How to fix the Harvester unloading anim (quite easy)

djohe · Last edited by djohe on Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:45 pm; edited 2 times in total

IMPORTANT UPDATE HERE!

Introduction
After some discussion in THIS and THIS topic, me(djohe) and DeeZire and LKO and Longshanks came up with the answer why the Harvester unloading/loading animation ain't working like it should and how to fix it:

Here is what this tutorial helps you to enable/fix:

This tutorial is written for the unmodded version of tiberian sun with no changes to the refinery art in the Rules.ini or Art.ini but will work with modified versions too if you adapt the code for it. The tutorial is in four/five steps that you have to do and has nothing to do with the Rules.ini at all if you have not changed refinery naming earlier.

Step 1
You can skip this step if you have not done any changes to the naming of the refinery earlier

If you have changed naming of the refinery in the Rules.ini to [NAREFN] or anything else and disabled/deleted Image=NAREFN you need to change it back again. Here are the other lines you may need to change back again to their orginal values:

in the Rules.ini (all default/orginal values)

[AI]
BuildRefinery=PROC

[HARV]
Prerequisite=FACTORY,PROC
Dock=PROC

[HORV]
Dock=PROC

[GAWEAP]
Prerequisite=PROC,GAPILE

[NAWEAP]
Prerequisite=PROC,NAHAND

[PROC]
Image=NAREFN

[GASILO]
Prerequisite=PROC

[GARADR]
Prerequisite=PROC

[GAPLUG]
Prerequisite=PROC,GATECH

[NASTLH]
Prerequisite=PROC,NATECH

[NARADR]
Prerequisite=PROC

and by default the refinery is called [NAREFN] in Art.ini without any Image=NAREFN line

Step 2:
Start by opening your Art.ini file for Tiberian Sun

Step 3:
Add the following lines under [NAREFN] :
PreProductionAnimZAdjust=-40
ProductionAnimZAdjust=-40

Step 4:
Add this like if it was a new building under [NAREFN]

[PROC]
Image=NAREFN
Remapable=yes
Cameo=REFICON
Foundation=4x3
Height=2
ZShapePointMove= 24, -12
Buildup=NAREFNMK
DemandLoadBuildup=true
FreeBuildup=true
BibShape=NAREFNBB
NewTheater=yes
ActiveAnim=NAREFN_C
ActiveAnimZAdjust=-100
ActiveAnimTwo=NAREFN_B
ActiveAnimTwoZAdjust=-250
ActiveAnimTwoPowered=no
PreProductionAnim=NAREFN_A
ProductionAnim=NAREFN_AR
PreProductionAnimZAdjust=-40
ProductionAnimZAdjust=-40

Step 5:
Also if you dont change the following the animation will get drawn behind the voxel like in this picture made by LKO at TiberiumWeb Very Happy

Go to (or just use the built in search function) [NAREFN_A] in Art.ini

Now delete or disable the line Surface=yes under [NAREFN_A] and [NAREFN_AR]
( [NAREFN_AR] is right under [NAREFN_A] and is NAREFN_A in reverse)

Final Words:
If you did everything correctly your Tiberium refinery should now display the animation shown in the pictures above
Congratulations Very Happy

you got yourself a working unloading/loading refinery animation that have troubled and eluded several modders like me.

Credits:
Westwood for their coding errors and their great modifyable games
Deezire for being the first? person to enable this animation and helping us enabling it like in his Deezire 4.5 mod (not completly the same way, this one is better)
SMIFFGIG for not answering my messages and PM's Laughing

about how to enable this animation like in TS:Retro 1.21
Lin Kuei Ominae for explaining why this animation dont work, also thanks for posting it at TiberiumWeb forum also LKO ( http://www.tiberiumweb.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1135 )
(Sorry about hotlinking your refinery picture at tibweb)
Blubb for also managing to enable this animation in his TS:Squared and not able to provide any info on how to do it Laughing

Longshanks for making me check the TS:Retro Art.ini again and find the [PROC] right under [NAREFN] Laughing

thanks dude
Dutchygamer for trying to make a tutorial Razz

One or four last things:
1. If anyone have any complains about the credits I will change it Very Happy

2. And if anyone has a question about this tutorial just post here
3. Also if anyone wonders why I did not include these lines in this tutorial:
ProductionAnimX= or ProductionAnimY= or
PreProductionAnimX= or PreProductionAnimY=
is becaus they are not needed, they just change the offset of the animation in the X and Y axis. If you dont like the current offset change it yourself, I like the default offset (me points at TSHyper)
4. If you want to do any changes to the refinery in Art.ini do the same changes to both [NAREFN] and [PROC] otherwise they might not work correctly like adding new active anims or changing the selection box height.

Key Words: #Tutorials #Modding #TiberianSun #Firestorm #Rules.INI #Art.INI

CCHyper · Defense Minister **Joined**: 07 Apr 2005

Nice tutorial, but still, the animation needs to be raised by a few pixels.

Lin Kuei Ominae · Seth **Joined**: 16 Aug 2006 **Location**: Germany

Here my values for X and Y. With these the anim-container is almost at the same height as the voxel-container)
(the animation shown above in step 5 doesn't use these values; there i used X=-2)
PreProductionAnimX=2
PreProductionAnimY=0
ProductionAnimX=2
ProductionAnimY=0
the default doesn't looks good imo.

thanks for the tutorial and also for the hint to remove the surface=yes keys.

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Dutchygamer · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:38 am Post subject:

This one looks much better. Good job Smile

djohe · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:43 pm Post subject:

Has no one here noticed that the last frame on the [NAREFN_AR] is not being displayed? Laughing

And has no one noticed that the animation dont get adjusted together with the game speed?
(The harvester needs to wait for its back to return on fastest game speed)

Here is a fix for those two bugs:

This FIX will fix the last frame on the re-loading of the harvester backpart and will make unloading/re-loading animation get adjusted with the gamespeed (looks stupid with a slow animation on the fastest speed)

First step
Note this requires you to download 2 files from this post and put them in a ecacheXX.mix mixfile (where XX is 02-99)
(YEAH! I know that you dont need 2 files but I did it to be on the safe side)

Second step
Open your art.ini and replace the [NAREFN_A] and [NAREFN_AR] (replace both at once) with this:

; Animation of tiberium leaving harvester and entering refinery
[NAREFN_A]
Image=NAREFN_A
Normalized=no
LoopStart=0
LoopEnd=4
LoopCount=1
Rate=150 ;unmodded is 200
NewTheater=yes

; NAREFN_A but backwards
[NAREFN_AR]
Image=NAREFN_AR
Normalized=no
End=5
Rate=150 ;unmodded is 200
NewTheater=yes

Third and final step
Play the game and notice your new shiny last frame when the harvester gets its backpart again from the refinery. You modders should also notice now that the unloading animation gets changed together with the game speed now (thats what Normalized= controls)

There is also a nice little exploit you can do if you want it to recieve its backpart faster like in the unmodded game but it requires you to micro the harvester out of the refinery everytime Very Happy

(not much gain in time from it but its fun to know Razz

)

Notes
Also note that there is two notes on the Rate= speed on the second step that I changed that you guys may not like (lower number is lower speed of the animation, and default on those two animations is 200).

It was not possible to fix this display bug of the last frame without the 2 new files (Ive tried alot to fix it but Tiberian Sun did not want to do as I liked Sad