rjshae

I have this idea for an encounter that involves an iron door similar to the PLC_DP_JAIL1.MDB jail door, except larger and wider to accommodate bigger creatures (plus thicker bars with a different texture). I've been exploring how the jail door works -- it is configured to use the PLC_MC_TDOOR GR2 files (of which there are 14). What I'd like to do is import the jail door with each of the animations in turn and see how they animate, but thus far I haven't been able to get one to show up in the timeline. I've tried importing various combinations of the model, skeleton, and the animation, but no luck. Any suggestions?

I'll give that approach a try. Thanks.

What exactly are you trying to do? Maybe there is an easy solution. I'd like to create a static statue-like pose animation for the human male figure, including both the head and body positions. I picked the Skeleton model as it uses the same skeleton as the human and I figured it would be less cluttered. But another would do. To convert animated placeables to FBX don't drag&drop the GR2 skeleton. I passed plc_bc_shiprow1.mdb and plc_bc_shiprow1_idle.gr2 and there was animation. Maybe you didn't see keyframes in the timeline and you thought there was no animation? You have to select an animated object to see the keyframes. Or maybe you didn't see any motion, since the animation is subtle. I had to look at very near to see it. Dang it. Yes, now it's working. I thought I had the part selected. Ah well. Sorry. Ed.: Okay, I got the boat rocking. It looks good. Thank you.

Great, I'll give that import option a try. I don't suppose it's possible for the nw2fbx.exe to merge the duplicate collision balls and bones? Or is it just something I'll have to live with? I gave one more placeable a try -- plc_bc_shiprow1 -- because I have a boat model I'd like to animate. I was hoping to see the animation working to get a sense on the motion and timing, but when I passed plc_bc_shiprow1.mdb, plc_bc_shiprow1.gr2, and plc_bc_shiprow1_idle.gr2 to nw2fbx.exe, the resulting .FBX had the model separate from the animation. If I just passed plc_bc_shiprow1.mdb and plc_bc_shiprow1_idle.gr2 to nw2fbx.exe, there was no animation. Is there a way I can import and view the idle animation? Thank you.

I tried an experiment with a double door, plc_dc_cwatch01. After a bit of fiddling, I got what looks like an animated FBX model by running these parts through nw2fbx.exe: PLC_DC_CWATCH01.MDBPLC_DC_CWATCH01_01.MDBPLC_DC_CWATCH01_02.MDBPLC_DC_CWATCH_IDLE.GR2What's odd though is that the C2 mesh is it's own animated part, PLC_DC_CWATCH01_C2.PIVOT. I get the same thing if I try it with either of the door's OPEN animations. Is that how it's supposed to look? Probably a minor nit really.

Thank you. Yes that makes sense -- I can just make the animated part low poly. I'll have to check the windmill placeable though to see if it is different. Ed.: Okay yes, the windmill has no LoD parts. I'll go with that approach.

A couple of things, if I may: 1) I was wondering, how would one apply the technique to placeables with LoD parts? Do I just create three .PIVOT axes with the associated parts as children then animate the lot? Or is it all under one PIVOT, organized as three sets. 2) When I pass C_Skel_CL_Body01.mdb, C_Skel_Head01.mdb, P_HHM_skel.gr2 and c_skel_skel01.gr2 into nw2fbx.exe, I end up with duplicate collision balls and a duplicate skeleton with bones that don't appear to be attached end-to-end. The collision balls aren't duplicated if I don't pass c_skel_skel.gr2 and the C_Skel_Head01.mdb model, but then I don't have a head mesh to modify. Plus the bones are still not aligned. Thanks.

Perhaps this: https://www.gog.com/forum/neverwinter_nights_series/nwn2_amie_didnt_die

I know. It wasn't deliberate on my part. The door MDB models have the origin at the hinge. When I relocate them (using grab along fixed axes), it shifts to the handle side. https://www.dropbox.com/s/4o4kdi99ubsf9vx/initial_fbx.7z?dl=0 Ed.: Ah... never mind. I was moving it in edit mode, which didn't move the origin. Sorry. Novice mistake. ...and it's working. Hurray! Thank you for your help.

Well then the geometry origin is in the right location. Hmm. Yes I started over, importing the three parts into an FBX file, joining them under a .PIVOT as before with the doors as children. I tried the same thing using the 'Object (keep transform)' option to join the doors, but that made no difference. It's curious though that when I'm shifting the doors into position, the geometric origin stays at the same x-axis location (0.0) rather than moving with the doors while the y and z coordinates move. https://www.dropbox.com/s/27jsb8uezipo934/plc_md_cabinet05_r4.7z?dl=0

I'll give that a shot. Thank you! Ed.: I set the door placeables so that the hinge line is at the origin. When I run it in game though, the doors end up backwards with the hinges on the outside. Hmm, I guess that little dotted line to the door part is the location of what it thinks of as its geometric origin, and of course it's on the wrong end. I'll have to figure out how to change that.

Ah, okay. Well it's working now, after a fashion. The opening motion is odd though. I guess I'll have to use a rig to get it working properly. Thank you for taking a look.

It looks like you're off to a good start, Singeth. You might try posting to the NWN2 neverwintervault.org forums as well.

I tried my cabinet with the moving parts as separate models, but the resulting animated placeable was then missing the moving parts. Perhaps that's the problem then? The skeleton isn't attaching the extra parts. I tried building the baseline .fbx file by running all three parts through nw2fbs.exe then making the doors children of the frame, but had no luck with the resulting skeleton. Running the three parts and the skeleton through nw2fbx.exe didn't show the doors as children of the frame.

Okay, thank you. Well I tried that, but, alas, it did no better. https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5fdn0zotgv9nal/plc_md_cabinet05_r2.7z?dl=0 I also tried it with the model that fbx2nw.exe spits out, but it had a messed up texture map assignment. After correcting that, the texture still ends up flickering in the game and the animation didn't work, so I went back to the original model.

Well I tried my cabinet model without the bones, but it didn't animate. I did uncheck all the boxes except Baked Animation on FBX export and I set the Simplify field to zero. I then tried splitting off the doors into separate models and merging those into the FBX, but the resulting model didn't show up with any doors. So I was going to try the skeleton approach and see if that would work. First though, I was checking why the Armoire didn't work. https://www.dropbox.com/s/waxxg8f4qgaby5s/plc_md_cabinet05.7z?dl=0

Okay thanks. When I import the .fbx with the armature then, shouldn't the parts be attached to the bones? They don't seem to be.

I made another attempt at importing the Armoire model PLC_MC_ARMY01 using nwn2mdk-0.4. The files I dragged onto nw2fbx.exe consisted of: PLC_MC_ARMY01.MDB, PLC_MC_ARMY01_01.MDB, PLC_MC_ARMY_01_02.MDB, and PLC_MC_ARMY01_PLC_OPENIDLE.GR2. The model appeared to import okay into blender, but the timeline only had two entries and the doors would not animate -- they were already open. With PLC_MC_ARMY01_IDLE.GR2 instead of PLC_MC_ARMY01_PLC_OPENIDLE.GR2, the model loaded with the doors closed, and still no animation (as I would expect in this case). I tried mixing in the PLC_MC_ARMY01.GR2 file, but it made no difference (other than to add a rig). I must be doing something wrong, I would guess, or these are the correct animations and the game engine does some interpolation/translation between the two modes.

Huh. Well that's an odd name for the open animation. I'll give that a try. Thank you. Ed.: It's working now. Thank you for your help.

Well I still seem to be doing something wrong. The imported .fbx does have the correct animation now, so I exported it to .mdb plus .gr2 files. Now my override has the model, texture files, renamed .gr2 files (plc_du_secret_door.mdb and plc_du_secret_door_open.gr2). I set up a test module that displays the door placeable in game, which is made usable and runs a script when it is used. The script runs because I get feedback, but the following call does nothing: Can anybody hazard a guess as to why it isn't working? I tried it with a 'plc_du_secret_door_open_idle.gr2' in addition to 'plc_du_secret_door_open.gr2', but had the same outcome. Here's the placeables.2da entry:

D'oh! :facepalm: Well that was dumb. Okay, thank you.

Well crud, I'm having all kinds of issues trying to get the animation working. I've merged the model parts so it's down to a single mesh and texture. The applied animation in the original .blend file works fine. If I export to an .fbx file then import it in a new session, the .fbx descends twice as far. I tried re-importing the skeleton, animation, and .mdb file, but the resulting animation does nothing. https://www.dropbox.com/s/qa3hhp526ngescc/secret_door1.7z?dl=0 I'm not sure what I can do about it.

@Semp3r: The mdb file format allows for four bone weights per SKIN vertex. Do you mean the game engine ignores the fourth weight?

@FreshLook: Thank you for the explanation. For now, it sounds like it would be easier to merge the parts into a single packet. I'll try that and see how well it works out.

Thanks! Ed.: My secret door consists of three packets, which I placed under the same .PIVOT per your tutorial. I re-imported the original plc_du_secret_door.mdb and generated plc_du_secret_door_open.gr2 files via nw2fbx.exe. When I ran the animation in blender, the main door packet lowered below the floor level as expected. However, the additional packets were lowered twice as far, completely disrupting the model. https://www.dropbox.com/s/w09h2dkwzwii4yg/plc_du_secret_door.7z?dl=0