Porting an assault rifle from FO3

[FrenchieDwemer]

Hello everyone,

I am willing to port an assault rifle I made for FO3 to NV. The only thing I had to do then, was to rename a couple things so as to make my mesh work with NV animations. Not a big deal, already done for a bolt action rifle previously with flawless success.

This one time, however, something got screwed up, it seems. Since pictures speak louder than words... (I am infinitely sorry not to be able to directly insert pictures into this post, but this website is racist and does not support my favorite hosting website, and it kinda seems like you gotta get an account to use imageshack these days).

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391081647-screenshot5.png

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391081572-screenshot0.png

As you can see, the bolt & magazine do not show up where they should. The animations do work correctly, but these two parts went bananas.

Quite an issue indeed.

Also, I noticed some derpy issue with the way assault rifles & weapons using the same animations are held. While running or walking, the character's thumb kinda... imbed itself in the weapon cannon before the foregrip or whatever you call this wooden part (sorry, not a native english speaker so I have a few problems when it comes to a particularly technical vocabulary such as this).

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391081626-screenshot4.png

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391081625-screenshot3.png

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391081614-screenshot1.png

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391081620-screenshot2.png

As a result, well, I figured I might as well port FO3 animations to NV for that matter. It seems the corresponding files however do not have the same name from one game to another ? What files should I rename so as to use the same holding animations in both games for that assault rifle ?

Regards,

Edited January 30, 2014 by FrenchieDwemer

[jazzisparis]

1. Did you use FNVEdit for the porting? If so, don't. Use the GECK and create a new weapon form from scratch (also, never use FNVEdit/FO3Edit to change weapon stats that belong in the Art and Sound tab in the GECK).

2. Try setting Reload Anim to ReloadF, Hand Grip to DEFAULT and Attack Anim to AttackLoop (or Attack3 if the weapon is semi-automatic). It should work properly.

3. Did you make any changes to the mesh for the porting?

4. Lastly, were you using custom (non-vanilla) animations in Fallout 3, specifically for this weapon?

 

EDIT: Also make sure Animation Type is set to TwoHandAutomatic.

Edited January 30, 2014 by jazzisparis

[FrenchieDwemer]

Thanks for answering !

1) Nope. I only ever use FNVEdit when I have to make a custom helmet display properly. I only used NifSkope & GECK in that process.

2) Everything is already set as you advised. I used the assault carbine as a basis to implement my own weapon.

3) I only renamed a couple NiNodes to make the weapon compatible with NV animations.

4) No, it used the same ones as the chinese AR.

[jazzisparis]

Then the problem is probably with the ##Clip node.

In NifSkope, set the X translation of ##Clip to 10, then set the X translation of its NiTriStrips branch (the actual magazine mesh) to -10.

[FrenchieDwemer]

Well, that didn't do much. Screwing around with the translation values does seem to have an influence of some sort (in the GECK, upon setting the X translation values as you wrote for ##Clip, the bolt would show up correctly but not the magazine, while doing so with the charging handle node/mesh would produce the reverse effect. I don't know exactly how to interpret this but I assume it does have a link with that issue, however the model was displayed perfectly fine in the GECK in the first place and the effects I described did not actually show up in game, and the weapon remained just as screwed up).

Here's the model itself. If you are still willing to help me, for which I'd be greatly grateful, I assume it would help. Half the weapon is missing, but it shouldn't matter. The file was slightly too big to be uploaded, by a few KB, so I had to "cut" it a little bit.

[jazzisparis]

I checked your file and sorted a few things. It's attached below. Paste all the parts you removed and test it in-game.

[FrenchieDwemer]

Yep, it did work this time. I sure owe you quite a debt of gratitude. On a subsidiary note, what caused that thing ? I'd rather not encounter the same issue twice if I ever were to redo a port someday.

Anyway, thanks a lot for figuring this out. I was really clueless about this whole thing.

[jazzisparis]

Well, in short, there was a problem with the translations of several animated nodes; some nodes were redundant; some objects were not labeled correctly or were not placed where they should be. I'm afraid what took several minutes to fix would probably take me several pages to properly explain how to detect and sort these issues.

[FrenchieDwemer]

Alright. I won't bother you with these details then. Thanks for all the help.

 

The whole thing is almost perfect now. I was unsatisfied with the assault carbine reloading animation and reverted to that of the chinese AR, which turned to be present in New Vegas although I think it is unused, while keeping the bolt movement from the assault carbine, and that mix turned out really great. The only issue that is left is a much unexpected one, so to say.

 

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391287030-screenshot12.png

 

Pretty happy with that.

 

Now, that unexpected issue... Well, I can hardly describe it with words.

 

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391286886-screenshot7.png

 

Now let's take a look at the weapon from a "higher" point of view...

 

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391286865-screenshot6.png

 

... wat

 

Well. As you can see, when viewed from a certain angle, the body kinda... disappears, which is pretty confusing to say the least.

 

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391286913-screenshot9.png

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391286904-screenshot8.png

 

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391286920-screenshot11.png

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391286917-screenshot10.png

 

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391287044-screenshot13.png

http://www.noelshack.com/2014-05-1391287054-screenshot14.png

 

My skill with models is very questionable, but I seem to remember a similar issue with a helmet in Skyrim. I would disappear when the mesh was about to "leave" the screen, if you see what I mean (I must admit I'm having a hard time describing this whole thing). However, the fix involved Blender and that completely exceeds my limited abilities when it comes to meshes. I remind that issue was somehow related to scaling, and that might be the cause of that problem with that weapon. Long story short, I had to enlarge the body of my weapon in order to fit the reloading animation, so that's perhaps the root of our problem here.

 

Note that this doesn't seem to happen when I am actually wearing the weapon, but that's perhaps because it's pretty hard, not to say impossible to reproduce the angle I showed in these screenshots when inspecting the model while worn by my character. As a result, it is not THAT much of an issue, but still... I simply can't feel comfortable in the knowledge something is wrong with that model.

I'm sincerely sorry to ask for your help & time yet once again.

Edited February 1, 2014 by FrenchieDwemer

[FrenchieDwemer]

Please ?