antirobot

Hello, I’ve searched pretty extensively online trying to answer this question, but most posts and tutorials I find refer to using CAT rigs or using the biped tools in Max, neither of which seems to be an option when editing Skyrim animations. By following the excellent animation tutorial by xp32 and aeon, I am able to convert the stock animations, edit them in Max, and export them via the Havok tools successfully. The exported animations work fine in game. The method I used to create a new walk cycle in blender for Fallout 3 or Oblivion was to create several keyframes, then copy those poses to the buffer and paste the reverse versions for the second half of the cycle. In other words, I only had to create four basic poses, then use their reverse to create the remaining four keyframes for the second half of the animation. I can’t figure out how to do this with 3dsMax. There is a “mirror” tool that looks like it is doing things correctly, but it ends up completely flipping the skeleton (if you play the animation, the skeleton actually flattens out and reverses; when it ends up on the mirrored keyframe, left is right and right is left, etc.). Does anyone here know a way to clone or copy a keyframe and paste the reverse without using the mirror tool? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi lolacan, If I understand your request, I attempted something very similar to what you’re asking for but was only partially successful in the implementation. I was looking for a way to replace the strafing and backward moving animations with directional animations, similar to what you would see in Fable, the earlier Mass Effect games, and other 3rd-person action games. I simply took the standard forward animation and rotated it and replaced each of the remaining 7 directional animations. In game this method works fine for unarmed movement animations, but something was wrong with my conversion process so the animations are glitchy (for example, the character’s head sinks into its neck, the hand compresses into the arm, and the sheathed weapon sticks out of the body on a weird angle). I’m discouraged by the difficulty of getting working animations back into the game, so I haven’t made any further attempts. I hope that someone with more experience eventually takes an interest in a project like this. In the meantime, check out Catwalk Fix by xp32: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=12883 The walking animations are directional as I’ve described, but since the vanilla running animations aren’t, you’re going to get some weird behavior when transitioning from a walk to a run. Still, this may serve as a partial solution. Good luck.

I agree. I thought about that, but it might be difficult to constrain the head movement when the rest of the motion is completely free of the camera. You wouldn't want your head swiveling around Exorcist-style as you walked the other direction. In Oblivion I think the mod you are talking about was called "Now Look Here You" or something similar, and it looked great.

Hello. I’ve been experimenting with adding new default movement animations (no weapon out, not aiming, etc.) to Skyrim in the 3rd-person view. My goal is to make the view and animations function similarly to how many 3rd-person games such as Mass Effect do. I’ve been able to import the mt_walkforward and mt_runforward animations into max 2012, rotate the direction of the animation (using the NPC_COM bone, I think), and export them back out and change the animation name in nifscope to the other mt_ directional animations (walkforwardleft, walkleft, etc.). Because the camera is unlocked in Skyrim, the resulting directional movement works as expected, just like in Mass Effect. The character essentially always walks the direction of the left stick or WASD input instead of strafing or walking backwards. However, I’m having problems with errors in the animations themselves. The sheathed weapon usually sticks through the character model and there are odd problems like the neck being collapsed into the body and the hand being in the wrong position. I suspect this is primarily because I am very inexperienced with the animation process and with 3ds Max, but it sounds like there are a lot of problems in general getting animations into the game without any glitchyness. Nevertheless, I’m sure these glitches are caused by something I’m doing wrong. I’m curious as to whether anyone is working on a similar mod or has suggestions that might help me make better forward progress with this project. If I’m simply doing something wrong in the conversion process but getting partially desired results, it seems like someone with some actual know-how could do this in a snap. Thanks for reading. Any feedback is appreciated.

The tutorial on the wiki explains this process pretty thoroughly: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Working_with_animations_in_Skyrim I've been able to convert the .hkx animation files to .kf and import them successfully into max 2012. The export and conversion from .kf back to .hkx also works correctly. The animations I've tried (walk and run animations) work in game, but there are strange problems like the weapon sticking through the pc's body or the head compressing down into the neck. I'm not sure if those problems are related to the import/export process, the conversion process, or something else. Good luck.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with the import to Blender or the export process. I'm using Blender 2.49b with the latest versions of PyFFI and nif scripts. Currently I'm just using the default walking animation as a test case. Any movement animation I export from blender and try to use in game works perfectly, except for the first frame or so of the animation. Instead of moving forward immediately, the character slides slightly to the left before it starts to go forward. This only happens immediately after the animation begins. It loops correctly; in other words, it doesn't slide to the left at the beginning of every animation cycle, only when I press W to start moving. Adjusting the Bip01 position in an attempt to correct the problem just causes every loop following the original run to shift. I've done my best searching this site and others for solutions, but I haven't had any luck, so I apologize if this has been addressed before. Has anyone had similar problems with custom animations? Is it something wrong with the import/export process, or is there something esle at work. Can anyone recommend a guide that details the import and export settings needed to successfully create or modify animations in blender? Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions.