Animating Custom 3rd Person Hands for WPNIdleReady.hkx

[fraxanofnexus]

Hi please can anybody help me.

I have a custom weapon that I have everything set up for animation wise, and can edit all the animations I need in HKX Poser to my satisfaction (minor adjustments only), but I can't seem to edit the

WPNIdleReady.hkx without screwing it up or nothing happening. Most importantly I want to rotate the finger bones, but they don't move in game, and seem to be bound by some kind of constraint?

 

Does anybody know how to make it so the fingers can be custom animated? Is there an XML setting I need to change or something else? I've added the LeftHandIKDeactivate to great success to various hkx files

to make sure the Left arm isn't tied to the right, but any other annotations to make the right or left hand fingers custom animations work, I have no idea.

 

Many Thanks

[DiodeLadder]

Do you mean WPNAssemblyPose.hkx?  In 3rd person, normally you just set up an assembly pose for a weapon, which will work as a slave layer for the main animations.  WPNIdleReady.hkx is for 1st person.

As for the custom pose including the left hand fingers, for humans I haven't had any issues with any of my guns yet, but rifles for Power Armor seem to have that issue.  I think there's a wrong layer mask in the behavior, or wherever that's supposed to be set up.  IK won't affect this issue, and you pretty much need the IK to be active for the 3rd Person anims.  I haven't found a solution yet.

[fraxanofnexus]

Thank you so much for your reply. I really appreciate it. I'm no expert, just a tinkerer. My "weapon" is really just an nif that when equipped uses custom subgraph animations based on edited one handed pistol animations, to make "spell hands" for various effects, as my modding exists in a world with magic. I can get the 1st person animations to do whatever I want, the 3rd person ones have been much trickier.

I have a WPNIdleReady.hkx in my 3rd person animations custom folder, and it does change the Idle animations when I edit it, but it doesn't work well, and twisting the bones make other things twist in odd directions, and like I say, the fingers don't move.

I was curious about the WPNAssemblyPose.hkx animation, and have been thinking about what might be slaved to what, but thought that WPNAssembly.Pose.hkx would be more likely slaved to the Idle rather than the other way round. As I say, I'm guessing at all this. I'm really thankful for your information about the WPNAssemblyPose.hkx. I will investigate this and see if I can get it to work. The left hand tinkering is because I wanted to make one handed animations without the left hand moving in sync all the time. Adding "LeftHandIKDeactivate" to the annonations via XML editing seems to do the trick in various key hkx's, as I've personally found it likes to revert back to two handed, and is buggy.

 

Anyway sorry, I do ramble on, but I'm so very grateful for your reply, and I wish you well with everything you are working on and beyond.

[fraxanofnexus]

I tested repositioning the finger bones in WPNAssemblyPose.hkx and it an it worked fantastically for moving the fingers. That's so amazing, a great step further, thank you so much. I now have a big ask, as it doesn't move the arms. Do you know what hkx controls the position of the arms for the Idle position and TurnInPlace etc? I can edit the 3rd person WPNIdleReady.hkx (which you have said probably shouldn't be there) and it does control the position of the arms, but it also bends the spine in weird directions for some reason, and affects the TurnInPace animations. I'm sorry to bother you. If you do know, and have time to reply, that would be wonderful. 

Edited 9 hours ago by fraxanofnexus

[DiodeLadder]

Honestly, I myself haven't worked on a completely custom set of animations for the 3rd person, because I'd just use the AssemblyPoses like how Bethesda is doing, and call it a day. 

I think the base gun animations are in Meshes\Actors\Character\Animations\Weapons\Pistol (or Rifle). Meanwhile, whatever is placed in the specific weapon directory is supposed override or work as a top layer.  If you can find the base animation you want to override, you could try placing your edited animations in your specific weapon folder and see if that'll work?

That's about all I can think of.  Hopefully someone who's actually done things more in depth than me would chime in, and help you with this.  Good luck with your project!

[fraxanofnexus]

Thanks so much again. You've been very kind. It's sometimes hard getting a response with this sort of thing, perhaps because there isn't a lot of information out there, but the bit you told me made a big difference. 

It took me a long time to get a handle of subgraphs and overrides, but I think I've got it down more or less, and I understand most of the files and what they do, but I'm not great with blending and behavior files, and hierarchies. Like you've said, most people just edit the AssemblyPose etc, because unlike me, are generallysatisfied with making pistol / gun like animations. I tend to get obsessed with problems like this, and I can spend weeks on trying things, driving myself mad, sometimes finding a solution, and sometimes not.

Anyway, thanks again for your help and your kind wishes. All the best and happy modding.