What makes the Shishkebab's flame hide when holstered?

[Yukichigai]

I'm doing some tinkering in nifskope and I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly that makes the Shishkebab's flame effect disappear the minute you holster it. I'd like to get a similar effect going for another weapon I'm working on, but I can't seem to see what it is exactly that makes the weapon do its thing ONLY when out and held. What am I missing?

[rickerhk]

You looked at the 1st person NIF too? Otherwise, I've no idea. Unless it's hard coded.

[Yukichigai]

Yep, looking at the first person nif. I see a bunch of interpolators (bool, float, transform) but nothing that indicates why the bool interpolator is stopped when holstered.

 

It doesn't seem to be tied to anything in the GECK record: there's no script which enables the interpolators and no special parts add-ons/etc.

[prensa]

Yukichigai - Hello!

"I'm trying to figure out what it is exactly that makes the Shishkebab's flame effect disappear the minute you holster it."

Two things working in conjunction, a specific block within the model & the animation .kf being called on the model at the time.

If you go to the shishkebab & open it in Nifskope, click on the flame effect in the Render window.

The flame effects, glow effect, etc. are all under a NiNode named ##VisCtrl.

Blocks with ## are always model parts that animation .kf's will look for.

The ##VisCtrl is used for visibility.

When an animation .kf gets used that is set up for ##VisCtrl it looks for any Nodes in the model with that heading & acts according to it's settings (makes it invisible/visible).

Animation .kf's like:

1hmunequip.kf
1hmequip.kf

That are 1 Hand Melee animations, have ##VisCtrl listed in their "Controlled blocks" that control what happens to the Node & all it's children that is called ##VisCtrl in the model.

 

You'll also notice that they have many ## that they look out for like ##batonhandle that works with the baton.

As long as your weapon is set to use the same animations like the shishkebab, the ones with the ##VisCtrl listed in their "Controlled blocks" & you've set up the parts you want to disappear under a node named ##VisCtrl as in the shishkebab model it should work the same.

Use the shishkebab's set up as a guide.

Hope this helps!

Prensa

Edited April 22, 2013 by prensa

[Yukichigai]

What animation exactly has the coding for ##VisCtrl and ##Shishkebab? I've opened 1hmunequip.kf and 1hmequip.kf, and while I do see entries for ##batonhandle and such, I don't see any Visual transforms for anything the Shishkebab is tagged with. Is it in a different one entirely or something? Am I using the wrong tool? What tool do you use to view kf files?

 

Also, is there one for two-handed melee weapons?

Edited April 22, 2013 by Yukichigai

[prensa]

Yukichigai - Hello!

"Am I using the wrong tool? What tool do you use to view kf files?"

Nifskope is the correct tool, it's what I'm using.

"What animation exactly has the coding for ##VisCtrl and ##Shishkebab?"

##VisCtrl is in the 1 hand melee equip, unequip & holster.

1hmequip.kf
1hmunequip.kf
1hmholster.kf

Open 1hmunequip.kf up in Nifskope & left click on the top block (NiControllerSequence).

Down at the bottom in Block Details, look for "Controlled Blocks" & expand it's details.

##VisCtrl is near the bottom of that list, between ##Latch & ##l_Blade.

Same for 1hmequip.kf.

Though you don't need to change the animation .kf if you're wanting to use the same animations in your modified model, you just need to match shishkebab's animation settings in GECK.

The ##VisCtrl in the .kf controls the ##VisCtrl Node in the Shishkebab model.

You'll note everything in that Node relates to the flames & their effects.

Not sure what the handle ##Shishkebab does, it's not part of the flames off mechanism.

"Also, is there one for two-handed melee weapons?"

I just looked in 2hmequip & there's no ##VisCtrl in it.

Just recently though I've experimented with these handle calls in .kf's & found they can be quite flexible.

As you can see they can contain several different animations for different parts depending on which weapon they are called on.

I wanted to use the .44 heavy recoil animation on a semi-automatic, setting it in GECK to use the same animation was fine.

Problem was that animation was meant for a revolver so the slide did not work on my semi-automatic as there was nothing in that animation checking my model for the slide.

I found I could copy the the slide call & animation into the heavy recoil fire animation .kf relatively easily & now have a heavy fire .kf that works with semi-automatics as well as with revolvers.

The file can be used to overwrite the vanilla .kf, allowing the original functions as well as the new slide call.

The only pain was having to modify all the different versions of the .kf (attackleft, sneak, etc.)

So it's possible you could modify the 2 hand animations to contain the ##VisCtrl.

Though as I say, if you just want behaviour like the Shishkebab, you don't need to change the .kf. Just include the Shishkebab's ##VisCtrl flame parts.

I've only recently started playing with these so I'm certainly not an expert on it. :smile:

Hope this helps!

Prensa

Edited April 22, 2013 by prensa

[Yukichigai]

Random update here. Funnily enough, I found a way to get what I wanted without modifying anything save for the weapon shape.

 

Like you said, 2hmequip/2hmunequip didn't have the right triggers in the default animation. Fortunately though, there are no less than six different hand grips for the 2-hand melee animation. On casual glance they don't seem to change anything about the animation, and indeed from a movement standpoint they don't. HOWEVER, setting it to "HandGrip5" seems to add the 1-hand melee triggers to the holster and unholster animations. Don't ask me why, and I wish I could explain it myself, but that hand grip seems to allow ##VisCtrl blocks to be triggered.

 

Anyway, thank you very much for your insights. They've been incredibly helpful.

[prensa]

Yukichigai - Hello!

 

Happy to have helped! :)

 

Prensa