Mjmannella's Projects

[Fern]

From Jay: Here is a swinging log for ZT's Asian elephant. It uses the same log graphics as the one for ZT's African elephant, but is a separate swinging log object. That is because the animations of an elephant using the swinging log have to be part of the swinging log object in order to avoid a graphical delay. ZT's swinging log includes the animations of the African elephant using it. This swinging log includes animations of the Asian elephant using it. This is a new swinging log object and not a hack of ZT's swinging log or a hack of ZT's Asian elephant. It does not need a ".dll". It uses the same purchase menu icons as ZT's swinging log, but has a different name in the purchase menu, being called "Swinging Log For Asian Elephant". Unlike ZT's swinging log, this swinging log is available right away in the Toys section of the purchase menu. Only adults of ZT's Asian elephant can use it. At some point, this will be released at either DG or ZKL.

SwingingLogForAsianElephantByJay.zip

[Fern]

More from Jay: To have the American Black Bear use the Asian Black Bear swim animations, I would have "swim = animals/asblckbr/m/swim/swim.ani" and "water_idle = animals/asblckbr/m/swim/swim.ani" instead of the 2 "swim = swim" lines and 1 "water_idle = swim" line in the [m/Animations] section, and I would have "swim = animals/asblckbr/y/swim/swim.ani" and "water_idle = animals/asblckbr/y/swim/swim.ani" instead of the 2 "swim = swim" lines and 1 "water_idle = swim" line in the [y/Animations] section. Then the blackbr directory is not needed in the ".ztd". People using this would have to have either CC or the official Asian black bear download, but that should not be a problem since the download is available.

For the sea turtle, there are a lot of problems. So I will just give general advice concerning animal configuration. Every fPlay, fPlayReverse, fPlayTime, and fPlayWithSound have to be looked at. For each of those, the first thing after "(" has to be looked at. Each of those have to be to the left of "=" in every Animations section and what is to the right of "=" has to be looked at. Each of those need to be animation directory names in the ".ztd". As one example, there are "f = fPlayWithSound(head_bob,headbob)" lines in seaturt.ai. But the [m/Animations] section does not have any "head_bob =" line. The [y/Animations] section has "head_bob = headbob", but there is no headbob animation folder in the ztd or in ZT's sea turtle. Animals that can go on land always need some actions to be in all Animations sections: "idle =", "walk =", "trot =", "run =", "eat =". If an adult animal can go on land, on water terrain, and in a tank, then the adult Characteristics/Integers section has to have "cSwims = 1", "cUnderwater = 1", cWaterNeeded, cLandNeeded, cUnderwaterNeeded, cEnterWaterChance, cEnterLandChance, and cEnterTankChance lines, but no "cOnlySwims = 1" or "cOnlyUnderwater = 1" line.

[mjmannella]

11 hours ago, Fern said:

From Jay: Here is a swinging log for ZT's Asian elephant. It uses the same log graphics as the one for ZT's African elephant, but is a separate swinging log object. That is because the animations of an elephant using the swinging log have to be part of the swinging log object in order to avoid a graphical delay. ZT's swinging log includes the animations of the African elephant using it. This swinging log includes animations of the Asian elephant using it. This is a new swinging log object and not a hack of ZT's swinging log or a hack of ZT's Asian elephant. It does not need a ".dll". It uses the same purchase menu icons as ZT's swinging log, but has a different name in the purchase menu, being called "Swinging Log For Asian Elephant". Unlike ZT's swinging log, this swinging log is available right away in the Toys section of the purchase menu. Only adults of ZT's Asian elephant can use it. At some point, this will be released at either DG or ZKL.

SwingingLogForAsianElephantByJay.zip 171 kB · 0 downloads

This is great, but it's not really what I wanted. My intention was to have Asian elephants using the same toy as African elephants, similar to how multiple cats will use the climbing tree toy. I mentioned earlier that I was okay with having the 4th option (the presence of a static log while the log the elephant plays with is present). Would it be possible to have the swinging log toy use its idle animation while the elephant's swinging animation plays? In the file I sent I moved the swinging log's "used" animation to be a a new animation for the African elephant (to mimic the animation coding of the Asian elephant's animation). Again, I fully understand that it may not look the cleanest, but I believe it's the best fit for what I envision.

3 hours ago, Fern said:

More from Jay: To have the American Black Bear use the Asian Black Bear swim animations, I would have "swim = animals/asblckbr/m/swim/swim.ani" and "water_idle = animals/asblckbr/m/swim/swim.ani" instead of the 2 "swim = swim" lines and 1 "water_idle = swim" line in the [m/Animations] section, and I would have "swim = animals/asblckbr/y/swim/swim.ani" and "water_idle = animals/asblckbr/y/swim/swim.ani" instead of the 2 "swim = swim" lines and 1 "water_idle = swim" line in the [y/Animations] section. Then the blackbr directory is not needed in the ".ztd". People using this would have to have either CC or the official Asian black bear download, but that should not be a problem since the download is available.

For the sea turtle, there are a lot of problems. So I will just give general advice concerning animal configuration. Every fPlay, fPlayReverse, fPlayTime, and fPlayWithSound have to be looked at. For each of those, the first thing after "(" has to be looked at. Each of those have to be to the left of "=" in every Animations section and what is to the right of "=" has to be looked at. Each of those need to be animation directory names in the ".ztd". As one example, there are "f = fPlayWithSound(head_bob,headbob)" lines in seaturt.ai. But the [m/Animations] section does not have any "head_bob =" line. The [y/Animations] section has "head_bob = headbob", but there is no headbob animation folder in the ztd or in ZT's sea turtle. Animals that can go on land always need some actions to be in all Animations sections: "idle =", "walk =", "trot =", "run =", "eat =". If an adult animal can go on land, on water terrain, and in a tank, then the adult Characteristics/Integers section has to have "cSwims = 1", "cUnderwater = 1", cWaterNeeded, cLandNeeded, cUnderwaterNeeded, cEnterWaterChance, cEnterLandChance, and cEnterTankChance lines, but no "cOnlySwims = 1" or "cOnlyUnderwater = 1" line.

For the American black bear, I've already replaced its existing swimming animations with the spritework from the Asian black bear. My issue was having those animations use the .pal file from the American black bear as opposed to the Asian black bear. I have it working fine aside from the colour.

 

As for the sea turtles, my goal was to have only the  young walk on land (and perform subsequent land-only animations), while keeping adults bound to the water (this is because the only land animations present are for young, and I don't think a shrinking sea turtle would look very good). The parameters you mentioned are present for [y/Characteristics/Integers], but not [m/Characteristics/Integers] because of my intentions. I hope this clarifies some things up!

[Fern]

From Jay

Quote

I was okay with having the 4th option (the presence of a static log while the log the elephant plays with is present). Would it be possible to have the swinging log toy use its idle animation while the elephant's swinging animation plays?

 

To have the static log (idle animation) and animated log (which would be part of each animal's animations) showing while either the Asian elephant or African elephant use the swinging log, the swinging log configuration would be:

[Characteristics/Integers]
...
cHideUser = 0
cUserStaysOutside = 0
cHideBuilding = 0
...
[Animations]
idle = idle
used = idle
 

Quote

For the American black bear, I've already replaced its existing swimming animations with the spritework from the Asian black bear. My issue was having those animations use the .pal file from the American black bear as opposed to the Asian black bear. I have it working fine aside from the colour.

 

The proper way is to use a graphics program to change the colors of the images. But since that is a lot of work, one technique used by designers to do ".pal" file substitution is to copy a ".pal" file to something new and to use a binary/hex editor to change each ZT image file. So it would be possible to copy animals/blackbr/blackbr.pal to animals/blackbr/blackbrsw.pal. That path length matches the path length of animals/asblckbr/asblckbr.pal. Then you would use a binary or hex editor to change "animals/asblckbr/asblckbr.pal" to "animals/blackbr/blackbrsw.pal" in the E, N, NE, S, and SE files. Text editors cannot be used to change those files. But changing which ".pal" file is used does not guarantee the colors will be what you want. Colors are often in different places in the ".pal" files for different animals. So the E view might say it wants color 1 and color 1 might be black in one ".pal" file while color 1 might be red in another ".pal" file. You also have to make sure ".ani" files are correct.
 

 

Quote

 

As for the sea turtles, my goal was to have only the young walk on land (and perform subsequent land-only animations), while keeping adults bound to the water

 

 

There are more than 1400 lines in the animal configuration file. So I can't talk about them all in a paragraph. In general, to have the adult sea turtles be only in tanks, you would use the same [m/Characteristics/Integers], [m/Animations], and "[m\BehaviorSet\..." sections that are used in ZT's sea turtle. If you want the adult sea turtles to also go on water terrain, a lot of additions and changes are needed. So you can look at a configuration of an animal that can go on water terrain to see what things it has compared to the configuration of an animal that can be only on land. Since the young can be on land and the adults can't, it has to have [y/Characteristics/Integers], [y/Animations], and "[y\BehaviorSet\..." sections. Those would mostly look like the [m/Characteristics/Integers], [m/Animations], and "[m\BehaviorSet\..." sections of some existing MM animal that can be in tanks, on water terrain, and on land. The [y/Characteristics/Integers] section should not have anything that pertains to exhibit suitability or to adults, since those have to be in [m/Characteristics/Integers]. Also, if any line is the same in the [y/Characteristics/Integers] and [m/Characteristics/Integers] sections, it is not needed in the [y/Characteristics/Integers] section. If any "[y\BehaviorSet\..." section is the same as the "[m\BehaviorSet\..." section, then that "[y\BehaviorSet\..." section is not needed. As I mentioned previously, the actions in the "[y\BehaviorSet..." sections have to be things that are on the left side of "=" in the [y/Animations] section and things on the right side of "=" in the [y/Animations] section have to be animation directory names in the "animals/seaturt/y" directory. Similarly, the actions in the "[m\BehaviorSet..." sections have to be things that are on the left side of "=" in the [m/Animations] section and things on the right side of "=" in the [m/Animations] section have to be animation directory names in the "animals/seaturt/m" directory.

[mjmannella]

I've edited my file with some changes:MJ's Animation Hack.zip

• The swinging log now doesn't go into the African elephant animation when it's used (it just uses its idle animation)
• I was able to edit the animation files using ZT-Studio. It was way easier than I expected! The result isn't perfect, but it's at least different from its base.
• Reworked the land/water integer characteristics on the sea turtle. I went and added the necessary parameters but adult sea turtles can still be placed on land (which isn't what I want: ideally they should be like ice floes, only placeable on normal water and in tanks)

[mjmannella]

I was recently made aware of something relevant to this animations project. Apparently there's an entire animation set for female bigfoots (bigfeet?) that goes completely unused!

It might be a bit obvious as to which one is which...

[HeatherL]

[mjmannella]

Lady Bigfoot aside, I decided to do something a little different: making my own new animal! Following up from my discussion post from earlier, I had thought about finalists from the Beast in Show that aren't already in the game getting modded in. Khaydar added the white rhinoceros, Borsato added the koala, And1 added the fossa (though it's a bit dated compared to newer mods), and there's a bald eagle pseudo-present in the aviary. The one finalist species left was the Western gorilla, so I decided to make that my first new species.

It's very basic, but hopefully it'll have enough differences to be serviceable at least!

[mjmannella]

Might as well put it out for release now.

Here's a guide for making an ideal Western gorilla exihibt:

10x10 exhibit (30 concrete wall, 10 concrete chain
1 female, 1 male
60 squares rainforest floor
20 squares grass
15 squares dirt
5 squares freshwater
25 squares rainforest bush
2 squares small rock
1 Large Wooden Shelter
1 Gorilla climbing bars

Example layout:

 

*** File has been removed after being uploaded the proper way.  Should be approved shortly.

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