Looking for npc animation replacer mods

[Art_B]

Hello I have some combat animations that I want only female npcs or CM partners to use. I am looking for an esp that will easily allow me to do that with the special animations folder. I don't want to just drop them in the _male folder as straight replacer which would cause the player and all npcs to use them

 

I guess what I am looking for is something like this --> http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/28223

 

...but for all animations. Is there a esp out there that does this, or do I to have to make it myself?

 

**EDIT - Solution found. See post #6**

[gregathit]

Art, you are probably better off making your own replacer as that way you can replace only what you want and nothing else.

[Art_B]

Art, you are probably better off making your own replacer as that way you can replace only what you want and nothing else.

Yeah this is what I started to do, but I am having problems. I added the new attack animations to the specialanims folder and checked them with black 'x's in the animations tab for my CM's esp. However, in game, the new  handtohandforward.kf plays in the place of walkforward.kf for some reason and the old one plays when the new one should. And the default handtohandattack.kfs always play instead of the new ones.

 

This does not happen when I replace the animations outright in the _male folder. Everything plays appropriately when it should. So I don't think there is anything wrong with the .kfs. I noticed, in the CS, that the original animations from the '_male' folder appear in the animation tab and stay checked with red checkmarks. There does not seem to be a way to uncheck them. Could this be the problem?

 

Any advice from knowledgeable cs users would be appreciated.

 

EDIT - wait something is fishy BRB.

[Art_B]

OK so do the names of the .kfs always have to have the same file name as the default? I was looking at how Murziks sexy walk mod is named '0sexywalk01.kf' and how the sensual walks mod has names like '0FemaleVariableWalk_Acrobat.kf' and assumed that it was not the case.

[gregathit]

OK so do the names of the .kfs always have to have the same file name as the default? I was looking at how Murziks sexy walk mod is named '0sexywalk01.kf' and how the sensual walks mod has names like '0FemaleVariableWalk_Acrobat.kf' and assumed that it was not the case.

 

 

Take a peek at the sensual walks esp and see how he did it.  I think you can name them anything you like but off the top of my head I am not sure of the steps you need to do to utilize things.  If you can't figure it out by looking at the sensual walks esp the holler and I will play around with things when I am home later this evening.

[Art_B]

Thanks a bunch for for the advice Gregahit. I have found a solution that seems to be working so far which I will share here for other modders. I did quite a bit of googling and did not find exactly what I was looking for so hopefully others who want to do the same thing will be led here. You can use this method to give your female npcs(or any npcs) custom attack animations such as those from FLY_Motions or Princess Stabity without them conflicting with male npcs or the player character.

 

First of all, I discovered that mimicking the methods of female walk/idle replacers such as 'Sensual Walks for Female Npcs' WILL NOT WORK for attack animations, combat idles or weapon-ready movement animations. If you put all those animations in the 'specialanims' folder the game engine does not appear to be able to choose between them and those in the '_male' folder. This will lead to it randomly picking different animations in game for the same actions.

 

For example, if you have a custom jab in the specialanims folder and use the Construction Set to tell the npc to use it, then in game they sometimes use the new jab and other times will use the vanilla jab. There appears to be no way to uncheck the use of animations with the Construct Set. For some reason, the game does not have this issue with the unarmed walkforward and unarmed standing idle. It will prioritize the use of the custom versions of these in the specialanims folder, as long they are checked for the npc in the CS.

 

 

 

How to give a NPC custom animations

 

A workaround to the above issues is to give the npc their own folder in the characters folder, like so: C:\Oblivion\Data\Meshes\Characters\New_Folder

'New_Folder' can be named anything. I used my companions name.

 

In here, you will copy over a skeleton for the NPC to use. Then you must copy over all of the animations in the ' _male' folder, excluding the contents of 'idleanims' and 'specialanims' <--*Disclaiminer* read the bugs section regarding this. After that, copy over all of the new animations you want them to use and over-write. If they have custom names, rename them to the vanilla version first, so that you are sure that it is over-written and gone.

 

In the Construction Set, select the NPC that you want to use the new animations and open their edit window. Select the skeleton that you placed in 'Characters\New_Folder' close and reload the edit window. Open the animations tab and you should see that all of the new animations now have a red check, indicating that the game now knows to use them for the corresponding actions.

 

Note that you have to do this for every npc you want to use the animations in the new folder. As far as I know, there is no way to automatically make all females use the folder's animations. But once the folder is set up, it is pretty quick to link NPCs to it in the CS.

 

 

 

Bugs/issues/Further Testing (READ THIS)

 

1) You are likely going to have some conflicts when you copy over animations from '_male'. I had animations like Sheogorath's various walk animations in my ' _male' folder which was superseding my walkforward in game. Delete anything like this. Also I had a sleepwalking animation that was, for some reason, causing my npc to walk backwards when it wanted to walk forward, resulting in hilarity in game. Be sure to delete that if you have it. You might find other similar conflicts. Look at the animation groups of the .kfs in nifskope to spot possible problems. If two animations have the same group name, it might result in a conflict in game.

 

2) Speaking of animation groups, make sure that the .kfs you are using have the correct ones. I had a seductive idle that I wanted my NPC to use, but in game she would not use it, and was instead playing the turning animation constantly. I found that the seductive idle's group was labeled as a special_idle in nifskope. I changed it to idle and it worked.

 

3) I am not sure if my npc is able to use the animations in '\Characters\_male\idleanims' for actions such as sleeping/eating/scan/checkcorpse and of course lovers. The game may know to use them automatically, but I haven't tested this yet. I removed the 'idleanims' folder from my '\Characters\New_Folder' during troubleshooting to minimize possible conflicts. If it turns out that  my NPC can not use the idleanims from '_male', then I may add a folder to my 'New_Folder' and start carefully adding back animations one at a time to check for conflicts.

 

4) The possible issue with 'idleanims' that I described may also exist with mods that use the 'specialanims' folder. Again, more testing is needed. I am crossing my fingers that there will be no problems.