d2animdata

d2animdata is a command-line program for editing AnimData.D2. AnimData.D2 is a propriety file format used by Diablo 2 to store animation metadata for characters and monsters.

d2animdata can decompile AnimData.D2 to text-based file formats, such as tabbed text and JSON (see Supported File Formats for more info). Modders can edit these files to add new animations or modify existing ones. After editing, d2animdata can compile it back to a new AnimData.D2 file.

d2animdata is written in Python. It supports Python 3.6 and above, and has been tested on Windows 10 and Ubuntu Linux.

⚠ This project is very much in Alpha. There may be several bugs. Always back up your AnimData.D2 file before using d2animdata.

Installing

To use d2animdata, you must install Python 3. Then, open a command-line shell (e.g. cmd.exe) and enter:

pip install d2animdata

This will install d2animdata on your computer.

Commands

To view help for a command, enter:

d2animdata <command> --help

decompile

Decompiles an AnimData.D2 file to tabbed text or JSON file.

$ d2animdata decompile --help
usage: d2animdata decompile [-h] [--dedupe] [--sort] (--json | --txt)
                            animdata_d2 target

positional arguments:
  animdata_d2  AnimData.D2 file to decompile
  target       JSON or tabbed text file to save to

optional arguments:
  -h, --help   show this help message and exit
  --dedupe     Remove records with duplicate COF names
  --sort       Sort the records alphabetically before saving
  --json       Decompile to JSON
  --txt        Decompile to tabbed text (TXT)

Example: Decompile path/to/AnimData.D2 to a JSON file.

d2animdata decompile --json path/to/AnimData.D2 path/to/my-animdata.json

Example: Decompile path/to/AnimData.D2 to a tabbed text file.

d2animdata decompile --txt path/to/AnimData.D2 path/to/my-animdata.txt

compile

Compiles a tabbed text or JSON file to AnimData.D2 file.

$ d2animdata compile --help
usage: d2animdata compile [-h] [--dedupe] [--sort] (--json | --txt)
                          source animdata_d2

positional arguments:
  source       JSON or tabbed text file to compile
  animdata_d2  AnimData.D2 file to save to

optional arguments:
  -h, --help   show this help message and exit
  --dedupe     Remove records with duplicate COF names
  --sort       Sort the records alphabetically before saving
  --json       Compile JSON
  --txt        Compile tabbed text (TXT)

Example: Compile a JSON file to path/to/AnimData-result.D2.

d2animdata compile --json path/to/my-animdata.json path/to/AnimData-result.D2

Example: Compile a tabbed text file to path/to/AnimData-result.D2.

d2animdata compile --txt path/to/my-animdata.txt path/to/AnimData-result.D2

Supported File Formats

d2animdata supports two file formats: tabbed text (.txt) and JSON (.json).

Tabbed text

Tabbed text files (.txt) can be edited with a spreadsheet program (e.g. Excel, AFJ Sheet Edit). Diablo 2 modders should already be familiar with these files, as Diablo 2 uses tabbed text files extensively to control various aspects of the game.

d2animdata is compatible with Paul Siramy's excellent animdata_edit program, which is another popular tool for (de)compiling AnimData.D2 to tabbed text.

JSON

JSON files (.json) can be edited with any text editor (e.g. Notepad), though I recommend using one with syntax highlighting support (e.g. Notepad++, Visual Studio Code).

JSON has several advantages over tabbed text:

• JSON files can be added to a version control system (VCS), such as Git. This allows you to keep track of changes made to a file. You can compare changes across time and revert unwanted changes.

  Tabbed text files and AnimData.D2 can also be added to a VCS. However, tabbed text files are tricky to deal with, because they don't produce nice-looking diff logs when compared. Binary files, such as AnimData.D2, cannot be compared at all. On the other hand, JSON files create diff logs that are easy to read.

• JSON files are easier to handle in several programming languages.

• Unlike tabbed text, JSON does not suffer from tricky whitespace issues.

API Usage

d2animdata can also be imported from a Python script to load, edit, and save AnimData.D2.

Example:

from d2animdata import load, dump

# Load an AnimData.D2 file
with open('AnimData.D2', mode='rb') as animdata_file:
    animdata = load(animdata_file)
# animdata now contains a list of Record objects.

# Iterate through each record, printing its information
for record in animdata:
    print('COF name:', record.cof_name)
    print('Frames per direction:', record.frames_per_direction)
    print('Animation speed:', record.animation_speed)
    print('Trigger frames:', record.triggers)

# Let's find a record named '0DNUHTH' and edit it
for record in animdata:
    if record.cof_name == '0DNUHTH':
        record.animation_speed = 192
        # Erase all trigger frames previously set on this record.
        record.triggers.clear()
        # Set the trigger code of frame #10 to 1
        # Since frame indices begin at 0, we're actually modifying the 11th frame.
        record.triggers[10] = 1
        break

# Save the records to AnimData.D2
with open('AnimData.D2', mode='wb') as animdata_file:
    dump(animdata, animdata_file)

See the API docs for a complete reference of available functions and classes.

Development

To develop d2animdata, you will want a good Python editor. I recommend Visual Studio Code with the Microsoft Python extension.

To develop d2animdata, clone this repository and create a virtual environment. Then run the following commands to install the project locally for development:

# For Windows
python -m pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
flit install --pth-file
# For non-Windows
pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
flit install

d2animdata uses:

• Flit to build source distributions and wheels.
• Tox to run tests.
• Black and isort to format code.
• Pylint to check code.
• pydoc-markdown 3 to generate API documentation from source code.
  • Run pydoc-markdown -p d2animdata > api.md to generate api.md.