A quick and rough guide on replacing/editing animations...

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A quick and rough guide on replacing/editing animations...

Having noticed several animation-related mods popping up recently along with an excessive amount of begging for a jogging Geralt, I think now would be a good time to learn how to do some simple replacements. Doing so is a lot easier than you'll expect:

You'll need:

ModKit 1.3: wpc.4d7d.edgecastcdn.net/004D7D/mkt/archive/Modkit1.3.zip

Sarcen's mod editor: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3a...83TXRkZmM/view

"Debug console extensions" by skacikpl: http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/601/?

You'll want it for the "forceanim(animationname)" command in the console.

Alternative method: Storyboard UI by rmemr: http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2114/?

I won't get into installing/setting these up as tutorials already exist, and marvelmaster does an excellent job at explaining it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KqeAUP3P0

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Going straight into editing the main file for Geralt within Sarcen's, click "Add file" and navigate to:

gameplay\behaviors\pc\behaviorgraph\pc_gameplay.w2 beh

Sort by "Preview" so that a majority of the animations will be conveniently listed next to each other.

If you look at the "Name" tab, most of the animation entries will start with "CBehaviorGraphAnimationNode". In the "Preview" tab, a majority of these will have names that start with "man_geralt_sword_", "man_ger_", "locomotion_", "combat_locomotion_", etcetc. Click on any of these entries and you'll see that they have an "animationName" value:

https://i.imgur.com/gFw7Qhf.jpg

This is what you'll be replacing to change animations, and you can copy/paste any other ones here. Keep in mind that once you change the "animationName", this will also update the "Preview" name if you happen to close/reopen the entire file, which obviously means it might not be in the same location if you happen to sort by "Preview" again. Either that or you'll have duplicate "Preview" entries which might confuse you, so jot down name's number somewhere if you need to. The "animationName" is what you'll input in the "forceanim(animationname)" command.

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playbackSpeed:

Self-explanatory. In the picture above, you'll see this value right below the red box. Some entries have this and you can copy/paste it into any animation to edit their playback speed. Default value is 1. In the same picture, (after you've copied the value from another entry) insert it by right-clicking where it says "CBehaviorGraphAnimationNodeExtNode" and hitting "Paste Variable". If you see that an entry has a "cachedSpeedTimeNode", right-click and remove it otherwise "playbackSpeed" won't work.

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Rolls and Dodges:

Rolls begin with "man_geralt_sword_dodge_roll" while dodges start with "man_geralt_sword_dodge_jump".

Some have "F" or "B" in their names, which indicate forwards or backwards. There are none for left or right directions. When dodging, the game uses backdashes for left and right movements. When rolling, the game often uses the forward roll for most directions and in this case, is the reason why Geralt often ends up facing the wrong direction when rolling away from enemies. Why? Idk, ask CDPR. The entries with "Flip" in their names are used for rolls/dodges that end with Geralt facing the other direction. Next to these entries, you'll see a large selection of other dodge animations, with some of them being pirouettes. Replace default ones as desired.

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General Movement:

These begin with:

"combat_locomotion_" For running/walking with sword in hand.

and

"locomotion_" For running/walking without sword in hand.

They have a pattern:

"locomotion_run_cycle_fast" - Default running animations.

"locomotion_run_cycle_slow" - "Jogging" used by peasants/etc.

"locomotion_walk_cycle_slow" - When inside buildings where you're forced to walk, this is the slowest walk speed you can achieve.

"locomotion_walk_cycle_fast" - Standard walking.

"locomotion_sprint_cycle" - Obvious.

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The "man_longsword" file:

animations\man\combat\man_longsword.w2anims

The player is very limited to what animations they can use, but in this file you'll find more usable animations which are used by specific npc's. Every attack here can be used but they're not originally made for the player, so a few of them come with camera anomalies or just don't look as refined.

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Editing Animations:

Won't get too detailed here, especially as some changes cause wonky behavior and you'll only wanna edit stuff here for very specific reasons. In this example we'll be adjusting the travel distance for the forward dash. Add file and navigate to:

"animations\man\combat\man_geralt_sword.w2anim s"

(unrelated note: here you'll find a few animations not found in pc_gameplay.w2beh, but if you want to use them, replace entries in "pc_gameplay", not here).

Sort by preview to easily find "man_geralt_sword_dodge_jump_rp_f_01". Click it, then sort by "Index" and hit up or down arrow to return to the entry if it didn't take you there after sorting. Notice how the "motionExtraction" variable is set to "CLineMotionExtraction2 #1308". Just below this dodge entry, is index #1308. In this entry, you'll see a "Frames" variable. Aside from the 0 this one starts with, increase all of these by an equal amount to increase the travel distance. Pic example:

https://i.imgur.com/s43x014.jpg

If you compare it with yours, you'll see that I've already increased frames 1, 2, and 3, by an amount of 0.5 to give it just a smidge more distance.

You'll notice that animations with backwards movements have negative numbers so keep that in mind if you decide to edit those. There's really not much reason to edit these but you might find some use and I just wanted to bring attention to this anims file, but to give you a mod example:

http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2258/?

This was done by finding the "fast_far" and "strong_far" attack entries and pointing their motion extraction to the forward roll's motion extraction number, causing them to use the forward roll's frames, resulting in them having absurd range.

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Make your changes, hit "Pack and Install Mod" mod in the editor and you'll find your mod installed within the mods folder. That's about it. I'm tired, it's late, and this white background is incredibly obnoxious I'll give this another look tomorrow to see if I missed anything major.
 
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Thank you so much for this guide! So thanks to this mod
erxv;n7923830 said:
(thanks erxv ) I've managed to find few animations I would like to replace. To be specific I would like to replace walking and joggin animation (just fooling around..) though I do not know which one to replace, since they are not starting with man_geralt_walk, atleast I can't find anything close to this in Sarcen's Mod Editor.. Maybe you know names of Geralt's walking and jog animations?
 
Thanks for this tut, I was just about to dig in animations by myself, this is going to be very useful!
 
erxv;n7923830 said:
good on you for sharing what you have learned.. :cheers:

an alternative (and more useful in my opinion) tool for this would be "SBUI" by rmemr http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2114/? because in that you can search for animations by name (so you type in "run" and it will show you all the animations that have "run" in their name)

Didn't know it could be used for that purpose, I'll have to try it out sometime. Added to OP.

linaswas_001;n7924920 said:
since they are not starting with man_geralt_walk, atleast I can't find anything close to this in Sarcen's Mod Editor.. Maybe you know names of Geralt's walking and jog animations?

There is no "man_geralt_walk" : p Slight chance you'll find what you're looking for under "General Movement" :smile:
 
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Ramon242 What if I wanted to increase the playback speed of a specific sword fast attack? I think those can only be found in man_geralt_sword.w2anims and not in pc_gameplay.wbeh
 
craniumj;n8071310 said:
Ramon242 What if I wanted to increase the playback speed of a specific sword fast attack? I think those can only be found in man_geralt_sword.w2anims and not in pc_gameplay.wbeh

I never really looked into that. I've only seen it done via scripts.
 
I tried replacing geralts run with his running up animation but it came out incredibly buggy. Does anyone know any way to fix this?
 
dvirzigel1;n8304150 said:
I tried replacing geralts run with his running up animation but it came out incredibly buggy. Does anyone know any way to fix this?

ofcourse not.... the running up animation is meant for you know.... running up things....
 
dvirzigel1;n8308320 said:
Also (if I can) how can i take NPC animations and apply to Geralt?

Download this mod,

Ramon242;n7923630 said:
http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2114/?

then search and check which animation you would like to use on Geralt, write the name of the animation somewhere or something so you won't forget it, then open up Sarcen ModEditor as said in guide by Ramon242 .

I don't know all the names of Geralt animations, so I'll post only those I'm certainly sure are his.

Slow Walking animations are "locomotion_walk_cycle_slow_forward_triple_01" etc
Fast Walking "locomotion_walk_cycle_fast_forward_triple_01" etc
Running animation "locomotion_run_cycle_fast_forward_triple_01" etc
(thanks to DreaLL47 )

 
So I've recently uploaded my first mod but it seems to be incompatible with E3DodgeSystem which is obviously not good.
is there any way to fix this?
 
I have a problem replacing combat animations, it seems like just nothing changes. and I have tried replacing just about everything.
can anyone help?
 
dvirzigel1;n8346660 said:
I have a problem replacing combat animations, it seems like just nothing changes. and I have tried replacing just about everything.
can anyone help?

Way too vague here : p

What "combat" animations? Dodging/rolls? Special attacks? Regular attacks? What animations are you trying to use?
 
Has anyone tried replacing the jogging animation with "ex_man_run f"?
I tried it myself,didn't work,and I have no idea how I could mess that up
 
Makimoto;n8351180 said:
Has anyone tried replacing the jogging animation with "ex_man_run f"?
I tried it myself,didn't work,and I have no idea how I could mess that up

I have and it works for me
 
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