Harla Posted July 29, 2009 Share Posted July 29, 2009 Hi all, I recognise that there are a bunch of topics about animating for oblivion floating around already, and a bunch of links to various different tutorials on animating, but for some reason I've yet to actually find one that has helped me do what I'm seeking, so here goes: I know very little about animating in general, first up, so that's part ofthe problem. What I would like to do is take an existing animation and tweak it a little. I use a race mod, the focal race of which has a pair of wings... they are large, extending well past the shoulders, and when jumping or flying beat rather slowly. What I'd like to do is scale the wings right down, without them going haywire, and speed up the beat, so to make smaller wings which beat much quicker when active. Piccie! It's this one, if you're curious. As you can see, it's essentially a replacement for both the original beast skeleton and the jumping animation (at least, that's my understanding, heheh), the attached animation being simply the jumploop.kf file that it uses. These ones. Edit, meh, those came out unexpectedly poorly, and I've not the time now to re-do them.... files in question being "SkeletonBeast.nif" and "Jumploop.kf" It seems as though what I want to do should really be a fairly simple matter, whether it be quick and simple, or long and tedious, but basic and straightforward... it seems like I ought to be able to do what I want just in nifskope, but at this point, I'm unsure how to progress; anyhting I do try goes entertainingly wrong, and while fun to fiddle with, I don't feel like I'm actually getting any further forward in succeeding... Can anyone here give me some advice on how to do this, or info on exactly which things I need to modify? As much as I'd like to go the whole way and teach myself to animate, there just isn't the time in my life to take on such a big task, but I would really like to manage this much at least. Hope someone can help, -Harla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harla Posted August 1, 2009 Author Share Posted August 1, 2009 No? No-one? Hmmm... This is very sad... couldn't get an answer last time either. Am I doing something wrong in the way I'm asking? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarya Posted August 1, 2009 Share Posted August 1, 2009 Unfortunately I can't help you, but I would advice you to be patient. Forums experienced drastic problems for the last few days and still do, so simply no one was able to be here. Don't worry so much, just give people some more time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harla Posted August 5, 2009 Author Share Posted August 5, 2009 Fair enough, didn't realise the place had been down on and off until just recently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exanimis Posted August 5, 2009 Share Posted August 5, 2009 I have been working on this for a while now, several months. I have built new creatures and heir skeletons and added my own animations. I haven't however, managed to get one of my creatures working in the game. What I say may or may not be true but rather, this is my understanding so far. I'll try to explain with the following example. Let's say that you want a human with longer forearms You go into a modeling program like Blender and lengthen the forearms. The animations are "attached" to the bones, when you change the bone, you break the link to the kf file and the animation no longer works. In order the have the animation work, you will have to create a new bone and attach the animation to it. Creating the new bone breaks the link to other bones ( the hand and upper arm) so now you will need to replace those bones and animations. It's a chain reaction. The solution to this problem is to make the skeleton from scratch. That is what the original modder of the beast skeleton that you are using did. I don't believe you can get the animation to work by simply replacing the kf in nifskope. If changing an animation in nifskope worked, I believe there would be a lot more animations available for download. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harla Posted August 6, 2009 Author Share Posted August 6, 2009 Ya, that is pretty much the issue I come up against; I can modify the bones all I like, and even have them appear the right size and shape in game, initially, but the moment I do something that would cause them to animate in any way, the mesh animates by distorting badly out to the original size/shape and the whole thing goes rather, well, splat... most amusing, but not desired, heheh. It would be nice if I could find a way to scale and shape each stage of the animation in turn to avoid that, even if it would take a great deal of time, but alas, I guess I just don't know enough to work out how to do that yet. Silly question, perhaps, so appologies if so, but.... Using nifskope to modify/create meshes etc., fine.... using it to attach animation .kf files and view their effects etc., sure... but, something for modifying the raw .kf file on its own though? I'm guessing Nifskope can't do that, from my tinkering. What would I need to teach myself to be able to do that, or can I indeed do that, and jsut haven't worked out how yet? Thanks for the response, -Harla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thePhilanthropy Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 You can modify animations. With the right software. I'm using 3d Studio Max 8 (which is very expensive). With the niftools plugin it's possible to import animations and with the Civilization4 plugin it's possible to export them. The same is (should be) possible with Blender (open source).But with nifskope you will get nowhere when it comes to animations. Plus, let me tell you one thing:Never change any bones in nifskope or any other program. What controls animations are animation files. The *kf files are what you need to edit, not the skeleton. The kf files have very specific data, that relies on the bones. If you change the bones, the kf file will still apply the same information on the bones, but since the bones have changed, well... don't be surprised. I can't tell you exactly how to do what you want to do, but I can at least tell you that you start at the wrong end. Forget about editing the skeleton. maybe you can find more info here:http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Main_Page What you are trying to do is exremely difficult for someone unfamiliar with 3d. My advice, first learn some 3d basics and a program that supports niftools. Otherwise you will have a very hard time applying whatever anyone tells you, anyway. I don't want to discourage you, I'm just being realistic. This stuff requires skill, and skill comes with practice. Sorry, but that's that. I hope you can pull this off. :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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