No More Locked Anis!!!!!!!! L3 Files Cracked!!!!

[Big Sexy JC]

Well gents, as of earlier this evening I cracked the .L3 files. I have several tests to run to see what all I can modify, but below is a list of what I think this does for creating anis.

1. There won't be anymore locked anis. I've already opened up EVERY ani except the ones that came with the game (David Toms, Sergio and Annika). I might be able to figure the ones that came with the game out, but it's not a high priority at the moment. Keep in mind that I have no desire to steal anyone's work by doing this. I simply need the body type and apparel layout to give me more flexibility with the anis I create.

2. I can now make anis with multiple faces that you can switch between and different skins you can switch between. An example of this would be the anipro1 animation with 10 faces, 10 skins, 12 hats, 20 shirts, 20 pants and 12 shoes. I can now put 10 different PGA players faces in one ani and they can share the apparel. Or, I can create a single PGA player, but give options for facial hair, sunglasses, long sleeves, etc. I'm pumped about this.

3. I'll be able to match anis that I create up with a more realistic body type. This will be a high priority for some anis I've already created (Shane Lowry for example). Wouldn't he look great with the John Daly body?

4. I am still working on this and make no promises, but I think I will now be able to pick and choose what reactions my anis have to shots. This means if I never want an ani to act like he is throwing his club after a poor drive, I'll just remove that motion capture element out of the .L3 file. I'm excited about this, but since I just cracked it open 6 hours ago I've done very little testing.

5. Still haven't tested this at all, but I think I can switch which golfer ani uses. For example, I believe I can switch a golfer using the Russell or Matt swing to use the Sergio swing instead. This isn't terribly important to me, but when I get a chance I will test it more.

6. There is probably a bunch more crap this opens up for me that I haven't even thought of so as I cross those bridges I'll let everyone know.

7. I'll try to get some examples together over the next several days and get them out to the group.

[Titus]

Hello BigSexy,
Super, my wife is just asking me if there could be a new female Asian Ani without a reaction.
Greetings Titus

[PinHi]

Sounds awesome JC. Would be really nice if you can do all this. I love the anipro1 and use it for a lot of my anis. All the power to you for being able to find how to do what you are able to do. Astounding!

[fiver]

Chad,

Jim

[gator]

Wow, this is really nice!

Looking forward to only having to have 2 Anis, 1 male 1 female, where I can have them wear shorts/long pants, short sleeve shirts/long sleeve shirts (jackets) depending on the season/weather/my mood (mostly my mood) and keep all of my stats within 1 Ani. If you could give them the ability to wear a hat, visor, or no hat as well - icing on the cake.

Leo

[Big Sexy JC]

Well, 2 steps forward and 1 step backwards. I was able to unlock all the locked anis and extract all the TGAs out using the golfer utility. I thought that was the tough part given I've been working on it for a couple months. Evidently, the actual hard part is putting all TGAs back together so the ani still works.

I hate boring people with technical stuff, but basically the way the animasters "locked" those anis was to use BMP files in place of the TGA files. The Golfer Utility can't read the BMPs so when you try to open a golfer created with BMPs instead of TGAs in the golfer utility you get no results. Some of the locked anis are mixed between BMPs and TGAs so when you open them in the golfer utility you might be able to see a portion of the ani, but not all of it (see apparel, but not the face for example). Anipro1 is a good example of that. You can see all the apparel when you open it, but none of the faces.

I'm still trying to figure out how they used BMPs instead of TGAs, but I believe all that is defined in that Script.txt file that I posted awhile back. That file is not used by the game globally though, but instead each ani has a script.txt packed within it defining all the parameters. The problem is I can only see portions of it when I open the L3 files.

When I try to replace the TGAs of a locked ani with other TGAs the ani shows up as a silhouette in the game because it's looking for the BMPs instead of the TGAs. I've tried to change the Script.txt that I can see inside the file to look for TGAs instead and then it crashes the game. It's very frustrating and causing me to become closer to bald.

I'm a grinder, so I'll keep at it, but if you were expecting any exciting news I think I'm gonna disappoint you because I'm back to stumped again.

[fiver]

That's Ok Chad, You are still doing a great job!

[Adelade]

Give us all the technical details you want please At least here is one person who finds it very interesting.

Good luck going forwards.

[Jimbo]

If you're looking for a "fat old fart" ani who swears after a bad shot or missed putt the Nitpicker is at your service!

[Big Sexy JC]

Well, I feel like I've been kicked right in the nuts with some steel toed boots. I spent almost 3 months trying to crack all the locked anis thinking it would be the key to giving me more flexibility with creating new anis. I crack the damn things, get all the files out of them, can see most of the customizable configuration and can change what I can see, but every time I re-pack everything I either get a silhouette or it crashes the game.

I've thrown every test I can think of at this and all I've gotten is extreme frustration. I'm not totally giving up hope, but I honestly think the animasters had tools supplied by the game developer to allow them to do what they did. Without those tools, someone with mad programming skills (not me) or someone that knows how to see/read/interpret everything in those l3 files I'm dead in the water.

I never thought this would be the best angle, but I'm beginning to think the best solution might be to create a new/better golfer utility that reads .bmp and .tga instead of just .tga. It seems like a pretty light program (I mean 287kb .exe can't be too crazy right?), but I'm a hardware, networking, app support guy and definitely not a programmer. Hell, I even think the golfer utility was written by the game developers.

If you think you can help let me know. Otherwise I'm going to go back to focusing my time on creating anis the way i've been doing them unfortunately.

I apologize if I got anyone's hopes up, but just know mine were up too.