Custom Animations: Ideas and Discussion

[TheHenshinGamer]

So, I noticed that this topic is barely discussed in the modding community. And as far as I can tell, custom movesets for existing or mod wrestlers never use any moves that aren't game native. honestly, it's kinda disappointing. I see all these great custom wrestlers, and cool custom arenas, but there are no custom entrance motions or custom finishers or even custom animations to replace Universe Mode cutscenes, (which in my own personal opinion would probably be the first step to jerry-riging a "Create-A-Story" type mode). Now this topic isn't me claiming that I've found a way to do it or what not. far from it, my knowledge in game programming is non-existant. However, I'd like to think that this post could serve as a type of starting point where people can share what they know on the subject, as well as their ideas for custom animations. Maybe you have an idea for a crazy finisher that would never make it into the game otherwise and you want to tell people about it. Or maybe you uncovered some information while browsing through a random game pac file that could be a step in the right direction. All in all this post is just to chat about the subject. Maybe something will come of it, maybe not. But it'll still serve as a great place to possibly get the ball rolling.

[jakeypearce]

• 2K developed the game animation using MotionBuilder 2012, as seen in the video of making 2K15. I have no experience with the program.
• The animation format is called YANM. Pre WWE '12, they used YMK.
• It is actually possible to edit the animation, albeit small. It basically involves finding the animation, uncompressing it, changing 2 bytes, then recompress and inject. Someone will need to find all the valid bytes the game uses and document what does what. 32 B0, for example, makes it a standing animation.
• The code the game uses is NOT Lua. Lua is utilized so that it allows manipulation of SOME, not ALL parts of the game (i.e. a scripting language). C++ is being used as its genetic code (thanks Bannockburn for correcting me!).

Edited August 7, 2016 by jakeypearce
Correction, thanks to Bannockburn

[Ecklesias]

About this, a little bit off-topic, but, how can I import entrance motions from 2k15 to 2k16? Just paste and assign the entrance at Data Editor?

[jakeypearce]

• The code the game uses is Lua.

This is wrong. The game isn't coded in Lua, it's coded in C++; 2k are utilizing Lua as their form of scripting language which allows you to manipulate portions of certain game functionality, not all. 

Right, my mistake. Thanks for that!