EDIT3: *i promise this'll b the last one* bored, is there a way to just animate with keyframes? i got a simple animation done, what i did wa erase all the frames so i just had the root frame. i duplicated it and modified, then duplicated that etc... is there another intended way to animate?
Nop, sorry, I know it's a very time consumming method, but that's the only thing you can do with the current interface. I'll try to work on some frames interpolation method in order to cut the requeried time.
also, i seem to have encountered either a glitch or just a misunderstanding or something. when loading field models, clicking one with textures brings up a thing on the side that shows one of them, and has a dropdown menu, and some buttons. on closer inspection, trying to use the dropdown menu to see the different textures results in kimera trying to load a .P files, which if you DO load it, it puts it on top of the p file you just clicked on to see its textures. also, hitting "remove textures" just deletes the .P file from the bone. im not sure about change and add textures yet.
....in writing this, it seems to have stopped doing this now. was that normal?
Well, you probably were using the add part button. It let's you stack several P files on a single bone. The texture options can be accesed through the "Show texture options" button.
The current problem with the modified field models is they are taller than the original ones. Under some circumstances, this may cause the models to look sunken on the ground. This can be adjusted on the animation. by the way, field animations were also editable unsing Kimera084. It was rather buggy though...
Here you have my manual explaining how to use the new features:
Textures
This version of Kimera let's you do some operations releated with the textures. This options are initially hidden, so you must press the "Show Texture options" button to display the controls.
Keep in mind that field models and battle models organize their textures in different ways:
- Field models: There is a separate list of textures for every part of the model. Thus the part you want to modify must be selected in order to acces to it's textures list.
- Battle models: There is a single list of textures for the whole model. The list of textures is allways available. Keep in mind there is a limit of 10 textures per battle model. If you need more textures, you can allways combine more than one on a single file
You can see a drop down list (where you can select the texture you are going to operate), and up-down button that let's you change textures order, and 3 more options. Let's take a closer look at what all this controls do:
Change texture order
Final Fantasy VII can apply one texture to a group of polygons in a model. The texture to be applied is specified as an index in the list of loaded textures. You can change the index of every texture using the up-down control next to the textures list. Pressing the up button will decrease the index and pressing up will increse it.
Change texture
You can change directly a texture on the list. When you press the "Change Texture" button a dialog will pop up to let you select a texture file (TEX, BMP, JPG, GIF and ICO formats are supported). The selected texture will be removed and the new texture will take it's index.
Add texture
You may need to add a new texture, specially if you are using a model imported with PCreator. Pressing the "Add texture button" will let you choose a new texture that will be added at the end of the list.
PD.: Thanks to polaris_027 for his head model. Hope he doesn't mind me posting how it looks like.
Remove texture
This option removes a texture from the list. It's purpose is simply removing textures loaded accidentally. All texture indices after the chosen one will be decreased by one.
Animations
The animations (both battle and fiels ones) can be almost completly edited (there is some data on the battle models who's meaning is still unknown for me). The interface is a bit unconfortable, though. The animation options re hidden by default, and you must press the "Show frame options" in order to display them.
Now you will notice a box tittled "Bone Rotation". It will display the rotation on the X, Y and Z axes for the selected bone and the selected frame. You can change this data by pressing the up-down buttons next to every text box or write the value you want directly there. Please note if there is no bone selected this field will be disabled.
You may also want to change the root rotation and root translation of the model. You can switch between those different data fields by pressing the up-down button next to the "Frame data part" label.
Then you also have a couple more options for frames:
- Duplicate Frame: Duplicates the currently selected frame. This way you can change the duplicate to define the next frame ofthe animation.
- Remove Frame: Removes the currently selected frame. You can't do this if there is only one frame on the animation.
Notes about animations:
When working with animations please keep in mind the following things:
- Be careful with the gimbal lock. Depending on the rotation you define you may notice it doesn't look as it should. This happens because some of the axes gets locked. This is a mathematical limitation of the euler angles description of rotations. It can be solved though several methods (quaternions, matrices, etc.), but I think none of the is compatible with FF7
- The battle animations don't have a root rotation. Thus, this data can't be edited on battle animations.
- The weapon animations are independet of the model animations. So if you change the model animation keep in mind to change the weapon animation also. Select the weapon in order to acces to it's data.
Well, hope this solves most of your doubts. If not, don't heasitate to ask.
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