Weird animation sync issue in nifskope

[VIitS]

When I added glass to the doors for the Red Rocket as part of my Red Rocket Repaired mod, I ran into a weird issue with the animation. I was able to get both the glass and the collision for the glass to be animated by adding it to the NINode that contained the main door mesh, and according to the animation preview in Nifskope it worked perfectly. When I ran it in game, the window (and the collision) moved out of sync with the rest of the door, and when it stopped it had moved farther than the door. I was eventually able to fix it by moving both the glass mesh and glass collision mesh into the NINode that originally just contained the door's collision. Now it works perfectly in game (it's in sync, and moves the same distance), but when previewing it in Nifskope, it is behaving like it was in game (i.e. out of sync, moves too far).

 

Does anyone have any idea why it is doing that? I was able to get it to work, but I don't like not being able to trust when Nifskope says the animation is good, as having to load it in game every time I change something takes a lot longer.

 

If it helps, here are the two versions of my door mesh (1.3 is before I fixed it in game): https://www.dropbox.com/s/n51nbs8ahkqeg1x/Door%20data.rar?dl=0

 

 

Also, while on the subject of nifskope, a few questions

1) Is it possible to invert a vanilla collision mesh? I'm trying to turn the Sentinel Site Bunker into a buildable prefab, but it only has a collision mesh for outside going in.

2) Is it possible to scale vanilla collision meshes?

3) is there any guide to using the basic collision meshes you currently have to use right now if you want to make a custom collision mesh? I've looked at a few meshes making use of it, but can't figure out how they are doing it.

[TrickyVein]

It's possible to scale collision meshes if you scale a NiNode which uses the collision object you want to scale.

 

As for your other question, if you've examined which named nodes specifically are controlled in whichever controller sequences exist in the .nif, and add extra BSTriShapes as children to these, you shouldn't run into issues - but it's always a good idea to add your nodes to the NiDefaultAVObjectPalette.

 

Also, NiTransformInterpolaters can have their own rotation/transform/scale values which override the origin of controlled blocks.

[VIitS]

It's possible to scale collision meshes if you scale a NiNode which uses the collision object you want to scale.

 

As for your other question, if you've examined which named nodes specifically are controlled in whichever controller sequences exist in the .nif, and add extra BSTriShapes as children to these, you shouldn't run into issues - but it's always a good idea to add your nodes to the NiDefaultAVObjectPalette.

 

Also, NiTransformInterpolaters can have their own rotation/transform/scale values which override the origin of controlled blocks.

On Collision meshes: That's what I have been trying. I'd scale the NiNode, and the visual meshes scale just fine, but the collision meshes don't. I've tried scaling the NiNode it is directly attached to, I've tried the method DarthWayne suggested in the "shrink model in nifskope" thread (create a new NiNode, move the BSX data, and scale the original base node). I've tried it with and without "update all tangent spaces" and sanitization. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it's just not working for me. I am supposed to be changing the "Scale" value (right below rotation) and nothing else, right?

 

So I guess you don't know of any way to essentially invert the normals of the collision mesh? This is why I hate the fact we don't have the needed Havok plugin(s) for 3ds Max. It's extremely easy to duplicate a one-sided mesh and invert the normals with 3ds Max so it is visible from both sides (and the Shell modifier is great for doing that with complex shapes). If Bethesda really wants us to believe they are serious about trying to make it easy to mod for Fallout 4, they better release some sort of tool that lets us easily create custom collision meshes.

 

 

On Animation:

Part of my problem is that I was somehow missing the fact that the NiControllerSequence specifies which node goes with which NiTransformInterpolator until just now, so I couldn't even figure out how it was specifying which goes where. And thanks for the suggestion about the Palette (it isn't related, as the problem persisted once I fixed that).

 

Looking a little closer at things, I think it is just something weird about how Bethesda did animation for the mesh that Nifskope isn't understanding quite right. The In game animation sequence is this:

1) Handle Rotates

2) door slides to new position (everything in sync)

 

The Nifskope animation sequence is this:

1) Door sits there for a bit

2) Door slide to new position, with the parts on the same NiNode as the "Handle" moving too far.

 

I noticed that the handle is actually part of the same BSTriShape as the door, and the NiNode that the rotation animation points to (the handle node) has no children. The node used for the animation group that nifskope sees moving too far includes the handle node, but the door mesh (which the handle is part of) is on a different NiTransformInterpolator (the one I previously had my new BSTriShapes on, which looked great in nifskope but was off in game). I realize now why the mesh had a BSSkin child, to allow the handle to be moved independently while still being part of the same BSTriShape. That had confused me from the first time I looked at the original mesh.

 

I hadn't noticed any animation mismatches between Nifskope and the game except for this door, so hopefully it is releated to them essentially giving the door a "Skeleton" and using that to do the handle rotation. It would mean I can't get it to match in this mesh (which is fine, since I already got it working and don't think I'll need any more edits to it), but it would also mean I am extremely unlikely to see the issue in the future.

[TrickyVein]

Bethesda won't ever release the tools to create meshes or collision because they license both of these formats.

 

You wouldn't need to skin anything to animate something like a handle as part of something larger that moves along with it.

 

A parent NiNode can be a controlled block as well as whatever children nodes it references, with the transform data for the parent NiNode applying to whatever aforementioned children it links to.

[Ethreon]

Bethesda to release necessary modding tools.. Nice me.me