Custom animation markers.

[Arneercool]

If anyone has experience regarding workshop added animation markers i would surely appreciate some insight.

 

 

 

1. How intrusive/heavy are they from a modders standpoint, are they a nightmare to make work correctly? Does it takes some dirty and unsavery trick to make them work, or is it the opposite?

 

2. From the user i would like to know how much they affect you save game size, ram usage, loading times, and how they work 100 hours in?

 

 

We are talking about mods like Northland diggers, custom salvage benches, relaxation animation markers and so on.

 

Nothing is too small, so please share.

[kitcat81]

Most of the markers work the same as vanilla furniture. Just some other objects (furniture, rug/mat) with some vanilla animation attached to them. Markers that change their state (visible/invisible) also require some scripting. Can`t say it`s difficult, but if you have never done it before, it might take some time to learn.

I have been using at least 4 such mods. Over 100 levels and I have not noticed any issues. Unfortunately , I have not payed any attention to my save game size, but as I have not noticed any problems in game I don`t see a reason to worry about the save game size. It would slowly grow even if you only used vanilla furniture.

Edited August 1, 2017 by kitcat81

[MaxShadow09]

There are like 4 mods adding buildable custom animation markers, so I guess most, if not all possible idle animations got covered by those mods. As far as I know, just by adding an animation keyword to the furniture item, it changes what animation is played when an NPC "uses" that marker. However, not all the animations in the game have their own keyword, and I don't know if it's possible to add more (I don't even know how those animations are assigned to the NPCs, is it a hardcoded? or there's a script that does it?). Speaking of save bloat, It shouldn't increase the save size at all, as you don't need to add any custom script to make it work (unless you want to make something more complex).

Edited August 2, 2017 by MaxShadow09

[Arneercool]

Most of the markers work the same as vanilla furniture. Just some other objects (furniture, rug/mat) with some vanilla animation attached to them. Markers that change their state (visible/invisible) also require some scripting. Can`t say it`s difficult, but if you have never done it before, it might take some time to learn.

I have been using at least 4 such mods. Over 100 levels and I have not noticed any issues. Unfortunately , I have not payed any attention to my save game size, but as I have not noticed any problems in game I don`t see a reason to worry about the save game size. It would slowly grow even if you only used vanilla furniture.

 

 

Ok, thanks for your input, it is appreciated. I guess it makes sense that they would not blow your save since they would probably be loaded on an instance to instance basis, or something like that, and not fill up on the overall cell/ram/save/whatever. I'm grasping in the dark but i wanna lean.

[Arneercool]

There are like 4 mods adding buildable custom animation markers, so I guess most, if not all possible idle animations got covered by those mods. As far as I know, just by adding an animation keyword to the furniture item, it changes what animation is played when an NPC "uses" that marker. However, not all the animations in the game have their own keyword, and I don't know if it's possible to add more (I don't even know how those animations are assigned to the NPCs, is it a hardcoded? or there's a script that does it?). Speaking of save bloat, It shouldn't increase the save size at all, as you don't need to add any custom script to make it work (unless you want to make something more complex).

Don't you worry friend, i have no intention of adding anything at the moment, and let alone anything that already has been covered.

 

I WAS thinking about a really fun(i think) and not intrusive overhaul of the vanilla shops/weapons/items, as my first mod to get a soft start. Basically just a semi-advanced(not really) level list edit.

 

But i am actually just leaning so that i can be ahead of the curve the next Beth game, or game on the same engine. I will not necessarily upload anything as this has gotten really advanced since i used to replace textures in Command and conquer back when. And i have no related education, so everything is "inventing the wheel" with me

[damanding]

The animation marker itself shouldn't add any bloat or slowness to your games. The easiest way to make your own custom furniture with a marker is to copy a piece of furniture that already has the animation marker you want to use and assign it to a new mesh of your choice, then change the name and ID before saving. You can even assign multiple animation markers (but only if they're the same type) to one piece of furniture. So for example you can add two sleep animation markers to a double bed. Or add 2 or 3 sitting animation markers to a bench or couch.