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Vector Blender Animation

Cascadeur, Blender scenes and addon to animate custom animations for Vector.

About The Addon

Vector Animation addon let you import decompiled animation bin from the game into Blender, and export animation into .bindec to compile and use in-game. This project also includes rig and sample scene.

Getting Started

This project required Vectorier Unity Editor to work along with - Download Vectorier Unity Editor project

Addon Installation

Addon will not work under blender 2.8

To install the VectorAnimation addon:

• Go into the blender preferences, by clicking on Main Header>Edit>Preferences
• Go to the 'Add-ons' category, and click on 'Install' to install a new addon.
• Choose VectorAnimation.py on where you've it downloaded.
• Search in your blender plugins and enable VectorAnimation in your addons preferences.

The Vector Animation panel should appear now. If not, press N to view the side panel. There should be two options for exporting and importing.

Usage

Project includes 3 rig, sample animation, fbx file and necessary decompiled dz folder.

• Vector Rig Cascadeur (for animating in cascadeur)
• Vector Rig with armature blender scene (for animating in blender)
• Vector Rig with node only (only for importing animation)
• Vector node fbx
• 1 Custom Animation (Backslide)

Blender Rig:

Cascadeur Rig:

Exporting & Importing

Exporting:

• After you've installed the addon, simply open the blender scene or cascadeur scene to start animating. Once you're done, you can export into .bindec and compile the bindec in Unity using Vectorier.

Importing:

• It is recommended to use Vector Rig Node Only version.
• To import animation, you have to decompile .bin using Vectorier first. The project should also comes with the decompiled vector animation dz folder.
• Click import animation, you can now choose the .bindec you've decompiled to import the animation into blender.

Animating in Cascadeur

As Cascadeur is required for this method, you need to download Cascadeur at their webstite - Download Cascadeur

And download the CSC Bridge plugin for Blender - Download CSC Bridge

Create your account in Cascadeur. Once you've entered the program, go to Help > Claim indie license, now you can export your animations to blender. (Note that this only lasts for 14 days, so when the time is over, you either create a new account or animate in blender)

You can now open the Vector Cascadeur Rig Scene using Cascadeur and start animating. (search for tutorials if you don't know how to animate in cascadeur)

Installing CSC Bridge Addon in Blender

Once your animation is done, you need to export it to blender, to do that we have to use the CSC Bridge.

To install it go to Blender, Edit> Preferences> Add-Ons And Install, select the zip file you've downloaded.

Once you've done that, the CSC Bridge addon will appear. Select your Cascadeur Executable (cascadeur.exe) and click install requirements, and you're done.

Importing your Cascadeur animation to Blender

Go to the bar on the right side of your screen. If it's not there, press N on your keyboard and the side menu will pop up. Select CSC Bridge and copy these parameters onto the Blender Import Setting.

Once you've done that, click "Save settings" and import your scene. After that, you can follow the Blender Animation Method for exporting to bindec and etc.

Congrats! you now have your Cascadeur animation.

Sample Animation:

Cascadeur.Sample.mp4

Tips

To see if your animation is looking good on Cascadeur, you can go to the joint mode by pressing C on your keyboard (or by selecting joint mode in the top left bar)

Addtionally, while in this mode you can make the rig open its hand by rotating the bone NFingertips1 or NFingertips2.

Setting up

Setting up your animation to work in-game, requires many step to follow through. This will be a tutorial on how you can add your animation into the game.

Dzip

In order to actually use it in-game, you'll have to add your own animation into "animations.dz". To do this, required a lot of steps. The project should already included the pre-configured dzip folder, ready to use.

Adding Animation:

1. Copy every .bin from decompiled animation folder to input folder.
2. After compiling your animation in Unity, copy your .bin animation into the input folder.
3. Run quickstart.bat to start comprsesing it into ".dz". After it's finished, there should be a new dz file in the output folder. Rename the dz to "animations.dz"
4. Copy the animations.dz to your Vector directory (Don't forget to make a backup of the original file.

Trick Animation

Creating trick animation is a bit more complicated than cutscene animation due to numerous steps.

Configuring Moves_new.xml

In your Vector directory, there should be a Move_news.xml, we need to configure the xml in order for the animation to work.

1. Open your Move_news.xml with notepad or other text editor programs (Notepad++ recommended)
2. Go into ReactionGroups > ReactionGroup Name="TrickGroup", you should see a list of animation configuration.
3. Add your own config

   example: <BackslideStart FirstFrame = "1" Priority = "10" OnEndTrigger="1" TriggerName="TriggerBackslide"/>

4. Scroll down to Moves section, you should see many animation configuration here. Find a space for you to write and add a new config.

   For the trick, please add any ID for it to work as a trick. ItemName should be TRICK_yourtrickname. Endframe is where your frame ends.
   example:
   <BackslideStart ID="200" ItemName="TRICK_BACKSLIDE" Type="3" Loop="0" VelocityX="0" VelocityY="0" DeltaDetectorH="20" DeltaDetectorV="40"
    FileName="backslide.bin" MidFrames="2" FirstFrame="0" EndFrame="51" PivotNode="DetectorH" Priority="2">
      <Interval Start = "2" End = "48" Safe="1">
        <OnEnd>
          <Reactions>
            <RunForward FirstFrame = "1" Priority = "1"/>
          </Reactions>
        </OnEnd>
      </Interval>
    </BackslideStart>

Configuring Objects.xml

After finishing up the Move_news.xml, we're going to add a new config to the Objects.xml

1. Go to your Vectorier project folder and follow the path, "\Assets\XML\dzip\level_xml". In the level_xml folder, open up the objects.xml with notepad or text editor.
2. Enter a new line and add your own config

   ItemName should be the same from your moves_new
   example:
   <Object Name="TriggerBackslide" Label="Trigger">
      <Content>
        <Area Name="TriggerBackslide" X="0" Y="0" Width="150" Height="200" Type="Trick" ItemName="TRICK_BACKSLIDE" Score="100"/>
      </Content>
    </Object>

Adding trick images

Before you can test your animation in-game, you have to add trick images first. We are going to modify "track_content_universal" and "GUI_2048_1536". The project should also includes the decompiled folder required to do all these step.

Track Content Universal:

1. Copy every file from track_content_universal folder into dzip input folder.
2. Put your custom trick image or copy existing one, rename it to "TRACK_TRICK_yourtrickname" (eg. TRACK_TRICK_BACKSLIDE)
3. Run quickstart.bat and your output folder should have a new dz file, rename it to "track_content_universal" and copy it to your Vector directory.

GUI_2048_1536:

1. Copy every file from GUI_2048_1536 folder into dzip input folder.
2. Put your custom trick shop image or copy existing one, rename it to "SHOP_TRICK_yourtrickname" (eg. SHOP_TRICK_BACKSLIDE)
3. Run quickstart.bat and your output folder should have a new dz file, rename it to "GUI_2048_1536" and copy it to your Vector directory.

Configuring common_xml

After adding trick images, we're going to add a new config to the common_xml

1. Copy every file in the common_xml folder into your dzip input folder.
2. Open up Shop_payed.xml with notepad or text editor program.
3. Add a new line under Shop > Group Name="TRICK", and then add a new config

   Note: Setting the item price to 0 will make you automatically obtain it, without having to purchase.
   example:
   <Item Price="2600" Name="TRICK_BACKSLIDE" ShopImage="SHOP_TRICK_BACKSLIDE" TrackImage="TRACK_TRICK_BACKSLIDE"/>

After that, we're going to modify localization_all.xml

1. Open up localization_all.xml with notepad or text editor program.
2. Scroll down until you see trick section such as Downtown tricks, Construction tricks
3. You can either make a new section or add into existing section (This doesn't affect where it would appear, it's just organizing the xml to be easy on eyes.)
4. Add a new config, this will be the trick name that appears in-game.

   example:
   <item_TRICK_BACKSLIDE eng="Sprint to Backslide"/>

After everything is done, run quickstart.bat and rename the dz file in the output folder to "common_xml", and copy the file to your Vector directory.

To add a trick trigger in Unity scene, add any tricks prefab and rename the prefab to your trick name from objects.xml (eg. TriggerBackslide) and buildmap. You can now test out the trick that you've made in your own map.

This should concludes everything for the trick animation.

Cutscene Animation

Creating cutscene animation is easier, since you don't have to config many files in the game.

Configuring Moves_new.xml

1. Open your Move_news.xml with notepad or other text editor programs (Notepad++ recommended)
2. Scroll down to Moves section, you should see many animation configuration here. Find a space for you to write and add a new config.

   example:
    <CS02DownTownHelpBotPart1 ID="0" Type="1" 
    FileName="cs02_helpbot_part1.bin" MidFrames="2" FirstFrame="0" EndFrame="41" PivotNode="DetectorH" Priority="2">
      <Interval Start = "0" End = "41" Safe="1"/>
    </CS02DownTownHelpBotPart1>

Adding animation event trigger in Unity scene.

Instead of adding config to objects.xml, we're going to add a more customizable trigger inside our Unity scene.

1. Add a new trigger sprite from textures folder and name it anything you want.
2. Set the gameobject tag to "Trigger"
3. Add a new component under the gameobject called "TriggerSettings" (Add Component > Vectorier > Trigger Settings)
4. In the inspector panel, you should see content textbox. Add the following config to the textbox area.

   example:
   <Init>
              <SetVariable Name="$Active" Value="1"/>
              <SetVariable Name="$AI" Value="0"/>
              <SetVariable Name="$Node" Value="DetectorH"/>
              <SetVariable Name="AnimName" Value="CS02DownTownHelpBotPart1"/>
              <SetVariable Name="AnimFrame" Value="1"/>
              <SetVariable Name="Reversed" Value="0"/>
            	<SetVariable Name="Flag1" Value="0"/>
            </Init>
            <Template Name="ForcedAnimation"/>

5. Buildmap and test the animation in-game. Where the animation will trigger depends on your trigger sprite size.

This should concludes the tutorial on how to add your own animation into vector, Have fun animating! Note: Blender Rig may not the best, as I have never rig in blender before. Feel free to improve upon it.