Overview

CryENGINE uses a highly optimized and compressed animation format which requires additional information for pre-processing steps. The CBA file defines these parameters for animation file processing.

The resource compiler (RC) processing has three stages.

• The first stage is preparing the animation data: using locomotion locator data, transferring root data to the first child (for human), simplifying root path, calculating foot-plants information, etc.
• After this stage the data is in the proper format for compression/quantization stage. This stage prepares animation data in a highly compressed format which is saved as a .caf file.
• The last stage is database creation where a .dba file will be produced. The .dba file has all marked (not excluded from database) animations in one single file. Usually the .dba file is created by the build process.

For each three stages some parameters in the .cba file exist. Animation playback in the CryENGINE is designed to use initial bone transformation if specific controller information for the bone doesn't exist. That means that you can remove all unnecessary controllers that are identical to the bind-pose. This is first stage of the motion-compression pipeline and for this stage you need the base model (reference model) with the maximum number of bones.

The bind poses for all animations should have identical hierarchy inheritance and initial transformations. The .cba file is a regular XML-file. Each top-node called "\AnimationDefinition" is responsible for all animations per reference model. Each AnimationDefinition has default parameters and if need be, per-animation parameters.

Sample .CBA with descriptions

<Definitions>

<Animation Definition> <!--starts the node.-->
  <!--Defines the reference model. This is needed for removing unnecessary controllers which are identical to the bind-pose.-->
  <Model File="/../Objects/Characters/Human/US/NanoSuit/nanosuit_us.chr"/>
  <!--The path containing ALL animation we can use on this model.-->
  <Animation Path="human/male"/>
  <!--For all animations use compression level 2. This value is a multiplier for error threshold. Higher values reduce animation quality and lower the file sizes of the animation. If this value is less than 1 (0...1) then better animation quality output is possible, but at the cost of increased animation size.-->
  <COMPRESSION value="2"/>
  <!--Name for compression preset. Not implemented yet.-->
  <PRESET name="UpperBody"/>
  <!--Path to compiled .dba file.-->
  <Database Path="human/male/male.dba"/>
  <!--This enables root-path simplification i.e. root to pelvis transfer, locomotion locator control and foot-plant calculations. We apply the Locomotion Locator modification just on BIP controlled characters.-->
  <LOCOMOTION_LOCATOR value="YES"/>
  <!--A list of animations that need special handling. If you need to change the parameters for special animation(s), you should specify them here.-->
  <SpecialAnimsList>
    <!--Apath is a substring of animation name. Every animation which has this substring in the filename will use these settings. You can specify the part of the name (cinematics for example) or the full name. Warning\! Resource compiler uses first strings coincidence. The names for setting are identical as defined above, but without value. Please see example.-->
    <Animation APath="cinematics" SkipSaveToDatabase="1" footplants="NO" />
    <Animation APath="Aim" SkipSaveToDatabase="1" compression="0"/>
    <Animation APath="additive" Additive_Animation="1"/>
    <Animation APath="nw" SkipSaveToDatabase="1"/>
    <Animation APath="pistol" SkipSaveToDatabase="1"/>
    <Animation APath="hmg" SkipSaveToDatabase="1"/>
    <Animation APath="glide" SkipSaveToDatabase="0"/>
  </SpecialAnimsList>
  <!--End tag.-->
  </AnimationDefinition>

</Definitions>

CBA Parameters Guide

Following is the CBA file organized in a table for easy reference: