Spawning a new AI player from the engine

Hello!

I think the usual way to add AI players to a mission is done through script code but I want to add them directly from the engine code. I tried to copy the code from the script files and adapt it for the engine. This is what the script code for adding an AI player looks like

Exec("~/data/models/avatars/agent/agent.cs");

datablock PlayerData(AgentAvatar)
{
   renderFirstPerson = false;
   emap = true;

   className = AgentAvatar;
   shapeFile = "~/data/models/avatars/agent/agent.dts";
};

function AIPlayer::spawnBot(%index,%location)
{
   %me = new AIPlayer() {
      dataBlock = AgentAvatar;
    };

   %me.setTransform(%location);
   %me.name="Agent " @ %index;
}

I wrote the following code for the engine:

function spawnAvatar() {
   AIPlayer *avatar = new AIPlayer();
	
   avatar->registerObject();

   PlayerData *data = new PlayerData();
   data->shapeName = "./3dei/data/models/avatars/agent/agent.dts";
   data->renderFirstPerson = false;

   data->emap = true;

   char errBuff[256];
   data->preload(true,errBuff);

   Con::errorf(errBuff);

   avatar->setDataBlock(data);

   // The code below is copied from ConsoleMethod( SceneObject, setTransform, ...) and calculates the 
   // appropriate transformation matrix for a particular 3D point
   Point3F pos(-457.674,253.89,352.402);

   const MatrixF& tmat = avatar->getTransform();
   tmat.getColumn(3,&pos);
   AngAxisF aa(tmat);

   MatrixF mat;
   aa.setMatrix(&mat);
   mat.setColumn(3,pos);
   avatar->setTransform(mat);
}

But when running this code I get animation sequence errors like this

Warning: (i:\.....engine\game\player.cc @ 290) PlayerData::preload - Unable to find named animation sequence 'root'!

My problem now is that I don't know how to attach the appropriate animation sequences to the PlayerShape. I know that this happens in the script in the code

Exec("~/data/models/avatars/agent/agent.cs");

which contains

datablock TSShapeConstructor(AgentDts)
{
   baseShape = "./agent.dts";
   sequence0 = "./agent_root.dsq root";
   // ... and some more sequences
};

But I can't 'transform' this script code into engine code. The TSShapeConstructor class in the engine contains all private members and those members are only exposed to the script engine. I guess that I won't have to use the TSShapeConstructor in my engine code, but I just couldn't figure out where I have to set the paths for the animation sequences - maybe in the TSShape class? Does anyone how to do this or could it also be that the animation sequence problem is minor and that the error lies somewhere else (with the above engine code no new avatar gets visible in the mission - is this caused by the failed animation sequence loading?)?

thanks