bobsobol

You can "moonwalk" or "moonrun" diagonally in 3rd person... and this is the "bug" I'm griping about. The animating model of my avatar should shift it's angle 45 degrees from the camera when pressing W and A or W and D (assuming default layout) simultaneously... but it doesn't. Sliding down hills sideways is one thing... Sliding sideways uphill, or on flat ground which is not evidently frosted or "slippery" and in a manner quite alien to our normal experience of the laws of physics is another entirely. Especially when (other than being controlled by a mystic board of keys from a real known as Earth) no magical effect is noticeably present on my avatar. Perhaps Sourons arm has grown even longer and can push my Player Character sideways as he runs with an otherwise unnoticed wind? It just seems a shame that we can turn Oblivion into Assassins Creed with Deadly Reflexes and Thieves Highway, and can make him / her pleasure them self at the drop of a "Cudgel" (I'm sure that should be Cajole ;) ) but can't correct the unnatural diagonal walk/run in 3rd person.

My experience of other peoples mods suggests that the entire body is animated in a single animation file. (.kf) This makes sense when a head, or hand gets stuck behind a door and the body stretches along the nearest bone to keep the two body parts joined. If the parts where treated as separate objects, they would pop apart revealing the nothing inside them. ;) Therefore, if a new animation needs to be created, and played when in 3rd person and running diagonally, this would be entirely possible... and could be made as an option, the default etc. depending on what looked better. But if a new .kf would be required, I have no idea how to create one, or how to edit an existing one. If it is possible in NifSkope I don't know how... maybe one of the other Nif Tools... but they don't make much sense to me. If anyone has any info that they can share, has created animations and implemented them in game, or only considered something similar... I would appreciate any notes, pointers, links to insightful pages / tutorials. This thread hasn't died, despite my endless prattle, so there is some interest. With your help, I have the willing, and maybe the base skills to make it work. But I couldn't possibly do it alone. Believe me, I have looked. I have read, but do not understand well enough to proceed alone. Anything to do with Nifs and KFs seems to be aimed at people who find Blender and 3D MAX are intuitive, strait forward applications to use that need little explanation. Personally, if playing a game is like Dr. Zeuss, and C++ is Shakespeare for me... then Blender and 3D MAX are the untranslated cuneiform of the Dead-Sea scrolls. :rolleyes: I don't consider this "stupidity" on my part, as I know many other people who are exactly the other way. 3D is no problem but coding is alien to them, and all attempts to understand it come to nothing. It's like left handed right handed, 1 in 3 of us are left handed, very few are ambidextrous. :wink: Sadly, the 3D people I know are heathens who are not interested in TES, if it's not WoW or Halo3 they don't care. :wallbash: Hence I appeal to this fine community of "right minded" people. :D TIA, and here's still hoping we can work together to fix this "bug". ;)

I don't think you'd need to create new animations, like the combat animation mods. The existing run / walk animations are fine, they just need their orientation to the camera (view port) adjusting when moving diagonally. I just have no idea if that means taking the existing animation, performing a transformation on it and creating a new .kf with the adjusted angle(s) or if you can do it pragmatically in script. The latter would seem possible because we can watch NPCs run from any angle... and if that is the case, I could maybe invest some time in learning CS & OBSE. My last attempt failed miserably because, while I already script in LUA, C, VB, PHP and many others, and produce textures for existing models in Oblivion and other games... my sense of 3 Dimensional space on a VDU (and, actually, in real life) is completely messed up. lol

Well, thank you for your prompt responses. Actually, I play, mainly, in third person... and I guess many other people do to. Otherwise, why all the custom PC races, skins and meshes and revealing armour which you can also, only really see in third person view? :) I admit that targeting in third person is very hard for a ranged attack, but I find it impossible to tell when I'm getting attacked from behind, or manage a large mob at melae range. And for travelling (not fast travelling) it is really crucial to be able to see where you are not going, but might want to... It's quite natural (I think) for us to look around in directions other than that in which we are moving. If I'm taking a walk in the country or just window shopping, I only periodically check directly in front of me. Of course, this is a very subjective topic... as everyone has different playing styles, but it might be interesting to get a kind of poll against who spends what percentage of their time in what view. If I'm truly hones, I tend to play first person in dungeons, where I can clear a corridor and have little chance of becoming surrounded. Ceiling adornments can become problematic for third person view as well. But outside, I know I only switch to first person in order to target my bow / spells. Of course, this means I see the exterior of my Warriors / Fighters more than my Mages or Archers. A stealth character I find most challenging, and is constantly switching views. I think this is also quite natural, because sneaking produces an adrenaline rush which heightens the senses. A Rogue / Thief will be highly aware of their surroundings, relying on much more than their sight and hearing. If I think about times I have been creeping around, I remember being very aware of the movement of grasses and shrubs, the feel of movements around me on the ground. Imagine a hunt, or game of Blind Mans Buff. So yea... in stealth, I'm constantly switching... What is around me? Okay get to that dark corner... they've passed? Where now? The cupboard over there, but watch for the next patrol... Quickly and carefully remove silverware... no knocking or dropping, keep switching back to have plenty of warning of that patrol... clear? Okay get back to the shadows. And so-on. In any case... I definitely see my character from outside quite enough for the appearance of their movements to be very important to me. How do others feel?

I'm tempted not to request this, not (as suggested in the "Before you make a mod request" pinned post) because I think it's probably easy, or because I haven't bothered looking for it, but because I think it may be actually impossible due to some silly over site in the internal game mechanics. Here's the thing... I know we can now replace animations... what PC and NPCs do when they are idle, how the walk, run, jump, fall, get up etc... and even add items to a pose. But the biggest thing that takes realism away from the game for me, is when I'm running / walking, and I want to see what is ahead left, or ahead right of me. In anticipation of a turn, I often turn the camera (move the mouse) before a turn, and use strafe (side step) left or right to keep my avatar going straight. When I do this is TES IV, my character faces in the direction of the camera, and runs in that direction whiles his / her feet slide across the floor like they are running on greased glass. Down hill on ice, this wouldn't be a problem, but up hill in the grass, this just looks so wrong... moving in completely another direction to that which your feet are visibly propelling you. If anyone knows how these animations are produced, or even if the orientation of the character to the camera could just be changed when forward and left or forward and right are both pressed, I would love to see a mod which fixes this. Of course, this mod may exist, and I have simply been putting in the wrong search term... if this is the case, can someone please correct me, and point me in the right direction? TIA.