Making and Importing Animations

So you want to make animations for NSMBW? No problem. This guide is meant to teach you how to get your animations in-game.

Custom animations can be used for so many things in the modding scene, when making custom enemies, custom players, anything that is animated in-game can have their animation edited. There are a few exceptions, for instance, not much is known about animating BGs but hopefully that will come in the future.

'''DISCLAIMER: THIS TUTORIAL IS BEST SUITED FOR BLENDER USERS AND ALSO ASSUMES YOU HAVE BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF HOW TO USE BLENDER. IN ADDITION TO THIS IT IS ALSO ASSUMED YOU KNOW HOW TO ANIMATE IN BLENDER, THERE WILL NOT BE TEACHING OF ANIMATION BASICS. THIS IS MERELY FOR LEARNING THE WORKFLOW OF MAKING NSMBW ANIMATIONS WITH BLENDER'''

Tools and requirements
So the stuff you're gonna need is the following:
 * BrawlCrate
 * Blender Brawl Scripts by GuiltyGhost
 * Reading Skills
 * Dump of NSMBW with the files

Blender Brawl Script
The Blender Brawl Script zip is a .zip containing 3 addons for Blender 3.0+, It is recommended to install all of them as they each make the animation process easier. Also, it has the  and the BrawlCrate   importer (not to be confused with the default dae importer and exporter), which is both essential in this tutorial. The other scripts include useful things for IKs and also a Brawl Retarget. You can install the scripts by unzipping and in Blender, go to Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons -> Install then go to where you unzipped the archive at, and select each  that you see in the folders. Boom, then enable each of the addons as you install, and you should now be able to go to File -> Import -> BrawlCrate Animation and BrawlCrate Dae among other things, but that's most important. If you don't see that make sure you install it right, this tutorial is not for teaching you Blender Basics.

Getting your idea
This is the time you think of what you want to animate. Whatever you want, you're gonna be following the same steps as the steps in the tutorial.

In this tutorial, Ludwig von Koopa's Idle animation will be changed using both IK and without IK. The process is similar, you can apply this tutorial for whatever you do.

Getting the files
Everything you're gonna need can be found in your  folder of the NSMBW dump. For the tutorial, this is Ludwig's .arc, also labeled as If you see an   folder in the , you can export that and edit it in Blender.

Now you should see the animations play out to identify which animation you need. Nintendo does a good job in the naming conventions of their animations, however if you need extra clarity you can always check.

Go to the  of the model in the , right-click -> preview, zoom in and out however you need, then open the left and bottom arrow bar, and then in the top left you should see all the CHR animations and in the bottom a timeline. In the top left, simply click the animation name you want to test, for the tutorial, you need to choose the  animation, then press Play in the bottom, your model should now do their animation.

No AnmChr but the character does have animations in-game
If you don't have a AnmChr folder that means they have animations in another .arc, only instance known of that is the case with the Player animations (Mario, Luigi, Toad). More in depth on editing their animations later, but the tutorial still applies, they just require extra setup.

Importing to Blender
First step is organize your folders, make a folder where you want everything to be in. For the tutorial you should name your folder Ludwig, after you've done that you can now extract.

Extracting the Model
Right click the  file -> Export, you want to do this 2 times. The first time, export the model as a, the second time, go to the Save as type, and change it to   Keep the names the same. It is recommended just leaving it as what the file was originally called, so for my example, it's.

Extracting the Textures (Optional)
If you want to have a better idea of what you're animating in blender, and how it's going to look, extract the textures too, as it will make it look much more correct. This is optional however. Go to, select all the textures, right-click, export selected, then make sure it's the same folder you extracted the model to.

Extracting the Animation
Go to, and select the name of the animation you chose, for the tutorial you want to extract the   animation, so right click it, export, then save as a   file, not a  , being changeable using the Save as Type list on the bottom. Save this in the same location as you extracted everything else.

Now it should have given you a second dialog box asking for the model the animation is for. Select the, and then press Open. This should now have generated the  file in the same directory.

Check your Files
Check the directory to see if you have all your files. You should have a  and a   as the models, multiple  's if you extracted the textures, and most importantly, an   as the animation. If you don't have any of the files mentioned check what you may have missed.



Importing the Models
Open Blender, clear everything. With the Blender Brawl Scripts installed you should be able to go to File -> Import -> BrawlBox Model (.dae), now select the  you imported, and it should load in Blender. If you extracted the textures, turn on Viewport Shading to see the model with textures.



Keep in mind the textures won't always load correctly. For tutorial case, Ludwig is missing eye textures. That isn't the point of importing the textures, the point is to have most of your model be what it is in-game so you have a rough idea of what it looks like when animating.

Set Up Rigs (Optional)
If you want to use rigs to help your animation out, read this section. It's best to only use this when you want to make drastic and different animations from the one you import. This is the only chance you have to set up rigs. However, when exporting your .anim, you will have to bake the action. This video goes more in depth on it. If you followed the tutorial thus far I recommend going to  for learning how to set up the rig. Make sure to follow their steps concisely, and don't delete any vanilla bones. Also feel free to continue watching to see how he bakes the animation so it can be exported, however the tutorial will also cover this later.

Importing the Animations
When importing the model it should've taken you to pose mode, if not, go to that mode now. Select any bone, then go to File -> Import -> BrawlBox Anim (.anim), and select the animation you just exported. Now your character should now animated, although the frame rate being incorrect. Also, if you have rigs, expect the animation to be incorrect also, however you can fix it by disabling the IKs, (Covered in the video linked above). However, to fix the slow speed issue, go to Output Properties -> Format, then set the Frame Rate to, then your character should be correctly paced.

After that, you have everything in Blender. Now you are free to animate, change whatever you want.

Clear what you Don't Need
When importing an animation, you're going to have multiple keyframes, clear the stuff you don't need. If you want to make a new animation that looks nothing like the original, you can clear everything. Just be mindful and know what you're doing. This is especially useful when using rigs and want to make a complex animation.

Keep End and Start Time the Same For Loops
When animating loops, it is good practice to make sure the keyframes at the start and end of the animation are identical, so it loops nicely and doesn't look odd. This can be done by simply duplicating the start frame and moving it to the end of your animation.

Keep your Animation Start Time Consistent
Please do not start your animations before or after 1, as it has been said that BrawlCrate does not like these types of animations. Start your animations at 1.

Smooth Animation Tips
For fluent animations, use either Bezier or Sinusoidal interpolations, and make sure to set the  to Ease In and Out. However, do not completely rely on this, as there will be scenarios where even then the animation still isn't smooth. So experiment, and you'll find what works best for you and your situations.

End Times
You are able to make your animation as long as you want. Just be reasonable don't make something like 5 minutes long.

Cyclic Animation
When animating loops, it would be of best interest to open the graph editor in blender, and press, then select. This will make animating loops easier as it will help smoothen the transition between the end and start key frames.

Exporting
First the tutorial will be covering exporting it if you haven't used any IKs. If you don't use IKs, make sure you're done with your animation, and don't worry if you wanna make later changes, you can export the animations as much as you want. For IK rigs though, save your blend project before you bake the action, as you'll still be able to load the blend file and make changes when needed.

Exporting the animation (Without IK)
Go to pose mode, select any bone, then go to File -> Export -> BrawlBox Anim (.anim), then save it to the folder and name it whatever you please. It should exported properly and now you have animation data in a file.

This is an animation made following the tutorial.

Exporting the animation (With IK)
Save your project when you think you're done, as most commonly you're going to make further adjustments after seeing it in-game. Go to Pose Mode, Pose -> Animation -> Bake Action, and make sure to use these settings when baking. You always want to have your  at 1, however   should be the number of frames you have. Once all the settings are where they should be, press OK, and now every animation should baked. Now you are able to export the animation the same way you exported it in Exporting the animation (W/O IK) which should also give you a  file.

This is an animation made following the tutorial.

Importing In-Game
Take the  you exported, and open BrawlCrate, open the   you were using, go to   and find the animation name of that you exported earlier. Once found, right click, Replace, this opens up a file explorer, then select the .anim you just exported. You still need to fix some things however. Look at the top right menu and make sure in  section,   is set to. Also look at the  section and make sure that   is set to True or False depending on your animation, and also that the   value is accurate to what you want it to be.

Now you can do the process you did earlier in looking at the animations in BrawlCrate, and see if the animation imported is there. If it is good, you can save, however it is best to have a backup of the original.

Now you can load up the game, and if you followed the tutorial correctly, your animation should be playing, when triggered of course. Here's both IK and non-IK animations in-game following the tutorial.

Player Animations
This section will only guide you with getting the models and importing. Below, is a list of player models, made to help you animate, choose the player you want to edit. In each zip will be their model as a  as well as some of their textures. Why do you have to download the models provided rather than dump it? Because the Blender addon will only let you import and animate 1  file, and in NSMBW, the player's are split into multiple models, so it saves you the hassle of having to align the players' head properly, and they're ready to animate. However, keep in mind this just has the model, you still need to extract the  file from the model. For the animations to work, you want to extract the  (# is M for Mario, K for Toad, or L  for Luigi)   file, not any of the others. You're also still gonna need the animations itself, you should be able to find what you need in the List of Object Files.

If there is any demand of a model of the players needed, (such as Penguin Suit Mario) please add chasical#1006 on Discord and he will make the model and add it to the list.

List of Models

 * Mario
 * Luigi
 * Toad

Importing the Players to Blender
So with the model of your choice downloaded from the above, there should be a  file, import that the same way discussed, using the BrawlCrate import addon for Blender. Now this also assumes you already dumped the  file you need as well as the , the process is the same from here on out. So It is recommended to read 4.5 of the tutorial and following that, as the process is the same and it's up to you on what you want the players to be doing.

Animating Backgrounds
This section will assume the following:


 * You read the Custom Backgrounds page.
 * You have read this page and also downloaded the plugins necessary.
 * Your background is finished skeleton and model wise.

Importing ANIMATABLE Backgrounds to Blender
So the first step is to make sure your background looks alright in game, as you are NOT going to be using the model your editing your background with in Blender, you will be using a different version. The process of getting a background set up for animation in Blender is about the same as the Importing to Blender section in the tutorial, however there are some differences.


 * 1) Export the model as a   via BrawlCrate, do not export the   as you will not need it (DO NOT CONVERT IT TO FBX)
 * 2) (Optional) Export the textures to same folder as the
 * 3) Import the   via the Blender plugin

With your background, it may be a bit big. You are free to resize the background however you please, but only resize it by the armature in object mode to prevent deformation of the bones itself. Now with the background resized and how you like in Blender, you are now free to animate. You do not need a pre-existing animation to get started, you can start how you want, just keep in mind the tips stated earlier such as start times and end times, as well as setting the frame rate to 60 fps. Similarly, there are no limits or requirements to how long an animation can be, so you can have a short animation that will loop throughout the course no problem.

What Should You Animate
With backgrounds, it'd be best to animate something that would loop, however you can also animate something that can only animates once, such as Zelda's moon gradually approaching the screen. By animate once It is meant that it won't loop, not that it will stop when the animation is done (Although you can achieve this just by freezing any movement in the animation). It is not known at the time if it is possible to animate something that can play exactly once and stop. Keep in mind that if you do this however, you'd have to stretch out your animation as well, as in BrawlCrate either way you'd have to make your animation loop, or else it won't play. So if you do something like the moon and you want it to play across a course with 500 Mario Seconds as the timer, you'd have to animate something that lasts 21000 frames. ((Timer (In Mario Seconds) *0.7 (Seconds))*60 (FPS)).

This section will use D-Rex's amazing background as an example. The goal will be to make a hot air balloon move up and down. Similar to the section on animating players, this will not go in depth however, but rather give a general idea of the steps. Reason is it's repetitive as most of the steps and guide have already been stated in earlier sections.

Exporting The Background Animation
Once you have your animation done, the process of exporting it to BrawlCrate is relatively simple. I also suggest you save your Blender scene so you can edit it whenever, as there has been note of problems when trying to reimport the .anim back to Blender for whatever reason. So to export, it is as simple as just selecting a bone and selecting export as .anim. (Further emphasized on in previous sections).

Once you have your .anim, open BrawlCrate and open your background. If there isn't a folder called  then you will need to make one. To do that, simply right-click on the  file, go to New -> Model Animation (CHR). This should make that folder as well as CHR file named NewChr. Right-click that and rename it to the name of your. (e.g bgA_0102.brres, you would name it bgA_102). Failure to do this step will not make the animation play in-game.

Now all you have to do is right click the CHR file, Replace, and then select the  file you just made. If all went well, it should import correctly.

Animation Settings
Your animation won't work in game, yeah it will animate correctly in BrawlCrate, however the settings will cause an instantaneous crash in-game. To fix this, select the CHR file, on the right you should see settings. Make sure to change it similar to the image below, only letting the  parameter be up to you. THERE IS A BUG WHERE CHANGING THE PARAMETERS IN A DIFFERENT ORDER DELETES ANIMATION KEYFRAMES, TO AVOID THIS, CHANGE THE PARAMETERS IN THIS ORDER:


 * 1) Version
 * 2) Loop
 * 3) FrameCount

However, once you have imported the animation to BrawlCrate and everything setting wised is fixed, you should now be able to see it in game. Keep in mind the animation will be looped throughout the whole course.

Making Edits
If you ever feel the need to make edits, it is really simple. Simply make the changes in Blender, export as a  again, import the , and your new changes should be in the   now. Keep in mind however that you will have to repeat the Animation Settings section, as it will reset to it's default settings.