Brainstorming getting a Flail to work

[jamochawoke]

Ok.

 

After seeing the animated flails here:

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14941

 

I was wondering how to get them to work. Because in the mod they are just kind of "possessed" and move on their own all the time rather than responding to physics in any real way.

 

 

Then it dawned on me... would it be possible to expand some bones off of the weapon node and then rig a flail to those bones?

 

What I'm thinking is that it could work by making a flail animation that uses those bones and merging that animation with all of the attack .kf files.

 

Would that work?

 

Sorry I'm not an animator, just brainstorming :P

[fore]

Yes it's possible.

 

I've looked into the mod. The nifs for the weapons are animated. I didn't even know that animated nifs are possible as weapons. But this doesn't make sense anyway, since then the weapon moves all the time, even during idles.

 

The bones which you are talking about even exist. Coronerra's CMCS already has 8 whip bones coming out of the right hand. And since I have not seen yet any animation using them, I would be willing to make one of the vanilla onehand attacks use these bones. And the onhandidle, of course.

 

But I'm not going to make or even rig a flail. Can you do that?

[jamochawoke]

The original maker of that mod said you could use them as resources. I can take them, strip them of their animation, and rig them to Coronerra's Skeleton fairly easily if you can animate it. Weapons are easy to rig, as are most simple joints (I just have a major problem with full hands/fingers hahaha) so a flail should be rather easy using 2 or 3 joints from the skeleton.

 

 

EDIT::

 

It might be good if you do animate the attacks to make a sort of generic whip/flail hybrid movement so you can use both weapons. I don't know if a whip has been released but it wouldn't be too hard to make one in the future.

Edited September 25, 2011 by jamochawoke

[fore]

It might be good if you do animate the attacks to make a sort of generic whip/flail hybrid movement so you can use both weapons...

That's what I had in mind. Ok, there are 2 pairs of left/right non-power attacks, and I would do all 4. At least for the beginning.

 

I only have rigged one object so far, so my experience is very limited. But don't you weight the different sections of the flail gradually, so that the chain links will not look stiff?

[alonsomartinez]

You can't rig a weapon.

[RGMage2]

It might work if you are willing to use smoke and mirrors so it wont really be a weapon.

 

I’ve been thinking about this same thing for a while for one of my own projects. This is what I came up with, you rig the flail to the whip bones and have it as an armour item on a ring slot. You take a few links of the chain that would be held by the hand and separate them from the flail. strip away the rigging and set it up as a normal blunt weapon with an extra long reach. Put an OnEquip script on the blunt weapon to add to inventory and equip the flail. When you are in combat the unseen blunt weapon does the damage while the flail uses the new animation that is added to the existing animation. OnUnequip script would unequip the fake flail and remove it from inventory.

 

I’m not sure how you would handle the ground item, I'm guessing it could be scripted but my scripting knowledge is not very advanced.

 

I think you would want to use all the whip bones in the animation. There are only eight of them and you want it to be smooth. You need the idles and the walking animations as well.

 

Also there is no collision on the whip bones and it might be nice to have collision on the last bone. I do not know this because I have not tested it, but I am guessing that if the last bone had collision the flail might be able to knock things over. Maybe someone who knows more about that could offer an opinion.

 

 

[fore]

I think you would want to use all the whip bones in the animation. There are only eight of them and you want it to be smooth. You need the idles and the walking animations as well.

Thanks, Mage. I'm afraid I have talked myself into something. There are 43 onehand animations, and all have to be modified to some extent. Oh my. :whistling:

[Deleted1848331User]

Those whip bones aren't for weapons. They are for clothing. If you do that you can make an invisible sword or blunt weapon to attack with and have the flail/whip do its animations. You'd script the whip to equip the invisible item that is unplayable, and keep it equipped, then remove it when you unequip the whip.

[jamochawoke]

Ok yeah got an email from the maker of the mod:

 

"Hello,

 

Yes, that would work. Strange why no one have created one if one have already have created a skeleton with the animations for it (that's the hard part). I can not rig models though. :<

A weapon can't be attached to bones nor rigged so you need to attach some dummy weapon 'clothing' when you equip the flail (kinda easy).

 

J3X

"

 

So I was actually thinking for this mod, we could use something like the attached upper and lower mouth piece modder's resource and make the "clothing" item something like the upper mouth slot that would be freed. Instead of using the ring slot or tail slot like most people do.

 

Could that work?

Edited September 25, 2011 by jamochawoke

[RGMage2]

Thanks, Mage. I'm afraid I have talked myself into something. There are 43 onehand animations, and all have to be modified to some extent. Oh my. :whistling:

fore, I know it's a tall order and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to do it. I tried an idle and a onehandedidle and they sort of worked, but I wouldn't trust my own animations enough at this point to release them and risk screwing up anyone's game.8)

 

 

Those whip bones aren't for weapons. They are for clothing. If you do that you can make an invisible sword or blunt weapon to attack with and have the flail/whip do its animations. You'd script the whip to equip the invisible item that is unplayable, and keep it equipped, then remove it when you unequip the whip.

I wish I had thought of that.:whistling:

 

So I was actually thinking for this mod, we could use something like the attached upper and lower mouth piece modder's resource and make the "clothing" item something like the upper mouth slot that would be freed. Instead of using the ring slot or tail slot like most people do.

 

Could that work?

I wont say it's not possible but I have no idea how to do it and I've never seen it done. Sure you can put clothes or armour in those slots in the race menu in the cs, but doing it from the inventory menu or a script is another matter. Also, if you could use the mouth slot that would mean all the races would have to be changed to be compatible with the flail, and then there is the issue of using a rigged item in those slots screws up the character in chargen, leaves you looking at your tummy instead of your face.:P

 

This is project that is kind of dear to my heart. You see my very first post on the Beth forums about 4 years ago was a request for someone to make GoGo Yubari's flail from KillBill. At the time I was a total noobie and some very polite and knowledgeable modders explained to me why it would not be possible. In spite of that I always hoped that maybe someday it could be possible.:yes: