Combat Animations to apply ONLY to character

[panterath]

Hi everyone,

 

I recently came back to Oblivion and I was trying to make my character a bit fancier... by replacing his combat animations. But I want to do this in a manner so that NPCs won't use the same animations (I find it very distracting). I have downloaded several animation mods - a lot of them I like, but most are just replacers that encompass the player and NPC animations. One of the main compilations of combat animations I really like is Aluku's Animation Replacer Compilation, but that does not have an esp and is just a replacer.

 

I recently downloaded some animation mods with esps (Spell Singer and DMC Stylish) and also installed Mayu's Animation Overhaul (MAO), but even with the overhaul, every single NPC is using the same animations from the first two mods.

 

So my questions are, what could be the problem? And, are there any other combat animations that apply only to the character?

 

Thanks,

 

- P

Edited August 28, 2011 by panterath

[Heartcloud]

This is not possible at this point without heavy repercussions, I have been trying for the last 2 months so I know. MAO just might work for you but at the heavy cost of ruining lots of other NPC idle/walk/run/jump animations and lots of animation-related bugs, so it's definitely not worth it.

Only animations that can be player-only are idles/walks/runs/jumps. Combat animations will apply to EVERY character in-game, male or female, young or crippled. No way around it, just blame the ridiculously stupid way Oblivion set up its animation (and mesh for that matter) directories.

[Caithe]

Use the specialanims esp for DMC stylish

Using MAO works, but only on vanilla NPC.

The big problem with MAO is that it is made upside down. Instead of making every NPC use a different folder for animation, It should be the player that use a different folder.

 

I use spellsinger and MAO and only the npc added or modified by other mods also have the animation and voice. All the unaltered vanilla NPC use the default animation.

[panterath]

This is not possible at this point without heavy repercussions, I have been trying for the last 2 months so I know. MAO just might work for you but at the heavy cost of ruining lots of other NPC idle/walk/run/jump animations and lots of animation-related bugs, so it's definitely not worth it.

Only animations that can be player-only are idles/walks/runs/jumps. Combat animations will apply to EVERY character in-game, male or female, young or crippled. No way around it, just blame the ridiculously stupid way Oblivion set up its animation (and mesh for that matter) directories.

 

I had tried out Seph's Dual Wield animations a few years back, and he had an optional .esp that had the stance and attacks that applied only to the character. I've been puzzled as to how he was able to get that working.

 

Use the specialanims esp for DMC stylish

Using MAO works, but only on vanilla NPC.

The big problem with MAO is that it is made upside down. Instead of making every NPC use a different folder for animation, It should be the player that use a different folder.

 

I use spellsinger and MAO and only the npc added or modified by other mods also have the animation and voice. All the unaltered vanilla NPC use the default animation.

 

I agree with you there. Interesting how that all works.

I re-downloaded DMC Stylish with the specialanims esp and I notice only my character uses the stance, but everyone else is using the regular and power attacks. I put MAO back on as well. I also have Francesco's mod on, and I wonder if that has to do anything with my consistent failure with getting the animations correct?

 

- P

[fore]

I had tried out Seph's Dual Wield animations a few years back, and he had an optional .esp that had the stance and attacks that applied only to the character. I've been puzzled as to how he was able to get that working.

You are right. This is one of the wierdest things about animations.

- Walk, run, jump, turn, and so on ALWAYS work in the SpecialAnims folder (with a .esp for the character you have assigned it)

- Skill Attacks never work (due to the naming conventions used in Oblivion)

 

But for all other attacks I have heard 3 different versions so far:

- They always work (like in Seph's dual wield. There is not one complaint in the whole comment section claiming otherwise)

- They alternate with the vanilla animations (that's I think what Beni says in one of his replacers)

- They don't work at all (that's what Heartcloud says)

 

I looked into the .esp for Sephs mod, and I found that besides activating his specialAnimations there are only 2 modifications made for the player character:

- Calc min 1 -> 0

- MODB (Model Bound Radius; I even don't know where to set this) 59.9 -> 73.1

 

But I can't believe that these modifications have anything to do with successful SpecialAnim execution. Maybe I contact Seph and see if he has an explanation for that.

[panterath]

I had tried out Seph's Dual Wield animations a few years back, and he had an optional .esp that had the stance and attacks that applied only to the character. I've been puzzled as to how he was able to get that working.

You are right. This is one of the wierdest things about animations.

- Walk, run, jump, turn, and so on ALWAYS work in the SpecialAnims folder (with a .esp for the character you have assigned it)

- Skill Attacks never work (due to the naming conventions used in Oblivion)

 

But for all other attacks I have heard 3 different versions so far:

- They always work (like in Seph's dual wield. There is not one complaint in the whole comment section claiming otherwise)

- They alternate with the vanilla animations (that's I think what Beni says in one of his replacers)

- They don't work at all (that's what Heartcloud says)

 

I looked into the .esp for Sephs mod, and I found that besides activating his specialAnimations there are only 2 modifications made for the player character:

- Calc min 1 -> 0

- MODB (Model Bound Radius; I even don't know where to set this) 59.9 -> 73.1

 

But I can't believe that these modifications have anything to do with successful SpecialAnim execution. Maybe I contact Seph and see if he has an explanation for that.

 

Very interesting how that works. Yeah I would like to see how Seph cheated the system, does he still pop in the forums anymore?

 

- P

[fore]

Very interesting how that works. Yeah I would like to see how Seph cheated the system, does he still pop in the forums anymore?

Now it's becoming clear. SpecialAnim attack animations (for player and/or NPCs) will always randomly alternate with vanilla attacks.

You must be mistaken, pantherath. If you look in Seph's Dual Wiled readme, it says:

 

Bugs:

*Sometimes old normal attacks kick in (well they kick in pretty frequently). It means that you now

have 8 of them X_x. Sorry, can't be fixed.

 

I also contacted cotyounoyume, who made this great CCAO - Cotyounoyume Combat Animation Overhaul, He seemed to have solved that problem. But he simply copied the same custom attack 8 times, so the probability of using vanilla is only 1/9. And not 0.

 

Using MAO works, but only on vanilla NPC.

The big problem with MAO is that it is made upside down. Instead of making every NPC use a different folder for animation, It should be the player that use a different folder.

That's not a problem of MAO, but again one apparent engine limitation.

 

The "upside down" NPC method seems to be the only way this works with changed skeleton folders. I tried many different things to make it work for the player. None worked. And even starting a new game with changed skeleton folder (because the skeleton path might be included in a saved game) has failed.

 

To sum it up:

• the only way to apply combat animations to ONLY the player is the SpecialAnims method (put animations into SpecialAnims folder, activate in the player's NPC anims tab)
  
• SpecialAnim combat animations will ALWAYS be randomly alternating with vanilla ones. The probablity can be reduced by duplicating the SpecialAnim (e.g. by naming the duplicates <XX>attach01.kf, <XX>attach02.kf, ...)
  

[panterath]

Ah! Very interesting, makes complete sense. I noticed that when I downloaded DMC Stylish specialanims.esp, beni put animations in the /_male folder as well as the specialanims, which was not only making it possible for the player, but all combat animations were being replaced do to them also being in the /_male. I bet if I were to remove the animations found in the /_male and make an .esp for the specialanims only checked on the player, it'd probably work like a charm.

 

Thanks for all your help Fore!

 

P.S. The CCAO combat animation overhaul is something I have tried out recently, it was really well done but I had quite a bit of issues trying to configure it :o

 

- P

[fore]

Ah! Very interesting, makes complete sense. I noticed that when I downloaded DMC Stylish specialanims.esp, beni put animations in the /_male folder as well as the specialanims, which was not only making it possible for the player, but all combat animations were being replaced do to them also being in the /_male. I bet if I were to remove the animations found in the /_male and make an .esp for the specialanims only checked on the player, it'd probably work like a charm.

 

Thanks for all your help Fore!

 

P.S. The CCAO combat animation overhaul is something I have tried out recently, it was really well done but I had quite a bit of issues trying to configure it :o

 

- P

Your welcome, pantherath. Please come back and report your success. You see, there are others trying to understand what's possible. As I said: I'm not using these combat animations myself, just looking at it from the technical side. :P

 

And there is a new omod version of CCAO, uploaded just 2 days ago. That should fix many installation issues.