Making an Oblivion animation with 3DS Max 2016 Tutorial

[jet4571]

Just 10 easy steps to follow that I believe I fully explained where needed, sorry no video or images.

 

1. Import Camera with skeleton.

 

2. Add key notes.. select bip01 and go to Graph Editors then select Track View - Dope Sheet. Select Bip01 there and Edit, Note Track, and Add. Then select the Track Bar(yellow) and move it so you can see where to do the next step as well as expand the bip01 tree to select the Note. Click the Add Keys button and then click on the first frame in the lighter grey row. Now double click the Note and you can finally add the note. Notes should look like "start -name NameOfAnimatiom -at y" for non-looping animations and "start -name NameOfAnimatiom -loop -at y" for looping animations, and without quotes ofcourse. Then click the last frame since you have the Add Keys button still selected to add another Note, again double click the Note under bip01 this time add "end" without quotes.

 

3. Enter the Time Configuration window(below the play animation controls) and set your Frame count to 1 frame more than you want in the Animation section and set the Speed at 1x in the Playback section. Everything else can remain the default values. Add "Start" and "End" Time Tag "Start" at the first frame and "End" at the last one, lock them because that is what I saw in a few vanilla animations I looked at.

 

4. Import body parts and props(if needed).

 

5. Rotate and move with BIP01(dont touch the pelvis unless you like your animation offset by 45 degrees.), and position the bones so your model is in the start position relative to the prop if you need one for the animation.

 

6. Select Bip01 and use Transform Toolbox(in the Edit menu) to Align Pivot to Origin by clicking the Origin button. Unlike any normal 3D model it will move to that point. It will function normaly in the game and animation in Max.

 

7. Hide all models and select all on the skeleton and camera, turn on Auto Key, and hit the Set Keys Button.(turn off Auto Key if you dont want something baked into the animation such as adding a prop and moving it, really only have it on when working on the bones positions.)

 

8. Unhide all and go to town making your animation by moving the Time Slider and making changes to the skeletons position and rotation.

 

9. Once you are happy with the characters movement open the Time Configuration window again and change the Playback Speed. and test it by running the animation. Repeat until you find the one that suits you.

 

10. Once everything looks great it's time to export! Yay. Game Civilization 4. Check Skeleton Only, Collision, Cameras, Generate Strips, Vertex Colors, and Add Accum Nodes. Uncheck Remove Extra Bones and Generate Partion Strips. In Animation change it to Single KF w/o NIF with NiNode as the Root Node Type and export. After that use the kfupdater utility from Fallout 3 on the exported animation and your done if you did everything correct. The working animation will bbe the AnimationName-Out.kf version.

 

Some notes...

 

Importing the camera and exporting it is rather inportant unless the pelvis isnt rotated through Bip01. If you want an animation that has an NPC puking on the ground infront of him/her or a new sleeping idle where the head sits on the pillow you will want the camera unless you want the head in the same rotation as the pelvis... As in unaturaly bent at the neck in the puking animation and slammed to the matress in the sleep animation. And head animation just wont work.

 

Don't SAVE as a .max file. Everytime I did the animations translations went fubar(f*#@ed Up Beyond All Reality). Just rotate Bip01 and move another bone, write down their roation and position and save. Then open that save up and compare rotation and positions. They wont be the same. If you need to save export as a .kf. If you want a quick and easy way to import all the body parts import them all and export like any armor. Then when you want to do an animation import the skeleton with camera and then the exported body so you always have a correct scene to start with.

 

About not rotating or moving Bip01Pelvis... Dunno if it's just me but everytime I did it the animation was 45 degrees off in the game even if Bip01 was never touched.

 

As for doing Align Pivot to Bip01, I like my idle animations to actualy be where they should be and not lower in the game, as in not knee deep in the floor when the NPC is puking.

 

If any real animators care to correct me, I will love you long time... All this was trial and error to figure out along with a whole lot of frustration and all because I wanted to adjust the sit idle hand positions for a mod. So much of what I do to get functional animations may be wrong, but they do work and import back into max without bones being in the worng spot like many animations I have imported to use for adjusting skin modifiers to prevent clipping. including vanilla.

 

Anywho Happy Modding everyone!