Kingdom Hearts II - MSET (Motion Set)

An MSET file is a collection of moves, which contains animations and effects (I-frames, hitboxes, effects…). Internally it is a BAR file that contains a list of “slots”. Each slot may or may not have a “motion”. The slot is the Nth entry, starting from 0, of a BAR entry. Keep in mind that the BAR’s tag is ignored by the motion set system. The various actions in the game point to a specific motion by a slot position in this list, thus many of the motions are dummies, since the characters only use some of them. Please refer to slot names to know more.

Slot system

There is a very specific way on how a Motion ID is mapped to a specific slot inside a MSET. The mapping is defined by the MSET type, found in the BAR Header:

MSET Type	Description
0	Default
1	Player
2	RAW

Default and RAW will map the motion ID table to a slot in order, meaning that when the game wants to load RUN it will load the 2nd slot in the MSET file. Although for Player it will act very differently. To understand it, it is necessary to know how the gameplay works for a player (used by playable characters and party members). A player can have four states:

In battle	Has weapon	Relative slot index
true	true	0
true	false	1
false	false	2
false	true	3

The relative slot index will be added to the Motion ID multipled by 4: relativeSlotIndex + motionId * 4. Meaning that if the game wants to load RUN for a player that is not in battle but it is holding a weapon, the slot index will be 11 (3 + 2 * 4). But a player not always have a specific animation for every state and motion combination. They are called DUMM and they always have a file length of 0. The game have a very clever fallback mechanic. One clear example is the motion JUMP, that always fall back to 18 regardles the state. This is the following fallback system, where each number is the relative slot index and the symbol -> is the fallback when a dummy slot is found:

• 3 -> 2 -> 0 -> 1
• 2 -> 3 -> 1 -> 0
• 1 -> 0 -> 2 -> 3
• 0 -> 1 -> 3 -> 2

If after those four attempts no slot with an actual animation is found, the game will internally return the slot index -1, that will T-pose the model rather than just crashing the game.

Motion ID table

The following table, extracted from dbg/motion.bin is not compelte as it seems to not be updated with the Final Mix version of the game. For instance, 209 is the Roll aniamtion, but it’s not present in this list. The list is used by the game’s debug menu.

Index	Name	Description
0	IDLE
1	WALK
2	RUN
3	JUMP
4	FALL
5	LAND
6	LINK_IDLE
7	HANG
8	HANG_UP
9	ITEM
10	DAMAGE_S_FRONT_HIGH
11	DAMAGE_S_FRONT_LOW
12	DAMAGE_S_BACK_HIGH
13	DAMAGE_S_BACK_LOW
14	DAMAGE_AIR_FRONT
15	DAMAGE_AIR_BACK
16	DAMAGE_BLOW_FRONT
17	DAMAGE_BLOW_FRONT_LAND
18	DAMAGE_BLOW_BACK
19	DAMAGE_BLOW_BACK_LAND
20	DAMAGE_TORNADO_FRONT
21	DAMAGE_TORNADO_BACK
22	DAMAGE_TORNADO
23	DAMAGE_LARGE_FRONT
24	DAMAGE_LARGE_BACK
25	DAMAGE_RESERVE_3
26	DAMAGE_RESERVE_4
27	DAMAGE_RESERVE_5
28	DAMAGE_RESERVE_6
29	DAMAGE_RESERVE_7
30	DAMAGE_01
31	DAMAGE_02
32	DAMAGE_03
33	DAMAGE_04
34	DAMAGE_05
35	DAMAGE_06
36	DAMAGE_07
37	DAMAGE_08
38	DAMAGE_09
39	DAMAGE_10
40	DAMAGE_BLOW_RECOV
41	REFLECT
42	AUTOGUARD
43	REFLECT_AIR
44	APPEAR
45	LEAVE
46	LEAVE_AIR
47	FOOTWORK
48	TURN_L
49	TURN_R
50	TALK
51	TALK_END
52	CHANGEFORM
53	CHANGEEND
54	STUN_LOOP
55	STUN_END
56	MAGIC_FIRE
57	MAGIC_FIRE_FINISH
58	MAGIC_FIRE_AIR
59	MAGIC_BLIZZARD
60	MAGIC_BLIZZARD_FINISH
61	MAGIC_BLIZZARD_AIR
62	MAGIC_THUNDER
63	MAGIC_THUNDER_FINISH
64	MAGIC_THUNDER_AIR
65	MAGIC_CURE
66	MAGIC_CURE_FINISH
67	MAGIC_CURE_AIR
68	MAGIC_MAGNET
69	MAGIC_MAGNET_FINISH
70	MAGIC_MAGNET_AIR
71	MAGIC_REFLECT
72	MAGIC_REFLECT_FINISH
73	MAGIC_REFLECT_AIR
74	RTN_TURN
75	CALL_SUMMON_END
76	DEAD_LAND
77	DEAD_AIR
78	MEMO_IDLE
79	SUBMENU_IDLE
80	SUBMENU_ACTION1
81	SUBMENU_ACTION2
82	CALL_FRIEND
83	CALL_SUMMON
84	MENU_IDLE
85	REFLECT00
86	REFLECT01
87	REFLECT02
88	REFLECT03
89	REFLECT04
90	REFLECT05
91	REFLECT06
92	REFLECT07
93	REFLECT08
94	REFLECT09
95	REFLECT10
96	EX000
97	EX001
98	EX002
99	EX003
100	EX004
101	EX005
102	EX006
103	EX007
104	EX008
105	EX009
106	EX010
107	EX011
108	EX012
109	EX013
110	EX014
111	EX015
112	EX016
113	EX017
114	EX018
115	EX019
116	EX020
117	EX021
118	EX022
119	EX023
120	EX024
121	EX025
122	EX026
123	EX027
124	EX028
125	EX029
126	EX030
127	EX031
128	EX032
129	EX033
130	EX034
131	EX035
132	EX036
133	EX037
134	EX038
135	EX039
136	EX040
137	EX041
138	EX042
139	EX043
140	EX044
141	EX045
142	EX046
143	EX047
144	EX048
145	EX049
146	EX050
147	EX051
148	EX052
149	EX053
150	EX054
151	EX055
152	EX056
153	EX057
154	EX058
155	EX059
156	EX060
157	EX061
158	EX062
159	EX063
160	EX064
161	EX065
162	EX066
163	EX067
164	EX068
165	EX069
166	EX070
167	EX071
168	EX072
169	EX073
170	EX074
171	EX075
172	EX076
173	EX077
174	EX078
175	EX079
176	EX080
177	EX081
178	EX082
179	EX083
180	EX084
181	EX085
182	EX086
183	EX087
184	EX088
185	EX089
186	EX090
187	EX091
188	EX092
189	EX093
190	EX094
191	EX095
192	EX096
193	EX097
194	EX098
195	EX099
196	EX100
197	RTN_00
198	RTN_01
199	RTN_02
200	RTN_03
201	RTN_04
202	RTN_05
203	RTN_06
204	RTN_07
205	RTN_08
206	RTN_09