Animating question.

[DaemonGrin]

Hello! Toying around with creating swim animations for Deathclaw and have a test swimmtforward.kf made but before I continue making more I tried bringing it into the geck and even though I have everything setup properly NiControllerSequence named Forward, file path correct, and Swims is checked. The animation appears in the animation list for deathclaws but not the Forward in AnimGroup. The Animation also does not (cannot play without the animgroup showing?) play. Which raised the question can I not add custom anims for creatures that by default do not have such animations? Do I have to make a script attached to the deathclaw for a new animgroup for swimming? If so does this require NVSE I prefer not to use it I hate making mods with requirements beyond DLC.

 

Thanks,

Geoff

[A.J.]

Did you try to change  the header to Forward_Swim?

[DaemonGrin]

Did you try to change  the header to Forward_Swim?

 

Sadly that wouldn't work the header = the recognized animgroup and Forward_Swim is not one ; ; thanks though.

 

Geoff

[A.J.]

If you take a dog swim animation (whose header is forward_swim) and put it inside the deathclaw folder, it is at least seen inside the animation tab.

[DaemonGrin]

I see that Forward_Swim I have been referencing Lakelurk's anims which is just Forward. My swim anim shows up in the animation tab but doesn't show the animgroup. Thanks for pointing that out about the dog Forward_Swim the tuts I have read are useful to an extent to much vague info a lot of the times however never mentioning variations in headers other then Forward, Backward, TurnRight, TurnLeft, idle, and Fast variants..

 

Geoff

[A.J.]

If you want, attach the file so tomorrow I can take a look

 

EDIT: by the way, just for curiosity. If you take the dog swimming animation and check the preview of the animation playing, even if the skeleton is different and the creature will be obviously distorted, you still will see the animgroup Forward is triggered >>> at this point I'm inclined to think there's something wrong in your kf

[DaemonGrin]

If you want, attach the file so tomorrow I can take a look

 

EDIT: by the way, just for curiosity. If you take the dog swimming animation and check the preview of the animation playing, even if the skeleton is different and the creature will be obviously distorted, you still will see the animgroup Forward is triggered >>> at this point I'm inclined to think there's something wrong in your kf

 

Most likely there is something wrong since the few tuts I used didn't finish where I needed it too. Like setting the actual locomotion I used Blender and locrot the first frame and the last frame I moved some distance and locrot that spot and it works in blender and nifskope but I know there has to be something I did wrong.

 

EDIT: It's a very rough anim at the moment wanted to get it workin' before adding more fluidity to it. swimmtforward_first.kf was the original kf before tweaking a few things.

SwimmingDeathclaw.zip

[A.J.]

The file works fine.

 

There's only a bunch of things to modify, you can do it via nifskope.

 

Go on the bottom of the branch, inside textdatas (NiTextKeyExtraData), your start and stop testdatas need to be modified.

Edit their name, from the actual one (Idle: start / Idle: end, or something like that) to simply Start and End. Modify the ending time too, since it's wrong, it should be 2.3 seconds, you can see the "real" value on top, inside the NiControllerSequence block, under Stop Time.

 

When you do these modifies, if you have GECK opened you won't see the file working in real time. This is because everytime you open the window it will cache the animation file so even if you correct it it will have the wrong one in memory. To see it without reloading the GECK, simply close the deathclaw window and rename your animation file with a name you still didn't use, i.e. from swimmtforward to swimforward, next time you will open the deathclaw window it will reload the file and you'll see the animation triggering the forward animgroup.

 

EDIT: I forgot to add the attachment. You won't need it since the modify is very simple, but just in case...

 

PS: you probably will want to double check the Bip01 / NonAccum orientation. I didn't try it in game, just a feeling.

swimmtforwardTEXTDATAS.zip

[DaemonGrin]

Awesome thanks! I think I see what you mean about the orientation it looks like I need to adjust that so that the swim is actually parallel and not diagonal XD. Hmm maybe I should ask you opinion while I'm here about the other motion anims. I am trying to keep it rather reptilian should I make a backward anim? I have my ideas for idle, right and left. But think crocodile I've never seen one swim backwards.

 

Geoff

 

EDIT: So not quite sure what I should mess with in the kf to alter the non accum orientation (was looking at the quaternion rotation) but thought I would jump in blender instead and if I adjust the non accum bone it rotates all. If I break the parent and reparent after changing will that break anything?

[A.J.]

 

I need to adjust that so that the swim is actually parallel and not diagonal

When I've seen the GECK preview, it was rotating on a side instead than keeping the same Z of another animation like walking forward, but since I didn't try it in game I don't know what will happen in game.

 

 

maybe I should ask you opinion while I'm here about the other motion anim

oh I really wouldn't know what to suggest, but I'm sure you'll do fine. If I had to do an animation like that, I would think that the deathclaw is still a biped so it will remain in a almost biped position but more relaxed, like the human swimming idle, and when going forward it would "bend" forward like you did in your animation, like a lakelurk. For the same reason, I would simply bend in the opposite direction when going backward, but very very slightly, and would reduce the speed a lot, and maybe it could even use the claws to dive against.

 

 

If I break the parent and reparent after changing will that break anything?

I didn't understand what you mean. Do you mean if you remove the skeleton as parent of the deathclaw mesh? if it's so, then nothing bad happens since it's not the mesh which is animated but the skeleton.

[DaemonGrin]

 

If I break the parent and reparent after changing will that break anything?

 

I didn't understand what you mean. Do you mean if you remove the skeleton as parent of the deathclaw mesh? if it's so, then nothing bad happens since it's not the mesh which is animated but the skeleton.

 

 

I mean the bones are on a chainlink system and the non accum armature and another bone in the pelvis are the parent to all so rotating either rotates everything. If I break the parent I could rotate the non accum and reparent once in position. But not sure if that would break the skeleton.

[A.J.]

oh, I got it. Yes, you can't do that unfortunately

[DaemonGrin]

oh, I got it. Yes, you can't do that unfortunately

 

Sad ; ; oh well I'll keep messing with things until I blow something up XD. I never really liked animating in school but fortunately swimming doesn't have to be amazingly fluid since there is no combat and likely wont be swimming with a deathclaw like dolphins lol. Playing around with an idea for a mod large but simplistic so not worried about going at it solo and had an idea involving what I'm trying to do (this isn't for all deathclaws unless someone wants that later on). 

 

I saw the right turn you were talking about I didn't notice it because I toggle ground off right off when I enter full preview and didn't notice the change. So not only does it turn to the right it also angle upward rather than being parallel to water surface. All because of the non accum >< tempted to take mirelurk anim and tweak it XD

 

Thanks,

Geoff

[A.J.]

it's definetely enervating when you finish a work on a animation and you find it is facing wrong. Often it is possible to correct it easily and fast using a constraint, however the problem with Blender 2.49 is it lacks of a script to decimate frames so once you bake the constraints you lose all your optimization. newer versions have decimate script, but they're not retroactive unfortunately. That's pretty sad, a decimating script would be really wonderful. but then, soon there will be FO4, I don't care that much of Blender 2.49b