Animation Mods

[Myst42]

Hi, umm

 

I couple of weeks ago my computer died, and resurrected it e few weeks later

But I decided to reinstall Oblivion cause after two years and many failed modding experiments, my oblivion folder was a mess

 

In fact it has been my little project since I started playing Oblivion and collecting mods, to have everything packaged and ordered, for me to be able to install everything in perfect order including the most awesome mods there are.

 

The first phases are complete and I have body, armor and clothing replacers (my own compilations and designs I plan on releasing once Im done), A lot of game extenders (this is where I grouped OBSE, OBGE, NifSE and whatever other utility mods use, Cobl, MenuQue... etc...) And the hardest part was getting environmental changes (I had to order mods like Better Cities, Natural Environments, Unique Landscapes, Lush & Gaudy texture replacers, Alive Waters, Liquid Water OBGE and a shitload of large mods to make large game changes)

 

Now ive come to what i think is the final phase and I think the most difficult so far: Animations

 

I just cant decide, there are mods like "Deadly Reflex", "Unnecessary Violence II", "Natural Walk", "Combat Animation Overhaul", "DMC Stylish Animations"...

But ive been busy and tired so im a bit confused here

 

 

WHAT I WANT: I want to have almost every vanilla animation replaced, especially the standing idles (which suck and have very little style in vanilla concept), i want the feature of using dual wielded weapons (present in Unnecessary Violence II) I want that "See you Sleep" mod working and if possible full body first person view.

Dont care much about mutilation and gore, I like it but I dont need it  but I guess is the only  way of getting the some of the other features in "Deadly Reflex"

Of course the basic animations I want replaced are standing idles, weapon idles running, walking and turning

Im trying to find realistic animations, not too much anime based because there are not that believable 

I want animation that look cool and badass but lore-friendly, immersive, that make you believe someone could have a stance like that being a mage or a warrior.

Im also aiming for unisex animations (I saw "Pretty Woman" and "Woman's Move" an they are girl-only, so its kinda weird seeing all macho masculine male typed guards standing and running like pretty girls)

 

 

THE ROAD SO FAR: I downloaded a shitload of mods to change these things, still packaged because of time. A long time ago I played only with "Natural Walk" and "DMC Stylish Animations"

I tweaked a bit those stylish because for example i didnt like the forward onehanded power attack anim, which was a 3 meters high jump with a roll and a landing sword strike, and it was too slow and too unreal and I just didnt like it so I changed it by the twohanded power attack which was a horizontal sword slash and looked a helluva lot better.

I made changes like these and combined and experimented... but still not happy

I got the idea of adding "See you Sleep DLL" and "Immersive First Person View", but they have a certain incompatibility. "Immersive First Person View" came with a set of animations that replaced 1st person by 3rd, sleep among them, and it caused weird issues when using with "See you Sleep DLL"

I tried "P-Froggy's First Person" (that one doesnt replace sleep) and it caused some other weird issue related to weapon speed that made me discard it.

I had another bad experience when having "Liquid Water OBGE" activated at the same time that "Actors In Emotions"

Emotions cristal didnt do nothing when the other one was active

No idea why, one is a special "pose" mod and the other is an environmental mod

 

More recently I got the idea of trying a mod like "Unnecessary Violence II", "Deadly Reflex" and "Midas Magic"

 

But these are very very large mods that change a lot, and my main issue is i have doubts with compatibility issues

Im not sure in which order I should mix them, which files I should keep and which ones I should replace etc...

 

 

WHAT IM ASKING: Just a bit of guidance before starting this insane task, a little advice on you experiences with animation mods

Answers to questions like Is it possible to make see you sleep compatible with first person view?

What are youre experiences?

Which mods do you use the most, which ones do you like the most and which ones do you think are best and most compatible?

[Myst42]

Ok... thank you very much for your enlightening knowledge adbot!

Probably my bad in making such a big question

I only wanted some recommendations but I started anyway...

 

Different idea

 

Now I was trying to test and fix some compatibilities

Currently Im stuck in testing Deadly Reflex and Unnecessary Violence II

 

QUESTION:

How the hell do you use the shield/offhand weapon on back function in UV?

I had installed latest NifSE, then I reverted to 1.0

Somewhere says "Hold UV action key and then tap the holster weapon key"

NOTHING happens

 

Im getting very frustrated

 

Any help?

Pleeeeeease???

[gregathit]

I "think" TheMadGod used both DR6 and UV2 together but mostly folks just went with one or the other and didn't try to use both due to conflicts.

 

As to the OP.....yea, that was a bit overwhelming to try to tackle.  You'll likely get faster answers by just posting one comparison with another and then keep adding to it once you get one issue answered.

 

Combining animations from various mods is a bit complex and you are not likely to get much in the way of detailed answers.  There are a bunch of steps and hurdles to overcome (meaning a wall of text) and if you are not all that familiar with the CS and also with manually switching stuff out then you'll quickly be in over your head.

[Myst42]

Im familiar with other features of the CS, not animations or scripts 

If only i knew where to start...

 

If i had to choose I think Iwd go with UVII, DR6 doesnt have dual wielding, and I like dual wielding

But I reeeeeeally wanted to use that sheath on back feature and it doesnt seem to work

Checked the manual again:

"Stow or ready shield or OH weapon on back - hold action, tap ready weapon"

Dats textual

AND NOTHING HAPPENS!!!!!!!         

Ok ill try to contact the MadGod..

 

After Im done with this I have to do a systematic review of animations for walking, running jumping weapon idles and possibly some attacks

... so tired...

 

[RitualClarity]

Ah now I see why you are madder than usual. 

All of that can drive anybody bonkers.

[Myst42]

Yes indeed, indeed it can...

[Poontank]

A while ago a mod got released I was using for some time then. It allowed dual-wielding (almost) any pair of melee weapons with one of them at the side and the other one sheathed on the back. Maximum potential for weird combos... Still has its limits though (weapons with attached scripts for example).

 

There were additional perks included like dual enchantments and tweaks to speed and range of the combined weapons.

The 'DMC Stylish - Sword Dancer' animation add-on is recommended for left-handed attacks.

[Myst42]

Hmm... an alternative...

The Nexus description doesnt say anything about back holstering, but if you say so...

Lacks a bunch of features present in UV II

I would miss kicking feature

Maybe it could work with Deadly Reflex's kick system

 

Ill give it a try...

Experiments... moar experiments needed...

[RitualClarity]

Hmm... an alternative...

The Nexus description doesnt say anything about back holstering, but if you say so...

Lacks a bunch of features present in UV II

I would miss kicking feature

Maybe it could work with Deadly Reflex's kick system

 

Ill give it a try...

Experiments... moar experiments needed...

 And the madness continues....

 

"How far down does the rabbit hole go?"

elalquimista may soon find out...

[Poontank]

Lacks a bunch of features present in UV II

I would miss kicking feature

 

Kicking truly is the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear a mod is named 'Simple Dual Wielding'.

 

If you want to kick in style, do it without weapons using 'Sinkpoint's Martial Arts' or 'Seph's h2h Animation Replacer'.

I have a mix of the best moves from both mods installed. The latter's author has also made a dual wielding mod. Which also doesn't allow you to kick.

[Myst42]

Finally solved some things about UV

Thanks for the links, but I finally managed to get UV running well with that feature

It was a keyboard problem... derp

 

I checked these martial art animation mods and i think ill take some resources from them but cat take all

 

Its just so weird seeing everyone doing flying round backward kicks in 360 degrees in a medieval world, too much martial awesomeness kinda kills the lore for me and Im aiming for something you can believe.

The kicks n UV2 i believe are the same as that other mod, only you can have both, the normal punch and the kicks

 

Now onto replacer mods

 

[Poontank]

Its just so weird seeing everyone doing...

 

That's what a 'Specialanims' esp and its matching folder for animations are taking care of.

 

Any replacement animation in the '_Male' folder -> everybody in the world is using this animation, even beggars.

 

Animation in the '_Male\Specialanims' folder + 'Specialanims' esp -> the animation is restricted to the player alone.

 

Such an esp can for example be found in 'DMC Stylish'.

[Myst42]

Yeap... DMC Stylish is precisely from where In extracting some

And I knew about Specialanims. esp

But never wanted to mess with it

So a question: Is every animation supported by a Specialanims.esp file?

Or should I look for one that uses most animations as special?

If so, by any chance do you know which one?

 

Seeing it would be good for nothing having all H2H animations in specialanims folder, with a specialanims.esp file which doesnt support them

Sure, Twohanded combat for example would work just fine, but only because specialanims.esp suports it

[Poontank]

One such esp is enough for all animations you put into the 'Specialanims' folder, they are all automatically used just by the player character. That probably is the 'special' part of it, those animations being reserved to the player.

 

I'm using this very esp from the DMC animation replacer for a multitude of animations: 'Silver Ranger' archery,  the hand-to-hand moves from those mentioned punch and kick collections, 'Weaponskill' melee attacks, 'Spell Singer' magic. No edit to the esp is necessary.

[Myst42]

Well thks I didnt know that 

Now when I got some time, its only down to choosing between all the animations the ones I like most

I will design a compilation for NPC animations and one for player, some may repeat

First thing: Idles

Hopefully breathing idles, idles that look cool but not too unrealistic, like lowering guard or something

This is a big problem in idles, many animations can look cool but objectively, they are low guards, wouldnt prove useful in real battle, like that position in "Karate Kid" Daniel-san wanted to try... standing in one leg... totally unpractical

 

 

For example

 

 

This ones would be perfect for 2H idle, they look cool and are realistic too, but the one problem is they are static... no breathing

So im trying to find something like that but better 

 

This mod is actually pretty awesome in the ideas of animation idles, but they are without breathing... 

Im having an internal battle between the obsessive part of myself that tells me its not enough and the part that tells me it could be fine to leave it that way

[Poontank]

About the only real breathing idle animations available are Fore's 'NoMaam' breathing idles which are just vanilla idle stances with a heaving chest.

The main idea behind it: Those idles are to be used with the set of 'NoMaam' BBB animations which incorporate breast movement as part of their idle stances to reset breast deformation from all the other animations like walking and fighting. The breasts jiggle every few seconds for no reason.

Makes for a weird effect known as "the invisible boob man" playing with the breasts. So Fore created the breathing animations with the ribcage/thorax visibly moving, simulating respiration to explain the jiggling boobs.

 

There are however a few animated idle poses. No real breathing movement but at least non-static stances.

 

For example this hand-to-hand idle here: Kung-Fu H2H Idle.rar

 

Best used in tandem with some of the Seph or Sinkpoint martial arts moves. The file is already in a 'Specialanims' folder, if anybody wants all characters in the world to use this stance (very funny to see, say,  Alessia Caro using it) the file needs to be moved to the '_Male' folder instead.

 

It's a fascinating project that offers lots of fun. Time-consuming but fun nevertheless. Trying out animations until you find the ones you like the most, tweaking every single attack, customizing all characters to the max. I still swap out melee attacks for my player characters and NPCs from time to time to keep things interesting because there are so many good animations out there.

 

There is even a system that allows you to have many different animations and combat styles installed and switch between them at will.

Unfortunately I haven't tried it out so far so I can't say anything about its functionality or possible problems.

[Myst42]

The breasts jiggle every few seconds for no reason.

Makes for a weird effect known as "the invisible boob man" playing with the breasts. 

 

 Yeah I tried it somewere in the past and ended up in a complete state of "WTF?" when seeing the static effect of everything bouncing for no reason. Unfortunately, I freaking hate idle vanilla animations, they look like being afraid of fighting, and have weird arm positions

 

I get what yo say about real breathing idles, maybe i expressed wrong, Im not that picky

For example Pretty Woman has exactly the onehanded idle stance ill be using for PC and it moves in a way so it looks alive

 

 

But it looks way too cool and pro, so im looking for another one to use on NPC, something cool looking too but a bit more defensive

I mean, in combat arts, when you can be so relaxed in a stance thats not too defensive and apparently a low guard, it means you are way too excellent, and dont even need a more elaborated pose. I think bandits and most enemies you find in the game wouldnt have this level of confidence so they would probably act differently

 

Ill check the H2H file

 

The system... dunno about it... it messes with skeletons, and that endangers compatibility, but ill give it a try too

[Myst42]

Anyway, I got an epiphany

I found almost every single idle animation i would like to use for both PC and NPC

My only problem is that some of these are too static, if you notice vanilla idles and some other ones, the got just a tiny measure of movement or oscillation to look alive

So I figured out, I think its time to mess around with the science of animations, its only some minor changes I wanna make and these would be just perfect

 

I mean, I did learn how to make any model in Blender and after knowing it, I kinda find it easy, so changing some features in existing animations cant be that hard right?

(I hope so...)  

 

So for this, a place to start would be nice, a basic tutorial with something useful...

I know about many tutorial pages, but picking one is the problem...

Any recommendations?

 

I if do figure this out I guess is the definitive end of it, and most probably I end up sharing the final outcome 

 

 

[Poontank]

This sounds like a good plan! You are going to tweak some of the best stances and animations available so they become more 'lively'?

A project like that should have been done a lot earlier. I'm sure the gratitude of many people will be yours, mine included.

 

As somebody with no experience whatsoever in the field of 3D model work I couldn't be of any help with that, but I imagine ThatOne's great tutorial should cover all the basic knowledge about editing animations. At least I hope so, haven't yet read it in full.

[Myst42]

Thats just awesome... simply plain awesome... Ive got no words to say how awesome it is

Simple, resumed, clear... everything I ever wanted from a tutorial

 

I made an experiment got my first pose basic structure, only need to follow the rest of the indications to make it fully animated

 

But in a shallow read, there is everything I need to make new animations or edit existing ones, so if it all works out, everything should be perfect!!

 

Only one thing im not sure if it is there... thats how to make "linked" animations such as Idle.kf which is linked to TurnLeft and TurnRight.kf

Not sure if there is an answer specifically for this. Im kinda hoping to find it on the road

Cause to be honest, that was an experiment, and I still havent tried everything (need more time), but at this pace, this little project will definitely get to see daylight 

[Art_B]

 

Only one thing im not sure if it is there... thats how to make "linked" animations such as Idle.kf which is linked to TurnLeft and TurnRight.kf

 

 

Can you elaborate on what you mean by linked? TurnLeft and TurnRight are their own animations. If they look like the standing idle it is probably because the frame information is the same but the string information is different. For example the string info would say trunright or idle in the NiControllerSequence line of the .kf.

 

Sorry if that does not address your question. I tried animating a long time ago and started with simple posing. I got frustrated when I ran into a problem with headtracking and realhighheels breaking. But you are kind of encouraging me to try again. Good luck. Maybe we can help each other.

 

There are very few animation modders. Even for Skyrim.

[Myst42]

Well I dont know if they are linked or not, but it certainly seems to be a connection between these animations, If you want to replace an idle stance, then you need all three or it could look weird

So how do you create an idle stance then

 

You make an idle and then make corresponding animations turning both sides from it or you have to make 3 separate animations that look similar...

 

Its the difference between making only one file and taking 2 subproducts and making 3 different files that work together...

The difference is the time it takes and how much work is it... is a difference from heaven to hell

And i sure hope its the first way, because is a lot more work to make it the other way

 

Anyway right after writing this post I got some time to look deeper so ill get started right now

[Art_B]

Well I dont know if they are linked or not, but it certainly seems to be a connection between these animations, If you want to replace an idle stance, then you need all three or it could look weird

So how do you create an idle stance then

 

You make an idle and then make corresponding animations turning both sides from it or you have to make 3 separate animations that look similar...

 

Its the difference between making only one file and taking 2 subproducts and making 3 different files that work together...

The difference is the time it takes and how much work is it... is a difference from heaven to hell

And i sure hope its the first way, because is a lot more work to make it the other way

 

Anyway right after writing this post I got some time to look deeper so ill get started right now

 

OK, I think I can clarify a few things

 

It is 3 different animations. They are not linked to each other. They are linked to their animation group. This is done through nifskope. Here is some info on that. http://www.truancyfactory.com/animdata.html and here is a list of all animation groups that the game can use: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Animation_Groups

 

They can all be exactly the same, except for the NiControllerSequence line of the .kf. Changing that only two takes 2 seconds, so it is not a lot of extra work. The only problem with having turnright and turnleft be the same as idle, is that the feet won't move. They would just slide along the ground as your character turns. If you don't mind that, there is very little extra work needed.

 

PS - To answer your question on how to make an idle stance. You need to make an animation, then label it as an idle with nifskope. You probably want the bone priorities to match the default values for the vanilla idles, which are in the link I gave you.

 

Learning to make the animation is the hardest part. The first challenge is installing the right software and script packages, make sure you follow all the steps. The next part is learning to set up and navigate Blender and nifskope, which are not simple programs. Finally you need to make the animation in Blender, which is the most work of any step. Then you need to touch up the animation string info in nifskope.

 

^^^^ After this part is where I had trouble. The animations did not look the same in game as in blender. The head was shifted at a bizarre angle and RHH support was gone. That was maybe 2 years ago. I might try again.

 

PPS - The final step is placing the animation in game. How you do this can be done in at least 3 three different ways, depending on whether you want to replace the idle for the player and all npcs, just the player, or just some specific NPCs. This part is not so hard though.

[Myst42]

OK, I think I can clarify a few things

 

Learning to make the animation is the hardest part. The first challenge is installing the right software and script packages, make sure you follow all the steps. The next part is learning to set up and navigate Blender and nifskope, which is are not simple programs. Finally you need to make the animation in Blender, which is the most work of any step. Then you need to touch up the animation string info in nifskope.

 

 

I have had everything related to Blender , nifskope , PyFFY and NifScripts installed for a while, so Im not sure if those are the steps you are referring to, but i think i got that covered.

 

Yo mention that making the animation is the hardest part but strangely enough I think im having trouble in the rest of the operation

 

In my humble opinjon I guess I could say I know a thing or two about navigating Blender, the hardest thing I know how to do in Blender, is making new meshes out of scratch with working UV maps and bone rigging, just not sure if by navigating you mean just blender or a different and more complex way of navigating Blender is needed to understand animating. I know about mesh creations but animations is new ground to me

 

I followed ThatOnes' tutorial to animations

 

I think I made an animation already (I think)... Went to pose mode, rotated a bone or two, changed frame numbers, made starting and ending points and in blender is a working file, the animation plays just right, just rotating bones seems easy and setting frames worked just fine.

 

But for some reason I cant get the animation to work in game. . Is simple and very educating and it helped me get started.

I think im missing some things, perhaps the tutorial only covers creating animations and setting them as pose mods and making Idles is more complex

Need to dig further

 

Followed every step in the tutorial and the final result is the animation in games looks like basic Idle

 

You seem to know what youre talking about, perhaps you could take a look at this point and help me to advance

 

The animation is still experimental, I made it only with the purpose of seeing if it works, its a prototype of how its going to look once im done, but i plan on making it much cooler and correct many things, its only the idea of NPC OneHand Idle.

 

Perhaps you could take a look and tell me where did I screw up or what am I missing to make it work?

1HIdle.rar

[Art_B]

1. Could you tell me exactly what directory you placed the idle? For example was it C:\Oblivion\Data\Meshes\Characters\_male ? Did you overwrite the vanilla onehandidle?

2. Do you have any onehandidle.kf files in your specialanims folder? You might want to remove these to help with troubleshooting.

3. Can you post screen of you character holding a one handed weapon?

 

 

It looks like you have come to a similar, but not same, problem has I did a couple years ago. Here is what your animation looks like in nifskope.

 

 

 

It looks like you modified just that one bone and something went wrong.

 

When I attempted to use your onehandidle in game, it reverted to the unarmed idle. The game usually does this is if there is something wrong with the animation. It looks for another animation with the same animation group, which may be what happened with you.

 

 

 

^^^Note that pose is unarmed idle(aka idle.kf), not onehandleidle.kf. That is because the only onehandidle.kf I have in /_male/ or /specialanims/ is yours, which doesn't work. That is why it reverted to idle.kf.

 

I had a similar problem but my pose was a specialidle and did appear in game. It had a similar contortion problem though. So we are about in the same place. Maybe another modder can help diagnose this?