Dragon Age Toolset Wiki - User contributions [en]

Conversation Animation List

2009-12-05T07:01:14Z

SpaceRouge: Added some right hand gestures

Each line in an animation contains animations that the actors will play while the lines are being carried out. Since the names of the animations don't give the best description of what it is and there is a reasonable delay between assigning an animation and seeing it in a preview. This is a list of some of the animation with some better descriptions.

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|+'''Animation List'''
|-
! Name !! Approx Duration !! Description
|-
| 2a misc 1 || 1.0 Secs || Minor gesture of moving arms in front of lower waist and back again
|-
| 2a misc 2 || 0.75 Secs || Minor gesture of jerking hands slightly
|-
| 2arm_beseech || 5.2 Secs || Adding emphasis to talking with major gestures; curcular movements and flicking towards listener; arguably not really beseeching
|-
| 2arm_clench_fists || 2.0 Secs || Clenching both fists in front of face; blending with a weight of about 50% makes it stomach height an look more like it is an angry gesture, at 100% it just looks like a normal major gesture
|-
| 2arm_emphasis2 || 2.25 Secs || Tapping one hand in facing up palm of other hand at chest height, then doing a right-handed flick towards listener quickly before resuming pose
|-
| 2arm_gesture_1 || 6.0 Secs || Medium hand gestures in front of stomach as if explaining something
|-
| 2arm_stop || 2.0 Secs || Hold hands in front with palms out and fingers splayed then return to sides
|-
| head gesture left || 0.75 Secs || Minor head jerk to the top left (their left), end result is like a nod
|-
| head gesture right || 0.75 Secs || Minor head jerk to the top right (their right), end result is like a nod
|-
| head_glance_left || 1.6 Secs || Look 90 degrees to the left for a shorter time than "headlook left"
|-
| head_glance_right || 1.6 Secs || Look 90 degrees to the right for a shorter time than "headlook right"
|-
| headlook left || 4.8 Secs || Look 90 degrees to the left, idles from 1.0 secs to 3.75 secs
|-
| headlook right || 4.8 Secs || Look 90 degrees to the right, idles from 1.0 secs to 3.75 secs
|-
| right hand gesture across || 1.5 Secs || Briefly move hand with palm upwards in front of chest
|-
| right hand gesture self || 1.5 Secs || Briefly move hand to stomach with palm inwards.
|}

Conversation Animation List

2009-12-05T06:51:41Z

SpaceRouge: Added clench fists

Conversation Animation List

2009-12-05T06:17:44Z

SpaceRouge: Added headlook animations

Each line in an animation contains animations that the actors will play while the lines are being carried out. Since the names of the animations don't give the best description of what it is and there is a reasonable delay between assigning an animation and seeing it in a preview. This is a list of some of the animation with some better descriptions.

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|+'''Animation List'''
|-
! Name !! Approx Duration !! Description
|-
| 2a misc 1 || 1.0 Secs || Minor gesture of moving arms in front of lower waist and back again
|-
| 2a misc 2 || 0.75 Secs || Minor gesture of jerking hands slightly
|-
| 2arm_beseech || 5.2 Secs || Adding emphasis to talking with major gestures; curcular movements and flicking towards listener; arguably not really beseeching
|-
| 2arm_emphasis2 || 2.25 Secs || Tapping one hand in facing up palm of other hand at chest height, then doing a right-handed flick towards listener quickly before resuming pose
|-
| 2arm_gesture_1 || 6.0 Secs || Medium hand gestures in front of stomach as if explaining something
|-
| 2arm_stop || 2.0 Secs || Hold hands in front with palms out and fingers splayed then return to sides
|-
| head gesture left || 0.75 Secs || Minor head jerk to the top left (their left), end result is like a nod
|-
| head gesture right || 0.75 Secs || Minor head jerk to the top right (their right), end result is like a nod
|-
| head_glance_left || 1.6 Secs || Look 90 degrees to the left for a shorter time than "headlook left"
|-
| head_glance_right || 1.6 Secs || Look 90 degrees to the right for a shorter time than "headlook right"
|-
| headlook left || 4.8 Secs || Look 90 degrees to the left, idles from 1.0 secs to 3.75 secs
|-
| headlook right || 4.8 Secs || Look 90 degrees to the right, idles from 1.0 secs to 3.75 secs
|}

Conversation Animation List

2009-12-05T06:07:52Z

SpaceRouge: Added some animations.

Conversation cinematics and animation

2009-12-03T14:00:24Z

SpaceRouge: /* Animation */ Added link to list of conversation animations

== Cinematics ==

[[Image:Conversation cinematics.png]]

Conversations that take place in a specific predefined location can be set up to use cinematics that define where the camera is positioned and how the various participants in the conversation are acting, much like a detailed stage play. This is where the [[stage]] object type comes into play. Conversations that can occur at any of a variety of different locations cannot have stages set and instead use a generic "over the shoulder" style of presentation.

Select a stage to use in the "Stage" dropdown menu (or with the "..." button if it wasn't recently used and so doesn't appear here). If you need to edit the stage, clicking the "open" button opens the selected stage in the stage editor.

"helmet" and "weapons" can be set to force the actor to have their helmet removed or weapon sheathed during the conversation. "body look" and "head look" determines who the actor's body or head is facing, respectively (note that body look 'snaps' instantly to the target whereas the head will turn smoothly when switching from target to target). "pose" has a list of various poses the actor can be placed in. "Active" can make the actor visible or invisible.

It is possible to switch from one stage camera to another in the middle of the line by setting a "2nd Camera". The "Delay" parameter determines the delay in seconds before switching from the first camera to the second camera. If you need more camera movement than this you'll need to turn the cinematics into a full-blown cutscene for further editing.

=== Emotion Filters ===

An Emotion Filter (or Emotion) modifies the gestures and facial animations the toolset generates for this line.
For example, a character who's set to an "angry" emotion filter will have more vigorous and aggressive gestures generated for him.

When [[FaceFX]] generates lip-synching, the emotion filter will also be used by the RoboBrad subsystem to add emotional cues to the character's facial expression. For example, an angry character could have a scowl added. You can disable RoboBrad with the "lock RoboBrad" checkbox. This is useful when you've generated a facial performance you're satisfied with, as it prevents RoboBrad from being re-run and replacing it should you later want to generate a new facial performance for the entire conversation.

== Custom Line Cinematics ==

[[Image:Conversation convert to cutscene.png|right|]]

This functionality should be used by cinematic designers. It allows them to export a complete dialog line, along with emotions, staging cameras and functional shots, into the DA [[cutscene]] editor.

At this point the line is considered a normal cutscene and every aspect of it can be edited. You can add subsequent lines from the dialogue to the cutscene as well, marking them "Skip" in the conversation editor (checkbox in the upper right corner of the cinematics tab) to ensure that they won't be played twice. This allows lengthy dialogue between non-player characters to be scripted more naturally and reduces the number of times the player needs to press a key to continue the conversation.

Once this new cutscene is saved, the dialog line is flagged as 'custom' and all other cinematic control fields in it are grayed out and disabled. The only way for the user to re-enable them is to disable the custom cinematics for that specific line.

You can also attach a pre-existing cutscene to a dialogue node using "Associate Cutscene with Line". In this case, you can only attach a cutscene if it has exactly one speakline in it that matches the speakline of the dialogue node it's being attached to. This restriction is for technical reasons, to ensure that the starting point for the custom line cinematic is similar to what would be generated automatically for it. Once you've attached a pre-existing cutscene, you can edit it freely and add additional speak line actions if you wish.

If you're combining several lines in a conversation into a single cutscene, make sure to set the other lines you're combining to "skip". The checkbox for this is in the upper right corner of the cinematics tab.

'''Note:''' When you convert a conversation line into a cutscene, the default name of the cutscene will be the string ID of the line in question. If you then export the cutscene with [[builder to builder]] tools and import it again, the string ID will be changed to link up properly but the name of the cutscene will be left the same. This won't cause problems for the game or toolset - the name is just an arbitrary label as far as the game is concnerned - but it could be confusing for a human builder to have a cutscene named after one string ID but hooked up to a different one. Use a non-default name for these cutscenes to avoid this hassle.

<br clear="all" \>

== Animation ==

[[Image:Conversation animation.png]]

Animation is where you can add gestures for the actors in the conversation to make during the line, such as angrily shaking their fist. Select which actor you want to set animations for from the "tag" dropdown, then right-click on the animation list to select "add animation". This adds a new row where you can select an animation from the available resources. You can then set various parameters such as when the animation starts, whether the built-in sounds some animations have will be audible, and so forth.

*Lock tag:
*Lock all:
*Play sound effects: some animations have sound effects built into them (for example, an animation of collapsing to the ground may be accompanied by the sound of impact). This selects whether the sound effects are played.
*Use animation duration:

{| border="1"
|-
| Animation || Name of the animation, selected from the [[Conversation Animation List|existing library of animation resources]]. When an animation runs longer than the recorded voice-over it is shown in red text. Note that this is always the case when there is no voice over recorded.
|-
| Start Time || Number of seconds into the line when the animation should start
|-
| Weight || How "vigorous" the animation should be.
|-
| Speed || How quickly the animation should be executed.
|-
| Start Offset ||
|-
| End Offset ||
|-
| Blend In ||
|-
| Blend Out ||
|}

== Preview ==

Before previewing a line cinematic, you'll need to do the following:
*Generate poses for children
*Generate/clear gestures for line
*Process camera for line

To preview a conversation you may need to set some defaults in the preview tab to assign an area and an identity for certain speakers that may be undefined in the conversation itself. The command to generate a preview is availble under the "Tools" menu.

Designers should be able to preview dialog lines inside the toolset. The area the dialog takes place in can be set, with the stage location either being explicitly set or defaulting to the first match.

There are 2 preview types:
Single line preview:
This is for playing a single dialog line including all cinematics and voice, as it would appear in the game.

Tree preview:
This is for playing a complete dialog tree, until the end. The designer should have the option of choosing scripted NPC lines if more than 1 line is supposed to be displayed. Otherwise, this is the same as a single line preview.

[[Category:Conversations]]
[[Category:Cutscenes]]

Conversation Animation List

2009-12-03T13:57:19Z

SpaceRouge: Started initial conversation animation list

Reskinning an item tutorial

2009-11-22T03:49:40Z

SpaceRouge: /* Editing the Textures */ Fixed prefix to be suffix when appropriate

__TOC__

This tutorial describes how to reskin, or change the default texture, of items that already exist in-game.

For this tutorial, the default textures of the female mage's robes will be changed.

== Locating the Model Textures ==

Default model textures are located in two "texturepack.erf" packages, corresponding to high resolution and medium resolution textures. These packages can be found in the (dragon age install directory)\packages\core\textures\ folder. For example, the packages might be:

*C:\Program Files\Dragon Age\packages\core\textures\high\texturepack.erf
*C:\Program Files\Dragon Age\packages\core\textures\medium\texturepack.erf

The files contained in these ERFs are in DDS format, and plugins exist to allow these files to be edited in Photoshop, GIMP, or other image editing programs. To extract the mage robe textures, open the two texturepack ERFs in the toolset. The ERFs will contain a number of DDS images.

=== Texture Prefix Guide ===

The prefixes of these files describe what kind of model the texture is associated with. Here are some of the more common ones:

{| border="1"
|+ Common Texture Prefices
! Prefix !! Interpretation
|-
! c_
| Creature model
|-
! fx_
| Effect
|-
! pf_
| Female-specific gear model
|-
! pm_
| Male-specific gear model
|-
! pm_
| Genderless gear model
|-
! vfx_
| Visual effects
|-
! w_
| Weapon
|-
|}

== Extracting the Model Textures ==

To extract one of the textures, right-click on it and select "Extract Resource."

To prepare for extracting the textures, we must create a directory mimicking the structure of the Dragon Age packages folder. To do this, create a new folder named "textures" in a convenient location (for example, on your desktop). Inside this folder, create two new folders, named "high" and "medium". The "high" folder will be where the high-resolution textures are extracted to, and the "medium" folder will be where the medium-resolution textures are extracted to.

For this tutorial, we are interested in the mage's robes. To locate the textures of the mage's robes, scroll down to "pf_rob_appa_0d.dds" in one of the two texturepack ERFs. In each texturepack.erf, select all of the image files prefixed with "pf_robe_app" (from "pf_rob_appa_0d.dds" to "pf_rob_appb_0tl3.dds"). For the high-resolution texturepack.erf, extract these images to the "textures\high\" folder just created. Extract the medium-resolution textures to the "textures\medium\" folder.

== Editing the Textures ==

Conveniently, there are two sets of textures for the mage's robes, but only one is utilized in-game. The currently utilized textures are the "B" variation of the textures, identified by their "pf_rob_appb" suffix. This suffix can be interpreted as "female apprentice robes, variation B".

At this stage, if we wanted to edit the existing robe textures, we could do so by changing these files. (For example, pf_rob_appb_0d.dds is the diffuse texture for the mage's robes, and pf_rob_appb_0dl2.dds and pf_rob_appb_0dl3.dds correspond to lower-resolution diffuse textures).

Instead, we are going to simply rename the variation A robes so that Dragon Age uses these textures instead of the variation B robe textures. To do this, delete all of the "pf_rob_appb" textures, and then change the names of each of the variation A robe textures to those of their variation B counterparts. For example, "pf_rob_appa_0d.dds" becomes "pf_rob_appb_0d.dds".

Once this renaming has been done for all of the variation A robe textures (in both the "High" and "Medium" folders), we'll be ready to override the default textures in Dragon Age.

== Overriding the Existing Textures ==

To override the existing textures, copy the "textures" folder containing the modified textures, and paste this folder into the Dragon Age override folder. The override folder is found in:
*Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override\
for Windows Vista and 7, and in a similar location on Windows XP.

So, after pasting in the modified textures, the structure of the override folder should look like this:

*Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override\
**textures
***high
****pf_rob_appb_0d.dds
****(...)
****pf_rob_appb_0tl3.dds
***medium
****pf_rob_appb_0d.dds
****(...)
****pf_rob_appb_0tl3.dds

[[Image:Demo-retexture.jpg|thumb|The end result: reskinned default mage robes.]]