First, I like a lot of animation choice. So I've downloaded some big packs ass well ass (see what I did there? wink, wink, knudge, knudge) smaller ones. I run FNIS 7.6 XXL and I still get a warning about all my animations. And, much as I like seeing different animations running, there are some that I will never use. Those few are just not to my taste. Can't I just disable them in the MCM? I can almost hear somebody asking. The answer is yes, of course I can. But why do it for every game when I can just do it once and be done?

So I deleted some anims, adjusted the .json and .txt files, and ended up with warnings about number mismatches. Finally, I decided to figure out how to do it properly and cleanly (it works, so I guess I got it right enough). I thought I'd share my process for anyone interested.

Animations you don't like and never use? Why keep them in the mod group?

1.    You can Install the pack in Vortex (I already had these installed, as reflected by the file paths) or extract the contents to another location. Let's call it Queens_Anims. Let's say there are only human actors in this pack and the animations are not categorized further.

2.    Open 4 things:
        The folder  '...Skyrim Special Edition\Data\Meshes\actors\character\animations\Queens_Human
        FNIS_Queens_Human_List.txt in the above folder
        Queens_Human.json in '...Skyrim Special Edition\Data\SLAnims\json'    (use Notepad++)
        Queens_Human.txt in '...Skyrim Special Edition\Data\SLAnims\source'
    ***Notice how they are named exactly the same***

3.    Start w/ Queens_Human.txt because it has the anim name as well as tags, etc. which make it easier to ID the animation you want to delete. Find and highlight the offending animation. Example:

Animation(
    id="Dethroned",
    name="Dethroned",
    tags="Sex,Dirty,Forced,Rape,Furniture,AnimObject,Vaginal,Doggy,Aggressive,Doggystyle,MF,Humiliation,Throne",
    sound=NoSound,
    actor1=Female(add_cum=Vaginal,open_mouth=False,object="Stage01 StageStairs01 Throne01"),
    actor2=Male(strap_on=True),
    a2_stage_params =  [
        Stage(5, up=3.5),
    ],
)

4.    Find and highlight the exact animations in FNIS_Queens_Human_List.txt

' Queens_Dethroned
s -o Queens_Dethroned_A1_S1 Dethroned_A1_s1.hkx Stage01 StageStairs01 Throne01
+ -o Queens_Dethroned_A1_S2 Dethroned_A1_s2.hkx Stage01 StageStairs01 Throne01
+ -o Queens_Dethroned_A1_S3 Dethroned_A1_s3.hkx Stage01 StageStairs01 Throne01
+ -o Queens_Dethroned_A1_S4 Dethroned_A1_s4.hkx Stage01 StageStairs01 Throne01
+ -o Queens_Dethroned_A1_S5 Dethroned_A1_s5.hkx Stage01 StageStairs01 Throne01
s Queens_Dethroned_A2_S1 Dethroned_A2_s1.hkx
+ Queens_Dethroned_A2_S2 Dethroned_A2_s2.hkx
+ Queens_Dethroned_A2_S3 Dethroned_A2_s3.hkx
+ Queens_Dethroned_A2_S4 Dethroned_A2_s4.hkx
+ Queens_Dethroned_A2_S5 Dethroned_A2_s5.hkx

5.    Find and highlight the exact animations in the Queens_Human folder

Dethroned_A1_s1.hkx
Dethroned_A1_s2.hkx
Dethroned_A1_s3.hkx
Dethroned_A1_s4.hkx
Dethroned_A1_s5.hkx
Dethroned_A2_s1.hkx
Dethroned_A2_s2.hkx
Dethroned_A2_s3.hkx
Dethroned_A2_s4.hkx
Dethroned_A2_s5.hkx

6.    Find and highlight the corresponding section in Queens_Human.json

    {
      "actors": [
        {
          "add_cum": 1,
          "stages": [
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A1_S1",
              "open_mouth": false
            },
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A1_S2",
              "open_mouth": false
            },
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A1_S3",
              "open_mouth": false
            },
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A1_S4",
              "open_mouth": false
            },
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A1_S5",
              "open_mouth": false
            }
          ],
          "type": "Female"
        },
        {
          "stages": [
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A2_S1",
              "strap_on": true
            },
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A2_S2",
              "strap_on": true
            },
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A2_S3",
              "strap_on": true
            },
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A2_S4",
              "strap_on": true
            },
            {
              "id": "Queens_Dethroned_A2_S5",
              "strap_on": true,
              "up": 3.5
            }
          ],
          "type": "Male"
        }
      ],
      "id": "Queens_Dethroned",
      "name": "Queens Dethroned",
      "sound": "none",
      "tags": "Queens,Sex,Dirty,Forced,Rape,Furniture,AnimObject,Vaginal,Doggy,Aggressive,Doggystyle,MF,Humiliation,Throne"
    }
  ],

    ***Make sure, if it's the last animation, you don't accidentally include the final 2 lines:
          "name": "Queens_Human"
        }

7.    Doublecheck that everything matches up and then delete. You'll notice that the.json and .txt files are in the same order (usually) but the animation .hks files are going to be in alphabetical order or however you organize stuff in folders. In Queens_Human.txt, if you want to keep track of what was deleted, you can 1) create a Docs folder with a Deletions.txt file, cut the animation from Queens_Human.txt and paste it into QueensDeletions.txt or 2) comment it out by putting '#' in front of every line like this:
#Animation(
#   id="Dethroned",
#  name="Dethroned",
#    tags="Sex,Dirty,Forced,Rape,Furniture,AnimObject,Vaginal,Doggy,Aggressive,Doggystyle,MF,Humiliation,Throne",
#    sound=NoSound,
#    actor1=Female(add_cum=Vaginal,open_mouth=False,object="Stage01 StageStairs01 Throne01"),
#    actor2=Male(strap_on=True),
#    a2_stage_params =  [
#        Stage(5, up=3.5),
#    ],
#)

8.    Save all your documents. If using Vortex, deploy and confirm that you want to delete files or use newer. Then run FNIS. You will probably see a warning about a number mismatch, that's ok. We'll address it later. You do want to see if there are any other warnings. If not, exit and deploy. This step can be done after every animation removal, after several, or after all removals. Kind of depends on animation pack size, how many you want to remove, or just your preference.

    ***If the SLAL Animation pack has multiple folders, do the above one folder at a time. There will be an animation folder, .txt and .json files for each one.***
    ***creature animations are organized by creature then by animation pack, so if the SLAL creature pack has animations for 8 different creatures, then you'll have 1 .json file, 1 .txt file in source, 8 animation folders and 8 ...List.txt files.

9.    After you have done Step 8 for the final time, you are ready to get rid of that annoying number mismatch warning. Time to create a new FNIS_Queens_Human_Behavior.hkx file to replace the one in '...Skyrim Special Edition\Data\Meshes\actors\character\behaviors'.
    Go to '...Skyrim Special Edition\Data\tools\GenerateFNIS_for_Modders' and click 'GenerateFNISforModders.exe'. A blue box will appear. Now click the 'Generate Mod Behaviour' button. Find and select 'Queens_Human'. Enter. You should see this in the log box:
    "Animlist used: C:\Gaming\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\Data\Meshes\actors\character\animations\Queens_Human\FNIS_Queens_Human_List.txt
    Reading Animation List ...
    Generating FNIS mod Behavior File xml...
    Converting mod Behavior xml to hkx ...
    Copying new behavior files to standard folder ...
     94 animations for1 mods successfully included ()

    FNIS_Queens_Human_Behavior.hkx successfully created."

    ***Every FNIS...List.txt file should have a corresponding FNIS...Behaviour.hkx file.

If you receive an error 2012, you might have a problem with your file names. You can't have a space.
    Queens_Human is OK.
    QueensHuman is OK.
    Queens Human is NOT OK.
Remove the space from the folder and file names, rerun 'FNIS for Users', deploy. Vortex's message might indicate you're deleting thousands of files, but that's because of the folder name change. Confirm.
    ***If you did not make any changes other than folder and file names, you don't need to create another behavior.hkx file, but you will need to go into behaviors and change the name of the behavior file to match.
Try 'GenerateFNISforModders.exe' again. If the name was the only issue, you should be good to go.

10. Now when you rerun 'FNIS for Users' you should no longer see a warning about a number mismatch. If you do, you need to doublecheck your work to see if you missed deleting something or deleted an animation file too many.

11. If you use Vortex, open the mod staging folder (use the tab on the mods page) and find Queens_Human. Zip it up, rename the archive (I just add LITE to the end, 'Queens_Anims LITE') and move it to your Vortex/downloads/skyrimse folder so you have it available and ready to reinstall. If you extracted the contents to somewhere else earlier, do the same. I add my Docs folder with the deletions file to the archive for easy reference. Just make sure that you call it 'Queens_Anims deletions.txt' and not just 'deletions.txt' or you'll have a lot of conflicts when you install - assuming you make multiple animation packs 'LITE'.