Animation Editing Help in NifSkope

[jamochawoke]

Ok, I'm working on modding some stuff for my little personal werewolf atmosphere mod. But I've run into some issues.

 

I've been able to mix/match animations from different vanilla creatures to my liking and with a little editing of the timing in nifskope I've been able to get things looking alright for the werewolf model I'm using.

 

However, the model I've found to be most agreeable (the one from Werewolf - Legend of the North mod) is very odd in one particular way...

 

The werewolfskeleton.kf does not have a jaw bone to animate.

 

This means the face often just stares at you blankly during idles and attack animations. It's really frustrating. Is there a way to add a bone in NifSkope? What I'm thinking of doing is adding a bite attack animation by modifying a current animation that works with the skeleton and just copying the jaw bone animation from the Scalon (marked murkdweller in CS) biting attack animation. But I need a bone to work with.

 

On another note... I'm trying to get the skeleton casting animation to work with the werewolf. It looks like a howl on it and is kind of impressive. However, if you've ever seen the skeleton castself animation they throw their arms to the side while doing that "upwards howl-like" animation with their head. Is there a way I can disable the movement of the arms in NifSkope easily so just the head and chest moves making it look even more like a howl?

Edited April 1, 2011 by jamochawoke

[fore]

You can do a lot of tweaking in NifSkope. Especially copy/paste.

 

Look at the Wiki article in my signiture. There is a pictured copy/paste example for animation of specific bones, which you can use for one of your tasks (adding the jaw bone animation). You just have to make sure that the new animation record has the same length as all the others. If it's longer, you can simply remove the superfluous frames. If shorter you could add the missing frames, but it's probably better to start doing that with Blender.

 

You can also use the same copy/paste principle for adding the jaw bone NiNode to the skeleton. Just make it a sub record of the bone you want the jaw attached to, and then find the right place by changing tthe bones translation and rotation. I don't know if you can do this in Blender, but at least you can (better) check your changed skeleton in Blender. As you probably need to start with Blender, at least for the next point.

 

It's not enough to add bone and animation. You have to weightpaint your mesh with the new bone (aka skinning), and that cannot be done with NifSkope. There is an excellent tut from coronerra for weightpainting breast bones for BBB (see my Wiki for the link), and the same can be applied to every new bone.

 

Ok, and the last point with "disabling" the arm is the easiest. As mentiones for the superflous jaw animation, remove all but the very first frame (time 0.000) for the bones you want not to move. But always make sure there is either a key for the final frame (and none after that) or there is only one keyframe for time 0.000.

 

Hey, you started quite a project. Hope you can finish taht. :thumbsup:

[jamochawoke]

Ughh I don't know Blender.

 

That's why I was hoping to just use NifSkope.

 

Oh well. I can try to learn it.

[jamochawoke]

I do have access to 3DS max through my school.

 

Would that be better than Blender for this?

 

Which would be easier to learn?

[fore]

I do have access to 3DS max through my school.

 

Would that be better than Blender for this?

 

Which would be easier to learn?

 

Can't tell, since I never used 3DS. It's certainly the superior tool, and it's the one Beth was using. But I think I read one post that there is a new or resticted version of 3DS which doesn't work for NIF. So you might check in the Software -> 3D Modelling -> 3DS Max forum about that.