Clothes on monsters

[EPDGaffney]

Learning is a good amount of work I suppose, but after that, stuff like this can be done in minutes. I was experimenting a bit in NifSkope so that you could do it that way and the more I find, the more I think it's just easier to learn how to do it in Blender. That guide assumes you know basically nothing. So, indeed it is a somewhat hefty commitment, but it's not really that hard and at least for me, I think it's loads of fun. If the perceived difficulty is putting you off, I'd say that you shouldn't worry about that. But if you just don't want to put in the time, that's up to you.

 

The other method would be to use NPCs of the ghoul race as we discussed earlier, but make them a ghoul faction and very aggressive. I would just duplicate the CampSearchlightGhoul and start with that. You can prevent them using weapons with some very slightly beyond basic techniques. Skill points and combat styles, mostly, and potentially an actor effect if needed. But the CampSearchlightGhoul ghouls do use weapons, so that's your call.

[SirDanest]

There's a deatchlaw in a suit that almost certainly changed the deathclaw's default animation.

[EPDGaffney]

This one?

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/60806

 

That's just a retexture. But you can change animations. Once you put in the time to learn how to edit the game's models in Blender, a lot of stuff take a few minutes per task. You could make a Deathclaw use human animations by deleting the old skeleton and adding the human skeleton and making sure the bone names are the same, which the majority will be.

[YanL]

Thta´s a good question.

 

For example, for this dog

 

 

this red cape, I could not export copying the dog's bones. But it worked when I copy the bones of the cyberdog, that metal thing on the back.

 

Why? No f*#@ing clue.

[SirDanest]

This one?

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/60806

 

That's just a retexture. But you can change animations. Once you put in the time to learn how to edit the game's models in Blender, a lot of stuff take a few minutes per task. You could make a Deathclaw use human animations by deleting the old skeleton and adding the human skeleton and making sure the bone names are the same, which the majority will be.

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/46870/

[SirDanest]

Leads me to wonder if it's possible to have something like an argonian in fallout. Not that I need argonians in fallout, but merely as a curiosity about what the engine is capable of. I think it's capable of more than is generally used on average. Like, the Deathclaw's tail on a "human." Although I've heard that any modification to the normal human skeleton or major animation changes (like a playable human race that move like tunnelers or deathclaws) would affect all humans across the board including the player, and, like Trudy in goodsprings, who most certainly does not walk like a tunneler or have a tail. ;)

[EPDGaffney]

@YanL

There was probably a reasonable explanation, something small you missed, but anything's possible I suppose. You wouldn't remember the error message, would you?

 

@SirDanest

That mod fits the suit round the deathclaw body, in Blender, and rerigs the suit to the deathclaw skeleton, then adds some mostly superfluous (but brilliant) idle animations to the folder just for a bit of craic. I imagine a good portion of the deathclaw body underneath the suit was deleted to prevent clipping.

 

Yes, you can add an Argonian to this game, no problem. In fact, I'm surprised that mod doesn't exist yet. The tail can be added without rigging the human skeleton to use it in any animations (and I don't believe the deathclaw tail is animated, either, but simply rigged to the pelvis or spine or whatever).

 

You're correct in that there is one skeleton shared by all humans and I believe mutants. But you can make Creature forms that behave almost identically to NPCs if you want. Sometimes, that's the best way to have the fine control you need as a modder. Animations for basic things like movement and attacks are governed by animation file names and can't really be chosen on a per-Form basis. There's just one normal-speed walking forward animation and one running animation and that's it. Which animation is used is determined by a name that the engine is coded to look for for that purpose. The engine blends between certain ones in a way that I believe is hard-coded, so that it uses just the lower body for movement if the player is firing a gun, and the upper body for that attack, but if the player is doing only one of those, then it will use the fully body's animation data from that one animation.

 

Movement is determined by the root motion of the animation, so an animation that doesn't move the skeleton's origin isn't going to move the actor in-game. At least, that's my understanding of how the game works, though I think I've read that may be true only for the player and NPCs. Creatures may not require root motion.

 

You can theoretically script a whole alternate movement method I think. Unless root motion is actively disallowed from special idles, it's possible, if not almost certainly an incredibly frustrating rabbit hole (more so for the player character, but potentially even for NPCs). Actually, I have corpses that use an alternate movement method and are technically unconscious NPCs, so whilst I'm using ragdoll physics for that, it should be possible to do it with animations. I think I went off on a tangent here but I think it's interesting, though you probably don't want to touch this concept with a ten-foot pole.

 

Anyway, the short and the long of it would be that to do most of what you ideally want to do, you should learn some basic Blendering.

[SirDanest]

I honestly figure that once we went all the way from California to DC and Boston, that there really was room for a few new "races" and I don't just mean new types of killbots like the tunnelers. Synths like Valentine are probably a good step in that direction. But, like, other types of mutant people, not so bad off as ghouls and super-mutants, but just a little different. The mutants on wildlife can cause a lot of weird variety that isn't just ghoulification. Horns or a tail maybe. Weird eyes. We don't need to just stick to ghouls and super-mutants as the alternative "people." Makes me wonder why radiation gave many animals giant size or two heads, but did neither for any human, anywhere. Probably be almost impossible to create a well done multi-headed mutant -- Brahmin dont have to worry about expressing themselves. But giants would be easy. (Supermutants with their size are a special case. I don't think Brahmin or bloatflies are just "supermutant" versions of normal animals.) And deathclaws were subject, I think, to multiple sources of modification and mutantation.

Anyway, so, for example, let's say I want to make a human-like being move like a tunneler. I can't just make humans move that way or it would affect everyone. If I make a "monster" that looks human but moves like a tunneler, then it wouldn't be able to just wear any clothes on the fly the way normal humans can... I assume.

I'll be checking out blender. :)

[EPDGaffney]

You are correct in your understanding as expressed in your second paragraph. Actually, the tunnellers are I believe the trogs from Fallout 3, just slightly modified. I know they use the same skeletons but I'm not sure about their animations (never played that DLC, so I have no reference). Super mutants are done this way as well. This leads to non-unique faces as well, unfortunately, and no data for modifying their faces in the GECK like an NPC.

 

It's worth noting that whilst levelled NPCs' outfits are random, their faces are selected from a relatively small number of presets. So if you wanted to, you could make 30 slightly different faces and call it a 'Race' but make it a Creature form. You could make your head models and save them separate, then make the outfits and save those separate, and put them all together on your creature form. You could even script it to choose a random head and body.

 

Agreed on the first paragraph. Would be interesting to have more 'dialogue species' round the place, and it seems logically plausible in the lore.

 

A two headed creature you can talk to? Now there's an interesting challenge. I can think of a few ways to make it work, but it would be far from simple. I would basically make it technically two Creatures, somehow attached via a script. Or maybe one should be a talking activator? I suppose it would take a lot of trial and error, but I have some ideas. You could make activating one impossible and make activating the other be scripted to account for both. Some responses could be randomly spoken by one or the other, and others could have a result script that activates the other head. A little hacky in its current stage in my head, but none of it seems impossible.

 

Blender is phenomenal. Just be aware that you need to use the older and unfortunately less phenomenal version of Blender:

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/12248

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/42755

 

The first is more thorough but more work to set up. I use the second, called 'portable', which does not interfere with my modern Blender installation and comes with the nif scripts preïnstalled (and the programme itself requires no installation). Again, despite the ease of use in the second one, the first one technically contains more for you, so it's ultimately what you prefer.

[SirDanest]

We have numerous two-headed "monster" races, even more with the monster mod. And there's a mod "talking creature" that adds mouth movements to certain animals (in case someone wants to give them dialogue, I guess.) There's a modded two-headed ghoul, for instance.

So maybe a custom "monster" race that looks relatively like an npc race. If the kf animations can be added to a bighorner's mouth, then I wonder if they could be added individually to a two-headed person/ghoul's mouths.