Altering an animation for just one character.

[PAPVAFS11]

The title says it all, more or less. The character I'm working with has some nasty clipping issues with the default crouched animation and I'd like to change it. I already have a reasonable idea of how to modify animations, but I have no idea how to proceed in changing just one animation for just one character and not every NPC in the game.

 

From what I remember, NPCs in powered armor use alternate animation sets, so I'm hoping that adjusting animations on an individual basis isn't impossible. Is there anyone out there who might have a lead on this?

[mindboggles]

The selection of many of the animation files are hard coded into the engine. They are prefixed and the game looks out specifically for file names as a group, so mtforward.kf is the walking animation when the NPC has no weapons equipped, while 1hpforward.kf is the same with a pistol weapon equipped. I haven't fooled around with the power armour animations but the fact they are present with all the other prefixed anims in the same directory indicates that they are also hard coded. If you change one anim for one NPC you would change it for all.

 

Maybe you could create a special idle with an infinite loop embedded in it and address the bones you want altered for your anim with a high priority. You could include your specific anim file in the gameplay (under loose) section and condition it so it only works only with the NPC's reference. You would need a cycle clamp anim with infinite loop embedded in the .kf otherwise the game may decided kick your NPC out of it from time to time. If this works then you will need a package for the NPC that uses the specific animation and add it via script. There is a big danger with infinite loop animations that they want to play forever so you need to have safeguards in place to invalidate the package when you want.

 

I do a lot of work with this kind of NPC / creature manipulation but I haven't attempted to use a special idle for modifying the behaviour of a main anim file before. It's a sneaky suggestion to trick Gamebryo into doing something it otherwise doesn't want to do........hope it works.

[uhmattbravo]

In oblivion, you could use alternate animations by checking the boxes for them under the animation tab in the NPC's box in the construction set. I'm pretty sure there's an animation tab in geck, but I've never tried to change any out for fallout so I don't know if it still works the same. Might be worth looking into at least.