[WIP]Mermaids

[ArielFetters]

Heyas, found the 'real life' mermaids I mentioned earlier.

 

 

(LOUD, turn down your speakers for this one)

 

Hope those help

 

 

[mantaman]

I haven't changed the swimleft and swimright animations, so they're still vanilla and don't work with a tail. As for the body, I've managed to convert the mermaid body into an armour but the texture's all wrong, so now I have to find out how the BodySlide thingy works. I don't like the idea of binding the tail to one leg only, the mesh looks fine but the body's all crooked.

 

oh, suludi, you'r fixing the broken body slide?

[firepower02]

That's great, I hope there is a way to bind the mermaid swim animations only to mermaid's race. In your case, only when wearing a mermaid tail armor. They would also automatically equip the mermaid tail armor when swimming, and unequip when not. This would be easy to do with packages. The legs transforming into tail would be difficult, because the way the game's script work is not immediate, it takes some time for it to realize if a condition has been filled, if you have meddled you would know this, I am hoping I'm wrong.

If you make underwater water combat animations, do you think mermaids can have underwater combat? I tested many times, and the only spells that work are those bind with z button that doesn't have any animations. Right, left or both hands spell don't work, maybe it's the lack of animatons.

[mantaman]

That's great, I hope there is a way to bind the mermaid swim animations only to mermaid's race. In your case, only when wearing a mermaid tail armor. They would also automatically equip the mermaid tail armor when swimming, and unequip when not. This would be easy to do with packages. The legs transforming into tail would be difficult, because the way the game's script work is not immediate, it takes some time for it to realize if a condition has been filled, if you have meddled you would know this, I am hoping I'm wrong.

If you make underwater water combat animations, do you think mermaids can have underwater combat? I tested many times, and the only spells that work are those bind with z button that doesn't have any animations. Right, left or both hands spell don't work, maybe it's the lack of animatons.

 

you just reminded me, if the tail will be armour, can it be armoured?

 

btw, no lie on the beach, and dry for legs?

 

and finally, can we actually give mers a whole animation set for themselves?

[jussmee]

this is really cool. the only issue is that no one has done a under water combat mod yet. i remember seeing a youtube video of it, but he couldnt get it for third person

[firepower02]

you just reminded me, if the tail will be armour, can it be armoured?

What do you mean can it be armored? You mean if the tail is set as an armor, can the mermaid wear other armors? Yes, if the armor don't have the same slot # why not.

 

 

btw, no lie on the beach, and dry for legs?

I'm hoping there will be, but the way the game responds to condtions is slow. If you set the mermaid to equip a tail when swimming, it will take some time for the game to realize the mermaid is swimming, and unquip it when not swimming, it will also take some time for the game to know. Imagine if you keep going back and forth from land to water. I hope you experiment with that sort of stuff so you would know. Or maybe you could even discover a way for it to work smoothly.

 

 

and finally, can we actually give mers a whole animation set for themselves?

Suludi already made mermaid swimming animations, it just need to be set exclusively for a specific (mermaid) race. I think she is also working on underwater combat animations. I have also suggested before a mermaid flopping animation, so we can see mermaids flop on land.

 

 

[mantaman]

 

you just reminded me, if the tail will be armour, can it be armoured?

What do you mean can it be armored? You mean if the tail is set as an armor, can the mermaid wear other armors? Yes, if the armor don't have the same slot # why not.

 

 

btw, no lie on the beach, and dry for legs?

I'm hoping there will be, but the way the game responds to condtions is slow. If you set the mermaid to equip a tail when swimming, it will take some time for the game to realize the mermaid is swimming, and unquip it when not swimming, it will also take some time for the game to know. Imagine if you keep going back and forth from land to water. I hope you experiment with that sort of stuff so you would know. Or maybe you could even discover a way for it to work smoothly.

 

 

and finally, can we actually give mers a whole animation set for themselves?

Suludi already made mermaid swimming animations, it just need to be set exclusively for a specific (mermaid) race. I think she is also working on underwater combat animations. I have also suggested before a mermaid flopping animation, so we can see mermaids flop on land.

 

well, what i meant was, if the tail counts as armour, can armour made for the tail overlap it? (ex. mermaid whearing one legged pants)

 

and someone made a swimsuit switch mod for skyrim, i'll look into it

 

and personally, i prefer crawling mermaids over flopping ones, the crawling would be easier to animate, since motion is fairly constant, and the tail can just ragdoll behind, well, it depends on what version of the army crawl this is, but fairly constant movement

[firepower02]

I've looked into the esp of the flying mod on nexus. The author created new flying races that have different set of animations. In the Body Data tab of the race, it has a different path for the Behavior Graph. actors\charfly\defaultmale.hkx instead of the default Actors\Character\DefaultMale.hkx. I'm thinking the "defaultmale.hkx" file is something like a set of animations. Maybe if we do the same thing for the mermaid animations, then it will be possible for the mermaid race to have animations only specific to them. More animations would also be needed for the sitting down, drinking, fighting, etc, but it could just be copied from the vanilla, but slightly altered to suit a mermaid. I think the animations that is important is for the underwater combat, and other interactions. The land animations could just be copied from the normal human edited slightly.

 

The transformation part would be, a normal humanoid with a mermaid transformation ability, then if the condition is swimming or is raining is met, then it will transform into the mermaid race, I don't know about the legs transforming into a tail, but I'm ok with just a flash of light. This is the easy part, the things needed are the mermaid underwater and land animations and the mermaid tail meshes.

[mantaman]

I've looked into the esp of the flying mod on nexus. The author created new flying races that have different set of animations. In the Body Data tab of the race, it has a different path for the Behavior Graph. actors\charfly\defaultmale.hkx instead of the default Actors\Character\DefaultMale.hkx. I'm thinking the "defaultmale.hkx" file is something like a set of animations. Maybe if we do the same thing for the mermaid animations, then it will be possible for the mermaid race to have animations only specific to them. More animations would also be needed for the sitting down, drinking, fighting, etc, but it could just be copied from the vanilla, but slightly altered to suit a mermaid. I think the animations that is important is for the underwater combat, and other interactions. The land animations could just be copied from the normal human edited slightly.

 

The transformation part would be, a normal humanoid with a mermaid transformation ability, then if the condition is swimming or is raining is met, then it will transform into the mermaid race, I don't know about the legs transforming into a tail, but I'm ok with just a flash of light. This is the easy part, the things needed are the mermaid underwater and land animations and the mermaid tail meshes.

oi, do the flying races have attack animations, whilst flying?

[firepower02]

yes why?

[mantaman]

yes why?

hmmm, i was thinkin bout copying those anims for swimming, but naw,

 

btw, i got oblivion, and im not sure how anim conversion will work, since oblivion splits the anims up into diff parts, and skyrim uses one anim per action

[firepower02]

Why not just make new animations?

Btw, since the game's conditon is slow to determine when a character is swimming or not, there will be a few seconds of flopping,crawling on land before transformation. That's if we have flopping/crawling animations created for mermaids.

[mantaman]

Why not just make new animations?

Btw, since the game's conditon is slow to determine when a character is swimming or not, there will be a few seconds of flopping,crawling on land before transformation. That's if we have flopping/crawling animations created for mermaids.

 

oi, completely new ones would be kind of difficult, i mean, the vanilla attack animations can be used, the lower body can be just use its swim anims while the upper body uses attack anims

 

and crawling anims might be necessary if we have mermaids transforming in the rain

 

oi, and wheres Suludi been? i havent seen her here in a while?

[firepower02]

If there's no crawling animations, mermaids can't move on land. They will have to wait until they gain legs.

[mantaman]

If there's no crawling animations, mermaids can't move on land. They will have to wait until they gain legs.

man, that would be too impractical, there are a few peeps who never wait/fasttravel, and being immobilized randomly in the forest is just death

[Halstrom]

If there's no crawling animations, mermaids can't move on land. They will have to wait until they gain legs.

man, that would be too impractical, there are a few peeps who never wait/fasttravel, and being immobilized randomly in the forest is just death

 

Well those people always have the option to learn to animate and fix the problem

[mantaman]

 

 

If there's no crawling animations, mermaids can't move on land. They will have to wait until they gain legs.

man, that would be too impractical, there are a few peeps who never wait/fasttravel, and being immobilized randomly in the forest is just death

 

Well those people always have the option to learn to animate and fix the problem

 

oi, thats true, actually, im trying to figure out how animations even work in skyrim, but i have no idea how to open them in blender, or even move the camera in blender

[Suludi]

 

Why not just make new animations?

Btw, since the game's conditon is slow to determine when a character is swimming or not, there will be a few seconds of flopping,crawling on land before transformation. That's if we have flopping/crawling animations created for mermaids.

 

oi, completely new ones would be kind of difficult, i mean, the vanilla attack animations can be used, the lower body can be just use its swim anims while the upper body uses attack anims

 

and crawling anims might be necessary if we have mermaids transforming in the rain

 

oi, and wheres Suludi been? i havent seen her here in a while?

 

 

Suludi is here, just very busy IRL.

 

And you can't simply walk into Mordor combine old and new animations, we have to create entirely new stuff. That's why it's taking me so horribly long.

 

[firepower02]

man, that would be too impractical, there are a few peeps who never wait/fasttravel, and being immobilized randomly in the forest is just death

 

Well, since there is currently no mermaid crawling animations, yet. Death is just gonna have to do for you for now. Alternatively, you can carry an umbrella, or other lore friendly equivalent of umbrella in skyrim, so you don't get wet, and don't transform a tail. Suludi is right, you can't just convert old animations into skyrim. I hope she will be making all of those mermaid animations and the mermaid tail mesh. I think the file defaultmale.hkx is where it dictates what animations of a certain race would use.

[Monsto Brukes]

 

I dunno if Tail animation's have been finished, but I had an idea that might look good and work alright. It's a multi-stage thing but here goes.

 

1) Body animations from the hips up would be classic mer-style (There's actual mermaid tails you can get that not only look incredible, but are functional. Watching vids of those on youtube could help.)

2) The tail would have multiple bones and NO animations, but WOULD be physics capable with high weights, maybe HDT or something. That way it'll respond to the movements of the body, but would also maybe 'flow' better in the water and would mean less work on the total body animations.

 

As for how to get on and off land, maybe crawl, spend X amount of time on land, poof there you go. If you wanna go for realism, have it kill your stamina and unequip all items.

nice idea, but the physics thingy wont be possible due to the nature of HDT i guess. it wont detect water and will always tend to fall down i.e. the tail will fall down even when the body is aligned horizontally movement will most likely make it flutter all over the place, beside there is no inside-water/outside-water detection in HDT.

 

 

Actually, I think it won't work because the mermaid tail is used for propulsion. If it just kinda 'reacts' to upper body movement, then it would look wholly unnatural.

[firepower02]

Seriosuly I don't get where you got the idea of the tail having no animations and only respond to the movement of the upper body. Why woud you think it would look good and work right? It would look lifeless and would seem like hair. It has bone and muscle and it is used for propulsion, so it needs animations. I don't know why you are so worried about changing the way the tail moves, because the swimming animations have already been covered, and the author did a great job. Thanks but no thanks to your embarassing suggestion.

[mantaman]

firepower is gonna verbally right hook banana, holy shit

 

but yeah, guys, are we talking about mounting the whole mermesh on a new skeleton?

 

[Suludi]

I was planning to make a new body but I'm totally incompetent and can't weightpaint the mesh to the bones, so I'm going for the tail as a piece of armour. Which will solve the problem of changing from tail to legs when getting out of the water. It won't be an automatic change (which is why I'm now flirting with a dolphin-like jump animation...).

[mantaman]

I was planning to make a new body but I'm totally incompetent and can't weightpaint the mesh to the bones, so I'm going for the tail as a piece of armour. Which will solve the problem of changing from tail to legs when getting out of the water. It won't be an automatic change (which is why I'm now flirting with a dolphin-like jump animation...).

 

heeey, thats how Ashara's sirens and tritons mod handled the mermaid transformation problem, only problem was, the tail had almost no movement in it.

[firepower02]

Does that mean there would be no new mermaid race, just a humanoid race that's wearing a tail? That would mean everyone would swim like a mermaid, unless we can somehow get them to use the mermaid swim animations only when equipped with a tail.