Furniture vs. Clutter HELP!

[nyteschayde]

So I am very new to using GECK and even newer to using tools like NifScope and Blender. I am, however, a professional software engineer so understanding coding and scripting shouldn't be a stretch as long as I have some context and an API to look through. I have also worked on an alternate start roleplayer mod for FO3 using what I've learned so far and that was going well when FONV came out. So I am building on those skills. I have also done most of the basic tutorial stuff on Bethesda's site for getting started with the GECK tool.

 

My problem is this. I want to add sitting animations to the toilets. It bothers me that you can only use them to drink out of. It took me a while to figure out where they were in GECK because they're activators, not furniture. My initial thought was to create a new piece of furniture, use the same mesh as the toilet clutter item and enable or add the sit animations. This is where I got stuck.

 

Creating the new furniture item wasn't hard. But I don't know how to add animations from, say, a chair to the new toilet furniture item. I've opened the toilet mesh in nifscope and I've opened a chair mesh in nifscope. I can see the animation for the chair in nifscope but I have no idea how to manipulate or copy the animation from one to the other. I'd appreciate any help anybody could offer and/or would be willing to do a skype chat to work through things if anybody was so inclined.

 

Thanks,

nyteschayde

[nyteschayde]

Seems like this may be a tough one, or nobody is interested in posting... how to know which?

 

[davidallen had a good point below, I was being impatient, sorry for that]

[davidlallen]

I can suggest pieces, but you may need to wait more than 7 hours before deciding nobody is interested. After 2-3 days you can bump. First, I am confused if you want people to drink out of the toilet ... while sitting on it? If what you want is a chair, then what you can probably do is copy a chair object, and then associate the toilet nif with it. The animations are probably bound to the geck item, not the nif file. That should allow you to have a chair you can sit on, which activates the sitting animation. I suppose if you want the player to somehow drink while also sitting, you could try adding the toilet script to your chair. That might work.

[nyteschayde]

Fair enough. :) No, I am interested in writing a Further Needs mod. One that includes having to use the rest room, maintain hygiene and possibly some other monitors. Since I'd be scripting over many of the devices that normally are also scripted to fill water bottles I'll be doing that in my mod as well. For the filling bottles, I want to have the option to empty out dirty water when purified water sources are found.

 

But as far as the toilet goes, I'd like to animate them sitting (for girls), wait a moment and then stand. I also want the people to be vulnerable during their brief pauses even if it's squatting in the wilderness. In real life, these are real needs and in dangerous places they could pose to be real problems.

 

Poor hygiene will affect conversations with others. If you are overly smelly others will likely not interact with you until you do something about it. Vendors will raise prices, etc... I have other ideas but your idea about skinning a chair is a good one and I'll give it a go. Thanks for the idea. I'd like to do a standing at a urinal animation as well but I have no idea where to start for that.

 

I can suggest pieces, but you may need to wait more than 7 hours before deciding nobody is interested. After 2-3 days you can bump. First, I am confused if you want people to drink out of the toilet ... while sitting on it? If what you want is a chair, then what you can probably do is copy a chair object, and then associate the toilet nif with it. The animations are probably bound to the geck item, not the nif file. That should allow you to have a chair you can sit on, which activates the sitting animation. I suppose if you want the player to somehow drink while also sitting, you could try adding the toilet script to your chair. That might work.

[nyteschayde]

In the Object Window I can find an instance of a chair I'd like to re-skin. When I click Edit->Duplicate on it, nothing happens. I believe duplicate only applies to the cell view and instances of base items. I cannot seem to duplicate a base item. Is there something I am doing wrong? I am getting a stronger feeling, given that I can see the animation in the nif file, that the animation is bound within the nif file and that my initial approach seemed more on what I'll need to do.

 

Thoughts?

 

I can suggest pieces, but you may need to wait more than 7 hours before deciding nobody is interested. After 2-3 days you can bump. First, I am confused if you want people to drink out of the toilet ... while sitting on it? If what you want is a chair, then what you can probably do is copy a chair object, and then associate the toilet nif with it. The animations are probably bound to the geck item, not the nif file. That should allow you to have a chair you can sit on, which activates the sitting animation. I suppose if you want the player to somehow drink while also sitting, you could try adding the toilet script to your chair. That might work.

[davidlallen]

In the object window, slowly double click the name of the object you want to duplicate so the text highlights (if you get the edit dialog you double-clicked). Type in a new name and hit enter. You will get a dialog asking if you want to duplicate or rename. I know that chairs have "idle markers" which are bound to "idle animations" which include sitting down and standing up. The animations may also exist as kf files attached to the nif, but I am pretty sure you need the idle animation for the game characters to use it.

[nyteschayde]

So that let me copy the item. Thanks. I have another question. If I want to reference a nif inside the stock BSA's, how do I select them? Do I have to extract it using FOMM or something like that and then add it to the Data/Meshes directory under a different name? Is there a way to say, "use the one you already have damnit!". :)

 

In the object window, slowly double click the name of the object you want to duplicate so the text highlights (if you get the edit dialog you double-clicked). Type in a new name and hit enter. You will get a dialog asking if you want to duplicate or rename. I know that chairs have "idle markers" which are bound to "idle animations" which include sitting down and standing up. The animations may also exist as kf files attached to the nif, but I am pretty sure you need the idle animation for the game characters to use it.

[davidlallen]

The file browser widgets in geck where you enter a model filename do not look into the bsa files. One approach is to extract all the bsa into your game data directory. Another approach is to copy an object, and use the same model. (This will not work in your particular case.)

 

A third approach which is a little more complicated, is to create a fake empty file at the location you want to select, to "fool" the file browser widgets. So if you want to use a model meshes/something/whatever.nif, use file explorer and create a new directory "something" under fallout new vegas/data/meshes, and then in that directory create an empty file whatever.nif. Use the file browser in geck to select this empty file. Then, before you run the game, be sure to remove the empty file or the game will read this as an empty nif, and display the famous red diamond with exclamation point, to indicate a missing/empty/invalid nif.

[nyteschayde]

David, I think it's david, first of all I wanted to thank you on your prompt response times. It's really helpful. It seems that the simple action of changing nif files adds and/or removes animation markers. I copied the chair object, it had the sit animations in it. As soon as I changed the model to the toiletclean01.nif the sit animations went away. Is it easy to copy the "kf files" from one nif to another? Understanding that I have no idea even how to use nifscope or blender at this point.

 

I just bought a dummy's guide to using blender and I have loaded a nif in nifscope and clicked around but without much avail.

 

The file browser widgets in geck where you enter a model filename do not look into the bsa files. One approach is to extract all the bsa into your game data directory. Another approach is to copy an object, and use the same model. (This will not work in your particular case.)

 

A third approach which is a little more complicated, is to create a fake empty file at the location you want to select, to "fool" the file browser widgets. So if you want to use a model meshes/something/whatever.nif, use file explorer and create a new directory "something" under fallout new vegas/data/meshes, and then in that directory create an empty file whatever.nif. Use the file browser in geck to select this empty file. Then, before you run the game, be sure to remove the empty file or the game will read this as an empty nif, and display the famous red diamond with exclamation point, to indicate a missing/empty/invalid nif.

[davidlallen]

I have to admit I am not knowledgeable about blender or nifskope. There are a bunch of nifskope tutorials at sourceforge. I have seen a page under the TES wiki that gives another bunch of nifskope tutorials but I did not bookmark it, and I cannot conveniently find it right now. As you may know, oblivion and FO3 both use the same basic engine, but they have been released longer. Their forums, adjacent to here, contain a bunch of pinned FAQ articles, which probably point to many nifskope tutorials.

 

Sorry I cannot help more exactly, maybe others can. Or if you find a tutorial which solves your problem, please post the link back here.

Edited January 19, 2011 by davidlallen