BMD Animation Files

[Spangles]

Hi!

I recently got into all this emulation stuff and also following the lead of others from the internet in getting character meshes from games.

So I was lookking through the .BMD files etc. of Twilight Princess, and started to view the animation files. But I could not find the files that animate Midna's more detailed face (it's called fc_blend I think). Does anyone know if the files for the animation of her face are contained within the .BCK files, or if it is another file? And if it is another file, is there a way to view these animations?

 

[antidote]

the bck files are normally stored in or near the area where the model is found (except for alanm.arc 0.rarc where it has all of links animations and a few of midna (md_*)) so your best bet is to look in archives with similar names. I'm not looking at Midna's animations right now but i will be later when i test my code to dump the skeleton data and skeletal deformation data (courtesy of BMDView2)

 

[Fluesopp]

They are mostly in the Demo archives. I don't have my harddrive here atm, but I'm pretty sure that's where they are. Midna is also there, so you might have to use both the model and animation from the demo. (DemoXX are all cutscenes in the game.)

 

[Spangles]

I opened the Demo28 archive (where Midna tries to kill Ganondorf), but no matter what .bck files I drag into BMDView2, the files do not animate her face - they animate her teeth and eyes but not the actual face (fc_blend). Do the .bck files animate the fc_blend and you have to wait, or am I something wrong or missed something I should know?

By the way, fc_blend is this:

 

[ShizZy]

Facial movement might use some sort of vertex deformation done by the game engine itself..

 

[thakis]

FWIW, .btp files can also contain animations (texture animation). But the ones I just tried only crash bmdview2 btk files could also contain some kind of animation information -- but bmdview2 can't read those at all.

 

[Fluesopp]

Still working on getting bones exported in BMD viewer Thakis?

 

[thakis]

Not really :-\

 

[Spinal83]

Will you start working on it again? ;D can we ever expect new versions of BMDview?

 

[Sercio]

Since the gamecube ended i think there is no need of an uptade for the bmdviewer...
No game will released which is based on the engine which uses bmd model formats!

 

[MasterPhW]

Since the gamecube ended i think there is no need of an uptade for the bmdviewer...
No game will released which is based on the engine which uses bmd model formats!

Don't count on that... you only have to compare the N64 used file formats (Zelda64 decompiled), the GC used file formats and the NDS file format. There are a lot of similarities and a new version of thakis tools could probably be used for NDS aswell.

 

[Spinal83]

Since the gamecube ended i think there is no need of an uptade for the bmdviewer...
No game will released which is based on the engine which uses bmd model formats!

I don't agree. BMDviewer is a great program, but it could use an update Bones exporting, geometry export in a different format that allows vertex coloring would be great, etc.
About a half year ago, someone released a level editor for Super Mario 64, showing that the N64 is still popular, and I'm sure the GC is too.

And indeed, like MasterPhW said, the NDS might use similar files, and I guess the Wii does too.

 

[MasterPhW]

And indeed, like MasterPhW said, the NDS might use similar files, and I guess the Wii does too.

Yeah, Spinal83 is right: it wouldn't be a surprise to see the same file formats on Wii Games, too, but I only legally own a Wii and my DVD drives can't read my Disc, so I don't know about this. I've only stated the consoles I already know.

 

[Spangles]

Wow thanks for all your replies ^_^

And BTW, do you perhaps think that it could be possible that the face in the Demo files is not used? If you look at Link, the rare few times his model is incuded in the Demo file, you don't need to use it, you can use the one in Kmdl... Maybe there is a similar one for Midna?

 

[Elpenguino]

BMD no longer used? I don't think so!
I've seen BMDs used in nintendo ds games.
Super mario 64 DS uses LZ77-compressed *.bmd files, which are currently incompatible.
Mario Kart DS, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, and probably many others use *.nsbmd, which is probably derived from BMD.

 

[Spangles]

For anyone who is still interested, I have found the location of Midna's animation files for her face - the BLS file. If you already knew that then, well - it's still a discovery for me!

Opening it in Wordpad the last line of one of the files says 'eye_slender' or 'mouth_clench'...

I don't have a clue what to do with these, though...

 

[Gericom1]

Still working on getting bones exported in BMD viewer Thakis?

In the next version of mkds course modifier it is possible to export them to ma (maya ascii). Even with a bca or bck animation. Bmd is also exportable with vertexcolor. But the textures are not written right yet.