Creature Animation Overhaul [WiP]

[HeavyDude]

How's progress?

 

Considering the sneak animation i found this (youtube link-short vid). That would be the Sneak WALK (slow sneak) animation except i would put the torso lower.

 

The running animation (regular running) would be more of a "jog", like a horse jog (just a comparison). They kinda hop when they run but not to obvious. The oposite legs are always in the air at the same time when jogging (front left and hind right, and vice versa) and the torso bends a bit in the waist.

 

The sneak RUN would the be those two combined, low torso position + two legs moving at the same time, torso bending at the waist (left and right) while moving but not very noticeable.

 

I think you should keep the regular walk upright (on two legs), seeing as it would be haredr for a WW to walk comfortably bend over in such a way when walking. If not then the same rule an sneaking applies: only one leg moves at a time (but a bit faster than when sneaking).

 

Also do not forget to include subtle bobing of the body and head (up and down) when moving, otherwhise you get the feeling like you're gliding over the terrain (like the vanilla sneak animation, horrible).

 

Other animation ideas:

- ground pound (smash hands into the ground, maybe add a short roar a the end)

- a jumping version of the ground pound (for more impact)

- a lunging jump at a foe (sprint/run > jump > whole body in air > grabing the shoulders with hands, the feet land on stomach > the head bites the juggular/neck > land on ground with the foe)

- decapitation (just grabing and ripping someones head off, left/right/both hands, or grabing the shoulders/waist of a foe and ripping the head off with your mouth)

 

[Suludi]

Okay... I've been away for a few days and couldn't respond, sorry about that. I see where you're getting at, and I totally agree. The animations are (still) pretty bad and don't look realistic. I stumbled upon a few problems I didn't expect, such as wrong timing and some additional animation (scripting?) that I can't get rid of. Not even the sabrecat idle stand animation is working cause the skeleton was built with hanging paws (which is completely idiotic), and I'm a bit reluctant to edit the skeleton. As for werewolves, their upper body is simply too short for smooth wolfy movement. I'll have to put in a lot of more work than I expected, maybe even create a custom skeleton.

 

But I'm still highly motivated. And yes, I'll start making a real run/gallop animation for the werewolves so they don't look like leaping frogs anymore. The sneak animation looks interesting, I'll try that, too.

 

Thanks for testing and getting back to me!

[Aliens218]

Woah, Suludi! This is awesome! I had to make an account just to tell you this,

Please don't give up on this project, it's really great!

[Suludi]

Thank you! That is encouraging.

[Aliens218]

You're absolutely welcome! ^^

[Aliens218]

I wonder what's making that smooth walk jitter in-game..

[sagebeat]

This looks amazing, but most likely not a lot of comments until its in a semi finished point and people are willing to try it out.

[Suludi]

I wonder what's making that smooth walk jitter in-game..

 

I think I screwed up the timer and/or the animation notes. Right now, I'm working on the climbing/jumping animation but everything's way more complicated than I first thought. So I can't say for certain when stuff will be finished and downloadable, sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Not to mention I spent the entire night working on a lengthy Werewolf/woman sex scene... animation is fun. LOL.)

[Aliens218]

Ohhh. Jumping animation will inter-wait, CLIMBING? WOAH. That may require scripting, no? And it's fine. What you've done so far has impressed me. 

Mind if I add you on Steam?

 

 

(And haha! I saw the one you put in Vimeo. Looked cool!  )

[aravis7]

I'm really looking forward to the climbing animation, I've always dreamed to an assassin's creed like gameplay for skyrim^^ (of course it would require a scripting god).

Keep up the good work : )

[Aliens218]

http://muttleymark.deviantart.com/art/WerewolfGallop-310182512?q=gallery%3AWerewolf-Horror%2F29127856&qo=6

Wow...

[ZenDraco]

Very nice work you have started up here, I (like many others it seems) also kind of felt the werewolves kind of lacked in the orignial game, the progress you've made so far looks very promising! In general it seems werewolves havent gotten much love from the modder community (though there are a few really good ones as far as texture stat and eye customizations go) but not much rework on some of the things that make a werewolf feel more like a werewolf.

 

Keep up the good work though c: Im sure ppl will come across your thread (if they havent already and are just lurking and watching the devlopment) rofl and I'm sure the masses will flock if you show off the other unseen animations and the word gets out xD that seems to be the nature of this place.

[NoxTM]

Looking foward to this mod.

 

Would love to see something like this: http://www.loverslab.com/topic/14531-female-werewolf-look/ 

[toastman3]

any progress with this?

 

[Suludi]

I've created several sex and nonsex animations but for some reason, I can't export -any- of them into Skyrim. No matter what I do, they end up in a T-pose or horribly distorted, as if only half the animation had been saved. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, I've always followed the tutorials.

[toastman3]

I've created several sex and nonsex animations but for some reason, I can't export -any- of them into Skyrim. No matter what I do, they end up in a T-pose or horribly distorted, as if only half the animation had been saved. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, I've always followed the tutorials.

A shame I still use your assets is there no rigger/animator here you can ask. Who can part wisdom to you? 

[rec3235]

Just wanna say this is really awesome! I'll keep an eye on this so keep it up.

[BlakeRyota]

I will follow this mod closely, and see its progress until it's done.
You are doing great work as for what I've seen in the videos. I hope the problems with the jitter get solved soon (Tho... You should know that is not much of your fault. It happens with the vanilla animations as well [Werewolf]. I have a "Realistic Werewolf Movement Speed Fix" that also alters the walking, and makes the walking animation jitter like in your videos)

As for the Sneak animations... I personally don't think Werewolves are the most sneaky creatures, as I tend to use the Beast form to destroy my enemies, not ambush/surprise them. But is still a neat idea, and would make my gameplay with werewolves a bit more tactical, which is never bad for me -If this idea is ever implemented-.

I'm also really intrigued in how the attack animations will work, or how they will be. For example, the combo of the three slashes--- Trying to make it look more feral-y is kinda difficult to me to imagine, but who am I to say that, I lack tons of imagination sometimes hehe. As for the "Power Attack w/ Sprint Run", I think it works well with the vanilla animation (I THINK is the vanilla animation... It's been ages since I used the werewolf without the animations from -Werewolf Beast Running- and I'm unaware if it adds some kind of animation to said running attacks), but a subtle touch on it can be done.

 

My understanding of how Skyrim's animations works is little, but enough. Like... I know that the animation for the Roar while jog/running are separate animations. The Jog/Run is the base for the whole body movement, and the Roar animation only controls the torso & head. When activated, the roar animation is merged with the jog/run anim--- So the Run animation will end up only controlling the legs/hindpaws and the roar one controls the upper body.

 

Hmm, I think I went out of subject... Sorry

I could extend this comment a lot with some ideas and opinions, but I would end up even more out of the subject.

 

Again, I apologize for making such a long comment :U

 

Wish you luck!

[Suludi]

Your comment isn't too long and helped me a lot, thank you! I'm glad to know the jitter happens in other animations, too. What I found out so far is this:

 

Werewolves as followers constantly jitter between two animations, either walkforward and standidle or walkforwardleft/right (or maybe turnleft/right). As long as the walkforwardleft/right animations have not been made feral, the werewolf will continue to jitter. When a werewolf NPC walks on his own, the walking movement is smooth (observed in the wild near Riften). When the player is in werewolf form, any small mouse movement will disrupt the forward animation and cause the jitter.

 

So I should be able to eliminiate the problem by fixing the several walking animation components. But as long as my aninmations don't get imported correctly, there's no use in fixing anything yet.

 

I haven't even thought about changing the attack animations yet.

 

I have, however, smoothed the feral run animation which had the right hindleg spazzing out (added to first post).

I can't believe how sloppy some of the beasts in the vanilla game have been animated.

[Aliens218]

I've been watching this mod grow over-time. I'd just like to say amazing work, and I'm going to be releasing a more... wolf-like werewolf model with sound soon. Would go great with this mod. keep up the good work!

[BlakeRyota]

I can't believe how sloppy some of the beasts in the vanilla game have been animated.

 

You have in one side the foxes--- Which are barely animated and run like made of chopsticks.

And then you have the sabre-tooth cat. Which still keeps some of that chopstick-ness but cleaned up. I think it has to do with how important certain creatures/beasts are in-game. I mean... Have you seen a fox In-Game hunting, or attacking you?

 

Other beasts like the Troll, have more detail in the animated aspect. Specially in the attacking. Is a slow, resistant, and powerful beast (at least in Legendary and with SkyRe). While the werewolf is quick, agile, somewhat fragile, and strong in force. These two first traits make the animation not be as detailed as with the troll, since it goes definitely faster in almost every way. Let's also take in count that the player is not entirely supposed to pay much attention to some of the animations, since it will have the camera angled to look the back of the werewolf. And I don't actually remember seeing many werewolves in the vanilla Skyrim, other than the ones captured by the silver-hand.

 

Anyways. I hope you are doing great with the animations and upload later some videos to see the progress -once it is noticeable of course... or a side-by-side comparision!-

[Suludi]

After several weeks of utter frustration and RL issues, I made a new werewolf animation today. Nothing fancy: he sits down, looks around and stands up again. I'm going to split the animation into its three parts, and then I hope someone helps me getting them into the game cause I'm a scripting noob.

 

[Aliens218]

Quite impressive!

[Andy_Social]

I actually really like the animations so far. It reminds me of the werewolves from the US version of Being Human. 

[Aliens218]

What a coincidence. US Being Human werewolf is my favorite type of werewolf.