped moving or... something similar. Aim overlays are split up as follows:
Frame 0: default aiming pose
Frames 1-3: down pitch
Frames 4-6: center pitch
Frames 7-9: up pitch
Frames 1, 4, 7: right yaw (with respect to biped's forward)
Frames 2, 5, 8: center yaw
Frames 3, 6, 9: left yaw (with respect to biped's forward)

These are combined so that frame 1 should be down-right, 2 should be down-center, etc.

There is no preset rotation amount that "needs" to be applied on each frame; that's why you have the aiming bound values in the animation tag. Just take note of whatever you're using and enter that in. However, it is a good idea to use yaw values in the neighborhood of 90 degrees for the non-vehicle poses. If this cannot be done (for whatever reason), you need to set the "stationary turning threshold" field in the actual biped tag to match your minimum yaw value (otherwise things will tend to break). Also note that the 9-frame system means you have one frame for left/right/up/down values; be sure to enter this in the tag as well. (You can have more and modify your animations as such but... that seems a bit beyond what you're going for).

Also note that the animation import process is fairly "smart". If you have an animation present for one unit/weapon/weapon label and not for others, it automatically fills in the ones that don't exist with ones that do (except in some cases where you obviously would want to have a unique animation). Thus, you only need one talking overlay, etc. When in doubt though, have an animation to fill an important slot for a given unit/weapon/weapon type.

Lastly, I've specified the animation extension (.jma, .jmo, etc) that I have used in the past for these animations; others may work (and in fact may work better) but this is what I've been using for the past few years and I haven't had any major problems yet.

Now I'll go down the hierarchy of the tag; note that these are just the bare minimum and you should consult existing tags to see what is needed for specific biped types (players, hunter-based AI, etc):

Units:
At the very least you need a "stand" unit. This is your biped's "default" pose.

--Airborne-dead: .jma; you should have this unless your biped is deleted upon death (ex: flood spore)
--Landing-dead: same as above
--Look (head aiming overlay): .jmo; you don't need this if for whatever reason it doesn't make sense to have it (ex: the Monitor) but in most cases you do need it.
--Talk: .jmo; frame 0 = mouth closed, frame 1 = mouth open; not required.

Other acceptable units are "crouch", "flee", "flaming" (all self-explanitory), and any vehicle labels you want to support (for example: w-driver). Vehicle labels need the following (but none of the others):
--Enter: .jmm; represetns getting into the vehicle
--Exit: .jmm; represents getting out of the vehicle

Unit IK points: you can define IK connections that are to be made at any time the biped is in this "unit" pose. For example, connecting the hand markers to the grips on the Warthog's steering wheel.

Unit->Weapons:
These can be named anything you want. You need at least one. By convention, "unarmed" is used for an unarmed pose and "fixed" is used for things that have only one pose, while "rifle", "pistol", etc are used for actual weapons. (Is this more than convention? Maybe but idk for sure). Regardless, you need at least one of these (this also applies to vehicle labels!).

-Grip marker: this is the marker (if anything) on a weapon using this pose that is attached to the biped; blank uses weapon origin
-Hand marker: this is the marker on the biped that weapons are attached to; blank uses biped origin

If it doesn't make sense for a biped to have a particular animation (ex: a move-front in a vehicle seat or a turning animation for a sentinel) then you probably don't need it.

--Idle: .jma; you need this unless you know why you don't need it.
--Turn-left: .jmt; biped should reorient itself so that it points the "stationary turning threshold" to the left
--Turn-right: .jmt; same as above but to the right
--Move-front: .jma; biped should physically move forward in the animation; not needed for any biped that never moves in this direction (ex: hunters never move backwards so they have no move-back). Also note that you need to fill in the "left foot keyframe" and "right foot keyframe" fields in the actual animation part of the tag; these are used for footsteps and such.
--Move-left: same as above
--Move-right: same as above
--Move-back: same as above
--Airborne: .jma; (I think, maybe .jmz works too); should be able to loop at a given frame; this frame needs to be set at the animation's "loop frame index" (the frame cam be 0). The non-loop part is generally a "jumping" motion.
--Land-soft: .jma; represents landing after a short fall
--Land-hard: .jma; represents landing after a long fall
--Throw-grenade: .jma (or .jmr?); grenade throwing animation. Set the frame the grenade should leave the biped's hand in the "keyframe index" field of the animation.
--Aim-still (gun aiming overlay): .jmo; aiming bounds when the biped is not moving. you need this unless you know why you don't.
--Aim-move (gun aiming overlay): same as above but for when the biped is moving.
--Melee: .jma; this is only used if the user of the biped is an AI. Player melees go somewhere else.

Weapon IK points: you can define IK connections that are to be made at any time the biped is in this "weapon" pose. For example, connecting the left hand marker to the weapon's left hand grip.

Unit->Weapon->Weapon Type
This is where you specify which weapon labels (ar, pr, pp, ne, hp, etc - all the ones that are used by weapons. this is why they actually matter) are used by the biped. If a biped does not have a weapon label it cannot use the weapon. This is also how you specify which "weapon" pose uses which weapon types; for example, you'd put all the pistol labels under your "pistol" weapon pose and all the rifle labels under your "rifle" weapon pose.
--Reload-1: .jmr; this is for reloading
--Fire-1: .jmo; this is for firing
--Melee .jmr; this is for player melees.

Obviously there are more animations in the weapon type section but they are all self-explanatory; you need them if that particular weapon needs them. Also note that it's probably going to be more efficient to make a few weapon type animations and just copy them in Guerilla for other unit/weapon poses that need them. Also, tool will lie to you and say that some of these need to be overlays when they don't.

Also, even for an "unarmed" pose you need at least one weapon type; just add an empty one with a blank name in Guerilla.

Lastly: damage animations. I honestly have no idea how the game determines how to select them. Just look at some existing bipeds for this one. Player bipeds shouldn't have h-pings (animations for when the unit takes heavy damage) because they interrupt gameplay.

...Yeah this is a lot. Hopefully I haven't left anything major out. Good luck!
Edited by teh lag on Jul 2, 2011 at 11:58 AM

Hey teh_lag, why haven't you tried to make custom bones and new animations for, say, the Elite or Hunter? Just always wondered since you know so much on what to do.

Uh, why would I want to make new bones when the ones that exist now are perfectly good?

And anyhow I've already had my hands in those assets. I of course did a ton of animation work for the playable Elite biped, and I was also the one who made the CMT Hunter_v2 tags, which involved upscaling the existing animations and making a few new ones. I also made the CMT Brute_v2 (except for Dano's lovely texture work and some modeling assistance from WOL), so it's not like I need to be able to say "I have made a completely custom biped"... since I already have. Multiple times even, counting the original CMT Brutes.
Edited by teh lag on Jul 2, 2011 at 03:12 PM

As far as 'required' animation goes, what's the bare minimum I need to animate in order to animate a new weapon type (gravity hammer)? All those that you described between Idle and Melee, plus all of them again for crouching?
Edit: Just so I'm sure. Not because I tldr'd your post.
Edited by SlappyThePirate on Jul 2, 2011 at 04:44 PM

Thank you teh lag that is exactly the information I needed, I appreciate it.

Since you're not building up from scratch, just duplicate an existing weapon block in your biped and replace whatever you feel will be necessary to make the weapon look right.
Edited by teh lag on Jul 2, 2011 at 06:14 PM

Yeah, like reanimating idle, fire, moving, melee and such. Do I need to make new overlays, or can I just use another weapon's overlays?

You don't need to but it might be a good idea.