Ok so I'm a huge fan of http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=579548(Children can series- by kapaer) and I posted in the comment section if it was possible to make a children can cast spells mod. Anyway I got a PM a few days later from a modder called Sofmc9(profile link is here http://modthesims.info/member.php?u=1424584) who was looking at tutorials to convert adult animations to child one. She doesn't have much experience with script modding which will be needed for this mod. So if anyone knows something about it and can help her out, it'd be really nice .

If you can help us please post here or PM Sofmc9. Profile link http://modthesims.info/member.php?u=1424584

Do you know where this tutorial exists? I've looked at custom animation tutorials, but nothing on age converting an existing one.

Sofmc9 was using this tutorial over here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmHLZa3GxWE
But you can otherwise ask her by PM if you want more.

https://youtu.be/UFeNPV70a2M

https://youtu.be/GhSWNXMyd14

Here are some that she has already converted.

So, Skydome and I got really carried away over on the NRaas forum: http://nraas.wikispaces.com/share/view/81255645

Here's a summary of what we discussed:

1. OMG doing animation age conversions in Blender is easy! I had no idea! I want to do this all day.

2. Enabling existing interactions for children just consists of:
- Extracting the animation, usually from a FullBuild
- Converting it in Blender
- Saving it with the exact name used by the old animation, but replacing "a" for adult with "c" for child (or whatever age you're changing)
- Loading it into a package
- Enabling the interaction for children, which can be done with NRaas Retuner or an ITUN mod.

3. I spent two evenings staring at Painted Wings's YouTube tutorial (linked above) and, with the help of some more basic Blender tutorials, converted the adult play with xylophone animation. I turned on the interaction for children with Retuner and it JUST WORKED!** OMG OMG! Children can play with toddlers on the xylophone!

4. Based on that shocking victory, I think I can do more stuff. I'm picking through the .package files in the amazing No Stretch Children Can series. The Next Big Thing is to figure out how to get kids to step up on crates for interactions that need them to be taller.

5. BIG CAVEAT: Apparently there's a hiccup in converting spellcasting for children. Word from Chain_Reaction is that there's a core block preventing children from casting spells. He says that he can remove the block in the NRaas Hybrid mod. That means we would need to coordinate with Chain for any child spellcasting mod, and it might be dependent on also having Hybrid installed. I think that's fine, but I already run Hybrid .

** OK, it didn't QUITE work. The converted child animation got shifted down on the Y axis, so that the child now sits waist-deep in the floor while playing with the toddler. I THINK I can fix this.

: )) I was surprised too at how easy it was to convert adult animations to children.
How do you enable the interaction with Nraas retuner, though?

NRaas Retuner is kind of a hack for testing in this case. It's a mod that you can use in place of ITUNs to change details of an interaction, like what types of sims can do it, what it advertises, what needs it fills, and so forth. To package this stuff up in its own mod, we need to add an ITUN in the package with the animation, which is what the No Stretch mods do. ITUNs are something I know how to do, though I've never actually made a mod with one.

For testing, though, it's great. Do you have Retuner? It's not the easiest thing to use, so it might not be worth it. It's kind of a modder's meta-mod.

Have you talked to Chain? He hasn't really posted anything in the Nraas forum. I feel like one of us should collaborate with him if we are to make this mod.

Yes, I downloaded Retuner. Never used it much. Will see how it goes for testing. : )

My thought is that we should convert the animations, and we should be able to play with them with Animation player? I can PM Chain and see what it would take on his side.

Yea unfortunately my college exams start from 10 to 28. So I won't really be able to commit during that time frame. I wish I could tho. I'll still keep in touch and once my exams are over I can help out as well.

That's fair. I don't know how fast we'll be able to move on this. That's only 2.5 weeks. I work full time and have a 6yo kid, so my time is always limited.

Wow you live a busy life. So ok once my exam is over I'll get back full-time. This mod is definitely happening though. If the core block removal doesn't work than I'll script it myself. I'll be free all day once the exams are done so I think I can do it. I already know how to add interactions with scripts.

Yeah, there are a lot of clip animations to convert. ^-^ How many are you thinking of converting? When you have time, of course.

Which ones should I focus on? I would like to take some time tonight to see if I can get my children playing with xylophone to sit ON the ground. After that, i can focus on spellcasting animations if you want to do that. I just don't want us to duplicate work. Once we get rolling, converting animations is pretty fast.

Perhaps I should focus on combinting animations with ITUN mods and so forth so they can be used int he game. If so, perhaps you should convert the spellcasting animations.

We can break them up, but I'd have to look inside Fullbuild15 and see how many there are. I can do that when I get home in about 2 hours.

I could have waited to reply until then, but what the heck.

Focus on conjure Apple first.
Edit:-
If you want to try out non spell animations than I say convert some adult animations to child. Rather than toddler to child because that would be good practice for this mod we're trying.
If you want xylophone animations you should definitely go for it but if it were me I'd go for the adult cello

I want to see if I can get the xylophone mod finalized with ITUN and everything. After that, I'm happy to do conjure apple.

I'm also doing beekeeping, and I need to learn about the standing on crate thing. The No Stretch Alchemy mod appears to use a jazz script, and I don't know anything about that. I can probably do beekeeping with the child just standing in the air, but eventually I need to figure out how to add a crate .

I believe there is no upright bass in the No Stretch series because children are too small to reach around the bass. I would be inclined to try to make a child's bass object for use with the child bass mod myself. Children do, in fact, learn string bass in the real world -- they just use child size instruments. It also might be possible to use a crate or a stool to adjust where the child stands. Worth experimenting with anyway.

Kapaer would know how to add a crate. He added one for kids interacting with the alchemy. I tried conjure apple and it wasn't playing on blender. Maybe I used the wrong clip file.

Great you're doing beekeeping! : D I could convert those animations instead.

Have you chatted with Kapaer? Is he available for questions? I read up on jazz scripts, and I think I know what they're doing. I think that's what I can use to place a crate and add animations for the child to climb up and down from them. This has to be a common thing modders want to do with jazz scripts.

Looking at the string bass animation, it sure looks like you could convert it to child with them standing on a crate.

So, you tried to convert conjure apple and it didn't play? What about Play with Magic? That seems like another one to try. I'll take a stab at conjure apple. I'm hoping to get some time to mess with this stuff tonight.

Yeah I don't know much about Jazz scripts myself. I've never worked with animations before.
http://modthesims.info/d/365465
This is something I found about Jazz scripts after searching.

No, too bad Kapaer won't come back in a mg. Great both you and Skydome know more about jazz scripts and might be able to figure out how to place a crate! : )
Yes I tried the clip file, a2o_witchWizard_apearApple_apple and it wouldn't play. : /

I must say it's much easier than scripting an object. It's basically this:

Allright we have this object, what do you want me to do?

- Well object and animation, and the actor is what we need for this entire script.
- Let's open the door! :D
- And here are some rules first
- Okay now we have this object what should it do?!
1. Well this is the object.
2. Jazz, go play this animation for the object
3. (If it has an actor). Go play this actor animation!

Aaand here we close the door.

Anyways, I guess having some knowledge in C++ would be pretty recommended here. This reference page is also pretty neat: http://simswiki.info/wiki.php?title=Sims_3:Jazz

I would actually take a look at objects doing the similar thing, like.... a couch? and see how they did it

@Sofmc9, just wondering, are you trying to make the crate animatable?

here's just an example of how I personally would try to assign the crate like this, so let's take a look at the example code:



"State Machine "AlarmClock""- is basically the Jazz script's name, if not, well... it's "actor" (actors are basically sims, or objects). The name should be mentioned in your script as well.

Actor "AlarmClock" = Basically defining the, well, object.
Assign Actor "o_alarmclockCheap_Ring.ma"."alarmclockcheap" as 0x0 = o_alarmclockCheap_Ring.ma appears to be the animation. Because "o_" Stands for 'object' just like "a_" Stands for adult. So in our case, that will be the clip file which we have defined to the 'actor' or well the 'AlarmClock'.
Assign Actor 0xC63B4209."alarmclockcheap" as 0x0 = The " 0xC63B4209" is the resource code for 'CLIP' which means that it's defining to the 'alarmclockcheap' CLIP, or well, the instance, which you have to convert to a Hash64 (Or well, in S3PE a 'FNV64). All of that's explained at the bottom of this post.
State "Enter" Basically means, what I meant in my first post, 'you're all dressed up for prom, now let's go!'

To convert a name to a 'Hash64':

1. Open S3PE> File> New

2. Tools > FNV hash...

3. in the next window you wanna write down in the 'text to hash' our "alarmclockcheap" (Without the "s though).

4. Click the awesome blue calculate button and see what it does! :D

5. Forget about the other tabs, we want the FNV64 one! Which appears to be.... *drum rolls* 0x8B56486FA892FBF7

Note on the instance. Okay we generated it. Thing is, your CLIP's instance should be identical to the name, if that makes any sense. So if you made a custom CLIP file, you can just easily import that into your project package folder and do this instead of going to tools> FNV Hash...

1. Import your CLIP file by going to Import>from file...

Yeah it will show the name and such blender generated. However, we want to convert it to a good-looking instance...

2. in this new window, You wanna go all the way to 'Name' and in our case, we want to name it 'alarmclockcheap'. Then, just simply press the 'FNV64' button and there you go!

If this doesn't work though, you could always use the clip name, which happens to be "o_alarmclockCheap_Ring.ma" and convert that to a FNV64 file and see what happens. It's just a way for the script to 'detect' the actual clip.

I would also recommend checking out this tutorial: http://www.simlogical.com/ContentUp...e/uploads/1240/
My knowledge on Jazz scripts are pretty limited though, but here you go!

Wow. I'm less far along than I thought I'd be. I've spent two hours trying to figure out how to move my child xylophone animation to sit on top of the ground, and I haven't been able to make any progress. I use G to "grab" the child object and move it to sit at approximately the x-axis (ground). The animation plays in Blender, and then after I save it out, the child is back where it was when I started. I'm pretty frustrated.

This doesn't seem to be the case with the beekeeping animation I converted. After I converted the beekeeping animation, the child stood on the ground exactly as the adult did. But I tried the pegbox, and it does the same thing as the xylophone.

I'll see if I can do anything with some spellcasting animations. The xylophone and pegbox are very old animations. Maybe there's something weird about them?

Another possibility is that xylophone/pegbox animations are in a sitting position. I suppose it's possible that this makes the different somehow.

Did you notice there's ALREADY a c2o_witchWizard_apearApple_apple in FullBuild15.package? I saved it out and played it in Blender, and it looks fine!

Thanks for coming to give advice, GreenPlumbBob!

Can I export jazz scripts from a package and read them? I downloaded and installed SmoothJazz and exported the jazz resource from the No Stretch alchemy mod, since that would be doing exactly what I need to do. However, when I ran SmoothJazz and tried to open the file, I got "Invalid character sequence at 16."

So clearly I'm missing something... :-/