RedFurryDemon

Team name: Voluptuous Velks Members: OperatorJack, Petetehgoat, RedFurryDemon, Wollibeebee

As far as I know, Skyrim .hkx files need/might be converted before editing them, so you can open them in anything that opens .kf (Nifskope, etc.). This tool is good for conversion: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17109/ - the author provided no readme, but make sure to read through the comment section. I found Hextol's instructions (comment from 06 March 2014) 100% working. As for working with the .kf, this guide might (or might not) be useful: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Creating_character_animations - it requires Blender, which is free to download. It's sometimes quite annoying to work with, though. Also, animation replacers don't require FNIS, it's only needed for adding new animations.

I've tested this on a "bare" skeleton.nif with animations and it seems to work so far - thanks a lot! However, how to merge the mesh with the skeleton? Basically, I've tried copy branch - paste branch with both the entire root node and just the NiTriShape, and neither worked. Results: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hYbr8pQtuTw6ZbGobfTK6_Dq_eqorlNf It seems like a simple thing and I'm probably making some very basic mistakes, but I've done quite a bit of searching and can't seem to find any hint on how to do this in Nifskope.

Is there an easy way to turn a skinned, animated asset into a static mesh frozen in some pose, like those characters and creatures seen on vanilla loading screens? Basically I need to: 1. Put the creature in a desired pose 2. Remove the skeleton without disrupting the geometry. I have Nifskope and Blender 2.78 with the nif plug-in. Thanks in advance for any help or hint on how to do this.

Given that there are so many of his mods and some are super lore-friendly and some aren't, I doubt he's ever going to release a package. However, it's certainly possible to merge them. I recommend this: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/69905

Wouldn't it be easier to modify just its summon spell effect?

Wheeeeee

"It just works."