Growing nuts!

[Tasmanian_tiger]

It's something out there doesn't want me to make things for Zoo Tycoon anymore.

First Zoot breaks down out of the blue.  (It worked perfectly before.)

Now I was trying to input shadow animations for my seal pup, and it doesn't work....  *cries*

Let me elaborate:

I had everything done of the common seal, outside the shadow animations for the pup.  In the meantime, I was working on some other projects (to have some change in view).  Tonight, I decide to finish the seal.  

What I do when I want to put underwater shadows into ape is, open up the file in winrar.  Save all the shadow animation folders on a save place.  Then delete all the shadow folders from the animal map.  Next, I open up Ape and push the 'new animation set ' button.  Look at the saved files, put in the correct name.  (f.e. sdive)  Finally I enter the frames.

(For those that not now, clicking on the original underwater shadow animations results in Ape crashing.. most of the time. That's why I do it this way.)

Anyhow..  when I press the 'new animation button' in the pup part of ape, something goes wrong.  A new blank set appears, but I can't rotate it.  It always stays on f.e. E (the direction the previous animation stood in).  Plus, when I put in my frames, when I rotate after this, they just disappear!

Worse: I opened the baiji file, and apparently it has the same problem.  If I try making a new animation set in the adult section, all is fine.  It gives a blank file with all the directions (S, SE, E, etc..)

*droops head*

*droops head deeper*

The only thing I see myself doing now, is making the animation sets in the adult section, extracting them through winrar.  Overwrite the m in every file by y.  Rename the folders correctly and put them under the y section..

I'm not sure if this will work..  In each case, it doesn't work in ape.  If I insert an animation from another .ztd file, but correct the paths in every file.  Then try seeing the animation in Ape, Ape crashes..  I'm not sure if will work ingame.  (Since the original shadow animations also make ape crashing.  But they work ingame.)

Sadly, it's difficult to test ingame, since I have to wait a while for a pup to appear..  bleh..

I'm not sure if anyone can follow anymore..  Any advice?

[Yellowrose]

Oh Tas this must be so frustrating for you. Give me a day to find the right cd an I'll email you the copy of java I use so hopefully you can get zoot up and running again.

As for the annimation problem hopfully Jay can shed some light on this for you. Just out of curiosity what version of APE are you using and if using 1.1 have your tried the XP version at Zoo Tycoon ABC?

[Jay]

Yellowrose:
Concerning sending Java to her, I suspect that will not help since it sounds like she is not having problems downloading Java from Sun.

Tasmanian_tiger:
I can see how it is frustrating for you. ZOOT definitely makes such things easier. But I'm used to doing things the hard way like you mentioned. I do not have any suggestions concerning APE itself. I only use APE to generate a new 8 character id or to resize a picture into an icon, since it resizes more efficiently than any graphics program I've seen so far. I don't even use the ".uca" or ".ucs" file that APE generates.

The method you described of replacing the "m" with "y" in the various graphics files and inside the ".ani" files will work.

Concerning testing the graphics... ZOOT would definitely by the best. But graphics can be tested ingame with just a little bit of extra work. In the ".uca" file, you can change the "f =" line in the [AnimPath] section so that it refers to the "y" folder instead of the "m" or "f" folder. Then you can look at the young graphics ingame by putting a female in an exhibit. Instead of waiting for specific graphics to occur, you can even do a trick that Blue Fang often used. Change the [AmbientAnims] section in the ".uca" to:

a = -100
a = 100
b = bTestGraphics

Then create a bTestGraphics behavior set in the ".uca":

[m\BehaviorSet\bTestGraphics]
f = fPlay(stand)

You would change "stand" to whichever action you want to see. Note that this is the action name and not necessarily the animation name. It has to be a name that is on the left side of an "=" in the [m/Animations] section. That  graphics will play whenever the animal is not doing something specific (such as eating, sleeping, walking). When you are done testing, you would change all of these changes back to what they were. Blue Fang often uses ";" to comment out lines so that they can go back and forth between different lines by removing the ";" on lines they want and adding it to lines they don't.

[Ailurus]

you must be so annoyed and frustrated.
please don't give up because your work is really good!!

[Tasmanian_tiger]

Yellowrose:
Concerning sending Java to her, I suspect that will not help since it sounds like she is not having problems downloading Java from Sun.

Tasmanian_tiger:
I can see how it is frustrating for you. ZOOT definitely makes such things easier. But I'm used to doing things the hard way like you mentioned. I do not have any suggestions concerning APE itself. I only use APE to generate a new 8 character id or to resize a picture into an icon, since it resizes more efficiently than any graphics program I've seen so far. I don't even use the ".uca" or ".ucs" file that APE generates.

The method you described of replacing the "m" with "y" in the various graphics files and inside the ".ani" files will work.

Concerning testing the graphics... ZOOT would definitely by the best. But graphics can be tested ingame with just a little bit of extra work. In the ".uca" file, you can change the "f =" line in the [AnimPath] section so that it refers to the "y" folder instead of the "m" or "f" folder. Then you can look at the young graphics ingame by putting a female in an exhibit. Instead of waiting for specific graphics to occur, you can even do a trick that Blue Fang often used. Change the [AmbientAnims] section in the ".uca" to:

a = -100
a = 100
b = bTestGraphics

Then create a bTestGraphics behavior set in the ".uca":

[m\BehaviorSet\bTestGraphics]
f = fPlay(stand)

You would change "stand" to whichever action you want to see. Note that this is the action name and not necessarily the animation name. It has to be a name that is on the left side of an "=" in the [m/Animations] section. That  graphics will play whenever the animal is not doing something specific (such as eating, sleeping, walking). When you are done testing, you would change all of these changes back to what they were. Blue Fang often uses ";" to comment out lines so that they can go back and forth between different lines by removing the ";" on lines they want and adding it to lines they don't.

This behaviourset changing will help a lot!  Thanks!  Not only for this animal, but I can test a lot of others too.  Nice.  (f.e. the seals spin way to swift.. but I only see it when they do it.)

I tried deleting everything java-like, but like I feared, it doesn't help.  If I re-install, the same thing happens.  I guess I'm off to the java forums.  And for now learning how to edit rotations the old-fashioned way. ;p

Thank you for offering the program, Yellowrose, but like said, I fear it won't make much of a difference.  I intend to re-install windows for a while.. but I hate re-installing everything on it again.  Plus, I would have to save my files on tons of dvd's.   But I should, because this computer is beginning to show too many problems because of it.

[Tasmanian_tiger]

I'm having no luck with the seal pup too.  I have all the images, but I can't get them to show ingame.

I tried replacing the 'paths' in the s, se, e, ne and n files, in the folders (animals/number/y), but the game crashes if the pup gets in the tank.

(Short notice: I inserted shadow images in the male version, next took the shadow folders from the male version into the 'y' folder.)

The only thing I see myself doing is or giving the young no shadows (somehow, my mind is set on getting them shadows ;p) or try insering paths from the californian sea lion young.  

I noticed all the folders had a different start f.e. the male -> B then * or something else, the young (non-shadow) ->S and more, the Californian sea lion young has even something else (*falls over in terror*)..

I tried both starting with B or S.

No luck.

I think inserting the sea lion paths will help nothing too.

Could the uca have something to do with it?

*le sigh*

_edit: I feel like I'm making the monster of Frankenstein.  *insert this part*  *change that part*  Sadly, the 'it's alive, aliiiive' quote isn't coming. ;_;

[lamna]

Aw man not the good ZT1 desinger good luck and dont give up.