Dayelyte's Unnatural Animations

[bob112]

How are things going? they look great so far. Out of curiosity do spriggans both matron and non matron have the same skeleton as the flame atronach?

[Dayelyte]

Likely, but I haven't looked to confirm that. 

 

Experimenting with the Netch atm   The big test will be if it works in game or not. 

[Dayelyte]

Here's the test anim I'm going to convert tomorrow morning and see if it will even run in game.   Here's hoping. 

 

[nutluck]

Here's the test anim I'm going to convert tomorrow morning and see if it will even run in game.   Here's hoping. 

 

netch_closeup.gifnetch_external.gif

 

Assuming it works in game not bad considering what you had to work with on the netch.

[Cyndi]

How are things going? they look great so far. Out of curiosity do spriggans both matron and non matron have the same skeleton as the flame atronach?

 

They have a completely different skeleton unfortunately.

Flame Atronach's have the most unique skeleton, with all of their bone names being stated like FireAtronach_r_thigh instead of NPC_r_thigh.

.. and the toe bones float well above 0 z 

 

Spriggan skeletons have an extra bone in the leg bone, and rather large hands.

[streetmaniac]

dammit dayelyte now you're keeping us excited about so many different things already xD well atleast for me

 

Atronach cowgirl, atronach holding and this neat new netch one

 

also a question

 

Are you planning to make any "intro" animations for the future...For example the netch one, an animation before the tentacles are already penetrating inside. Or for atronach the animation of human lying down or grabbing the atronach (although i can imagine it'd be hard to do)

[bob112]

 

How are things going? they look great so far. Out of curiosity do spriggans both matron and non matron have the same skeleton as the flame atronach?

 

They have a completely different skeleton unfortunately.

Flame Atronach's have the most unique skeleton, with all of their bone names being stated like FireAtronach_r_thigh instead of NPC_r_thigh.

.. and the toe bones float well above 0 z 

 

Spriggan skeletons have an extra bone in the leg bone, and rather large hands.

 

 

oh so do spriggans and spriggan matrons have the same skeleton?

[Cyndi]

 

 

How are things going? they look great so far. Out of curiosity do spriggans both matron and non matron have the same skeleton as the flame atronach?

 

They have a completely different skeleton unfortunately.

Flame Atronach's have the most unique skeleton, with all of their bone names being stated like FireAtronach_r_thigh instead of NPC_r_thigh.

.. and the toe bones float well above 0 z 

 

Spriggan skeletons have an extra bone in the leg bone, and rather large hands.

 

 

oh so do spriggans and spriggan matrons have the same skeleton?

 

 

Yuppers

DLC2SprigganBurntRace

SprigganEarthMotherRace

SprigganMatronRace

SprigganRace

Are all on the same skeleton and behavior.

If you are a SIC user though, there is a spriggan race that uses the giant skeleton and behavior

[Dayelyte]

Whelp.  Test mostly successful.  Breast movement is missing for some reason, but it's likely due to the skeleton file I used to convert it with.  Tried the Havok converter first, but I have the 2012 variant on my laptop to go with Max 2012 and it doesn't play nice with Skyrim.  Causes T-Pose on both characters.  Some of the tentacles aren't quite where they're supposed to be, but they're close so I'll try and figure out what blew up there.

 

Will probably try and do another Havok conversion when I get home and have access to my 2010 flavor. 

 

 

 

 

Pizzaguy:  The pre-scene stuff can be done, it takes a flag in the animation listing to run them, but can be done.  I haven't lately only because I've been lazy    Seems I've had quite a bit of lacking in the motivation department as of late. . . :|  

[dentarr]

Wow Dayelyte! They look way better than what I would have thought possible 

[Dayelyte]

Wow Dayelyte! They look way better than what I would have thought possible

It's dawned on me I may be able to do the mini-netch ( netch calf ) as well. Maybe. lol

[bob112]

 

Wow Dayelyte! They look way better than what I would have thought possible

It's dawned on me I may be able to do the mini-netch ( netch calf ) as well. Maybe. lol

 

 

would it not be the same animations just make them smaller or is it a different skeleton?

[Cyndi]

Mini netch only uses like 3 of the 5 bones for tentacles or some such.

[regrius]

Finally got around to this again for a few minutes, re-read the article on the fbx format you were using, realized it mentioned there is supposed to be a blender importer for that format, and just had to tell you the last thing you wanted to hear. I think I finally got visual studio dusted and updated, need to grab all the various tool sources now.

[Dayelyte]

Finally got around to this again for a few minutes, re-read the article on the fbx format you were using, realized it mentioned there is supposed to be a blender importer for that format, and just had to tell you the last thing you wanted to hear. I think I finally got visual studio dusted and updated, need to grab all the various tool sources now.

Cool. Certainly no hurry though. Hell, I can't stay focused to even finish an animation lately. I went off on a tangent today and worked on a human / human animation just because lol

 

Oy, I'll never get done :/

[Dayelyte]

Got off on a tangent today.  Was trying to figure out why this scene was giving Max so many fits.  Can't even tell you how many times I crashed it :|

 

I haven't counterkeyed the males hands and the loop is far from perfect, but here's where it stands:

 

[Pavaux]

Got off on a tangent today.  Was trying to figure out why this scene was giving Max so many fits.  Can't even tell you how many times I crashed it :|

 

I haven't counterkeyed the males hands and the loop is far from perfect, but here's where it stands:

 

miss_boredom.gifmiss_pov.gif

 

Looking gooood.

 

I think only you Dayelyte will actually do animations for pretty much all non supported creatures in Skyrim. Sounds like a cheesy movie quote but it's true.

 

Love your work ^^

[nutluck]

Nice hand placement, looks natural.

[regrius]

Was hoping to be able to use or rewrite the Havoc Physics Animation SDK to read/write directly with binary HKX from code, but the whole thing is covered in so much corrupt legal matter I'd most likely end up in a fed prison if I so much as look at it funny without approval from our corporate overlords. This explains why there isn't native support in Max/Blender already, Intel is too damn busy protecting their racket. </impotentrage>

Instead, what I'm thinking could work is using hkxcmd from code to do bin/xml conversions, and only working with the XML form directly, that way the legal horsedong is figment's problem. Next part is looking into the blender FBX reader, which is looking promissing right now.

 

Basic idea is:

1. You do your voodoo in Max.

2. Usual FBX export.

3. Drop the FBX file onto the box.

4. Hit read(may automate), it gives you a list of what's in the file in the Source box.

5. Move whatever you want to be in the HKX file to the right list, and hit Convert.

6. It will then spit out a hot new binary HKX ready to be shoved into the game.

Probably work in reverse also, by dropping a hkx on the box.

</TLDR>

The awesome VB GUI I threw together so far:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74137297/HKXFBXWTFBBQ54u5311111117711.jpg

 

My list of stupid questions:

1. What platform would you be using this on. (If it's not Win & .net, need to switch to Java or some such).

2. Is there ever going to be more than just a single animation in the output file. Big question there, can greatly simplify if there's no real point handling multiple data items/source files.

3. May not know answer, but I'm not at all clear on exactly what/how/if the linkage between the skeleton you're using in Max, and what the FBX/HKX data contains. If it's just a list of bones, and keyframe data, then it should be dead simple, if not...not. Almost anything would save me a metric ton of reading time, I understand what bones are, and how to use them in Blender, but that's about it.

4. I believe the whole IK thing is resolved to static single-armature keyframe data by the time it gets to the FBX file, just wanted to be sure I don't have to worry about that mess.

5. Is this (with some possible simplification & automation) what you actually want? Anything you hate about it, other than not being an integrated Max addon? Anything else you want it to do? What's your favorite color?

[ED]6. Do you actually have a use for any of the intermediate files, or just want the usable output?

[ED2]7. Any chance you could share an FBX file? I find it helps to have something to probe while decoding binary. That troublesome fire atronach might even work, as long as Max can read it back in ok.

[ED3]8. Was the FBX export giving an ascii or binary file, is there a working option to use ascii?

[Dayelyte]

My list of stupid questions:

1. What platform would you be using this on. (If it's not Win & .net, need to switch to Java or some such).

2. Is there ever going to be more than just a single animation in the output file. Big question there, can greatly simplify if there's no real point handling multiple data items/source files.

3. May not know answer, but I'm not at all clear on exactly what/how/if the linkage between the skeleton you're using in Max, and what the FBX/HKX data contains. If it's just a list of bones, and keyframe data, then it should be dead simple, if not...not. Almost anything would save me a metric ton of reading time, I understand what bones are, and how to use them in Blender, but that's about it.

4. I believe the whole IK thing is resolved to static single-armature keyframe data by the time it gets to the FBX file, just wanted to be sure I don't have to worry about that mess.

5. Is this (with some possible simplification & automation) what you actually want? Anything you hate about it, other than not being an integrated Max addon? Anything else you want it to do? What's your favorite color?

[ED]6. Do you actually have a use for any of the intermediate files, or just want the usable output?

[ED2]7. Any chance you could share an FBX file? I find it helps to have something to probe while decoding binary. That troublesome fire atronach might even work, as long as Max can read it back in ok.

[ED3]8. Was the FBX export giving an ascii or binary file, is there a working option to use ascii?

 

Chuckle.  Nice GUI.  It bears a resemblence to some I build via AutoHotKey for crap I do at work.  Though I loathe programming / scripting ( the silly syntax rules rub me the wrong way ) I can do it at a basic level to make my job easier.

 

1)  In all liklihood, it will be a Windows platform.  The majority of folks running Max, Blender, Maya, are running them in Windows.  The concept you're kicking around will make a LOT of folks happy since you can export an FBX from more than just Max.  Though, now that I think about it, there are multiple versions of FBX out there.  Typically updated yearly or as major application releases come about.  That may throw a wrench into things.

 

2)  So far, no.  Though FNIS can supposedly handle paired animations now, the way I do things ( and most others do things ) are to animate the actors in the scene, then export them individually out to their respective HKX files. Pretty much a necessity since you have to pair the animation to the actor skeleton upon export / conversion.

 

3)  This gets tricky.  I'm used to using what I consider " standard " bone objects.  Bone X is responsible for Mesh Y movement.  For the  most part, this is true here as well.  However, there also exists what Havok calls " floating " nodes.  These are bones ( for lack of a better word ) that are not part of the direct skeleton driving the mesh, but are in the scene regardless.  They are also important as the bone listing in the Havok skeleton file is in a particular order.  When exporting from the Havok Exporter, the bone hierarchy in Max has to match the hierarchy listing in the skeleton file.  I'm assuming it's because its calculating positional data for Bone X based on the fact it's number 23 ( to pick a random number ) in the overall hierarchy and not because it's Bone Left_Thigh.  If you get the bone list or Max hierarchy out of order, the result will look like a John Carpenter stunt double and the mesh will try to turn itself inside out :|

 

4)  What happens during an FBX export is Max will convert or ( to use the proper term ) " bake " the motion data that is being driven by IK into the bones that are benefitting from it.  Once the FBX has done so, the animator can delete the IK goals and targets from the scene as the motion data is now a permanent part of the bone itself.

 

5)  The hkxcmd converter does work. . . . for most actor / animation combinations, but not all of them.  There are some inaccuracies from time to time where the limbs don't play right, the hands get all scrunched up, and the like.  The animators would love to see an FBX converter, but considering how few remain, I would like you to consider if the time investment you would be putting into this would be a wise one considering how few would benefit from it.  I'm all for working tools don't get me wrong, but take my previous sentence seriously.  I know what it's like to spend an insane amount of time doing something, only to never see it get used. ( makes for a great learning experience though so not all is lost )

 

As far as I know, we have no use for the intermediate files.  We simply take the .kf file that Max spits out today and wash it through the hkxcmd executable to generate a game engine usable .hkx animation.  I will usually trash the .kf file once I confirm the .hkx file is working as expected.  Max won't even allow me to reimport a newly created .kf file right out of Max. ( How screwed up is that ? )

 

I can easily provide you with an FBX file.  The option exists to produce them in either Binary or ASCII formats.  I will attach a pair of them for you to look upon ala the Ascii versions.  These are from the Female WW on Top animation and work as expected once converted.

 

FBX Samples.rar

 

[Maelstrius]

So I see Sexlab Werewolve has your lovely female werewolf animations installed, However I have no idea how to to trigger them! My PC is a female and also a werewolf, I'm not sure if perhaps the your money or your life death mod is not allowing it to trigger since it forces me out of it..Maybe thats it. the MCM menu doesnt show any of the animations if there were toggles for it in the menu. Are there any codes I could use in the console to trigger it to see if i have it ingame?

[regrius]

All very good news. Figured it was Win, but had to check, as it means I can use C# and The Triforce LINQ to save the princess write sane code. Also looks very good about the bones, they're really just two points in space(data wise), the connections between them are all figments of your modeling program's imagination, until you throw in IK junk. The strict bone ordering sounds like a workaround for not having the skeleton actually linked anywhere, which is good, for me anyway. Having a couple thoughts about the skeleton import issue too, but that's for later.

[ED]Looked through the fbx file, don't see any problems writing that parser, just curious if it's normal to end up with all that model data in there. Need to convert a base-game hkx to xml and see if that also contains model data, can't understand why it would. Blender doc should have enough to make sense of the keyframe data format.

 

As for werewolves, I thought that has been defunct for a while now, or did someone toss it a rez?

 

That reminded me of something though, what my real problem with most of the creature animations out is that AFAIK, there's no real creature transformation mod. The only thing I've seen that even makes a stab at it is http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31485/?, which doesn't really do what I need, and adds a bunch of extra jazz I really don't wanna hear. Just a set of conjuration spells that temporarily turn the player into a specific creature, and get sexlab to cooperate; without adding a new continent, 4 million lines of new voiced dialog, and an entirely new magic, perk, and leveling system that's incompatible with everything.

 

I know I can't be the only one to have risked my life helping a certain dunmer student in Winterhold, reached:

"Well, it all worked out in the end, didn't it?"

and find the:

"If you slip out of that robe, you can try it again. Practice makes perfect they say."

response inexplicably missing. Never mind the missing speech check for convincing her to teach it to Faralda for "Detailed research later on". It's a glaring oversight on Bethesda's part, but only a problem for me with Panic's work, though it's the other way around for the ladies. Or maybe I really am the only one who thought that was needed.

[Night~Sky]

All very good news. Figured it was Win, but had to check, as it means I can use C# and The Triforce LINQ to save the princess write sane code. Also looks very good about the bones, they're really just two points in space(data wise), the connections between them are all figments of your modeling program's imagination, until you throw in IK junk. The strict bone ordering sounds like a workaround for not having the skeleton actually linked anywhere, which is good, for me anyway. Having a couple thoughts about the skeleton import issue too, but that's for later.

[ED]Looked through the fbx file, don't see any problems writing that parser, just curious if it's normal to end up with all that model data in there. Need to convert a base-game hkx to xml and see if that also contains model data, can't understand why it would. Blender doc should have enough to make sense of the keyframe data format.

 

As for werewolves, I thought that has been defunct for a while now, or did someone toss it a rez?

 

That reminded me of something though, what my real problem with most of the creature animations out is that AFAIK, there's no real creature transformation mod. The only thing I've seen that even makes a stab at it is http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/31485/?, which doesn't really do what I need, and adds a bunch of extra jazz I really don't wanna hear. Just a set of conjuration spells that temporarily turn the player into a specific creature, and get sexlab to cooperate; without adding a new continent, 4 million lines of new voiced dialog, and an entirely new magic, perk, and leveling system that's incompatible with everything.

 

I know I can't be the only one to have risked my life helping a certain dunmer student in Winterhold, reached:

"Well, it all worked out in the end, didn't it?"

and find the:

"If you slip out of that robe, you can try it again. Practice makes perfect they say."

response inexplicably missing. Never mind the missing speech check for convincing her to teach it to Faralda for "Detailed research later on". It's a glaring oversight on Bethesda's part, but only a problem for me with Panic's work, though it's the other way around for the ladies. Or maybe I really am the only one who thought that was needed.

 

Alternate Actors, maybe. Although that doesn't really turn you into a creature so much as you "hijack" that creature; I'm not 100% that it actually assigns the correct keywords for SL to work with it...but it might, since you're technically hijacking something that would have all the keywords intact to begin with.

[Dayelyte]

I know I make sure the root node is sitting at 0,0,0 for both actors otherwise alignment issues will come up later on in game.  The other bones use that node to determine where they are in game engine space.  ( Same for the apps, the bones use X,Y,Z coords to determine their exact point in space )

 

The links ( also known as hierarchy ) to each other within the app usually denote who is a parent and who is a child node.  The visual representation of it is just there to make it easy to see.  Same holds true when I build the controllers.  The way I link them will determine what moves when I move X controller around.  ( I loathe rigging, gets confusing fast )

 

The hkxcmd line tool will easily convert any .hkx to a human readable .xml,  just pick one you want to look at and done.

( hkxcmd convert filename.hkx ) 

 

Most of the mods out there are a little rough around the edges, but then it's expected from a community based approach I guess.  We do what we can with what we have

 

[Dayelyte]

So I see Sexlab Werewolve has your lovely female werewolf animations installed, However I have no idea how to to trigger them! My PC is a female and also a werewolf, I'm not sure if perhaps the your money or your life death mod is not allowing it to trigger since it forces me out of it..Maybe thats it. the MCM menu doesnt show any of the animations if there were toggles for it in the menu. Are there any codes I could use in the console to trigger it to see if i have it ingame?

 

Do you have matchmaker installed ?