Animation Pt.2: Facial

[Myst42]

I think I mastered the basics in animation, as the last project was released for replacing a lot of stuff

 

Now I got curious because there are still a few things I dont know about animation in Oblivion:

 

 

How to include data for face animation

 

-First: I'm interested immediately and most urgently on eye track

Some animations have eye track, head stays in a certain position while the character is looking at somewhere in particular

Particular example in my own pic. NaRae Pose. Head is in diagonal position to the camera but the eyes look straight to it

So how to do this in making a pose animation?

 

 

-Second and still important: How to make eyes close

-Third and decreasing importance: mouth movement, smile, open mouth etc...

-Fourth: magic effects, like holding fireballs, etc...

 

Any advice please?

[Guest ThatOne]

Curious, aren't we?

 

Alright, unlike animations (which are basically rotation and\or location data for a given rig\skeleton), animations are done via textkeys.

Here: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php/Facial_expressions_in_animations

 

There isn't actually a command to close an actor's eyes; instead you have to use the blink command and play with the numbers until you are satisfied with the amount of time it takes the eye to open, close and the duration it stays closed.

 

Magic effects, unlike both animations and facial animations, are particle effects. Depending on what you want to do, I may or may not be able to help you. You'll have to be a bit more specific before I can try to help.

[Teechan]

Text keys for eyes:

 

LookLeft

LookDown

LookRight

LookUp

 

The other suggestion is to open the .KF itself and read the textkeys by using nifskope to see what they do.

 

A good guide in how to do this:

 

http://www.truancyfactory.com/tutorials/oblivion/ob_animation_textKeys.html

[Myst42]

Ok then, I advanced a little on the first tutorial...

The one thing I hate about that page is that all images are gone

"I took a screenshot of how to do things..." GONE

 

But I managed to learn something about face gen and how face expressions are controlled by "text keys"

 

Now the weird side is I found out that pose I posted in that mode, looks like looking elsewhere, but curiously has no text keys... illusion?

 

About magic effects... I'd like to know things like

holding a fireball in hand, what color is it, and perhaps casting a static effect like... healing or some other cast self spell with effect, but how to make it stay if possible

 

[Teechan]

I've yet to fool with particles in NifSkope - there's a section on that in the wiki.

 

The missing photos thing is a nuisance, but I did find a way.  I downloaded a snapshot of the entire database from the nexus.

 

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/19136//?

 

Extract that into a folder. It's almost like having the wiki on your computer! Only issue is there's nearly a gig of random photos from Photobucket and other sites (not sure how that happened) but you could use something like IrfanView to see thumbnails of all the photos and delete the ones that have nothing to do with modding. After pruning I had about 500 megs left of wiki. 

 

Was the photo one you've taken?

 

[Guest ThatOne]

Sorry, can't help you there. Don't know enough about particle effects myself.

[Teechan]

Text keys for eyes:

 

LookLeft

LookDown

LookRight

LookUp

 

The other suggestion is to open the .KF itself and read the textkeys by using nifskope to see what they do.

 

A good guide in how to do this:

 

http://www.truancyfactory.com/tutorials/oblivion/ob_animation_textKeys.html

 

 

I figured I'd return to this thread to mention I asked for a future OBSE function that can access those facial animation settings (the same ones you find in .kf text files) through a scripting/console command. (This means new toys for screenshooters and machinima makers like myself!)

 

It looks like it might be added in a later version, so I'll let y'all know when it does and how it turns out. I'm excited for it!

[movomo]

>holding a fireball in hand

I think this is the matter of animation and the game engine, rather than particle system. Not certain though..

You can set the lifespan of a particle longer. But I'm not sure if it is possible on this particular fireball effect - sorry, no pun intended. Probably you'll also need some OBSE to do this trick. For example, playing an idle animation while holding down the cast key, as long as it is possible.

 

>what color is it

The simplest way to change the color is to replace its texture. very simple.

 

[Teechan]

I've been meaning to delve into particles. I recently did an experiment where I replaced the Weapon bone with a dummy in 3DS Max. The result idle animation I made looks like the weapon was "floating" away. (ALSO, ALL FOR SHOW)

 

My theory is that maybe the same thing can be done to the Magic node, and all that there is left to do is throw in some particles via NifSkope to fake a fireball for screenshooting/machinima.

[Poontank]

That's a very good concept. Congratulations on pulling this off! There sure is potential for awesome new possibilities in the future.

 

Though up to now I have always been fond of using the in-game magic effects in combination with console commands. Sure, on mere screenshots such effects could be pasted in using Photoshop, but I find this rather unconvincing no matter how impeccable the image edit may be. To make it look 'real' in the context of a picture nothing beats the original magic effects that are seen all the time whenever using spells.

 

 

 

 

 

As the fireball at its core is a 3D object, it can be selected in the console and then manipulated with console commands.

On the above examples I have scaled up the fireballs with setscale 2 and then moved them into place with setpos commands. Lots of setpos commands. The staff's magical energy on the second picture is a particle effect of this particular weapon by the way.

 

Vanilla lightning bolts can also be used but require timing when activating the console. TGM for unlimited Magicka helps a lot.

 

 

 

 

SUPER EFFECTIVE!

 

Also a good example how ineffective Photoshopped effects can be with those ridiculous 'shock outlines' around the characters... Though in this case it's done on purpose because of the overall silly/cartoonish concept. Got tired of it and didn't do the aura for the Redguard character.

 

 

The spell effects from 'Midas Magic' are a wonderful asset for this type of pictures featuring arcane and elemental energies:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The shoulder cannon shot on the AvsP image actually is a combination of both effects from the third and fourth pictures.

It got smudged a bit in Photoshop so it looks like a plasma ball emitted by that pauldron gun.

[Teechan]

I didn't even know magic effects could be moved via SetPOS! It does make sense, seeing as it's a nif and all.