How to script the shovelling animation?

[gigantibyte]

How would one take the shoveling animation from Point Lookout and assign it to a hotkey? I know how to program a hotkey, but I've never played with animations before. There seems to be 2 animations in question, LooseDLC04Shoveling and DLC04Shoveling, but which is first person and 3rd person? Are these the animations I need to copy into my esp and rename? Will I be able to clear the conditions attached to one of them in my copy?

[HugePinball]

You want the Player to play the animation, right? Yes, I know you do...

 

One way, which I think might be well suited for your use, is what I did in Brain Chemistry. I have two Player animations in there - one for harvesting brains, and one when using the lab. Dig through there a bit and let me know when you have questions.

[Ghogiel]

LooseDLC04Shoveling and DLC04Shoveling, but which is first person and 3rd person?

1st person anims are in the 1st person folder. I presume all of them, as the 1st person skeleton is different than the 3rd, and I presume needs to be in the same folder as the anims, unless its a special case, like the locomotion folder. it's all hard coded folder conventions from what i know.

[gigantibyte]

Still trying to comprehend the mechanics involved in playing idle animations.

 

@ Ghogiel

 

Where would one see the 1st person folder? In geck, the only place I can find animations is under Gameplay > Idle Animations. In FO3Edit, I only find a folder called Idle Animations under Point Lookout.

 

@ HugePinball

 

In your mod, you seem to place a temporary custom idle marker at the player, which I assume triggers the animation. Not sure how the marker is connected to the animation though. I also don't understand why the script checks "if Player.IsAnimPlaying SpecialIdle". Why not check for the specific animation?

 

Also, watching your video for this mod, the camera goes to 3rd person when harvesting brains. Was this a limitation of the animation you were using?

[Ghogiel]

Where would one see the 1st person folder?

data\meshes\characters\_1stperson

[gigantibyte]

Where would one see the 1st person folder?

data\meshes\characters\_1stperson

 

There's 5 files in that folder, but none seem to be what I need.

 

The instructions in the Geck for PlayIdle state that the limitations of the function "can be overcome by placing the animation outside of the characters folder. " The page then points to a link with an example, but I'm still unclear what animations I need, or where to copy them to.

 

Haha, I'm sure once I figure it out, the process will seem easy... :teehee:

[Ghogiel]

 

 

There's 5 files in that folder, but none seem to be what I need.

 

extract the BSA's and you'll have over 250, and a few subfolders with a number more.

[HugePinball]

Ghogiel, I think you forgot that he's interested in the shoveling animation from Point Lookout :whistling:

 

Gigantibyte -

Unless you're planning to actually edit the KF animation files, you probably don't need to locate them - but if you do, first just find the specified path to the KF for the particular animation you're interested in. In the GECK, go to Gameplay > Idle Animations, to bring up the Idle Animations manager. Select the desired idle anim and the "Art file" field will specify the KF file. In FO3Edit, expand the "Idle Animation" group (not alphabetical, about halfway down in the Fallout3 or any DLC esm), find your anim, and look at the MODL field in the right pane to find the KF.

 

 

Regarding my method in Brain Chemistry: Yes, I place a "marker" which is what allows the animation to play. Inspect things a bit further and you'll see that those "markers" are invisible Furniture objects. Open one of their forms in the GECK (BrainHarvestMarker for example) and you'll see a Marker labeled "UNKNOWN". The Markers in this Active Marker list come from data in the NIF file, under the BSFurnitureMarker node (take a look at the NIFs in NifSkope). They say "UNKNOWN" because I used arbitrary values 71 and 72 for my two marker IDs. Now go to the Idle Animation manager and look at one of the BrainHarvest animations. You'll see a condition using GetFurnitureMarkerID. So back to the script - when the script calls Activate Player on the placed Furniture object, the game engine checks through the Idle Anim conditions and plays the appropriate animation.

 

This may sound like a complicated and round-about way of doing things, but it's exactly how the game handles animations related to Furniture. Take a look at any chair, bed, etc., along with the associated animations that play when the Player or an NPC activates them, and you'll see the same setup.

 

About the anims going into 3rd-person, honestly I'm not sure about this. I assume that either there is something hard-coded in the game that puts the camera into 3rd-person whenever the Player specifically plays an idle due to activating Furniture, or that the camera cues are embedded in the KF files used. Both the KF animations I used in that mod would be 3rd-person as I understand it: the harvest anim is an edited copy of the Cannibal anim, and the other is a vanilla file, CheckBeakerB.kf, which is not located in the _1stPerson folder. I could try a test with a 1st-person KF assigned to an Idle and see what happens...

 

I also don't understand why the script checks "if Player.IsAnimPlaying SpecialIdle". Why not check for the specific animation?

Because you can't check for a specific idle animation. See here. As far as that the reason for that section of the script, it's simply to check when the animation is complete.

[gigantibyte]

Thanks for the help. It was so long since I played Point Lookout, I forgot there is no 1st person animation for shoveling.

[Ghogiel]

Ghogiel, I think you forgot that he's interested in the shoveling animation from Point Lookout :whistling:

didn't forget. point is, point lookout doesn't have many 1st person anims. if there are only 5 anims in there, and none is one he's looking for, obviously it just doesn't exist in the point lookout dlc. So it's probably in the vanilla game. < or not at all as it turns out.

 

About the anims going into 3rd-person, honestly I'm not sure about this. I assume that either there is something hard-coded in the game that puts the camera into 3rd-person whenever the Player specifically plays an idle due to activating Furniture, or that the camera cues are embedded in the KF files used. Both the KF animations I used in that mod would be 3rd-person as I understand it: the harvest anim is an edited copy of the Cannibal anim, and the other is a vanilla file, CheckBeakerB.kf, which is not located in the _1stPerson folder. I could try a test with a 1st-person KF assigned to an Idle and see what happens...

 

you cannot play a 3rd person anim in 1st person. they will not work at all. the skeleton is very different.

 

if he wants to play a 1st person animation, he needs to use a 1st person animation.

 

the folder structure is quite likely a hard coded naming convention. the game detects if the character is in 1st person, then uses that folder to play anims for any actions that the PC makes.

 

if a particular anim is called, it'll force the use of the appropriate skeleton.