Introducing Multiple Idle Loops for PCs

[DeliciousOrange]

I've been working on an animation mod for Oblivion and one of the things I felt would be incredibly awesome would be to include alternate animations for each state so that the animations didn't feel quite so mechanical. I know of other games that use certain naming conventions (such as Idle01 Idle02, etc.) to dynamically introduce randomly selected animations for the same state.

 

I see some instances of this in Oblivion, where the NPCs have a chance of using one of a few different animations for different activities (such as stirring in their sleep or bantering with each other). I've tried doing this with Idle animations by simply replicating the same naming structure, but the game doesn't bother with any of the alternate idle animations, instead it simply infinitely repeats the basic idle animation.

 

Is anyone familiar enough with oblivion's system to know where I need to look to change this (or if it's even possible)?

[bearpaw402]

I've been working on an animation mod for Oblivion and one of the things I felt would be incredibly awesome would be to include alternate animations for each state so that the animations didn't feel quite so mechanical. I know of other games that use certain naming conventions (such as Idle01 Idle02, etc.) to dynamically introduce randomly selected animations for the same state.

 

I see some instances of this in Oblivion, where the NPCs have a chance of using one of a few different animations for different activities (such as stirring in their sleep or bantering with each other). I've tried doing this with Idle animations by simply replicating the same naming structure, but the game doesn't bother with any of the alternate idle animations, instead it simply infinitely repeats the basic idle animation.

 

Is anyone familiar enough with oblivion's system to know where I need to look to change this (or if it's even possible)?

 

 

I'm still trying to learn about animations myself, but I can make the following suggestions:

 

1) Check the structure you setup for your idle animations. If you are creating alternative idle animations vvhere there vvas previously only the one idle, then you need to setup a parent idle, then put your idle and the original idle as siblings under this parent.

 

Example:

 

Oldsimpleidle ---->

 

IdleParent

...Oldsimpleidle

...Nevvidle

 

2) I'd also suggest checking your conditions for hovv your idle is chosen. It might be that the original idle is alvvays chosen, and so your nevv idle is never even evaluated to see if its conditions are met and thus never chosen to activate.

 

 

3) The method Oblivion uses to keep track of its animations list is poor. One mod might add a nevv idle, and Oblivion remembers this by storing the order of idles by each idle knovving its previous sibling / parent idle. The next mod may also add an idle, but they don't play nice, because Oblivion doesn't automatically knovv hovv to make sense of the modification to the order of the idles.

 

Example:

 

IdleParent

...Oldsimpleidle

...Nevvidle (stored information about Oldsimpleidle being sibling)

 

IdleParent

...Oldsimpleidle

...Nevvalternateidle (stored information about Oldsimpleidle being sibling)

 

VVhen you try to put these tvvo together, its problematic, and for that matter, I'm still trying to figure out hovv to recognize such problems in the TES4EDIT.

 

There is another common problem vvhen your nevv idle is added before the old idle

 

Example:

 

IdleParent

...Nevvidle

...Oldsimpleidle (stored information about nevvidle being sibling)

 

IdleParent

...Nevvalternateidle

...Oldsimpleidle (stored information about nevvalternateidle being sibling)

 

In this case, TES4EDIT vvill recognize the conflict.

 

VVith the proper set of dependencies of the tvvo mods, it should be possible to set them up so that the mod later in the mod list vvill knovv about the previous added idle.

 

Example:

 

IdleParent

...Nevvidle

...Nevvalternateidle (stored information about nevvidle being sibling)

...Oldsimpleidle (stored information about nevvidlealternate being sibling)

 

 

Corresponding to the load order

 

Oblivion.esm (contains oldsimpleidle)

Nevvidleadd.esp (contains nevvidle)

Nevvalternateidleadd.esp (contains nevvlternateidle, and is dependent on Nevvidleadd.esp)

 

Notice hovv Nevvidleadd.esp vvill edit the Oldsimpleidle to point to nevvidle as its sibling, but Nevvalternateidleadd.esp vvill also edit the Oldsimpeidle to point to nevvalternateidle (effectively replacing/updating the idle order).

 

 

This vvill make it very difficult to adjust the load order or remove mods as this may break the idle order list.

I don't knovv if this is the best method of connecting the idle list, but its the one I'm currently experimenting vvith.

 

My understanding of this comes from the follovving source:

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Idle_Animations

 

 

If there is a better method, I'd love to hear about it!

I'm currently pondering if exporting all idles from my mods into one patch style mod, and trying to use the CS to better examine the tree structure....Or it might be as simple as using tes4gecko to merge files (maybe it or some other tool automatically can adjust the idle order? If someone knovvs for sure, please speak up!).

 

Examples of mods that don't play nice concerning the idle animation order:

 

BIE

personalityidles

seeyousleep

one of the artifact mods

one of the combat mods

 

I'll try to edit this later for the exact names vvhen I'm at home vvith my ovvn computer.

 

 

If I made a mistake, please correct me! It's very confusing to think about in the abstract vvithout having my ovvn files right in front of me to reference.

Edited February 15, 2011 by bearpaw402