New Animations! M06/M12 fusion!

[Harry97]

It just had to be "broken in"? So you played on it a bunch and all of a sudden QBs stop throwing ambidextrously? That's interesting if it just stopped happening all of a sudden randomly.

If we can figure out which file affects the holder position on FGs bug that would be good to know. It may not affect the kick itself but it does seem to affect the timing of the kick. The ball is snapped wider and the kicker has to move in a different angle to kick it. The vampires rising up from the casket thing, yeah lol. I think there's a lot of subtle bugs that we need to hone in on.

Do you notice any new WR catches animations, do you notice any subtle changes to the running animations or spin moves? I know that in NCAA 06 with NCAA 08's ANIMDATA in there, it made the spin move much slower and spinning now covered more ground, which is a little odd because the spin move in NCAA 08 isn't all that different to the spin move in NCAA 06.

Another thing is that NCAA 06 was the last PS2 NCAA that allowed you to manually hurdle with the Triangle (or Y) button. In NCAA 07/08 the hurdle button turned into the cover-up button, hurdles would still happen in NCAA 07/08 but they would be auto-triggered by the CPU, both of the CPU team and when you were controlling a RB in certain situations, like when a player behind the RB goes for a dive, even without you pressing anything on the gamepad your RB would automatically hurdle as you were controlling him, which was weird. Now with NCAA 08's ANIMDATA.DAT in NCAA 06 you could still do the hurdle manually but it felt a little different as if the animation was slightly different, but it didn't change the hurdle button to a cover-up/protect ball. You can do a cover-up/protect ball in NCAA 06 but with the Right-stick up. The reason why the hurdle was taken out of the NCAA 07/08 control scheme was because they added more R-stick functions (RB direct, QB evasion, etc) and they moved cover-up/protect ball to Triangle replacing the hurdle. I liked the new R-stick functions in NCAA 07/08 but I missed being able to manually hurdle a lot. I would also like to be able to really control how high and far a player hurdles, it probably is affected somewhat by certain player ratings like agility or jumping, but I bet there's different animations to it also. Now I think with Calhoupe's scripts he found the hurdle and added it to Madden 08 PC, but if I'm not mistaken, Madden 06 took out the hurdle and replaced it with the cover-up/protect ball a year before NCAA did, so I think Madden 2005 was the last Madden that had the manual hurdle built into the game. But even though the hurdle animation wasn't tied to the control scheme anymore starting with Madden 06 / NCAA 07 the animation would still be somewhere in ANIMDATA.DAT and it would appear to have been updated for the auto-triggering hurdles.

The reason why I'm bringing this up is that I know for a fact that the SPIN animation was way different in NCAA 06 with the NCAA 08 ANIMDATA.DAT in there, like drastically different, as I mentioned before. So this is why I think you should really study the RB moves to see if any of the animations changed with M06's ANIMDATA files in there. That's why I did those videos so you can see if those RB moves look familiar or different to what you're used to. Also look for new WR catch animations, in NCAA 06 with NCAA 08's ANIMDATA.DAT, for example, I saw a lot of 1 handed catch animations triggering when you take control of a receiver and make a catch manually. Like ridiculously so, to a point where I couldn't get them to do normal two-handed catches anymore. Now of course Madden 06 isn't notorious for 1 handed catches like NCAA 08 was, so the changes to WR catch animations wouldn't be obvious, but I'm pretty sure Madden 09 (Original Xbox at least, probably PS2 as well) added those leaning keeping their toes in sideline catches. So you probably wouldn't see those with Madden 06's ANIMDATA files but you probably would with Madden 12 PS2's files. But you probably would see some subtle differences in M08PC to the catching animations from Madden 06.

TheRareButter, you are more familiar with Madden 08's normal gameplay than me, as my main game is NCAA 06, so you should notice the differences better than me. In general one thing we both need to figure out is what file does what inside ANIMDATA.DAT. We have the first 12 or so files that are bigger in file size then we have the rest of the files in the DAT which are generally smaller in file size. We should try to understand what the first 12 or so files do vs the rest of the files in the .DAT.

I also suggest that now that the QB ambidextrousness has sorted itself out somehow, you try to plug in some Madden 12 PS2 ANIMDATA files to the modded Madden 06 ANIMDATA for Madden 08 I put together that you updated. I have a feeling that some of the Madden 12 PS2 files will work in M08PC and some won't. You can probably put together a "best of both worlds" ANIMDATA with a hybrid of Madden 12 PS2's animations and Madden 06 PC's animations for Madden 08 PC.

[TheRareButter]

It just had to be "broken in"? So you played on it a bunch and all of a sudden QBs stop throwing ambidextrously? That's interesting if it just stopped happening all of a sudden randomly.

If we can figure out which file affects the holder position on FGs bug that would be good to know. It may not affect the kick itself but it does seem to affect the timing of the kick. The ball is snapped wider and the kicker has to move in a different angle to kick it. The vampires rising up from the casket thing, yeah lol. I think there's a lot of subtle bugs that we need to hone in on.

Do you notice any new WR catches animations, do you notice any subtle changes to the running animations or spin moves? I know that in NCAA 06 with NCAA 08's ANIMDATA in there, it made the spin move much slower and spinning now covered more ground, which is a little odd because the spin move in NCAA 08 isn't all that different to the spin move in NCAA 06.

Another thing is that NCAA 06 was the last PS2 NCAA that allowed you to manually hurdle with the Triangle (or Y) button. In NCAA 07/08 the hurdle button turned into the cover-up button, hurdles would still happen in NCAA 07/08 but they would be auto-triggered by the CPU, both of the CPU team and when you were controlling a RB in certain situations, like when a player behind the RB goes for a dive, even without you pressing animation your RB would automatically hurdle as you were controlling him, which was weird. Now with NCAA 08's ANIMDATA.DAT in NCAA 06 you could still do the hurdle manually but it felt a little different as if the animation was slightly different, but it didn't change the hurdle button to a cover-up/protect ball. You can do a cover-up/protect ball in NCAA 06 but with the Right-stick up. The reason why the hurdle was taken out of the NCAA 07/08 control scheme was because they added more R-stick functions (RB direct, QB evasion, etc) and they moved cover-up/protect ball to Triangle replacing the hurdle. I liked the new R-stick functions in NCAA 07/08 but I missed being able to manually hurdle a lot. I would also be able to really control how high a player hurdles, it probably is affected somewhat by certain player ratings like agility or jumping, but I bet there's different animations to it also. Now I think with Calhoupe's scripts he found the huddle and added it to Madden 08 PC, but if I'm not mistaken, Madden 06 took out the hurdle and replaced it with the cover-up/protect ball a year before NCAA did, so I think Madden 2005 was the last Madden that had the manual hurdle built into the game.

The reason why I'm bringing this up is that I know for a fact that the SPIN animation was way different in NCAA 06 with the NCAA 08 ANIMDATA.DAT in there, like drastically different, as I mentioned before. So this is why I think you should really study the RB moves to see if any of the animations changed with M06's ANIMDATA files in there. Also look for new WR catch animations, in NCAA 06 with NCAA 08's ANIMDATA.DAT, for example, I saw a lot of 1 handed catch animations triggering when you take control of a receiver and make a catch manually. Like ridiculously so, to a point where I couldn't get them to do normal two-handed catches anymore. Now of course Madden 06 isn't notorious for 1 handed catches like NCAA 08 was, so the changes to WR catch animations wouldn't be obvious, but I'm pretty sure Madden 09 (Original Xbox at least, probably PS2 as well) added those leaning keeping their toes in sideline catches. So you probably wouldn't see those with Madden 06's ANIMDATA files but you probably would with Madden 12 PS2's files. But you probably would see some subtle differences in M08PC to the catching animations from Madden 06.

TheRareButter, you are more familiar with Madden 08's normal gameplay than me, as my main game is NCAA 06, so you should notice the differences better than me. In general one thing we both need to figure out is what file does what inside ANIMDATA.DAT. We have the first 12 or so files that are bigger in file size then we have the rest of the files in the DAT which are generally smaller in file size. We should try to understand what the first 12 or so files do vs the rest of the files in the .DAT.

I also suggest that now that the QB ambidextrousness has sorted itself out somehow, you try to plug in some Madden 12 PS2 ANIMDATA files to the modded Madden 06 ANIMDATA for Madden 08 I put together that you updated. I have a feeling that some of the Madden 12 PS2 files will work in M08PC and some won't. You can probably put together a "best of both worlds" ANIMDATA with a hybrid of Madden 12 PS2's animations and Madden 06 PC's animations for Madden 08 PC.

The 12 PS2 file had the same holder bug just rotated in a different direction. It occured when I swapped the first file but corrected itself when I added the 2nd ps2 file into the 08 file, so maybe the 12 file will correct the 2nd file for the 06 bug. I remember that 06's 2nd file crashed the game.

I'm seeing new animations popping up like fireworks. New passing, catching, tackling and running. The spin move works the same, haven't tried the hurdle yet. One improvement with this file is that the receivers don't use the spinning one hand catch that rarely works as much as 08's base file.

The 06 animations are slower so they're easy to spot, the 12 ones are basically just 08's but new so they're harder to notice. QBs have a quicker release with the 12 ones though, I'll see if I can add those without losing the 06 animation.

[Harry97]

The 12 PS2 file had the same holder bug just rotated in a different direction. It occured when I swapped the first file but corrected itself when I added the 2nd ps2 file into the 08 file, so maybe the 12 file will correct the 2nd file for the 06 bug. I remember that 06's 2nd file crashed the game.

OK good to know. So if you updated your latest modded ANIMDATA with File 1 and 2 from M12PS2's ANIMDATA, then the FG holder would look normal again?

I'm seeing new animations popping up like fireworks. New passing, catching, tackling and running. The spin move works the same, haven't tried the hurdle yet. One of the best improvements with this file is that the receivers don't use the spinning one hand catch that rarely works as much as 08's base file.

Maybe Madden 08 PC is similar to NCAA 08 PS2 in that they added more 1 handed catches (vs M06/NCAA 06 where there wasn't any, or hardly any 1 handed catches). That's one thing we should try to pinpoint what file(s) change the WR catch animations. Like for NCAA 06, I want to use some of the NCAA 08 animations that were updated and were better but one that I would probably keep from NCAA 06 were the WR catching animations so they don't do 1 handed catches, if you get my drift. And for you, you would want to keep the M06 catching animations in M08, so you don't get all those random 1 handed catches also that were in Madden 08 by default.

I will be doing my own work testing NCAA 06/08's ANIMDATA.DAT files, but we should both try to narrow down what files do what over time and report on our findings. My goal is the same as yours, to find the best animations from the other Madden / NCAA games and then choose which animations from which games we want in the game of our choice.

The 06 animations are slower so they're easy to spot, the 12 ones are basically just 08's but new so they're harder to notice. QBs have a quicker release with the 12 ones though, I'll see if I can add those without losing the 06 animation.

Yeah I know what you mean. And another thing, Madden 12 PS2 might not actually have the best animations of any of the PS2 games, just because it's the last. Some animations (files inside ANIMDATA) from Madden 07-11 PS2 might actually be better than M12. I say this because when I tested NCAA 06 with NCAA 09 PS2's ANIMDATA.DAT the gameplay was much worse than with NCAA 08 PS2's ANIMDATA.DAT. Certain animations (particularly defenders movement) were faster with NCAA 09 PS2's ANIMDATA.DAT in NCAA 06 and the gameplay just didn't feel as a good as it did for me with NCAA 08's ANIMDATA.DAT. So sometimes EA may have made changes to the game internally to coincide with certain animation changes, and without those internal changes to the game engine itself, certain animations from a later game might not be the best gameplay-wise in the other game.

So definitely test some of the files from Madden 07-11 PS2 in Madden 08 PC as well and you might find that those ANIMDATA.DATs have some better animations than Madden 12 PS2. Anotherwords, just because Madden 12 PS2 is the last PS2 Madden doesn't mean it has all the best versions of the animations. It could have some but Madden 07-11 could have some better ones too.

[TheRareButter]

I've learned that the first 3 files of all the animdata's work in unison with each other. The first file needs the 2nd and 3rd or it will crash. since 12 and 08 are the same they probably could work, but not with the 06 version. When replacing files 1-10 I noticed that adding a 12 file into the 06 modded dat it would enable the throw on the run animation, and then with the next file it would remove it. The the TONR animation is paired with the ambidextrous bug. I don't think it's possible to have the 06 animations in Madden 08, but now that I know what I'm doing to a certain extent I can say for sure that there will be a new animation file that works properly. The first 10 files dictate what animations are used for the most part, really they are most important.

I'll work with the Madden 12 file to integrate the 12 animations into madden 08 without the sideline bug so we have new animations and put my TORT animation from 06 desire to the side, for the time being.

The game really doesn't like 06's second file, which I think is the one that holds the left/right passing logic. I think it will need to be hex edited to be compatible with 08. Imo the 06 passing animations are essential, but I managed to get the M12 animations working within the modded 06 file without any bugs, it just doesn't have the one animation I need.

[TheRareButter]

This file is Harry97's chopped up 06 animdata made to fit Madden 08 with Madden 12 files inserted to run properly. It contains M06 and M12 animations without any bugs. Enjoy!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ys32CC ... sp=sharing

EDIT: Updated the OP.

[TheRareButter]

I think both things in this clip are new to madden 08, both from 06 if i'm not mistaken. QB setting his feet and a new throwing motion!

[Rixster67r]

Absolutely.... in the clip above the current animation would have the QB do a 360 and then throw the ball.....