Fruchtl Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 Hi, Since I started a complex story modification for Oblivion (Currently only for the german version) everything based on a creature, which was supposed to be the big boss in the ending. Now I realized how difficult and how much effort it is to model and animate a complete new creature, thats why I'm most probably going to hire a professional 3D Artist, because I dont want to break the mod because of this, since so many people worked on this. So my question is - What file format/file restrictions do creature models and creature animation files have, so that I can get them into Oblivion when the 3D Artist finished them? What animations, how many, and which do I exactly need? (I currently dont have Oblivion on my PC, I'll get it sent from Germany to here in about 4 weeks). I really need your help, please help me :-). All the best, Fruchti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiberiu911 Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 So my question is - What file format/file restrictions do creature models and creature animation files have, so that I can get them into Oblivion when the 3D Artist finished them? What animations, how many, and which do I exactly need? The model must be in .nif format. The texture of that model must be in .dds format. The animations are in .kf format. As for what animations, I dont know the exact list, but there's the basics... walk, run, jump, hit, recoil, among others, depending how many things do you want your creature to do. NPC's tend to have more animations than creatures. Also, getting animations to work in Oblivion is tricky, except heavy resistance and bugs. I can't explain more (because I dont understand it and that it is prohibed), but there might or might not be hardcoding envolved. For example, a walk animation executes, the creature walks as the animation tells it to, but it does not move forward (as in advance). If you're looking for a 3d artist, I could find one for you (I know someone who is a professional 3d artist). That, and I bet Peregrine will post his offer here as soon as he reads this thread... EDIT: Oh well... I figured you would, since you offer your hired services quite often. (Peregrine) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peregrine Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 If you're looking for a 3d artist, I could find one for you (I know someone who is a professional 3d artist). That, and I bet Peregrine will post his offer here as soon as he reads this thread... Actually he won't. Peregrine isn't very good at character modeling/animation, so he's not the one to hire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagrant0 Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 Long story short, you can't simply hire any 3d artist to do something like this for you. They need to be from within the community, or atleast have a good understanding of the file types and how to get them workign properly. I havn't done much with animations, but I do know that alot of it is a female dog to setup. As for .kf files, bethsoft has encoded them specifically, and thus far hasn't been so useful as to provide any bug-free way of making them. There has been some progress with new animations, but there hasn't yet been much released, or even shared outside the couple groups that are working on it. Your best bet is seeing what you can do with what's available. Current models can be retextured or manipulated. New models can use existing animations if the bones are setup right. If nothing else, do the rest of your mod with some placeholder creature (that looks reasonable) and check to see what progress has been made by then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fruchtl Posted February 26, 2007 Author Share Posted February 26, 2007 Well, I thought of it and I'm currently waiting for an answer of the 3D Artist. If not I'll just try to retexture an Daedroth although I dont like the thought of it ;). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiberiu911 Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 Well, I thought of it and I'm currently waiting for an answer of the 3D Artist. If not I'll just try to retexture an Daedroth although I dont like the thought of it ;). You could live with the Daedroth while the mod is under construction. And when you get to the final phases, see what progress has been made. Who knows, new tricks can be found in time, making animations easier to import. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fruchtl Posted February 28, 2007 Author Share Posted February 28, 2007 Well, I thought of it and I'm currently waiting for an answer of the 3D Artist. If not I'll just try to retexture an Daedroth although I dont like the thought of it ;). You could live with the Daedroth while the mod is under construction. And when you get to the final phases, see what progress has been made. Who knows, new tricks can be found in time, making animations easier to import. Alright. Do you any source where I could hire 3D Artist who could do this? The creature + the animations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SickleYield Posted February 28, 2007 Share Posted February 28, 2007 It's pretty unlikely. None of those are easy to do, and not a lot of people will do it for someone else's project. Particularly when you get to creating new skeletons and animations (required for a new creature unless the mesh is painted to an old skeleton). Even creating a new creature mesh for an old skeleton with old animations is not at all easy (this is what the Lore Creatures mod did). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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