mrgahdoh Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Hey everyone, I'm hoping somebody could point me in the right direction for exporting skeletons and meshes out of Skyrim so that I can create custom character animations for 1st person and 3rd person. I'm a professional game animator and would love to spend some of my spare time redo'ing some of the poor quality animations along with adding new weapon animations (thinking staff and martial arts to begin with). However, I'm not sure where to start since I'll need the base files in Maya. If someone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it :)-cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levgre Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Hey everyone, I'm hoping somebody could point me in the right direction for exporting skeletons and meshes out of Skyrim so that I can create custom character animations for 1st person and 3rd person. I'm a professional game animator and would love to spend some of my spare time redo'ing some of the poor quality animations along with adding new weapon animations (thinking staff and martial arts to begin with). However, I'm not sure where to start since I'll need the base files in Maya. If someone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it :)-cheers I'm not sure but they might have answered your question here http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111116213843AAK81zP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted2039153User Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 I don't know if we can open up Skyrim's .nif files in 3ds max/Maya just yet, but I can definitely tell you how to extract them. At the moment we don't have a Skyrim-specific Mod Manager than can extract .BSA files, so you'll want to download the Fallout Mod Manager because it can. You can get it here: http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36901 Once you download that, you want to open it up and under Tools go to BSA Browser. Navigate to the Skyrim Data folder (usually Program Files/steam/steamapps/common/skyrim/Data) and open up the Meshes .BSA file. This is where all the meshes are located. For the skeleton specifically, in Meshes you want to open up "Actors" then "Character", the skeleton is located there. Highlight it and hit "Extract", then choose where you want it and you're done. Good luck, hopefully you can make up some nice animations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ogridum Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 I would like to see animation mods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrgahdoh Posted November 21, 2011 Author Share Posted November 21, 2011 (edited) Alright, was able to open the .BSM with the fallout manager and I see the animList for each character 1st and 3rd. However, it looks like every file is a .HKX, which pertains to the HAVOK SDK system. Ugh. Need to look into how Havok handles importing and exporting from Maya. Thanks AlphaDragoon.-cheers Edited November 21, 2011 by mrgahdoh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghogiel Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 (edited) Hey everyone, I'm hoping somebody could point me in the right direction for exporting skeletons and meshes out of Skyrim so that I can create custom character animations for 1st person and 3rd person. I'm a professional game animator and would love to spend some of my spare time redo'ing some of the poor quality animations along with adding new weapon animations (thinking staff and martial arts to begin with). However, I'm not sure where to start since I'll need the base files in Maya. If someone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it :)-cheers Go to havok and get their content tools. I've tried to open the skeleton.hkx's in the behaviour tool just to see if I could get them to load, You'll notice that the animtions are organised in the same kind of file path structure as the havok projects are, makng that straightforward, but nothing yet on my end... it doesn't recognise the skeleton files I have tried. but you might have better luck. That would be a step in the right direction, meaning you might be able to view the animations, as a animator for games you'll know how much of help that would be. especially if you just want to replace one here and there. Then wait for method to get the nif skeletons into maya. Then make a new rig based on those bones, animate etc. Then from there.. well it might be a case of just using the HCTs to export your animations back out and give them a once over in the HBT, or if they don't export out of the box, perhaps someone will write an updater app to fix anything in those files that is particular to what BGS is doing with them... see I might f***ing it up on my forays into their animation format and the animations might work right out of the box.... or there are some slightly unique types of data in them particular to bethesda.. which is entirely possible.. good luck I suppose. :biggrin: Edited November 21, 2011 by Ghogiel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrgahdoh Posted November 21, 2011 Author Share Posted November 21, 2011 (edited) Go to havok and get their content tools. I've tried to open the skeleton.hkx's in the behaviour tool just to see if I could get them to load, You'll notice that the animtions are organised in the same kind of file path structure as the havok projects are, makng that straightforward, but nothing yet on my end... it doesn't recognise the skeleton files I have tried. but you might have better luck. That would be a step in the right direction, meaning you might be able to view the animations, as a animator for games you'll know how much of help that would be. especially if you just want to replace one here and there. Then wait for method to get the nif skeletons into maya. Then make a new rig based on those bones, animate etc. Then from there.. well it might be a case of just using the HCTs to export your animations back out and give them a once over in the HBT, or if they don't export out of the box, perhaps someone will write an updater app to fix anything in those files that is particular to what BGS is doing with them... see I might f***ing it up on my forays into their animation format and the animations might work right out of the box.... or there are some slightly unique types of data in them particular to bethesda.. which is entirely possible.. good luck I suppose. :biggrin: Downloading the Havok tools now. Will see if I can open any of .hkx files on my end. However, it seems the skeletons aren't in the .hkx files, since you referenced .nif files somewhere else that contain them (and that there is currently no way to get those into maya at this time). Building a control rig is the easy part, it's the import/export which I forsee being difficult. I wonder if the creation kit will make exporting skeletons easier... hm.-cheers Edited November 21, 2011 by mrgahdoh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghogiel Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 (edited) Downloading the Havok tools now. Will see if I can open any of .hkx files on my end. However, it seems the skeletons aren't in the .hkx files, since you referenced .nif files somewhere else that contain them (and that there is currently no way to get those into maya at this time). Building a control rig is the easy part, it's the import/export which I forsee being difficult. I wonder if the creation kit will make exporting skeletons easier... hm.There are skeletons in the hkx files.. or at least they are in the right folder and are named skeleton. I am guessing they needed them because HBT doesn't import nifs. And when they went to set up all the blends, state machines and scripting, they needed a skeleton to run the animations on. PLUS, when you export from HCT your scene step up, you have mesh, rig and animations concurrent in the same scene, and the exporter splits the files into appropriate ones based on what it is and what the sequence name is ect. leaving them with a skeleton.hkx. They then just did another export for the nif format. a bit weird but that's how I reckon they did it. anyway it looks like those files are still just in there, Unless it is something else... :unsure: edit: oh and it looks like the skeleton.hkx file opens in the havok preview tool :dance: :dance: Edited November 21, 2011 by Ghogiel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrgahdoh Posted November 21, 2011 Author Share Posted November 21, 2011 There are skeletons in the hkx files.. or at least they are in the right folder and are named skeleton. I am guessing they needed them because HBT doesn't import nifs. And when they went to set up all the blends, state machines and scripting, they needed a skeleton to run the animations on. PLUS, when you export from HCT your scene step up, you have mesh, rig and animations concurrent in the same scene, and the exporter splits the files into appropriate ones based on what it is and what the sequence name is ect. leaving them with a skeleton.hkx. They then just did another export for the nif format. a bit weird but that's how I reckon they did it. anyway it looks like those files are still just in there, Unless it is something else... :unsure: edit: oh and it looks like the skeleton.hkx file opens in the havok preview tool :dance: :dance: Ah I see, that does make a bit more sense. I'll have to tinker around a bit once Havoc finishes downloading and see what I can work out. Unfortunately, I've never worked with Havoc in a professional setting; primarily with the Unreal Engine, so need to get a bit more acquainted here.-cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghogiel Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 (edited) The character model.. or at least I think that is what it is... won't open in the preview tool. The animations load too... Edited November 21, 2011 by Ghogiel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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