Animation assistance needed

[ghastley]

I have managed to persuade a young widow that she needs to find a way to relax from her duties and spend some time looking after her own needs. By simplifying her outfit, and providing a place nearby for her to go, she has started to unwind a little.

 

I have a pose that exhibits a greater degree of relaxation, but it is not a furniture animation, so to get the screen shot, I needed to issue "PlayIdle ...hkx" and then use SetPos and SetAngle commands to align her with the throne.

 

Can someone help me convert the idle into a furniture one? Preferably instructions, as I'm likely to want to do something similar again.

[NCK30]

- You will need to add the throne to an esp file like in SLAL packs. It has to be added as an Animobject or ANIO in Creation Kit.

 

 

- Then You need to make SLAL-like instructions for the idle. Only for one actor though. Name must be the same as in the esp. It will not load otherwise.

 

 

- Last but not least You need to make the pose in 3DSMax or Blender. Export it to xml and convert to hkx file. That's how I do it.

 

- Alternatively You can import the custom idle. But that never went well for me in 3DSMax. Maybe it can be done in Blender. Then edit the pose and export like above.

 

- If it was me I would start over and make my own idle similar to this one.

 

 

There is no simple way that I know of that will bypass the instructions below.

 

You should remember that it is not only the sitting idle. You will need the Enter and Exit animations too. That's how Skyrim idles function.

 

Else it will play the old Enter anim with the new idle. Same with the Exit. It will look very bad. Trust me.

 

She wil sit like the top pic. Then suddenly the legs will open in half a second.

 

Edited July 12, 2024 by NCK30

[BDNelson]

Hey, "NCK30", NICE stand up to help, kudos!!! 👍

[ghastley]

I've reviewed the special_jarlchaienter.hkx and special_jarlchairexit.hkx and I can see your point about needing to transition to the new position from/to where those leave off.

 

I will not be using an animation object, as I don't want a throne spawning for this. I'm familiar with furniture setup, even if my animation toolkit is a bit lacking. The pose being static is also a problem, so adding the transitions, and animating her right hand are now on the agenda. It looks like I need some extra tools to convert between havok and Blender-supported formats. So my question now is what tools do I need?

 

At some point, too, I'm going to need to learn more about how offset animations are created, so I can have a few different carry object ones beyond the logs, tray, pot and flower basket.

[NCK30]

That's right. No new animobject. I was thinking in Sexlab terms. Been so long since I made my idles.

 

You need to import the throne nif into 3DSmax or Blender. We will be making this as an "Invisible Furniture" anim.

 

Then You have to make the pose. Export it and see it ingame.

 

 

- With an idle I seem to remember that You would just have to enter the chair. There should be an E to activate the idle. It will play the Enter idle. Then it will play the idle itself.

 

- Look where she sits. In 3DSMax or Blender You have to adjust both the actor and the furniture to match the position ingame.

 

- Keep exporting until they match.

 

- You can then start the animating process. Remember to do the Enter, idle and Exit animations.

 

 

I have no Blender experience, so I can't help You there. I can refer You to these guides for 3DSMax. That's how I learned animating.

 

I learned the idles myself. You can find the animation rigs and tools needed in the first post from Pornphile.

 

 

 

0s-mod.tumblr.com/0S/G/#_=_

[NCK30]

You can see how I tested my idles from my previews here. I made mine from scratch. Enter, Idle and Exit animations for these idles.

 

Laydown

 

 

 

Sit on Ledge

 

 

 

Sitting Cross Legged

 

 

 

Lean on Wall

 

 

 

Lean on Table

 

 

 

 

[ScroodPooch]

I'm not sure if this applies or helps, I think it might for what you are trying to accomplish, but I'll put it here anyway.

I wish I had the animation video, unfortunately, all I have is a screenshot. It's from FO4, but the exact same process works in Skyrim as well. You can edit HKX files  with minor tweaks and slight position adjustments. Using the mod HKX Poser https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/11783  You can make almost the same exact adjustments you can make using NiOverride Pose Adjustments.

The difference, is that the HKX poser will permanently save the adjustments in the animation file (But I have to admit, it's very clumsy to use and requires a lot of Trial and error.

 

But if you take a look at the FO4 screenshot, you can see the characters line up correctly with M/F animations. The original Snapdragon animation was meant for F/F and the positions were off slightly. The hand holding the writs would clip as well as other adjustments weren't correct for M/F. But I was able to fix that using the tool.

 

 

 

 

[ghastley]

I already downloaded that one, as it makes a reasonable preview tool for the hkx files. I was intending to try that for my offset carry project, starting from the “human forklift” one that is the basis for the logs and drink tray. 

 

I’m currently using Blender 2.49 with a lengthy path of conversions for the .nifs, and so expect similar for hkx. I may have to upgrade to a later version of Blender, but plugins often lag behind in their support, and Blender itself changes its UI considerably with later versions, so that adds a learning curve.  

 

I’d like to know which version of Blender people are using, and which plug-ins. Do you use an intermediate file format other than nif or hkx in your process?

Edited July 13, 2024 by ghastley

[NCK30]

3 hours ago, ScroodPooch said:

I'm not sure if this applies or helps, I think it might for what you are trying to accomplish, but I'll put it here anyway.

I wish I had the animation video, unfortunately, all I have is a screenshot. It's from FO4, but the exact same process works in Skyrim as well. You can edit HKX files  with minor tweaks and slight position adjustments. Using the mod HKX Poser https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/11783  You can make almost the same exact adjustments you can make using NiOverride Pose Adjustments.

The difference, is that the HKX poser will permanently save the adjustments in the animation file (But I have to admit, it's very clumsy to use and requires a lot of Trial and error.

 

But if you take a look at the FO4 screenshot, you can see the characters line up correctly with M/F animations. The original Snapdragon animation was meant for F/F and the positions were off slightly. The hand holding the writs would clip as well as other adjustments weren't correct for M/F. But I was able to fix that using the tool.

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, ghastley said:

I already downloaded that one, as it makes a reasonable preview tool for the hkx files. I was intending to try that for my offset carry project, starting from the “human forklift” one that is the basis for the logs and drink tray. 

 

I’m currently using Blender 2.49 with a lengthy path of conversions for the .nifs, and so expect similar for hkx. I may have to upgrade to a later version of Blender, but plugins often lag behind in their support, and Blender itself changes its UI considerably with later versions, so that adds a learning curve.  

 

I’d like to know which version of Blender people are using, and which plug-ins. Do you use an intermediate file format other than nif or hkx in your process?

 

Without a working version of Blender or 3DSMax the HKX poser is your only choice. A crude one at that.

 

I tried once and succesfully made a small edit. But this resulted in jerking movements. The result had ruined the smoothness of the original idle.

 

Also You edit a skeleton of bones. Can get very confusing and take forever to make just a small change.

 

As demonstrated here.

 

 

 

 

It's a quick fix. I will grant You that. But the result is not very good in my opinion.

[ScroodPooch]

Here is an animation I "slapped" together. It was intended for the mod "Dirtyborn" by -Caden- In it, you have dialogue options that depending on what you choose, your follower or other NPCs can have different types of interactions. In this instance, it would be to have Lydia dominate the PC. But in the mod. While I loved how he implemented dialogue during the animation scenes, I didn't like the options given (I didn't like the idea of getting pegged or going down on a strap-on.) So I altered the dialogue and the animations.

 

I took the 2 throne animations from Leito Throne BJ and Throne Cunni. I took and swapped out the female actor in the cunni animation for the male actor in the BJ ending up combining the 2 male actor positions in one animation. But this left a lot of clipping and positions were not aligned correctly. I used HKX Poser to clean it up. Took a while, and it's far from perfect, but I don't think it came out too bad.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2024 by ScroodPooch

[ghastley]

Well I did find something that could be done using hkxPoser, and that was to adjust an offsetcarry animation (which is just a single pose of the arms that gets combined with the usual walk). So now i have a fairly generic carry that should work for a large book, or a stack of them.

 

The inspiration was a comic page by markydaysaid that was an aside to his "The Dragonborn Cometh" series. I recreated Bibliophilia as the centerpiece of a Heartfires mod I'm working on, where you build a home in Apocrypha.  I didn't copy the arm positions exactly from the comic, as I wanted one that can be used for more than just books.