Removal of annoying cast-out animation when item is activated

[Legacy_Monsieur T]

               I know this has come up before here and there on the forums, and for what it is worth I have spent all day on the search engines and in the NWN Vault trying to get helpful info.
So, for the Last Time, does anyone have an ironclad method of nerfing the annoying "castout" animation that happens when a PC uses an Item's Unique Power?
This animation is extremely irritating to campaign players accessing (for example) a DMFI or HR Tools PC item, since it breaks in-game immersion.
Presumably the animation is called by the game engine by way of  tag-based scripting routines, but I do not have the know-how to deal with this.
If anyone could advise me as to a way of getting rid of this annoying animation, by way of feats, 2das, or other scripting, I would be enormously grateful.
I have tried removing "out" from spells.2da and have also tried an old DOA hak that adds a different "a_ba_casts" model (as well as rewritten spell.2da lines) but all to no avail.
Any info or pointers that you could give me will be very gratefully received.
As an apology in advance, I will also post this on the DM and Custom Content forums.
** hides and hopes no one gets very cross**
Seriously though, this wretched thing ought to be dealt with. After all, the community has done everything else!!
If this is an insoluable issue, then fair enough. I'll finally give up.
Thanks, all.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Just a ghost]

               You can use the player chat script to make it text based?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

               

Just a ghost wrote...

You can use the player chat script to make it text based?

That would be interesting for a less serious modern mod, making the players make shooting noises in order to fire their guns.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_B_Harrison]

               I'm sure I did this for my project a while back. I've been going through my old files again recently as I work on new stuff, so while my knowledge is very rusty right now, I can probably dig up a/the method you need sometime soon.

Unfortunately, I may have done this in a way that's not very vanilla-game or existing-module friendly, eg, using a different item prop/spell altogether. I'll have a look, anyway.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par B_Harrison, 13 septembre 2012 - 06:20 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               As mentioned elsewhere, the best way to do this is to give the "Player Tools" to all players as feats. And these feats are made accessible from the player's class menu. Use of those abilities do not trigger the cast out animation.

I put several abilities in that menu. Gnomish spell like abilities, Jump, Convert another to your religion, Tracking, Teach another Player something etc... and some DMFI utilities: Dicebag, Emote, Follow Player, Toggle Subdual Mode, and ummm... I forget the fifth one I shoved in there.

Another nice trick is to create Chat commands which are intercepted by the OnChat script, and thus not actually spoken by the PC. I set up the forward slash "/" to be the symbol which signifies a chat command.

Those are two methods. The first requires some custom content massaging with the various class feat 2das. The second is entirely script based.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_B_Harrison]

               Well, my last development backup of my old project includes iprp_spells.2da and spells.2da files with... absolutely no entries in them, and all my wacky re-numbered custom values in the planning (.txt) phase only.

It's quite possible I misremembered, and the method I was thinking of was in fact the one posted by henesua (ie, don't use items at all). Oh well. Could do something with animations if you really wanted to get rid of this -- I don't believe that anim is used for anything else -- but the work-arounds are much slicker methods regardless.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par B_Harrison, 13 septembre 2012 - 08:40 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_ShadowM]

               I got bored (ugh pdf write ups) and looked over this, it was in a_ba model and removed the arm animation and tested it out. I will put up the file tomorrow, what animation if any do you want? It seem to be hardcoded to this animation though. So you only option is adjust the animation unless you want to do the other methods mentioned by others.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Monsieur T]

               Thank you, folks, for all your replies.
Just got back from a short theatre tour, so sorry for not answering faster.
I think that using the Player Tools option is the the way forward here, since PC access to ShadowM's great PC Conversation (which allows dice rolls, emote animations and the opening of chunks of game and campaign information) is tied to the use of an item and the inevitable "pushing" animation.
So rather than globally altering the "cast-out" animation (despite ShadowM's help on my behalf), could someone please post a link that could lead me to a tutorial or step-by-step advice that will enable me to create a PC Tool (is it a Feat?) that once placed in a quickslot, will allow PCs to access the Conversation without triggering that wretched animation?
Sorry for being so dumb, and thanks again for all your help.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Monsieur T]

               ShadowM,
Bless you for looking into this, especially when you have more important stuff to do.
If I can't find a way to let PCs access their conversation via a new PC Tool (see post above), then a new "cast-out" animation that does NOTHING or just a Talking anim would be great. Obviously I would have to alter all the spells that use the "out" animation and use "area" or "up" instead, but right now I will do ANYTHING rather than have PCs do an unnecessary and intrusive "shove" whenever they use your PC Tool.
I'm sure this animation doesn't bother folks who have lots of items or widgets in constant use, but I do not. Your PC Tool is the only player-activated widget in my game, and my guys use it a LOT!
Again, thanks for your help, and the best of luck with all of your projects.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               MonsieurT
Look at the 2das for feats and spells.
Feats are at the indexes 1096 - 1115
Spells are 820 - 839

To understand which script is run when a particular feat is activated look in spells.2da.
To find the index of the feat you want to add to the player menu, look in feats.2da.

Next
Add the feat to each base class's class feat 2da: bards for example have cls_feat_bard.2da
Typically all of the player tools are already in there. In the bard 2da Player Tool 01 is at 133. But it is not given to the player by default until they reach level 99. Change that number to 1 and you are golden.

Also you need to change the list entry to "3" which is the class list.

Those are the basics.

For bonus points, you can work on putting five of the player tools in a sub radial menu under player tool 1. And applying a unique icon and name to all six of these feats. You can change names, and icons in feats.2da.

I don't have the time to explain how to radial feats as I have forgotten how to do the weird math to get them to point to one another, but I am sure someone will point to my old threads or another's threads in whcih someone was puzzling it out.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 20 septembre 2012 - 01:54 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

                Ah... found a thread
http://social.biowar...1/index/8796492

And another
http://social.biowar...index/8824180/1 
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 20 septembre 2012 - 02:02 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_ShadowM]

               I can add a version that use the pc tool feat to the hak version, if you want it no biggy. The cast out animation is used at the end of the standard casting animation I took a look at it with some spell that use cast out and you could hardly notice it missing. You do not have to do the math at all you just need to give each class the pc tool feat at creation  editing all the CLS_FEAT_ or just give them the feat on a skin if you use one. Then you just overwrite x3_pl_tool01 script. I do not like the cast out animation when you casting spells off items it kinda ugly.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShadowM, 20 septembre 2012 - 02:32 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_ShadowM]

               Ok figured out a way to make everyone happy at least so far with testing. download this file and put it contents into your override and make a new character to test it out. Since in override form any haks will override it making it compatible with newer modules. You just lose the ability to use the feat and have to update the hak or use the tool item. This is for use with my HR DM TOOL system.

PC TOOL1

HR DM TOOL
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShadowM, 21 septembre 2012 - 12:51 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Monsieur T]

               To all of you helpful folks, thank you so much for your advice.
(Off to start some testing right now.)
And to Henesua, and particularly to ShadowM: I am simply in awe of your skills and giving natures.
All the very best,
Mr T.