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In fact the whole digi operation could be driven by a single global. Global set = digi happens; not and you run in planti.

'kay, that would be sweet. I think digi looks pretty damn good for basically consisting on playing around with bones and transforms in a way the game was never intended to do, but it requiring such a setup in the first place and not playing nice with many anims is what puts me off. If there was some kind of ingame runtime toggle to do so, then I'd be more inclined to use it.

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Downsides? Maybe calling NiOverride at run time is wonky? But that's what it's for.

I mean, that's the same system NiOverride High Heels use and if there's something people out there is combat stilettos (for some obscure reason I cannot comprehend), so if using a lot of them was dangerous and/or wonky, I'm pretty sure we'd know by know and possibly have a fix too.

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I don't know what other mods would be wanting to adjust those nodes

As long as you don't touch boob, ass or belly bones, I'd say you're fine (and the latter only barely since who the hell uses old-ass bone scaling for the belly instead of Bodymorphs in the Year of our Dog 2020?). The only other thing that could touch them would be NIOverride Pose Adjustments, and I think it uses its own custom bones on top of the XPMSE ones so they shouldn't conflict.

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I could ALSO do things like add a special keyword to the feet, indicating whether they are digi-enabled. With the keyword, the skeleton is altered; without, not. Then if you're a digi character and you put on non-digi boots, you'd get a planti foot with a boot on. MMG's boots could be given the keyword and they'd be digi. (If necessary. Since they are added to the feet, the feet might still have the keyword and trigger the transform.)

Ooh, this sounds interesting too, assuming we could get it to work reliably.

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(If necessary. Since they are added to the feet, the feet might still have the keyword and trigger the transform.)

hard to say, the question is are the feet "armor" still considered to be "equipped" when the boots are?

remember the feet's "armoraddon" is used in the boots "armor", therefor the feet "armor" is most likely unequipped, so the script may be needed on everything if used. (unless you can get one of my older boot methods to work right)

....also there are still 70 sets (70 male and 70 female) of shoes to deal with, i'm thinking ankle braces & bracelets would look best......does anyone know where i can get 70 sets of ankle braces & bracelets that use stock shoe textures?

@Bad Dog I would really like to help, but unfortunately I don't know much about this ?

Also there's a possibility with this system that it could be turned off for sex scenes, for those who don't like the legs going any damn place... maybe by turning off the magic effect or adding a KW or something.

Got tired of cycling through Skyrim's slow startup time so I made an MCM to play with bone positions:

Basically what you are thinking of doing is NiOverride High Heels but for different purposes (unless I'm completely misunderstanding).

In that case, you might want to at least take a look at NiOverride High Heels fixes by ousnius since it adds some conditions when the transforms are not applied despite wearing a thing that adds the transforms, mainly for swimming and sitting.

Using NiO would in general be much more elegant and less papyrus-reliant solution which net positive in general since we all know how much Papyrus likes to choke on itself and cause other shenanigans at times.

16 hours ago, Blaze69 said:

The only other thing that could touch them would be NIOverride Pose Adjustments, and I think it uses its own custom bones on top of the XPMSE ones so they shouldn't conflict.

NiOPA adds its own parent nodes which are on top of CME ones, yes, so that shouldn't interfere at all. AFAIK the CME nodes are meant for RaceMenu bone scales/transforms in general, or at least I haven't seen anything else utilize them.

9 hours ago, Bad Dog said:

Got tired of cycling through Skyrim's slow startup time so I made an MCM to play with bone positions:

That looks like basically NiOPA except with GUI which exposes values and for specific bones only. ?

Yeah, I looked that the High Heels fixes back in the day when I first did the digi stuff. Thing is you can adjust position with extra data in the mesh, but turning it on and off when swimming and such requires at least a little scripting. And once you're doing that...

TBH tho, I do not remember why I'm doing the lift in the foot mesh but not the rest of the digi pose adjustments. (Or why I'm not doing all the adjustments in the skeleton, if it comes to that.) Either I didn't think of it because I was copying the digi argonian mod and they edit the skeleton, or I tried it and ran into problems. I could look at doing that but since I still have to undo them in a script for sitting, swimming etc. I'm not sure there's an advantage. And if the scripts don't fire, you just get a plani character, not a major failure.

Incidentally, I think I'm going to end up with a better digi pose. The knees have always clipped badly when they're bent a lot, and I think I got rid of that.

Huh. Okay, just tried putting the whole transformation in the foot mesh and it works. No need for an edited skeleton. 

Taking what @ASlySpyDuo said about scripts above into consideration, I'm thinking now to do this through the mesh the beast races. Advantages: Each beast race can have or not have digi feet independently. The digi adjustment could be different by race so deer could have a longer, more slender cannon bone while felines have shorter ones. Putting on boots cancels the effect, so they work with no extra machinery. MMG's boots ought to work since the foot is still applying the adjustment. Digi addons just ship feet, no need for an ESP.

Races with digi feet need a racial spell that triggers on sit, riding, swimming, sleeping, sneaking. That effect checks to see if there's an adjustment lifting the root node and if there is reverses it and does whatever other tweaks are needed (like making sure the feet don't clip through the chair when sitting.)  

Considerations: I still have to make the extra foot meshes, but it's a copy/paste job. The racial ability has to be put in the base mod, so it's there whether you use digi feet or not. Might need an additional constant effect for situations that can't be caught in a spell condition--currently I'm catching sneaking, swimming and riding in conditions, but sitting cross-legged, lying down on back, lying on a bed, and meditating by catching animations, and sitting and dying by catching the event. Catching the animations depends on RCAE so it doesn't work for SE.

If there's an additional constant effect it could catch entering into SL animations too.

My digi NPCs currently take boots off if you give them to them. I could either maintain that behavior or simply give NPCs outfits with no boots. Then if you want them to wear boots, you just give them some.

Ideally, there would be one magic effect with conditions. GetSitting - covers sitting and riding; IsInFurnitureState - covers sitting and lying down, but not sure if it covers lying on back, cross-legged sitting, or praying. GetDead handles death. That leaves the unique idles--praying and sitting cross-legged--that I'm not sure I can catch without looking at animations.

Got this working, FYI. Simple and clean. I didn't do anything about NPCs and boots--give them boots and they wear them; not, they run around digitigrade.

Only way to handle the animations the PC doesn't usually do--mediate, lie on back, sit cross-legged--is with RCAE. I haven't hooked that in yet and I don't know if it's worth it.

The next version of they Lykaios will have this.

Don't forget the new foot mesh I made a while back. A google drive link should be in the Mod Files PM section, page 16 near the bottom of the page. It's much cleaner and more editable than the old one, so feel free to tweak it if desired.

Note: I only used big cats as a reference, so don't compare to house cats.

Thanks for the reminder. Those are much cleaner than the mess I put together. But I found a new way of modeling in blender (nurbs) which make cleaner meshes than anything else yet.

Based on my experience with Hoodies, I'm now wondering if I need the racial spell to handle digi feet (if equipped) at all. Why not just put the enchantment on the feet, where it belongs? It would check to see if the feet have the digi transforms and if so reverse them when necessary. If not, it would do nothing. Put boots on, no spell, no overhead. Easy.

29 minutes ago, Bad Dog said:

Those are much cleaner than the mess I put together.

lol, I do believe that was my mess that you adopted which happens to be in the second pic on the right. It was literally my first retopo attempt, unless you are talking about a different mesh.

1 hour ago, Bad Dog said:

But I found a new way of modeling in blender (nurbs)

StaticPhobia used these for his mods, in theory nurbs produce rounder results on equally edged topology, however; you'll want to pay attention to your topology at UV edges. Making feet enchantments is way easier on outfits, but might produce more edge cases on outfit conversions.

Yeah, and the mesh nurbs create is very clean. Simple rectangles. UVs have to be done by hand anyway.

What's the second point? Easer on outfits how?

so are we seeing morrowind style system of beast races i suppose or how wow handles it's beast races

btw did you check the skydraenei race

it uses it's own custom skeleton (digi , so maybe idk it should help)