How to make ripper use an "unused" equip animation

[Th3RubyBlad3]

Inspired by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MayJU_y-5o0

 

 

First thing I did was toying around with keywords in FO4Edit.

By adding "ma_machete" keyword to ripper I could attach machete mods to ripper.

It gave the same unfolding equip animation like the video except the weapon still had crappy original ripper attack animation.

 

After that I thought:

'if I swap machete blade's.nif file with ripper blade's .nif file can I trick the game into playing that cool animation but still use the ripper blade?'.

Unfortunately it didn't work and I thought 'maybe there is something special in the .nif file itself that triggers the hidden animation'.

 

So I tried to compare machete blade's nif file with ripper blade's nif file, looking for different flags, or whatever clues I could find.

But nope, as an unexperienced modder I coudn't get a slightest clue to actually notice the difference between those files.

 

Lastly, I opened Ripper.nif in nifskope and there was "16 NicontrollerSequence" section with name "Bladeopen".

 

Since the animation is already there, can I just make the game play that animation when equipping the weapon?

I really hope there is an easier way(simply changing values in FO4Edit or nifskope) to do this without involving hkx files or other complex stuff.

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by nexus666vid