Animations appear in game "floating" above ground

[PontiffPrick]

I've been working on a mod, for which I've created an animation. The animation is a 240 frame long animation of the sim kneeling on the floor, however when I play this animation in game, the sim "floats" above the ground in that animation.

 

In blender, I tried to line up the rig with the ground (0,0,0) coordinates, so I'm not too sure what the problem is. Has anyone got any idea about what this could be?

[landess]

Are there options to choose the rigs 'point of reference'?

 

I'm thinking of things like working high heels - most EA default animations are properly raised and function normally, while other animations - usually custom animations and not EA default - will have the sim feet/heels sink into the ground as if they weren't 'raised' by them.

 

The 'smoking' animation will flip flop between a 'sunken heel' during the inhale part, then it suddenly pops back to the proper height during a standing animation in between 'hits'.

 

Many of the KW sex animations cause a sim wearing heels to sink into the floor by the same amount the heels raises them - even laying down animations.

 

I've often wondered myself why this happens and it sounds like you yourself are in the middle of an effect somewhat the same.

 

Do you have the ability to open EA default animations, like when they sit on the ground and see if there's a different setting during that particular sequence?

 

I've been thinking about learning to animate but haven't got up the willpower to subject myself to another discipline with all the knowledge required to be proficient. Your post reminds me why I knew I've been putting it off - not as simple as it could be.

[PontiffPrick]

22 hours ago, landess said:

Are there options to choose the rigs 'point of reference'?

 

I'm thinking of things like working high heels - most EA default animations are properly raised and function normally, while other animations - usually custom animations and not EA default - will have the sim feet/heels sink into the ground as if they weren't 'raised' by them.

 

The 'smoking' animation will flip flop between a 'sunken heel' during the inhale part, then it suddenly pops back to the proper height during a standing animation in between 'hits'.

 

Many of the KW sex animations cause a sim wearing heels to sink into the floor by the same amount the heels raises them - even laying down animations.

 

I've often wondered myself why this happens and it sounds like you yourself are in the middle of an effect somewhat the same.

 

Do you have the ability to open EA default animations, like when they sit on the ground and see if there's a different setting during that particular sequence?

 

I've been thinking about learning to animate but haven't got up the willpower to subject myself to another discipline with all the knowledge required to be proficient. Your post reminds me why I knew I've been putting it off - not as simple as it could be.

 

So I did some research and came upon this thread made a couple years ago (I really am late to the party with starting my modding career ?).

I imagine there was just some issue with the initial blender project; when I copy and pasted the animation into a clean project, it worked perfectly. A very simple fix that I spent too long on trying to figure out.

 

In regards to the heels, in my totally noob animator opinion, I think what happens is that the heels change the height of the sim. This changes the location of the "root joint" which means animations created without those heels then end up adjusting the sim in game - if that makes any sense.

In other words, I think you're right in assuming that my problem is linked to that one different problems relating to the same thin. In both cases the root is the root cause.

Spoiler

sorry 

 

I understand exactly what you mean, I'm a programmer - animation is such a daunting thing to me, not to mention extremely time consuming. I'm literally only doing the basics to be able to implement something into my mod (I'm secretly hoping someone that likes it after release might even want to help me out with animations - cheeky, I know). I've been trying to make a sexy crawl animation to replace the walking animation and it honestly looks more robotic then the EA's default robot animations.

That said, now is a good as time as any - this game is sorely lacking in any new custom content and it would certainly be nice knowing I wasn't the only one suffering with learning this stuff. 

[landess]

1 hour ago, PontiffPrick said:

heels change the height of the sim. This changes the location of the "root joint" which means animations created without those heels then end up adjusting the sim in game - if that makes any sense

It makes perfect sense, and is why I mentioned that most all EA default animations, walking, chatting, running, pretty much everything done while standing and even sleeping animations DON'T suffer any height problems while a sim IS using heels. The height adjustment made by heels doesn't affect these 'default' animations while most custom animations end up with improper heights.

 

This is the point I'm making: For whatever reason - The default animations seem to accept the height adjustment while custom animations (mostly) don't, which leads me to believe the default's have a particular setting which accommodates it while custom animations are lacking some key information.

 

We all know custom content creators lack the support of the rest of the development team and without key knowledge which is not readily apparent we end up with animations, objects, clothing, which is less than they could be.

[Clydie]

8 hours ago, PontiffPrick said:

nice knowing I wasn't the only one suffering with learning this stuff. 

No, you are not......

Do not understand exactly what you trying to do and how you want to have your animation played in the game.

Do you develop some stand alone mod ?

Because as to my experience -and I do not look through this exactly- there are ITUN or JAZZ files or even inside the S3SA which sometimes

change the animations. So you could see even movements, you never implement in your animations in Blender.

For me the easiest way to test animations is, to write an OKW XML and test it then with passion.

If your actor shall just crawl or sit on the floor, it should be easy to implement and test your animation with passion on a (very) small world with

less population. (loading time saving)

Making animations is really, really time consuming and you need lot of patience....

 

On that height issue (i.e. shoes) I personally suspect more the engine what is used to play animations in the game.

KW and Passion have one or more implemented, then the stand alone animation player and for the game itself.

In addition the game animations player(s) allow some options on how the animations shall play or limit the bones to move......

Tried to let the breasts move while walking or running in game. Everything was working fine in Blender or passion, but the base game took it not over. So you do not see it in the game.

 

 

[PontiffPrick]

11 hours ago, Clydie said:

No, you are not......

Do not understand exactly what you trying to do and how you want to have your animation played in the game.

Do you develop some stand alone mod ?

Because as to my experience -and I do not look through this exactly- there are ITUN or JAZZ files or even inside the S3SA which sometimes

change the animations. So you could see even movements, you never implement in your animations in Blender.

For me the easiest way to test animations is, to write an OKW XML and test it then with passion.

If your actor shall just crawl or sit on the floor, it should be easy to implement and test your animation with passion on a (very) small world with

less population. (loading time saving)

Making animations is really, really time consuming and you need lot of patience....

 

 

Yep, I'm writing my own mod :)

I wanted a custom animation to play when a custom SocialInteraction occurs between two sims.

As I approach the whole modding process from a coding perspective, I first write whatever the animation is used for and then put the animation into the game, calling it usually by PlaySoloAnimation() or the State Machine if it's got multiple actors.

The problem I was having was that there was some sort of issue with blender itself - either I wasn't using it correctly, or it was exporting the animation with incorrect root coordinates. When I copy and pasted the joints into a fresh project and exported that, the animation appeared as I wanted it to. I have no idea why this works as I'd have assumed the position of the root would have been copied over too but it just works and I wont question it lol. 

 

Quote

On that height issue (i.e. shoes) I personally suspect more the engine what is used to play animations in the game.

KW and Passion have one or more implemented, then the stand alone animation player and for the game itself.

In addition the game animations player(s) allow some options on how the animations shall play or limit the bones to move......

Tried to let the breasts move while walking or running in game. Everything was working fine in Blender or passion, but the base game took it not over. So you do not see it in the game.

 

That's very interesting, it never occurred to me that Oniki or the Passion team may have added their own animation player into the game. I wonder why? In my mod I use the default one.

It's probably because it's far easier to tweak their own player to meet their needs.

[PontiffPrick]

18 hours ago, landess said:

It makes perfect sense, and is why I mentioned that most all EA default animations, walking, chatting, running, pretty much everything done while standing and even sleeping animations DON'T suffer any height problems while a sim IS using heels. The height adjustment made by heels doesn't affect these 'default' animations while most custom animations end up with improper heights.

 

This is the point I'm making: For whatever reason - The default animations seem to accept the height adjustment while custom animations (mostly) don't, which leads me to believe the default's have a particular setting which accommodates it while custom animations are lacking some key information.

 

We all know custom content creators lack the support of the rest of the development team and without key knowledge which is not readily apparent we end up with animations, objects, clothing, which is less than they could be.

I think Clydie may be onto something, perhaps Oniki or the Passion team implement their own animation players into the game?

[Clydie]

12 hours ago, PontiffPrick said:

Yep, I'm writing my own mod

I wanted a custom animation to play when a custom SocialInteraction occurs between two sims.

As I approach the whole modding process from a coding perspective

Interesting ! I am curious with what it will end up.

I myself came just from the other side and I am simply trying to learn about animations and how to implement them into the mods

(mostly KW and/or Passion) . So I pass here. I am not able to help, except a little for animations itself maybe.

I am not sure, if Passion or KW implement a complete animation player, but at least different ways to manipulate the animation player used.

Read a lot about problems of actor sync where people have/had trouble with and know Oniki and Twilightstorm touched the way how animations

play in their mod several times.

 

[Guest]

On 8/23/2020 at 7:29 PM, PontiffPrick said:

In both cases the root is the root cause.

Bonedeltas... I only know a little of the details of how they work, but if you open a garment or shoes in s3pe, you will see 5 listings for "BOND". There IS a replacement BOND for height altering shoes, which has 56 adjustments, as EA has only 53. 2 are for foot height, and the 3rd IS for rootbind. Also, there are adjustments that control arm position. The FemmeBot/ Plumbot that I am working on had an issue of the arms clipping into the hips. I found that some dresses, the arms were away from the body, and replaced the BONDs of my project, and it worked.

 

More to animation heights, in older Animated WooHoo animations, there was a "teen height fix" contained in the xml's, as teens are smaller than adults, and this would correct alignment. This option is missing from KW animations.

 

I have tried to add this to some KW animations, with very limited success, including to add a height fix that allows for female sims wearing height altering shoes. BUT, such can never be perfect, as all shoe heights vary.

On 8/23/2020 at 8:38 PM, landess said:

The default animations seem to accept the height adjustment

When you say default, you must not be including woohoo animations? As I mentioned, sim height with heels is controlled by bonedeltas, heel height by modified bonedeltas, and rootbind in general. Animators "zero" adjust the rootbind and modified BONDs are ignored... unless the creator includes a height fix.

On 8/24/2020 at 3:28 PM, PontiffPrick said:

The problem I was having was that there was some sort of issue with blender itself

On this, it MAY be the version of Blender, as I understand that some do not play well with animations. (((

[landess]

4 hours ago, LadySmoks said:

When you say default, you must not be including woohoo animations?

All default 'woohoo' animations are done 'under sheets', under hot-tub water, or inside objects like treehouses, elevators, etc. which have no 'visual animations' (which if one tries to view are met with a mosaic or if mosaic removed - nothing resembling a proper animation). When I say default I mean ANY EA animations - walking, sitting, lying on a bed reading/making out, using most any object in game - mailboxes, bicycles, washing dishes - you get the idea. When an EA default animation is triggered while wearing heels which do affect sim height, everything works correctly. When triggering most all custom animations while wearing heels - there is an alignment problem.

 

My point I was trying to make is if one opens up a default animation in Blender (if possible) they may be able to see exactly what rules for animation rigging are being used, and extrapolate knowledge to allow their own custom animation to function properly. In this case if the sim in question 'floats' above the ground while kneeling, then perhaps there is another value referencing a particular location for the rigging to use for attachment to the ground, even if it must be changed partially into the animation sequence itself. Sims sit on the ground, kneel while gardening, petting animals, etc. so there must be a reference being overlooked.

 

When I raise the height of objects being used like a chair, hot-tub, etc. from it's default location, a sim WILL float up into the air - pathing on nothing - to reach it and then it is 'used' normally.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, landess said:

EA default animation is triggered while wearing heels which do affect sim height, everything works correctly.

JoshQ would know the actual mechanics. I just know that (as I understand it) there was something in the way the bonedeltas in TS3 were set up, which allowed the addition of 3 more adjustments... 54, 55 and 56, which are 2 foot roots, and 1 root bind, that are what raise the sim. All I have is a chart, I think by cmomoney or Cmar? I think that I read in one of Josh's blogs that he doesn't do TS4 because there's no way to lift the sim?

 

So, I imagine basics like walking are tied to those bonedeltas. Now, as I mentioned, some of the older Animated Woohoo animations had a "teen height fix" in the xmls. That was set to .06 or .08? The purpose was to align teens with adults in the pelvis area for the animations. I think THAT might be a good place to start regarding how height can be changed in custom animations, and I believe that the Lady666 animations are of that type. )))

[PontiffPrick]

On 8/26/2020 at 10:49 PM, LadySmoks said:

Bonedeltas... I only know a little of the details of how they work, but if you open a garment or shoes in s3pe, you will see 5 listings for "BOND". There IS a replacement BOND for height altering shoes, which has 56 adjustments, as EA has only 53. 2 are for foot height, and the 3rd IS for rootbind. Also, there are adjustments that control arm position. The FemmeBot/ Plumbot that I am working on had an issue of the arms clipping into the hips. I found that some dresses, the arms were away from the body, and replaced the BONDs of my project, and it worked.

 

More to animation heights, in older Animated WooHoo animations, there was a "teen height fix" contained in the xml's, as teens are smaller than adults, and this would correct alignment. This option is missing from KW animations.

 

I have tried to add this to some KW animations, with very limited success, including to add a height fix that allows for female sims wearing height altering shoes. BUT, such can never be perfect, as all shoe heights vary.

 

So what exactly are Bonedeltas? Is it the elevation/rotational data for the rig?

If so, that seems like exactly what my problem was - will have to look into it. Thanks LadySmoks!

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, PontiffPrick said:

So what exactly are Bonedeltas?

I make things, but really have no clue what I'm doing half of the time! I know that in game, bonedeltas affect things like foot world and root bind position, as the addition of 3 adjustments to the bone delta is what allows for height altering heels. I also know it affects arm position relative to being close, or away from the body, as I tracked this down while making my FemmeBots, as the arms would be inside of the thighs.

 

But, you also may find an answer in Lady666's animations, as they were originally for Animated Woohoo, and contain the teen height fix in the xml.