Animating for Oblivion with 3DStudio Max

[wagzedawg]

Hi y'all, I have a little problem.

Recently i've been trying to make some simple animations with 3ds max 2009 for Oblivion. I've gewgled around a bit for tutorials 'n stuff, found some and tried them out but I keep running into the same problem over and over again: apparently u need to use "keynotes" and time tags to make sure your anim is exported somewhat correctly. After exporting using the latest niftool exporter for max my .kf won't open in nifscope - instead my whole PC crashes on my @ss! When I test the kf in TESCS an error message occurs stating "there's a problem with (key?)notes". the niftools WIKI iprovides only the most skeletized basic info and it doesn't help me much further.

Once again I gewgled around finding some references to CivilizationIV max plugins but since it was written for max7 and I'm a bit of a noob for the most recent max versions I don't know how to install that plugin so I'm not gonna mess around without knowing a) if it solves the problem and b) if it works on max 2009.

Apparently, either the niftool .kf-exporter is faulty in max2009 or, more probably, I must be missing some "key" :P issues necessary to correctly build and export animations with max.

 

If there's anyone who can help me out with this toughstuff (like link me to a DECENT tutorial or tell me how they made their anim mod with max in a 101 way), please do, I'd be ever so grateful...

[wagzedawg]

OK, interesting new update for the (few) people who are interested in this thread. Although this is actually my own awnser to my own lame question (why post a new topic dufus?!) I thought I'd keep it alive to help out other starting Maxanimators like me. This is what I've learned so far:

 

1) The CvIV plugin doesn't work in max 2009, period...

2) ... but that's not the end of it:

I've retried the tutorials by Zennorious (http://www.yacoby.net/es/forum/24/5415801156155900.html) and Saiden Storm :thumbsup: (http://saidenstorm.googlepages.com/oblivion3dsmaxanimationtutorial).

This is what I've learned:

* The Bip01 bone is of utmost importance: it needs a NOTE-track in its Dopesheet with VERY SPECIFIC parameters: The start of the animation needs to be declared through a note in the notetrack stating

"start -name [your anim name] -loop" (the loop statement is optional and loops the anim)

and the end declared by a note sating "end". Also the Bip01 needs to be keyframed at the start and end of the animations.

* the NAME of your anim MUST BE a known Oblivion denominator for animations, e.g. Idle etc. for NEW animations u can ewze a new name but it MUST start with something Oblivion knows like SpecialIdle_ (so u can name it SpecialIdle_dance for instance).

* All the other bodyparts can be animated by the usual max procedure but keep in mind that without the civ exporter the animation interpolation can only use a linear transition between ketframes (no curves).

* Exporting with this new knowledge, if u use these key steps, works fine in all known ways (eg with or without nif, multi or single...)

* Trying out the animations with TESCS works if you put your anim in the blahblah\...\meshes\characters\_male

game directory. If you've named your anim to a group used in the NPC editor (like "Left" or "Idle") you'll get a warning for duplicate anim names bu you can still see and test the .kf you've made. You won't get the warning if you've named it "SpecialIdle_*. If u make a new anim directory you won't get no warnings and u won't be able to play the anim in TESCS.

So far, the simple testanimations I've made like a nodding head work absolutely fine in TESCS when exported multi or single kf. To actually use animations and implement them in Oblivion scripting will be needed but that's a different ballgame.

 

I hope some people can benefit from this and if anyone knows some pointers or has suggestions/corrections for the above: let the beast go!