Need the assistance of a blender pro.

[yoba333]

I created a new creature mesh, the Awesom-O 4000 robot off of South Park. I need some tips an/or a detailed tutorial on how to animate this creature and get it in game. The problem is, he is nowhere near the size or shape of any creature ingame. I tried to export him justas a static object but the mesh was invisible. I created a custom texture but no normal map. My plan after this is to make him a fully voiced companion. Can someone please assist me in the blender animation and exporting process? I have python and all the .nif plugins. Thanks in advance, I include you in the credits if you even assist me in the slightest bit.

[baduk]

Hi!

 

I am not a blendre pro or anything, but Im doing something like what u are saying so i only figured out a little stuff so far but i can let u know what.

 

On my companion creature first i rigged it to the existing skeleton, the skeleton is reasonably different from the shape of the body.

I can only use the upper arm bones when rigging the arms cause it makes the arm stretch too much.

 

This makes the creature working just fine but with limited arm mobility, and only having animations for the vanilla creature, i am using it right now for testing other parts of the mod.

 

I did make changes to the skeleton so it fits the body tho. Modifying the location of the clavicles and changed rotation on clavicles and thighs.

So i have a modifyed skeleton and a rerigged body to use for later.

I moved and rotated those bones, and i also made same changes to nitransforminterpolater thats inside the nitransformcontroller of the bones, then the ragdoll constraints were messed up so i use right click havok > a - > b to fix it.

The child bones updated correctly but the nitransforminterpolaters ended up slightly off, so i gotta go back and fix those still. I dont know what else i may be missing.

 

I think having the modified skeleton is only useful tho when my creature has died. because it is always at least on mtidle if it is alive.

I did notice i am having an issue when i was trying to alter the mtidle animation it will play that animation in geck but. for somereason in game my creature would just stand there and do mtidle.

It wouldnt move around, so i gotta figure out whats causing that. Maybe i have to have a good finished set of animations for getting that to work.

 

I still have to learn how to use the action editor in blender tho. For my project i can just use the vanilla animations as a base to work off so it probably makes it a lot easier.

I think i am supposed to duplicate the existing animation and modify the duplicate so i can easily see what changes i am making.

 

Anyway, good luck with your thing tho! I hope u will share what u learn also.

[yoba333]

I just can't get my .nif file to open in nifskope or in the GECK. I used the Fallout 3 default export settings but I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[baduk]

I saw the awsom o 400 on youtube so I hope u can make it work!

 

Ok so for getting into the game and testing, doing all the gecking on it.. I suggest that you use the protectron animations.

 

Import the protectron.nif that u get out of the meshes.bsa Import the armature first and then import the geometry to look and see how its rigged and compare the shape and size.

 

Then u Use bone weight copy script to get the vertex group names from the protectron body mesh. Using control - p and name groups only gives u the bone names and u need the dismemberment stuff also.

 

U also get to get the meatcaps off protectron, That way u wont have to make em yourself, Tho its not so hard i guess.

 

You could alternatively type in the BP dismemberment vertex group names.

 

I dont know which way is faster cause u gotta reweightpaint it to fit your model anyway.

 

And it needs to have a normalmap.

 

Then when u have your nif exported and ready, place it in meshes\creatures\protectron\ folder. this is where the animations and skeleton.nif are located in the archive.

 

Other than that the process is identical to making an armor or clothing outfit so u can refer to a tutorial for that to get your robot in the game.

[yoba333]

Ugh, ran into a slight problem. Put me back an hour or too. I plan on making the normal map today and trying to start the animation process. I also have to make some alterations to one of my mods due to requests, so a little bit of time will be spent there. Plus homework, so all in all I'll be pretty busy today. Seems like I spend more time modding than actually playing the game nowadays haha.