Complete Tree Overhaul - Tree animations?

[aahz8]

Hi,

 

I have re-made all the pine trees into black spruce and created Shore pines (pinus contorta) to replace the 'reach trees' (in Hjaalmarch only).

 

Here is a gallery of the trees

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1MLwX6WDo8cZEs2ZlZXX3M5RjA&usp=sharing

 

I just need to resolve two issues then I will release the trees,

 

1. Adding animations)

I have added leaf animations to make the branches sway but I think I can do better. I know in the original pines there are bones to make anims more realistic; the branches appear attached to the trunk not just wobbling in all directions. Also the Aspen trees sway back and forth, including the trunk, which would be perfect for my Shore pines.

 

Is there a tutorial on Tree anims or can some one take a look at my nifs? When I tried to import my my trees in the original Pine nif structure it caused CTD and I really don't know what I am doing in Nifscope.

 

2. Better Lods?)

I don't know if this one is possible without needing to generate lods via dynDOLOD or something but I want to replace the treepineforestdead01_lod_flat.nif with a more accurate one. Re-texturing the existing lod bilboard is not really good enough because it makes an x shape since the trees are leaning over. When I replace the treepineforestdead01_lod_flat.nif with my improved model it is not used in game...

 

 

Am I doing something wrong or does it need to be change elsewhere?

 

(If I could figure this out I could make way better lots for all sorts of things...)

 

Thanks in advance for any help,

 

David