EE's SHADOW_LARGE animation - missing resref?

[agb1]

I was hoping to use the SHADOW_LARGE animation ID (0xEA20) in BG2EE, but when I spawn a creature with that animation ID, it is invisible.

 

If I open the .cre file with Near Infinity, go to the Edit tab, select the animation and click the View/Edit button, it opens ea20.ini, which contains resref=MSH2.

 

There is no MSH2 in the game files.

 

If I do the same thing with the regular shadow animation, it opens 7703.ini, with resref=MSHD, which corresponds to MSHD.2da.

 

I did an extended search and found no other creatures in the game files using the SHADOW_LARGE animation, so it's clearly not used elsewhere.

 

Am I correct in interpreting these facts to mean that the SHADOW_LARGE animation ID in BG2EE is just a placeholder and not actually implemented?

 

If yes ... I guess it's time to learn how to add animations.

[Ardanis]

Some animation slots miss the actual BAM files, so yes, highly likely you've just stumbled upon one such slot.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Maybe the files were forgotten to be added to the .bif file... fun fact, the files is not mentioned in the IA readme either. Actually, it's here. It's that one in this picture:

[argent77]

BG(2)EE contains many placeholder slots without actual animations and/or associated sound files. For example, many IWDEE-specific creature animations are only available as stubs in BG2EE. SHADOW_LARGE is one of them. You can simply install the missing animations and sound files (sometimes BMP files as well) to make it work. I'm doing something like this in my Golem Construction mod, for example.

[Avenger]

Not forgotten. The unused bams were intentionally left out to shrink the download size. The slots were set up, because that costs nothing.

[agb1]

Lava Del Vortel gave me a replacement ea20.ini with the line height_offset=100 in it (the BG2EE original file does not contain height_offset). The SHADOW_LARGE animation now appears.

 

I've verified that the following patching code works, so if anyone else wants to use this animation too, just include this in your mod:

 

    COPY_EXISTING ~ea20.ini~ ~override~ // patch BG2EE's unused SHADOW_LARGE animation to add missing height_offset line
      REPLACE_TEXTUALLY ~walk_sound=~ // in the original game file there is a blank line between
~height_offset=100
walk_sound=~
    UNLESS ~height_offset~
    BUT_ONLY