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JohnHudeski wrote:My stupid brain finally found a way to use Skyrim's animation modification system to extract and convert Dark souls animations

I needed to include the character's skeleton per animation package

hkxcmd exportkf "Skeleton.hkx" "a00" "a00_out"

how did you extract the skeleton and the animations from those anibnd files?

You can use the DSExplore tool I released earlier in this thread.

hey yeah thanks i did that and got some KF files, any reason why they dont load up into 3ds max? i got the KF/NIF plugin that is used to import skyrim stuff but it gives me "improper file format"

Because the plugin you're using is designed for Skyrim files. Merely having the same file extension doesn't mean the actual data in the file is compatible between games. (although it's sometimes true..)

I'm making my viewer only release of DSMODT available to the public now. >>Download<<
Enjoy!

||||| README |||||


DSMODT: Dark Souls MOD Tool
Version 0.2 "Viewer-only"


==Introduction==
This is the "viewer-only" release of my Dark Souls 2 MOD Tool, DSMODT. It is being provided "as-is" with no promise that it will work in any way whatsoever, for any purpose.
I am not currently providing support for this tool, however bug reports and realistic change/feature requestions are welcome, as I am continuing to work on it.


==Features==
View all meshes directly from your Dark Souls installation
* Maps
* Entities
* Objects
Meshes render with 95% similarity to the actual game
* Diffuse textures
* Bumpmaps (and detail bumpmaps)
* Specularity maps
* Lightmaps
* Colored vertices
* Bone weights/Animations
Maps
* All pieces are put together- on a rare occassion, this can cause some overlap, usually in areas where lower quality meshes were used when viewing a particular part of the map from a distance.
* Maps have icons marking the location of entities, objects, particle systems, audio sources, and a variety of other things.


==Known Issues==
The lighting isn't quite right
* I haven't quite figured out a really nice algorithm that properly balances lightmaps, ambient lighting, and dynamic lights while keeping relative brightness values similar to in-game. Sorry

Low resolution textures and low LoDs (qualities) are showing in many areas of the maps.
* This is because DSMODT currently assumes that the first faceset for any given mesh is the highest LoD. This is correct more often than not.
* It is currently unknown how Dark Souls determines which faceset to use for which LoD, so all I can do at this time is pick one and go with it.

In Oolacile, there's a copy of the Kalameet battle area floating above the original
* I have no idea why this is there, but I manually looked at the file, and it actually does contain a copy there.

Maps don't show meshes for entities or objects
* This is technically possible, and it was working in an older version, but most maps would cause DSMODT to run out of memory and crash, so it was removed for now.


==History==
Verson 0.2
First release!

Great news nyxo, I have been looking forward to this for awhile!

I hestitate to run any programs on April 1st, but I went for it and when I tried running the program, I keep getting "Dark Souls install directory not found. Cannot continue." ...no matter which directory I choose. My install directory is:
C:\Program Files\NAMCO BANDAI Games\DarkSouls

DSMODT can give you that error in one of two ways:
1) You cancelled the dialog where you are supposed to select your install directory.
2) DSMODT looks for the following files in the directory you selected. If even one of them is missing, it will then append "/DATA/" to the directory you selected and try to find them again. If any one of them is missing again, it will give you that error.
* dvdbnd0.bhd5
* dvdbnd0.bdt
* dvdbnd1.bhd5
* dvdbnd1.bdt
* dvdbnd2.bhd5
* dvdbnd2.bdt
* dvdbnd3.bhd5
* dvdbnd3.bdt

Please check and make sure that you are selecting a directory that contains all of those files, or are selecting a directory that contains the "/DATA/" directory that contains all of those files.
Also, altho silly, please make sure you're not cancelling the dialog instead of accepting it.

If you are still having issues, please let me know and I can try to help further.

Also, as a side question: Is that directory the default directory it installed to, or did you choose a custom location?

Thanks for the reply Nyxo! That directory was custom for me although if I remember correctly it is also the default location.

The reason for the failure was that I had these files in the install directory:
dvdbnd0.bhd5
dvdbnd0.bdt
dvdbnd1.bhd5
dvdbnd1.bdt
...but not dvdbnd2.bhd5, dvdbnd2.bdt, dvdbnd3.bhd5, and dvdbnd3.bdt because I had been monkeying around with the files earlier when trying to extract files. I put them back, now DSMODT works perfectly! Awesome job

I got a new PC and windows 8.1 has not been the stalwart of stability i had hoped for. That said i have been able to use your program a few times. Loading maps makes the system crawl and the controls are not fine enough to navigate smoothly through the area (I blame my pc). But that said it is still an amazing reproduction. No bugs of note. Except it could not find my install folder. i had to manually do this each time. Maybe an external save file for last opened folder.

what is the goal of the program? To make a clone of the game?

Yes, it seems that it's not loading the previously saved directory, at least when you've manually selected one. I've reworked that section, but I'm not sure if it fixes that problem.

Where is your Dark Souls installation? Also, was it the default installation location, or did you select something else when you installed Dark Souls?

The current iteration is intended to act just as a means thru which to view the game's content. Ultimately, the intent is to provide moddability.

C:\Program Files (x86)\NAMCO BANDAI Games\DarkSouls

I want to add a new "null" weapon that does karate. I was wondering if you have attempted animation changes?

nyxo wrote:Because the plugin you're using is designed for Skyrim files. Merely having the same file extension doesn't mean the actual data in the file is compatible between games. (although it's sometimes true..)

That is equally strange cos all havok animations should be of similar structure. Is there any chance you would consider making a havok to unity animation converter since you are already doing it

No, Havok files won't all be in a similar structure, for 2 reasons:
1) There's different versions of Havok, which can have different versions of Havok files.
2) There's an option provided by Havok that allows users to store custom information in Havok files (in a custom format), and when that exists, Havok will fail to load the file unless you provide a proper "custom information loader" for it to use when loading the Havok file. (This is used by Dark Souls at least, and I wouldn't be surprised if Skyrim did the same)

Custom data means some of the data would be stripped. There is a standardized way for the raw animation data to be saved or you would not be able to use the assest in Havok's other supporting tools. EG Havok behaviour and content tools. Considering i am able to load skyrim, Dark souls and Pro Evolution soccer data with the same lines of code which are identical to the hkxcmd, as well as run them in the afore mentioned tools i see no reason why it would not work.

Bla.

PS: i just found out the files are version tagged and you need to be using the a version of the sdk newer or same as the file

Yes, there is a standardized way for animations to be stored, however you can't know if the havok (.hkx) file you're loading even HAS animation data in it. Havok files are somewhat generic (as they're just scene data) in what they contain, and can contain animations, skeletons, collision data, etc.. It can have any combination of any of them, and for each one of them, there's potential to have custom data embedded within them.

All of that said, the Dark Souls animation-specific .HKX files don't contain any custom data, so they load just fine in any of Havok's other content tools, as I'm sure you've tried and seen, but if you tried to load the collision-specific .HKX files for the maps, they have custom data, so even Havok's own content tools cannot load those files, because it has no concept of what that custom data is, and how it might affect the rest of the loading process.