A way to add tracks?

[South8028]

3 minutes ago, ChuckYufarley said:

South, the animations for all the different elements can be implemented any number of ways, but like Niston said, you can only play one per nif at a time. In theory, you can create the recorder with 100 different animations, each for a different stage of playback, so long as they encompass what each stage needs to accomplish. Like I outlined in the simplified version yesterday, if you have one stage with the lights powering on, the ree-to-reel animation would also need to have the lights on, otherwise they would appear to shut off once the reel animation starts. Do you see where I'm going with this?

This might sound crazy, but if you want to go all out, I have an idea for working VU meters. Just make different versions and animate them to the beats per minute of the tracks you want to use. I did that with one of the signs I made a while back, so that the letters lit up to the beat of the song that played when the sign was turned on.

A small clarification... An elementary thing that I forgot about yesterday. Coordinates of elements separate from the base... They must be located in the same coordinates as the NiNode created for them, or in coordinates 0,0,0? 

There is a link to examples from earlier correspondence. I separated all the buttons and levers, animated them and the tape recorder itself. Please look and make adjustments. Are the elements separated correctly, or am I wrong?

[ChuckYufarley]

1 minute ago, South8028 said:

There is no problem if they explain to me exactly what needs to be done. I have to understand exactly what I'm doing. The problem is that I don't understand scripts, I don't know papyrus. I can't support certain ideas if they exist in an abstract form and I don't know what exactly I need to do in 3ds.

This is your baby. Just tell us what you want it to do, and animate the meshes. If volume control isn't important, we don't need to do it. Same for swapping reels. I think both would make great features, however. Also, I should mention that I know you don't publish mods, but would you be interested in publishing this at some point? I'm fine with just keeping a copy for myself, but Niston might want to share it. From my experience, really cool animated gadgets don't get a lot of traffic on Nexus, but there is a dedicated minority who love stuff like this. If you want to pile up donation points, you could make the reels look like boobs.

[ChuckYufarley]

2 minutes ago, South8028 said:

A small clarification... An elementary thing that I forgot about yesterday. Coordinates of elements separate from the base... They must be located in the same coordinates as the NiNode created for them, or in coordinates 0,0,0? 

There is a link to examples from earlier correspondence. I separated all the buttons and levers, animated them and the tape recorder itself. Please look and make adjustments. Are the elements separated correctly, or am I wrong?

What I do when making something like this, is create a dummy mesh, usually just a sphere, aligned to the secondary object (the button), and export it with the base object (the recorder). In Nifscope, I create NiNodes that will serve as placement markers for the buttons in the script, and align them to the dummy mesh. Then just delete the dummy.

[South8028]

1 minute ago, ChuckYufarley said:

This is your baby. Just tell us what you want it to do, and animate the meshes. If volume control isn't important, we don't need to do it. Same for swapping reels. I think both would make great features, however. Also, I should mention that I know you don't publish mods, but would you be interested in publishing this at some point? I'm fine with just keeping a copy for myself, but Niston might want to share it. From my experience, really cool animated gadgets don't get a lot of traffic on Nexus, but there is a dedicated minority who love stuff like this. If you want to pile up donation points, you could make the reels look like boobs.

Ummm... Guys, I absolutely don't care about these models and animations. This is a hobby, it doesn’t make me money, and I absolutely don’t care who publishes it. I'd be happy to participate, make models and animations, and I'd love it if you or Niston would publish it as a mod without even mentioning my name. I would install this mod and use the tape recorder in the game. It would cheer me up, just like if I just found a ready-made tape recorder mod on the nexus. I enjoy the process of creating a model and animation. I'm not interested in the social outcome.

[ChuckYufarley]

Or you could just export the buttons with the recorder, create the NiNodes and align them to the buttons, and delete the buttons. However, since the buttons are animated, and you don't want the button animations as part of the recorder, I'd go with the dummy spheres.

[niston]

Yes. and if button is at 0,0,0 then it can be very easily placed and reused - even in other projects. It'll spawn exactly where the NiNode is located and with the node's given rotation, when used with PlaceAtNode(). I'd 100% suggest it.

[ChuckYufarley]

4 minutes ago, niston said:

Yes. and if button is at 0,0,0 then it can be very easily placed and reused - even in other projects. I'd 100% suggest it.

Oh yeah, I missed that part. The buttons need to be zeroed out. Alternatively, you could export them with the coordinates as they relate to the recorder and be scripted with  PlaceAtMe rather than PlaceAtNode, but then they wouldn't be reusable and you'd have to make a nif for every button. Zeroed out and with NiNodes in the recorder nif, you only need to make one button.

[South8028]

2 minutes ago, ChuckYufarley said:

What I do when making something like this, is create a dummy mesh, usually just a sphere, aligned to the secondary object (the button), and export it with the base object (the recorder). In Nifscope, I create NiNodes that will serve as placement markers for the buttons in the script, and align them to the dummy mesh. Then just delete the dummy.

I can create it right away in 3ds. I don't need Nifskop to create custom bgs and NiNodes. These are just ordinary bones. They are much easier to create in 3ds than in Nifskop. I create a bone, call it NiNode, place it at the button coordinates, give it the sgoKeep = 1 parameter, and export it along with the model. At In export, the bone becomes any node, according to its name. Call it NiNode - it will become NiNode. Call it AddOnNode, it will become bsValueNode. Anything. Accordingly, where should the button itself be located during export? In base coordinates, or in coordinates 0,0,0?

[South8028]

10 minutes ago, niston said:

Yes. and if button is at 0,0,0 then it can be very easily placed and reused - even in other projects. It'll spawn exactly where the NiNode is located and with the node's given rotation, when used with PlaceAtNode(). I'd 100% suggest it.

Ok, thank you. It is important. I will make buttons in 0,0,0.

[ChuckYufarley]

Just now, South8028 said:

I can create it right away in 3ds. I don't need Nifskop to create custom bgs and NiNodes. These are just ordinary bones. They are much easier to create in 3ds than in Nifskop. I create a bone, call it NiNode, place it at the button coordinates, give it the sgoKeep = 1 parameter, and export it along with the model. At In export, the bone becomes any node, according to its name. Call it NiNode - it will become NiNode. Call it AddOnNode, it will become bsValueNode. Anything. Accordingly, where should the button itself be located during export? In base coordinates, or in coordinates 0,0,0?

I wish I'd have spent more time looking into ways of exporting nif related features from Max, the way you can. At this point, my workflow is pretty much set in stone and I'm stuck doing things in Nifskope that are probably a lot easier to do in Max.