Putting New Animations in Feral Heart PROBLEM!

[AnimalTomBoy99]

HELP! I was trying to export a file as an OGRE mesh in blender. I went to file>export>Ogre3d (.scene and .mesh), and I saw a list of files saying cbody.skeleton.xml, cbody.mesh.xml, etc. I don't know where to go from there. I tried clicking cbody.skeleton.xml and clicking export ogre, but a note popped up saying: BAD SUBMESH. I don't know any codes or anything. this is my first time. I REALLY want to put new animtions in my feral heart game, but I can't export it. it says BAD SUBMESH, and it says something about cears1 material CbodyMat has not been applied to any faces and so on. WHAT DO I DO? Can someone please help me? i'm on the verge of giving up, and I promised my friends on the game that I would make new animations for Feral Heart. I made them in blender, but I don't know how to export them. i'm desperate for someone to help me on this. I have blender 2.76 btw.

[Kojack]

There are three primary file types used by Ogre based games:
*.mesh (the actual 3d model)
*.skeleton (the bone structure used for skeleton animation, plus the animations themselves)
*.material (defines how the model looks. It's textures, shaders, rendering modes, etc)

But these formats are a bit tricky for devs to support in tools. So we have 2 intermediate formats:
*.mesh.xml
*.skeleton.xml
These are xml based versions of the above files. They are used as a temporary step when exporting.

The blender exporter will give you the xml versions. But Ogre can't load those. You need to run them through the OgreXMLConverter. It can turn *.mesh.xml and *.skeleton.xml into *.mesh and *.skeleton.
There's an old version of the OgreXMLConverter here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ogre/fi ... p/download
You can use it by just dragging each xml file one at a time onto the OgreXMLConverter.exe file. Or use command line.

Now for a few potential problems.
- Each ogre mesh and skeleton file have a version number added by the OgreXMLConverter. Ogre won't load a mesh or skeleton that has a higher version number. The tool I linked to above is version 1.7.2. If Feral Hearts uses Ogre earlier than that, it won't work (need to find an older copy of the tool).
- Games usually have very strict rules about bones. A simple object with no skeleton should just work (mostly), but if there's bones then there might be strict naming rules for them. If the engine wants a bone called "neck", you need it too. The same for animation, if the game expects an animation called "Walk" but you called it "Walking", then it will fail.
- Be careful of scale. Getting scale right can be tricky.

There's a great tool called OgreMeshy that can display ogre meshes. It's very handy for testing things after you export them to make sure they are in an ogre compatible form.
http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=59600

Something else to be careful of, the XNALara program and the game Tomb Raider also use models called *.mesh. They are unrelated to Ogre though and not compatible. I mention that because there's a heap of free models on the net made for them, Ogre can't load them though, it's a different format with a coincidental name.

So the basic steps would be (I'm guessing, I've never tried modding feral hearts):
- Make sure the animations (and maybe bones) have the right names. I don't know how the game uses them though.
- Export from blender. This should give you a *.mesh.xml, *.skeleton.xml and *.material. (It will also give you a *.scene, but you can ignore it. It's for loading entire maps into ogre at once. It needs an addon to be used)
- Use the OgreXMLConverter to turn the xml files into binaries. The material file doesn't need converting, just the mesh.xml and skeleton.xml.
-Put these files where the game expects them.

For any more specific details on how feral hearts does things, you'll need to check on a forum for the game. Here we usually only know the base way it works, not how specific games might have changed things.

[AnimalTomBoy99]

but how do I do those things? i'm slow, and it's hard for me to understand a lot of things. all I know how to do is go to file, export, (Ogre (.scene and .mesh) and the list of files pop up. I don't know how to export from blender. do you think you can give a simple way for me to do it?

cool! you can write in color?! O.O

[shadowfeign]

cool! you can write in color?! O.O

Although not as cool if you want people to help you LOL

[AnimalTomBoy99]

oh. ok. but can you help me step by step on how to do this? I didn't quite understand how to export my animations. like step1:, step2:, etc. I am quite slow, and I really want to get these animations put into feral heart. I just don't know how to export them. I know to drag them into the OgreExporter and OgreMeshConverter, but I don't know how to export them.

Also, Where do I put the OgreXMLConverter, OgreMeshUpgrader, etc.? I extracted them from WinRAR to downloads. what do I do next, and how do I export my file, "Bark.Blend_Best!.Blend", and where does it go when I export it? Is there a video tutorial on exporting?

[AnimalTomBoy99]

There are three primary file types used by Ogre based games:
*.mesh (the actual 3d model)
*.skeleton (the bone structure used for skeleton animation, plus the animations themselves)
*.material (defines how the model looks. It's textures, shaders, rendering modes, etc)

But these formats are a bit tricky for devs to support in tools. So we have 2 intermediate formats:
*.mesh.xml
*.skeleton.xml
These are xml based versions of the above files. They are used as a temporary step when exporting.

The blender exporter will give you the xml versions. But Ogre can't load those. You need to run them through the OgreXMLConverter. It can turn *.mesh.xml and *.skeleton.xml into *.mesh and *.skeleton.
There's an old version of the OgreXMLConverter here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ogre/fi ... p/download
You can use it by just dragging each xml file one at a time onto the OgreXMLConverter.exe file. Or use command line.

Now for a few potential problems.
- Each ogre mesh and skeleton file have a version number added by the OgreXMLConverter. Ogre won't load a mesh or skeleton that has a higher version number. The tool I linked to above is version 1.7.2. If Feral Hearts uses Ogre earlier than that, it won't work (need to find an older copy of the tool).
- Games usually have very strict rules about bones. A simple object with no skeleton should just work (mostly), but if there's bones then there might be strict naming rules for them. If the engine wants a bone called "neck", you need it too. The same for animation, if the game expects an animation called "Walk" but you called it "Walking", then it will fail.
- Be careful of scale. Getting scale right can be tricky.

There's a great tool called OgreMeshy that can display ogre meshes. It's very handy for testing things after you export them to make sure they are in an ogre compatible form.
http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=59600

Something else to be careful of, the XNALara program and the game Tomb Raider also use models called *.mesh. They are unrelated to Ogre though and not compatible. I mention that because there's a heap of free models on the net made for them, Ogre can't load them though, it's a different format with a coincidental name.

So the basic steps would be (I'm guessing, I've never tried modding feral hearts):
- Make sure the animations (and maybe bones) have the right names. I don't know how the game uses them though.
- Export from blender. This should give you a *.mesh.xml, *.skeleton.xml and *.material. (It will also give you a *.scene, but you can ignore it. It's for loading entire maps into ogre at once. It needs an addon to be used)
- Use the OgreXMLConverter to turn the xml files into binaries. The material file doesn't need converting, just the mesh.xml and skeleton.xml.
-Put these files where the game expects them.

For any more specific details on how feral hearts does things, you'll need to check on a forum for the game. Here we usually only know the base way it works, not how specific games might have changed things.

oh. ok. but can you help me step by step on how to do this? I didn't quite understand how to export my animations. like step1:, step2:, etc. I am quite slow, and I really want to get these animations put into feral heart. I just don't know how to export them. I know to drag them into the OgreExporter and OgreMeshConverter, but I don't know how to export them.

Also, Where do I put the OgreXMLConverter, OgreMeshUpgrader, etc.? I extracted them from WinRAR to downloads. what do I do next, and how do I export my file, "Bark.Blend_Best!.Blend", and where does it go when I export it? Is there a video tutorial on exporting?

[AnimalTomBoy99]

NEW PROBLEM!: I put the cbody.skeleton in feral heart, but when I log in my game, it says Feral Heart.exe stopped working! WHAT HAPPENED?