animation, looking for some guidance

[bobbyskel78]

well, i know that blender is normally the go-to for animations. i wasn't sure if there was others such as 3ds max, maybe photo-shop, seem like i recall GIMP or maybe it was Nifskope, the latter sounds more plausible as having a feature to view kf animations.

as of right now, i'm just looking to look at animations, yet eventually i want to delve in creating some and perhaps adding some more frames to others to make the animation seem more smooth. i imagine some apps have an auto add, adding frames that fall in-between two varying frames just as any animation, a blur i guess of the mixture of two frames. i'm guessing the free-ware blender isn't on this list.

any who, i was just trying to view a animation for start. loaded the nif and was hunting in blender how to watch a animation ... that night i was already frustrated, spread myself too thin and ready to punch something.

if someone could go the extra-mile and explain to me the root of targeted/melee roots in aspect of the Universal Skeleton, that would be useful. i see a 'magic node', which i would have to assume would be the root of targeted spells and would imagine that bows would also follow this same route, yet i'm not sure where melee attack's root is. i see a whip in the universal skeleton, the tip seems a logical place.

i'm playing w/ 3rd person views and existing 3rd person mods, trying to understand the dynamics, thus making the code a little bit more understandable or perhaps a way to simplify.

any help is appreciated in advance.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Can't help you with where all the weapon mount nodes are located inside the actor skeleton, well, not without firing up my virtual machine and taking a look at it in NifSkope myself... but there's several different ones.

 

However, if it's about actor/NPC animations and you only want to look at them, open the skeleton NIF in NifSkope, open every body part, clothing or armor item you want for the show in a separate NifSkope, use "copy branch" > "paste branch" to copy their NiTriShape/Strips nodes over under the "Scene Root" branch of the skeleton (they will automatically align to the respective bones),

and when you're done go to "Spells > Animation > attach .kf" (or what it's called), browse for the KF file of the animation you want to view, and e'viola the skeleton and all body parts, clothing or armor it now wears will jump into pose and you can use the animation player to make it move.

 

 

And yes, editing existing animations (.kf files) in Blender (at least an older version where the NifTools im-/export scripts still work) is in many cases also very easy, if you know how animating in Blender works.

Similarly to NifSkope you first import a skeleton ("armature only" option checked), but with animation, and browse for the KF file in the "keyframe" input field, which will import the skeleton, put it into pose and make it controllable by the animation imported.

Then, if you want/need, select the skeleton, go to import a body part, clothing or armor item ("geometry only, parent to selected armature" option checked, see the pattern?), and you will end up with the exact same result as in NifSkope previously, just now you can also edit the animation (provided you know how that is done in Blender).

 

Keep in mind specific kinds of action/movement animations will look odd outside of the game, thanks to switched axes, bogus rotations/translations etc. etc., and this "oddity" also has to be preserved by all means on editing them in Blender, or they won't look right in game anymore. I'm far from an animation expert though to know it for all the types. I do poses and idles mostly, some creature movements, actions and the whole deal of my flapping (or not) wings. There's way more I don't know anything about yet though. The CS Wiki lists a lot of those specifics already though. It's just the articles are very dated and not on par with today's ways of im- and export.

[Striker879]

I have worked in the opposte direction to the one Drake suggested to get my "animation test dummy". I use a modified version of the LencNoPantW.nif (found in the Data\clothes\LenceriaTafa02\White folder ... or LenceriaTafa02\Black) from the mod Apolonia and Atlantes. The mesh was exported without stripping out the skeleton.nif so it can be used right out of the box for testing. I snipped off all the clothing parts so it works more easily as a BBB testing dummy.

 

With NifSkope after you've attached the KF you can pause the animation and use the slider to make details easier to spot.

[bobbyskel78]

good info peeps!

my intent in the node structure w/ the animation is narrowing down which nodes i may need to manipulate (x,y,z) for a over-the-shoulder camera, yet the scene root ... the rendering of the character can be off of what the camera or the nodes do.

it's my umpteenth time playing the game and looking for a diff variety, if you're wondering.

for example: using a mod currently w/ 'camera commands'. that obse plugin i believe is 3rd person only. so the mod, x=30, y=-60, z=15, these is the manipulation of the existing 3rd person cam. i've found from previous posts that just moving the skeleton node, i use universal and not the scene root, it corrects the ranged attacks, as now they're in sync w/ the camera (ie. move node3 (for ex) to the same offset, but leave the scene root as is).

melee attacks now become off-centered, as does activating and activators. thus the question on specific nodes. if a moved the whole skeleton, it seems things would be in sync, but it isn't, so i want to put the specific nodes also in-line w/ the camera ... remember, playing 3rd person is the intent.

perhaps it's impossible, maybe it's just impossible using the universal skeleton ... which i've been hanging on too. there's so many nodes and no explanation anywhere on their purpose. so i ask. if you have a link to such, which i've yet to find, please post, albeit i don't think one exists.

tx again for the commentary.

[bobbyskel78]

their should really be a button from the OP(author) for pro-active commentary, perhaps additional kudos pts.

as of now, it seems our rank is solely based on the amount of our posts. i could easily write greasemonkey script and post garbage posts for a couple of threads, followed by a 'oh i'm sorry for the multiple posts' and inflate my <insert phallic symbol> size. lol.

Edited June 26, 2020 by bobbyskel78

[DrakeTheDragon]

At a specific number of posts you can even write your own title. :tongue:

 

But yes, apart from Kudos there isn't much.

 

In the past there actually was a time in which posts, and with it members, had a "recommendation", a rating of sorts, and everybody could thumbs-up or thumbs-down any post they read. A post with a too negative rating was even automatically hidden. It was like community-driven moderation in parts.

 

But it didn't work. There were too many bad apples who, as usual, ruined it for everyone. Helpful and valuable posts were hidden, because someone didn't like the author and arranged a group of people to vote their posts down. Useless, insulting and rule-breaking posts, even outright lies, were up-voted to the heavens by likewise individuals/trolls, up to a point where even having posts made no sense anymore. So the recommendation feature had to be forcefully removed again.

 

Don't know if you remember, but that's also why Endorsements for files or images can only be given or taken and there is no thumbs-down for that anymore either. These features in the past always defeated their own purpose themselves after a short while.

 

But I agree. A "helpful post" marker, which you can either give or take away, no "unhelpful post" counterpart, might actually be a useful thing. Well, let's see what we'll get when the forum software will be changed in the future.

 

 

 

As for the question at hand, I think the, albeit incomplete, list of "PRN Nodes" from here would be a start: https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=NifSkope_Comprehensive_Guide#Glossary

There should definitely be a more comprehensive list somewhere though.

[bobbyskel78]

Tx Drake! thumbs up.

not quite the level of detail i was looking for, but much better than what i found. upon giving it some thought, any camera off centered, with the primary skeleton nodes moved in-line w/ the camera will yield accurate range attacks ... i guess, i suppose it depends if the crosshair aligns w/ the camera or the scene-root (where your character is rendered).

one way or another, something is going to be angled. which means either distorting the spell node ... not sure where bows stem from, but they seem in line w/ the spells. even if that's the case, the melee animation would have to be altered or one would look like they're striking to the left/right of the target to make a hit. that would kinda' kill the whole aesthetics of playing in third person.

i'm dealing w/ a separate issue as of now, as activators seem really far off from the activator.

think i'll juggle the other mods i'm working on for now, a little bit of mesh/texture and script.

i guess a final note on this topic, i know many use blender for their animation needs ... as it's free. how does blender stand up to 3ds max or Maya?

found what seems like the start of some good animation tutorials for blender: youtube blender tutorials