Printable Version of Topic
Click here to view this topic in its original format
Zoo Admin Forums > APE Tutorials > Extracting MM/DD animals to APE


Posted by: Mngwa Nov. 21 2002, 11:17 AM
I’ve been reading the posts on extracting animations for dinos, sea creatures and bonus animals. I’ve tried the method on ZKL, and had some diificulties. At the request of ty2, I’m posting the method I use.

For bonus animals:

1. Unzip the *.ZTD file, I’ll use the antelope.ZTD.
2. Create an animal on APE. It doesn’t matter what, you just want the *.UCA file. Unzip this animal’s *.ZTD.
3. Copy the *.UCA file (inside the animals folder, it will be named with numbers and letters, i.e. BF84C912.UCA) from the animal you created into the animals folder for the sable antelope.
4. Using Wordpad, open the *.UCA file and delete all text.
5. Using Wordpad, open the sablea.ai. Copy all text and paste it into the *.UCA file.
6. Delete the sablea.ai file and rename the *.UCA file to sablea.UCA.
7. Zip the animal back up as a *. ZTD file and it is available in APE.

For dinos and sea creatures:

1. Unzip the animals5.ZTD, animals6.ZTD, animals8.ZTD, animals9.ZTD and animalsa.ZTD files.
2. Create a new folder, name it animals.
3. Inside the animals folder, create another new folder. Name it with the same name as the *.ai file of the animal you are extracting. I’ll use the allosaurus. The AI file is allo.ai, so name the folder allo.
4. Copy the allo.ai file from the unzipped animals8 folder into the animals folder with the allo folder.
5. In the unzipped animals5 folder, there is an allo folder. Copy the m folder, y folder and and allo.pal file into the allo folder (the one that you created in your animals folder).
6. In the unzipped animals6 folder, there is also an allo folder. Copy the icmallo, lsmallo, plmallo and the wave files into the allo folder (the one that you created in your animals folder).
7. Switch the AI file to a UCA file as described above for the sable antelope.
8. Zip up the creature as a*.ZTD file and it is available in APE.

For MM creatures, the files you need are in the animals9.ZTD and the animalsa.ZTD. It works just as well, but I haven’t tried to do anything with any of the MM creatures beyond this.

Any new animal created this way will overwrite the animal you are extracting the animations from, so in order to use the animations you need to save them and reload them in APE with a new animal you are creating, using an animal that APE provides access to. This poses problems in terms of AI with some behaviors and the corresponding animations, and may require editing in the UCA file to get the animal to work properly. This method will allow you to look at compatability, behaviors and all other properties, so you can record these and transfer them to the animal you’ve created. It also pulls the sounds into APE. I’ve been trying to work out a way where these animals can be used in APE directly, but I haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

Hope this helps.
smile.gif

Posted by: Eagle One Nov. 21 2002, 12:31 PM
thanks for the guide i will try it


Posted by: ty2 Nov. 22 2002, 05:44 AM
mad.gif It Doesn't work i treid a million times i give up AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! mad.gif
My .AI file seem's to be a Microsoft paint file and does not OPEN AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Loewenfrau Nov. 26 2002, 12:27 PM
I also tried it and everytime i try to open the ztd with APE it performs an illegal operation and shuts down /
What APE version are you using ?

Posted by: Mngwa Nov. 26 2002, 09:36 PM
Version 1.1 It has worked every time when I've done it. I'll look at the post again and make sure I didn't leave anything out. I have found, since posting it, that when opening MM creatures certain animations crash APE if you try to open them.

BTW, has anybody else been successful? I'm beginning to wonder if I'm nuts or something.

Posted by: Iguanadon123 Nov. 27 2002, 07:15 AM
- yHey all,
that still looks like alot of trouble... There is no other way how to do that?
Why dont we just make a new version of ape?
Well anyway, its 6:16 am here and it to early for my brain to work, so signing off,
IGGY laugh2.gif smile2.gif sad2.gif rolleyes2.gif tongue2.gif wubb2.gif lol2.gif dry.gif - yep theres definately a theme here.... (to be continued)

Posted by: Mngwa Nov. 27 2002, 10:23 AM
I was up all night. Used it to do the reindeer, mountain lion, allosaurus, spinosaurus, ankylosaurus, great white shark, mako shark and octopus. Had no problems at all with any of the dinos or animals. APE let me see all animations for the great white. With the mako shark, I could look at all info and animations except the shadow animations. APE crashed immediately when I tried to open these animations. APE crashed immediately when opening the octopus. I was too tired to investigate further.

I checked the steps in the tutorial and can't find anything out of place or misssing.

Posted by: Loewenfrau Nov. 27 2002, 11:27 AM
i found if you simply change the
cNameID = to 19000
and rename the ai to uca then you also can open the add on animals with APE.

But still no luck with DD ot MM . I wonder what I'm doing wrong

Posted by: markbell Dec. 3 2002, 05:57 AM
I'm not too sure about DD animals (I haven't attempted one) but I have found that for MM, you may need to delete the Behaviour Sets (BS) from the .uca (old .ai) file for them to appear in APE. In particular, I needed to delete the BS from the beluga.uca to get the beluga into APE. But, to view the Jellyfish, I only needed to change the .ai to .uca . Can't seem to work out why at the moment.

Anyone like to give it a try and let me know what their results are?

Posted by: Aussie Koala Dec. 3 2002, 07:23 AM
I think it might be handy to keep all the info about MM/DD animals into APE etc in one place- i make this thread the one.

Everyone Pls post any questions/information/advise- about this here smile.gif
Thanks

Posted by: Loewenfrau Dec. 3 2002, 08:12 PM
Mark, so you saying after deleting the behavior they work ??
That is good news !!

I always tried it with the beluga whale and it didn't. I just assumed i did something wrong.
Then Mngwa send me one of his (?) files to check and the were exactly as mine. Thanks again for that, Mngwa !

Then I used the sea turtle and woops , it worked !!

unfortunately my first try to recolor an MM animal didn't turn out as expected LOL

Posted by: markbell Dec. 4 2002, 04:38 AM
QUOTE (Loewenfrau @ Dec 4 2002, 11:42 AM)
Mark, so you saying after deleting the behavior they work ??
That is good news !!

Loewenfrau, I have only tested this theory on the Beluga Whale. As I said in the post above, I didn't need to delete the Behaviours to get the Jellyfish working.

I need to do some testing of this to figure out why some do and some don't.

Edit: Further proof that some MM animals need their Behaviours deleted from the .uca file. I had to delete them from the walrus.uca file to get the Walrus to show in APE.


Posted by: James 24 Dec. 5 2002, 02:03 PM
I'll give it go soon :)hopefully, thanks guys

Posted by: Mngwa Dec. 6 2002, 01:44 PM
QUOTE (markbell @ Dec 3 2002, 06:57 AM)
I'm not too sure about DD animals (I haven't attempted one) but I have found that for MM, you may need to delete the Behaviour Sets (BS) from the .uca (old .ai) file for them to appear in APE. In particular, I needed to delete the BS from the beluga.uca to get the beluga into APE. But, to view the Jellyfish, I only needed to change the .ai to .uca . Can't seem to work out why at the moment.

Anyone like to give it a try and let me know what their results are?

I've packaged up 8 or so of the DD animals, and haven't had a problem with one yet as far as APE rejecting them. This is without altering BS. It seems to be a MM issue, and isn't consistent even among MM creatures.

MarkBell,

When I started packaging animals up this way, my ultimate goal was to figure a way to get APE to open them as new projects and reassign the new project a number. APE won't do this as long as the AI is changed to a UCA or UCS, it treats them just like any other user-created item. You understand how APE works a lot better than I do, is this potentially possible?

Posted by: markbell Dec. 6 2002, 07:42 PM
Mngwa,

As far as I can ascertain, it is not possible to get APE to give MM animals/objects new id numbers.

The only known way to do it is to use a Hex Editor (like WinHex) to change all references to the old id number to a new one.


Posted by: beefsteak Dec. 8 2002, 11:55 AM
As someone alrwady said, what don't you guess make a new version of APE.


I mean, with all the trouble everyone seems to have with the program I should think this would have been done long ago. Make a more user friendly version.

Posted by: Teppo Dec. 9 2002, 05:57 AM
Somebody (Sorry about this, but I really can't remember his/her name) made APE version 1.22. He/she fixed several things, but still there aren't new animalsobjects. I think his/her name and site addres could be find from ZA's archives.
But still making an new program is very hard what I have seen... (I have no clue how to and I have never tried) unsure.gif

Posted by: Aussie Koala Dec. 9 2002, 07:08 AM
What they claim to have fixed was not true (such as rotation issues) and is why ZA no longer hosts it.

Posted by: Valor3 Dec. 17 2002, 10:49 PM
I have been trying to get bonus animals on APE and I have been following these instructions. But I keep getting the error message "Couldn't open the file because it is not a file that Quick Time understands." mad.gif

Posted by: Frogman Dec. 17 2002, 10:51 PM
Quicktime is set up to be your default player for files. If it is a wordpad file you want to open then start wordpad, click file, click open, search for the file...

It will work fine then. smile2.gif

Posted by: chiefbutz Dec. 18 2002, 01:54 PM
I'm not sure about this, but it is a sound idea, you can get the behaviors, i think, but you can't just post the entire ai file, because it has stuff ape won't recodnoce, (ex: the thing that says it is to be a egg, so you can just copy and paste the behavoirs so they are in thee it is just stuff like saying it is to go to a diffeent menu and such. I hope this helps.

Posted by: zoomaster3 Dec. 26 2002, 10:29 AM
[QUOTE]I'm not too sure about DD animals (I haven't attempted one) but I have found that for MM, you may need to delete the Behaviour Sets (BS) from the .uca (old .ai) file for them to appear in APE. In particular, I needed to delete the BS from the beluga.uca to get the beluga into APE. But, to view the Jellyfish, I only needed to change the .ai to .uca . Can't seem to work out why at the moment.

Anyone like to give it a try and let me know what their results are?[\QUOTE]

Markbell, I did what you said with the Beluga, I deleted the Behavior Sets and I could open it in APE. Here is the file if you want to look at it, but credit is going to Gamerz World...


Posted by: zoomaster3 Dec. 26 2002, 10:33 AM
I also succesfully got the Sea Turtle to open, without deleting anything from the .ai/.ucs file.


NOTE: I tried a recolor on the Beluga, by copying the Icon to change it, and it was invisble. But one time, I think it made the beluga the color but the other was invisible. And when I tried it again, and then opened it in APE, the colors were all messed up, so to recolor animals from MM you may have to do every single file... I am trying to update the APE files so they will open the DD/MM objects/animal files... But I don't know if I can...

Just thought you should know that about recoloring.

ZooMaster3 wink.gif


Posted by: GoTo Dec. 31 2002, 04:39 AM
Works this instruction very well?
or doesn#t work it every time?

Posted by: Loewenfrau Dec. 31 2002, 06:42 AM
if you follow the instruction it works quite OK. But this method is only good for getting the animations ( and not all of them can be saved)
If you alter that file and use it as a new animal it will overwrite the original animal.


Posted by: Québek Dec. 31 2002, 06:37 PM
i cant get this to work. i've been trying to get the orca, and i can't find all the stuff needed. i say we should make a new version of APE.

Posted by: Aussie Koala Jan. 1 2003, 01:47 AM
GoTo Posted: Dec 31 2002, 08:57 PM



Zoo Guest


Group: Members
Posts: 8
Member No.: 1141
Joined: 31-December 02



Hello
I'm new here and I can't speak English very well, but I can speak.
and now my question:

How can I edit Marine Mania animals with Ape?
Or is there are an other programm for do that.
I saw some new MM animals on zoogirls site and so it must be give a program.
greetings Stefan

IP: [ 217.226.199.147 ] Report this post


markbell Posted: Dec 31 2002, 10:18 PM



Tour Guide


Group: Members
Posts: 184
Member No.: 143
Joined: 24-November 01



View this thread:

http://forums.ogresnet.com/zoo/index.php?a...ct=ST&f=6&t=420
IP: [ 203.58.167.130 ] Report this post


Loewenfrau Posted: Dec 31 2002, 11:04 PM



Asst Webmaster


Group: Admin
Posts: 1797
Member No.: 361
Joined: 20-February 02



I have not tried it myself but looking at Zoo Girls animals it seems to work great.
This belongs to the APE forum

--------------------
come and see the lions !! Creator of Loewenfrau's MiniXP - an expansion pack with two new scenarios.Available at ZA scenario downloads
Loewenfrau's Dino Digs and ZT Developer Items , Loewenfrau's Free Staff hack and Loewenfrau's Clean Up hack which are all available at ZA Utilities & Patches page
Need help with animals ?? Try Pixigger's Place !!
IP: [ ---------- ] Report this post


spin Posted: Dec 31 2002, 11:28 PM



Pooper Scooper


Group: Members
Posts: 41
Member No.: 1054
Joined: 10-December 02



Zoogirl has been using my APEs I believe.

--------------------
"Man is the only animal that blushes... Or needs to"
--Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

ZT Animal Encyclopedia

Don't forget to submit your new animal's info to the database
IP: [ 212.187.68.200 ] Report this post


GoTo Posted: Jan 1 2003, 12:04 AM



Zoo Guest


Group: Members
Posts: 8
Member No.: 1141
Joined: 31-December 02



I have found your APE and it works fantastic.
But I have one question about you "MOD" for APE.
Why can't I edit a Humpback Whale or a Sperm Whale?

IP: [ 217.226.206.40 ] Report this post


spin Posted: Jan 1 2003, 12:17 AM



Pooper Scooper


Group: Members
Posts: 41
Member No.: 1054
Joined: 10-December 02



Those would crash APE no matter what I tried, so I commented them out in the cfg file so you guys only get the working ones


And keep my site in check the coming days.

Here I'll be collecting mistakes made by APE during it's save session and what to edit in order to correct it again.

--------------------
"Man is the only animal that blushes... Or needs to"
--Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

ZT Animal Encyclopedia

Don't forget to submit your new animal's info to the database
IP: [ 212.187.68.200 ] Report this post


GoTo Posted: Jan 1 2003, 12:31 AM



Zoo Guest


Group: Members
Posts: 8
Member No.: 1141
Joined: 31-December 02



Do you think you will correct the problems with these animals?

IP: [ 217.84.178.54 ] Report this post


spin Posted: Jan 1 2003, 12:34 AM



Pooper Scooper


Group: Members
Posts: 41
Member No.: 1054
Joined: 10-December 02



Those problems are APE related and will need source code to fix, something I do not have

The only thing I did in those config files is fooling APE into loading other things by editing the CFG files contained in these config's.

Maybe if enough people would ask, MS or Bluefang would release the code for APE.
I've allready asked them for this and also for help on these issues but have yet to recieve even a single reply...

--------------------
"Man is the only animal that blushes... Or needs to"
--Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

ZT Animal Encyclopedia

Don't forget to submit your new animal's info to the database
IP: [ 212.187.68.200 ] Report this post


GoTo Posted: Jan 1 2003, 01:02 AM



Zoo Guest


Group: Members
Posts: 8
Member No.: 1141
Joined: 31-December 02



Can you put only the Sperm whale to the config and than can you send it to me?
May Mail Addy: sommer88@t-online.de
Possible it works?!
IP: [ 217.226.195.126 ] Report this post


spin Posted: Jan 1 2003, 01:18 AM



Pooper Scooper


Group: Members
Posts: 41
Member No.: 1054
Joined: 10-December 02



APE will crash while loading it...

but you can try it yourself, unpack the mm ztd with winzip and edit animals.cfg, all the crashing animals are allready inthere just with a ; infront of it, remove the ;, save the cfg and repack the ztd (zip the files and rename to .ztd)

--------------------
"Man is the only animal that blushes... Or needs to"
--Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

ZT Animal Encyclopedia

Don't forget to submit your new animal's info to the database
IP: [ 212.187.68.200 ] Report this post


zoomaster3 Posted: Jan 1 2003, 02:21 AM



Tour Guide


Group: Members
Posts: 280
Member No.: 429
Joined: 11-March 02



Before the editited APE files, I was able to open the Beluga by extracting the files, and deleting the behavior sets from the .ai/.ucs file. So you can open the animals. But then when I put the text back in once I had made a new file, it did not work, except once, and that time it overwrote my original Beluga, and made it the new color, whil the new file was invisible. Other times I just had three Beluga icons to select from the animal menu...

So I'm sure you could get the Sperm Whale or Humpback Whale into APE by extaracting by following oine of the tutorials, but it will probably coem up invisibile...

ZooMaster3

--------------------
Check out: Gamerz World CURRENT PROJECT: Space Frost (Release soon!!!)
Next Project: Crazy Screamerz (What could be in it? I won't tell yet.)
IP: [ 24.209.35.13 ] Report this post


GoTo Posted: Jan 1 2003, 02:23 AM



Zoo Guest


Group: Members
Posts: 8
Member No.: 1141
Joined: 31-December 02



Ok.
I'll try it later.

One guy in the german zt community will makes an other programm for edit animals.
He said that he wil upload Screenshots as fast as he can finished.
Here is his site: www.zoo-tycoon-site.de.vu
But there are no pics, at the moment.

IP: [ 217.226.202.242 ] Report this post


bloodangel518 Posted: Jan 1 2003, 08:46 AM



Zoo Guest


Group: Members
Posts: 21
Member No.: 1046
Joined: 9-December 02



Spin, where can I download your APE?
IP: [ 24.162.4.12 ] Report this post


spin Posted: Jan 1 2003, 08:55 AM



Pooper Scooper


Group: Members
Posts: 41
Member No.: 1054
Joined: 10-December 02



On my site maybe ?

http://zt.arachnafobic.org/site_eape.php should get you there directly

--------------------
"Man is the only animal that blushes... Or needs to"
--Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

ZT Animal Encyclopedia

Don't forget to submit your new animal's info to the database
IP: [ 212.187.68.200 ] Report this post


bloodangel518 Posted: Jan 1 2003, 09:23 AM



Zoo Guest


Group: Members
Posts: 21
Member No.: 1046
Joined: 9-December 02



thanx!

Posted by: chiefbutz Jan. 1 2003, 05:13 AM
I think i know how to do it easyer, all you have to do is find the .ai file open it and change
cExpansionID=2 and delete that line, then find
[Member]
animals
aqua
and delete the dinosaur or aqua line
then just re zip it and it should work

Posted by: FoxGuy Jan. 22 2003, 07:10 AM
MY BRAIN HURTS!!!!!!!!!! wacko.gif wacko.gif wacko.gif
SO MANY ANWSERS!!!!!! blink.gif blink.gif blink.gif
SO MANY DEAD ENDS!!!!! wacko.gif wacko.gif wacko.gif
SO MANY FAILED ATTEMPTS!!!!!!! blink.gif blink.gif blink.gif

I try and try and try and try....but NOTHING!!!!!! sad.gif
I have decided to put of trying (for my sanity) untill someone else can figure out exactlly what is going on!
I tried doing every thing but couldn't even open the jelly fish!

Posted by: Lehner Jan. 25 2003, 06:38 AM
Here a short version:

- Make a new folder "animals" on the desktop or somewhere else
- Take all files (pal,ai,ylfolder,m-folder,...) from the animals folders in the
new folder
- Open the folder and create a folder in it (for example: you have walrus.ai
so make a folder walrus)
- Put everything except the ai-file int this folder (walrus)
- The path should be so: animals then name and name.ai and the others
are inside the name-folder
- Open the name.ai with the editor and save it as name.uca
- Now there are three things name, name.ai and name.uca
- Delete name.ai
- Zip the animals folder as ztd
- Open the animal with APE

Like already said (chiefbutz) there are some things that are only in the expansion pack animal´s uca/ai. Sometimes you have to delete them especially the ones from the only tank animals.

If somebody would like to help me I could make a list of the animals
(what to delete or which work fine...)

Posted by: Loewenfrau Jan. 25 2003, 07:35 AM
What exactly is the "Editor" you use to open those files ?

Mark Bell found out if you delete the behavoir sets in the ai/uca of the animals that don't work you can get all animals in APE. But APE still shuts down when you click certain animations.
I recently extracted the great white shark but to my surprise only one of the shadow animations made APE shut down.

I'm working on a project atm where I have to get all MM animals in APE. I could help you with the list which of them have no problems. Have no idea about the deleting part though.




Posted by: Lehner Jan. 26 2003, 07:50 AM
The regular editor from "zubehör" which is on every PC. With the editor you can make html, txt, uca, ai,... files. When you open the ai with Word it often says "Word can`t save this as ai/uca" but the editor accepts everything.
I tested a lot. With the reindeer, magnet, velociraptor,... it worked fine and with the most marine animals, too. But for example when I click on the baby animations of the jelly fish APE crashes and I think APE doesnt open all animations of the MM animals.
wink.gif

Posted by: Keiko Feb. 7 2003, 08:45 AM
i can't save it as a .ztd file mad.gif

Posted by: FoxGuy Feb. 10 2003, 11:41 AM
Does this work for dinos too, or just those crazy marine mammals?

Posted by: Loewenfrau Feb. 10 2003, 01:16 PM
it works on the DD animals too.

Posted by: rovingcowboy Feb. 13 2003, 11:09 PM
cant do it??

how about an avi file we can view biggrin.gif or a wmv file? i gotta see it first then i might beable to understand more? all the words after awhile look like dots?

wacko.gif and make my eyes do that.

Posted by: TexasTiger Mar. 8 2003, 06:05 PM
QUOTE (Mngwa @ Nov 26 2002, 10:36 PM)
BTW, has anybody else been successful? I'm beginning to wonder if I'm nuts or something.

I'm sure I'm nuts! rolleyes.gif I'm not even gonna try.

Posted by: dillo Apr. 4 2003, 06:38 PM
how do you laod it into APE? I go to either import existing project or open existing project then it just doesn't load sleep.gif

Posted by: Mngwa Apr. 4 2003, 09:21 PM
Open existing project. What is it doing when you try to open it?

Posted by: Lehner Apr. 5 2003, 07:55 AM
Sometimes you have to delete the behaviour and sometimes not, sometimes you can´t look at the offsprings animations and sometimes you can, sometimes you can´t look at the shadow animations and sometimes you can... Arrg!

Posted by: dillo Apr. 5 2003, 08:58 PM
QUOTE (Mngwa @ Apr 4 2003, 11:21 PM)
Open existing project. What is it doing when you try to open it?

Well I did everything it says for the tutorial and I used the seaotter, I made it into a ztd file and then I opened APE and went to open an existing project then it says it's loading it and it comes to screen like when you choose new project..... huh.gif

Posted by: Mngwa Apr. 6 2003, 09:11 AM
QUOTE (markbell @ Dec 3 2002, 07:57 AM)
I'm not too sure about DD animals (I haven't attempted one) but I have found that for MM, you may need to delete the Behaviour Sets (BS) from the .uca (old .ai) file for them to appear in APE. In particular, I needed to delete the BS from the beluga.uca to get the beluga into APE. But, to view the Jellyfish, I only needed to change the .ai to .uca . Can't seem to work out why at the moment.

Anyone like to give it a try and let me know what their results are?

Dillo, try opening the UCA and deleting the behavior sets. Starting on the first page of this thread, there's some discussion on MM creatures and obstacles that have been found.

Posted by: dillo Apr. 6 2003, 10:12 AM

I have done that already, sorry I forgot to mention that...

Posted by: smjjameszooz Apr. 21 2003, 12:09 PM
I'm not sure what you mean by unzip them as I don't know where I unzip them from, or do I just copy the files to APE?

I'm doing this the first time. biggrin.gif

tongue.gif I think I have it figured out and stuff though......

edit: Maybe not, I uploaded all the files that the instructions said by importing a project. But it didn't work. The instructions are confusing and I don't totally understand them.

Posted by: stormcub May. 31 2003, 01:51 PM
I've just tried it, and I didn't get it to work. The only place I think I might have gone wrong was with the renaming of the UCS file, but I'm pretty sure I still got that right.

My one question that I think might be causing nothing to appear in APE could be where to put the new ZTD file. Could somebody please help with that?

Posted by: KeetKosatka Jul. 31 2003, 03:06 AM
Hi everyone who’s reading this forum topic! I’m new here, this is my first post and I am very happy to be one of you, Zoo tycoons! sm_happy.gif
Been playing this game for almost two months now and all I can say is “It’s the best!!” I have ZT and DD, but my wish is to have Marine mania. And I don’t seem to find it anywhere. It’s such a sad fact… sm_cry.gif I’m a whale addict, you know. And my favorite species are – yep, the Orcas. They were the main reason I started playing ZT and experimenting with APE, because it’s such a temptation to become the owner of an orca, even if it’s just virtual.
Now, as I’ve mentioned above, I have ZT+DD and trial version of MM. So one day a thought popped up in my mind (a really crazy thought) – why won’t I blend the two games together? I mean – insert the new stuff from MM into ZT. Of course, I couldn’t have done that ‘cause I’m no programmer, but an unexpected side effect I’ve encountered, may be useful.
KeetKosatka’s guide on extracting animals.
As we all know, *.ztd files can be opened using WinZip. But some users find it confusing. I also think so, ‘cause if you’re using ver. 13, you won’t see any folder structure in the file. Makes it more difficult to extract stuff. So I’m using WinRAR 2.71. But that’s not the point.
Maybe you know this already, maybe you don't but the reason why animals from bonus downloads and from ex. packs don’t appear in APE’s list of available new projects is that APE’s source file is animals.ztd and animals2.ztd found in the game’s main directory. Other animals just stay in their respectively named and positioned files.
When I wanted to get MM animals into ZT I started with Orca (of course!). That’s what I did:
1. I extracted all orca-related files from gfx.ztd and cfg.ztd. (those are the names of the trial version files. If you have the ex. pack, I guess, you know where to look then.)Didn’t place them anywhere special, just kept them safe, while figuring out what to do next.
2. While digging through the ZT program files I’ve found that config.ztd contains more vital info on animals and stuff. There’s a file in it, a .cgf opened with WordPad, named animals.cgf. I extracted it also.
3. I found the place in the list inside animals.cgf, where orca’s line should be. Right after okapi I typed in a new line similar to the others : orca = animals/orca.ai. then saved the .cgf and put in back in the .ztd.
4. Then I put the animations (in my case – only male’s), icon and plaque folders, .pal file…well, you know the whole list, don’t you – where they should be in animals and animals2 .ztd. Then I started the game and it crashed. But don’t be discouraged – after you’ll finish working with the animal in APE, you can easily delete all the data you’ve imported and the game will be working again.
That’s what I found out later, but in that moment I was very disappointed. Out of sheer boredom later that day I opened APE and - voila – my dearest orca was waiting for me in the list of animals! It didn’t have any name, but it did have everything else, including the most important –the animations! I wanted to create the project, but this crashed the program. And it continued crashing until I’ve deleted most of the animations like shadows, tricks and underwater parts, and behavior pearts from .ai. I think most of the crashes happen when the animation is too big and contains a lot of frames. I wanted to make a ZT version of the orca, so I left the files of surface animation only. Then the file was OK to work with. I also saved submerged animations for another project in another file. And by the way: why did the game’s creators color the orcas incorrectly? The saddle on the male’s back is not that big and is gray, not white. The white stripe on the animal’s belly is much more narrow and the eyespot is paralleled to the orca’s white chin.
That’s my guide. I didn't make any attempts of recoloring the animals ‘cause I have a problem with APE – it doesn’t want to save any pictures. Perhaps someone could give me some help with that?
Sorry for the long post. I wanted to share the information that might be useful for you. If it’s tatally useless, don’t feel bitter towards me, I'm only human. sm_surprised.gif
Best wishes, KeetKosatka ( In Russian means Orca Whale. I come from a small country near Russia)

emot-headphones.gif sm_sign1.gif

Posted by: flamethrower Jul. 31 2003, 09:05 PM
Another reason why ape crashes is because it was never meant for animals other than the ones included in ZT (original). It has no idea what these swimming, tricks, shadows and stuff are for ZT animals don't have 'em.

Just a thought but maybe somebody could try to see why ZT is able to read all this stuff and program ape to too! I'm not saying anyone has to. Just a thought, just a thought . . . sm_ermm.gif

Posted by: IcyPhoenix Sep. 17 2003, 06:45 PM
QUOTE (flamethrower @ Aug 1 2003, 12:05 AM)
Another reason why ape crashes is because it was never meant for animals other than the ones included in ZT (original). It has no idea what these swimming, tricks, shadows and stuff are for ZT animals don't have 'em.

Just a thought but maybe somebody could try to see why ZT is able to read all this stuff and program ape to too! I'm not saying anyone has to. Just a thought, just a thought . . . sm_ermm.gif

Flamethrower is right. When I was trying to mess around with the Dino Digs animals, I noticed that it always crashed with the plesio (that dino that swims)... So that would also explain why MM animals wouldn't work normally. All you have to do is delete all the behaviors and it won't crash and you can still get pictures. Though, I'm with flamethrower... Why not just find someone to edit APE and have it read the swimming type stuff? Also, is there supposed to be any difference between male and female dinos? I checked in the game and didn't really find any for most of the starting ones, except the giant turtle. Does APE load male and female images? I'll check again tomorrow.

Posted by: Polaryan Oct. 28 2003, 08:08 AM
Ok, I am trying to follow this tutorial so that I can create mm animals in ape. But when it gets to the part where i am supposed to change the UCA to the ai file or the reverse i run into a little problem. THERE IS NO UCA file. I have looked in all the folders. NONE of the mm animals have UCA files that i can find. so where are they? I have ZTCC. I am sure someone has figured this out. so please help me. Thank you.

I know its a shot in the dark, but maybe we could write microsoft and request a new version of ape that edits ALL animals, and includes maybe templates for some that never made it into the game? Sorta give us a little push in the right direction. I know you all talk to M$ about other stuiff. why not this.

Posted by: pixigger Oct. 28 2003, 03:57 PM
To get the animal to load into APE it must have a UCA file which is simply an AI file renamed wink.gif .

All official animals (except Yeti) have AI files - when the AI file is extracted then rename that to UCA and then you can load into APE.

AI = Artificial Intelligence (or Accidental Interest or Absolute Insanity laugh.gif )
UCA = User Created Animal (or Ultimate Crashing Addition)

Posted by: flamethrower Oct. 28 2003, 04:27 PM
You know, that's quite true Pixigger! wink.gif laugh.gif

Posted by: Sea Unicorn Nov. 2 2003, 05:16 PM
Can someone put up a list of the animals that need to have the BS deleted and teh animals that does not need it.

Posted by: Behemoth Jan. 12 2004, 12:33 PM
Thanx for the tutorial mngwa!!

Posted by: Quivaz Feb. 6 2004, 04:54 AM
Can someone put up a list of the animals that need to have the BS deleted and teh animals that does not need it.


I would do it, except I don't use this method so I can't help you. If someone else who knows what Sea Unicorn wants, and can do it, could you give it a try? Thanks.

Quivaz

Posted by: Otter Lord Feb. 12 2004, 10:17 AM
Someone should post the animals with the stuff deleted. I deleted the stuff and the tricks for the otter, but it won't work.

Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)