Replacing The Base Head...

[HSovieticus]

I've seen many body replacement mods, but not any head replacements, just face presets created from the base head's mesh that is included with the game. So I'm curious about 2 things: 1. creating a unique head from scratch, with a completely different geometry, for use with one npc only, and 2. replacing the base head in much the same way. So I want to completely redo the fallout head, using more polygons, and making good use of edge/face loops, poles, quads, and other organic modelling techniques. So I need to know a few things before I commit myself. The biggest thing would probably be animation. I am not familiar with the fallout facial animation system. From what I can tell, the face is not animated by hand, so it is either procedural, generated based on the audio, or else it is random and is just a simple animation that does not correspond to the words that are spoken. So, do I need to somehow mark individual vertices so that the engine knows what is what? And if so, how would I do that? Another problem would be integrating the new base face into the facial editor. Not sure how I would do that either. So any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Or, perhaps it would be less problematic, though more time consuming, to simply create a new base head and then create a great number or variants in blender. Then I could animate all speach by hand, but for all of my new heads at once. The main problem is that no one seems to know how to make animations for Fallout.

[PowderdToastMan]

You might try one of bethesda's geck tutorials to learn how.

 

you can find them here: http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Main_Page

[HSovieticus]

Those tutorials might help me with some things, but I don't think facial animation is done in the GECK. I think it is done by an 3D software like max, maya, or some animation software, and then made to work in game using a secret software that Bethesda uses, but will not share with the modding community.

[PowderdToastMan]

I dont know that its secret, and i am unaware whether it is done in the geck, but i can tell you that modders like llamaRca and someguy2000, have mods that used extensive facial animation that they were able to do themselves. In the file of the month interview for someguy2000's new vegas bounties 2, i think, he talked about how time consuming doing the facial animation was though. sounded very painstaking.

[Tefnacht]

Hi.

 

To create a completely new head mesh from scratch, that can be customized with the character editor, has a mouth animated during dialog and shows facial expressions like “happy”, “sad” and “angry”, the GECK tutorials are more than useless.

 

At least to me, head meshes are severe “black magic”. Voodoo. Sorcery.

 

Animation of the head IS done completely different than animation of the body. There is no skeleton involved. There are no animation files. Each head available in the game is defined with four different files: The .NIF file, a .TRI file, a .EGM file and a .EGT file.

 

As far as I know, the technology involved here is called “FaceGen”.

 

I believe the .NIF file defines the basic, static head mesh, including UV mapping. The .TRI and .EGM files are somehow responsible for morphing and manipulating that mesh. Personally I think the .TRI file groups vertices together by numerical index and the .EGM file has the information what groups to manipulate and how to manipulate them relative to each other for each expression.

The .EGT file has something to do with manipulating the texture, like adjusting the skin tone.

 

But I don't really know. It's Voodoo.

 

On the TES Nexus there is a program called the Conformulator. This program deals with .TRI and .EGM files. It is supposed to help with creating hair and clothing meshes (like hats) that adapt to different head shapes ...

 

... but creating a completely new head? No idea.

 

I wish you the best of luck. Crack this nut ... and let us know how you did it. :)

[HSovieticus]

I was able to locate someguy2000's interview, but he doesn't really explain how to animate the face, just that it is very difficult. Wouldn't it be nice if more of the really good modders would share their secrets? Edited September 11, 2011 by HSovieticus

[HSovieticus]

I have two more thoughts. First, I am wondering if creatures have their faces animated in the same way as NPCs. Because, if not, it may be easier to give realistic facial animation to a character by making it a creature. After all, creatures do not have seperation of body and head, so I would imagine that head can be animated much like the body is animated. Although there are a few creatures with heads that are not attached to the body, like Marcus. So I would have to figure out how his face is animated, and whether the distinction between head and body is necessary for complex and scripted dialogue.

 

Second, I came up with a simple, maybe stupid, idea. I am thinking that maybe it would be easier to do good facial animation on a head if it is treated as a hat by the geck and the game engine. So when you enter dialogue with a character, a script would make the normal head invisible or smaller or somesuch, and then have the NPC equip the head/hat object with the desired facial animations. Any thoughts?

 

EDIT: it looks like Marcus and other talking super mutants have their faces animated with a file called talking.kf, and it is probably just a flapping of the mouth and jaw, up and down, again and again, without taking the actual dialogue into account. This animation file is unique to the spinebreakers, and maybe other creatures; human NPCs do not have it. So if I can figure out how to view and edit .kf files....

Edited September 11, 2011 by HSovieticus

[HSovieticus]

Still figuring out how to view and edit .kf files. And every time that I import Marcus with the talking.kf file, his mouth and jaw is strangely deformed, but only in object mode. Is that normal?

 

EDIT: I tried importing Marcus with a different .kf file, and there is a similar effect on the whole body. So this reaffirms my belief that the talking.kf is responsible for the Marcus creature's speach movements. Now I need to do some more reading to figure out how to edit the .kf file.

Edited September 11, 2011 by HSovieticus

[HSovieticus]

I'm following this tutorial, but I need a bit of extra help. Right now, I am not understanding why my IPO curves look entirely different from the pictures in the tutorial. Maybe it is because the animation is of a different area, or maybe it is because of the differences in the top right corner (with the coloured boxes), but I am unsure how I can apply the info in my tutorial to fix my own IPO curves. Help is desired. Below is a snapshot of my IPO Curve situation.

 

 

EDIT: This tutorial tells me not to fix the animation unless I want to preview what it looks like in game. It says that it movement in blender must be shifted sideways to appear normal in fallout. So forget my last question. But I would like to preview the animation as it will be. So now I need help with following this other tutorial. I cannot locate BIP01, as it seems that all bones are named BIP01 something or other. And I am not sure how to "change BIP01 z-Rot by 90." But most importantly, I have selected all bones, a few at a time, but I still cannot find BIP01 -- so if anyone knows how to find it, please tell.

 

EDIT2: I found BIP01 in the normal NPC skeleton, and I managed to select that bone alone. But, regardless, it seems like the Marcus skeleton does not have a bone called BIP01, so it looks like that method for properly viewing the animation is not available to me.

 

EDIT3: Actually, even if Marcus did have a bone named BIP01, I do not think it would help me. That is, I suspect that the method described in that tutorial will only work for body animations. I'm not sure why. It's just that I have tried rotating the entire armature, which should have the same effect, or, at least, appears to have the same effect. So I guess I'll have to figure something else out. There is some posts in this thread that suggest some different methods for fixing the animation, so I have been fiddling around with that for a while. Problem is that I cannot figure out how to unlink an animation from an armature, nor can I figure out how to use the action editor like he describes.

 

EDIT4: I sort of figured it out. I need to align "BIP01 Polytail1" (the bone being animated) in pose mode so that it occupies the same space as it does in edit mode. The problem is that I can only select the entire bone in pose mode, when what I need is to have only one end selected so that I can move that end to match up with it's edit mode equivalent, because only that one end of the bone is in the wrong place in pose mode. Does anyone know a way that I could do this?

 

EDIT5: I managed to align the bone properly by hand to see if this action would fix the animation, but all it fixed was the alignment of the jaw, and only so long and until the animation was played. After I played the animation, which was not fixed at all, the jaw went right back up through his nose. I have done everything I can think of asides from completely redoing the animation, but even that would be pointless, as I would have to redo the animation once more, and it would be without the jaw being properly aligned, assuming my goal was to export.

Edited September 11, 2011 by HSovieticus

[HSovieticus]

Turns out I have wasted the better part of a day trying to fix a problem that no longer exists. The real problem was in what I imported and how I imported it. But, because all of the animation tutorials describe the old problem and how to get around it, I mistook the real problem I was having for the problem that no longer exists, and now I have wasted my saturday by following those useless tutorials. Reminds me of all the time I wasted trying to copy and paste my outfit into an existing .nif, when all I needed to do was select the armature and export.