HKXPack/HKXAnim - Animations in FO4

[ag12]

I sadly have no clue about animating. I was able to get some simple animations for Skyrim done, but only using the awesome Rig that can be found around the board somewhere. Without the rig I don't even know how to select single bones in order to move them. Pretty sad.

[DocClox]

 

(I struggled to animate that for a good 30 mns and didn't even manage to add a keyframe, that's how sad it was.)

 

it could be worse: i am totally lost when looking at any animation program - i don't even know what a keyframe is... now that is sad

 

Well ... you know how when they make traditional style cartoons, they draw a picture, and then another one almost the same, and again and again, so that when they show them all really fast it looks like it's moving? Well the individual pictures are "frames".

 

You get the same thing for computer animations too. You have a pose and then another pose, slightly different and another and so on. The difference is that you don't need to pose all the frames by hand. You just pick a few key points in the animation, "key frames" if you will, and then the computer extrapolates all the poses in between.

 

Hence "keyframes"

[zechosen]

since fo4 inst too hardcoded, sooner or later, i would like to see someone do a proper anim replacement in this game

 

 

[Leocid2]

 

Thanks all for you kind words.

 

I have now added the missing nif skeleton bones and rigged the CBBE body to it (Actually I did it 2 days ago, but then I received my HTC Vive and I got lost in virtual reality ).

 

That's cool

 

However... I don't know how to animate :/ If someone cold create a sample animation from this project and transfer it to me, I'll try to continue the exporter from there. (just a .blend project should be fine)

 

Ideally, I would like if possible for each bone of the project to be included in the animation in some way... but this isn't a requirement as of now. I'll try to extrapolate if you can't manage to make an "all bones animation" easily.

 

(I struggled to animate that for a good 30 mns and didn't even manage to add a keyframe, that's how sad it was.)

 

 

If the bones are working, which they are the first animations delivered to the public, and take them time to launch the first release.

 

[Leito86]

 

Thanks all for you kind words.

 

I have now added the missing nif skeleton bones and rigged the CBBE body to it (Actually I did it 2 days ago, but then I received my HTC Vive and I got lost in virtual reality ).

 

That's cool

 

However... I don't know how to animate :/ If someone cold create a sample animation from this project and transfer it to me, I'll try to continue the exporter from there. (just a .blend project should be fine)

 

Ideally, I would like if possible for each bone of the project to be included in the animation in some way... but this isn't a requirement as of now. I'll try to extrapolate if you can't manage to make an "all bones animation" easily.

 

 

 

Here you go.  It's a 20 frame animation that loops back and forth of two poses.  All bones except for weapon placement bones animate.

FO4_anim_quickie.zip

 

Animation Preview:

 

Also, one thing to note, the bones and hands/arms aren't lined up (cbbe issue?).  It's going to cause some deformation issues (ie the knuckles crush in on themselves when rotating fingers).

[volfin]

I think the bigger question is, if you make an animation with blender, how do you convert it into something Fallout can use? Aren't the Havok tools for 3DS only? what are the steps to get from blender anim to in-game animation? Nobody has really explained that in detail.

[Guest]

I think the bigger question is, if you make an animation with blender, how do you convert it into something Fallout can use? Aren't the Havok tools for 3DS only? what are the steps to get from blender anim to in-game animation? Nobody has really explained that in detail.

 

It is the subject of this thread, isn't it?

Steps are done one after another. And will lead to full ability to create and use new animations.

 

But we are still at our begin.

[DexesTTP]

Here you go.  It's a 20 frame animation that loops back and forth of two poses.  All bones except for weapon placement bones animate.

<snip> 

Animation Preview:

<snip>

Also, one thing to note, the bones and hands/arms aren't lined up (cbbe issue?).  It's going to cause some deformation issues (ie the knuckles crush in on themselves when rotating fingers).

<snip>

Thank you very much ^^ Your animation file is very useful because it validates what I already have, as well as give me access to a full set of bones to check against.

 

About the bone alignment thing, I guess this is more of a rigging issue ? I'm not really knowledgeable in this domain.

 

I think the bigger question is, if you make an animation with blender, how do you convert it into something Fallout can use? Aren't the Havok tools for 3DS only? what are the steps to get from blender anim to in-game animation? Nobody has really explained that in detail.

Havok Tools and the 3DsMax plugin isn't what matters in this thread. It is at most a stepping stone for understanding animations.

 

We are currently writing things that can convert animations made with Blender or 3DsMax into the Fallout 4 format, without a need for HCT. So as of now the first step is, depending of what you prefer :

- Work on a conversion tool by studying the internals of animation files, creating a reader for Blender/3DsMax animations and creating a writer for the Fallout 4 format

- Wait until someone else does the thing just above.

 

 

Then and only then, the steps for animators will be :

- Create a Blender/3DsMax animation

- Export them as Collida files

- Convert the Collida file into a Fallout 4 file using the tool created above (with a command at first)

- (Optional) Add the animation in game using the Creation Kit Idle interface and test the animation in-game.

- Return to step 2 and create another animation

 

 

Of course, you're welcome to use the blender project Lordescobar linked earlier, create an animation and give it to me as a .blend file. I WON'T CONVERT the animation, but it may help me go faster in writing the tolls by giving me material to test against.

 

(and just to be clear, when I say "give it to me" I mean "let me study the file". I'm not here to steal people's work, and as much as possible this animation file won't get out of my computer.)

[JohnHead444]

I hate to ask this I'm game for making some animations. But I don't no which blender version u's are using. It opens in clunky old blender with errors. Is this for the newest blend or some thing in between.

[D_ManXX2]

if it just script. have you guys tried to contact Anton ??

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34671

 

he made a script for blender to export directly from blender so you can convert to hkx. not sure about fallout maybe we can recycle the script from blender.

[Leito86]

I hate to ask this I'm game for making some animations. But I don't no which blender version u's are using. It opens in clunky old blender with errors. Is this for the newest blend or some thing in between.

 

I used 2.77a and it seems to open fine.

[JohnHead444]

Ok will get it downloaded and check things out. Thanks.

[lordescobar666]

 

Also, one thing to note, the bones and hands/arms aren't lined up (cbbe issue?).  It's going to cause some deformation issues (ie the knuckles crush in on themselves when rotating fingers).

bones.png

 

 

It's hard to say what the cause of the issue is. To get the skeleton out of the hkx, I had to manually add it to an existing animation, convert it with HCT into 32-bit hkx, then convert it into fbx with some tool I found on the internet, then import it into Blender and manually correct what the fbx importer messed up. On top of that I merged it with the skeleton from skeleton.nif (which has a similar story) to be able to rig the CBBE body. There are lot of steps where something could go wrong. The bones are still symmetric (when you ignore the precision error) so the cause seems to be something systematic and not some accidental movement of a bone.

 

I hate to ask this I'm game for making some animations. But I don't no which blender version u's are using. It opens in clunky old blender with errors. Is this for the newest blend or some thing in between.

 

It was made with Blender 2.77.

 

if it just script. have you guys tried to contact Anton ??

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34671

 

he made a script for blender to export directly from blender so you can convert to hkx. not sure about fallout maybe we can recycle the script from blender.

 

Anton outputs a custom format from Blender, and then uses his own tools to convert his custom format into Skyrim hkx.

 

DexesTTP outputs an existing format from Blender/Max/..., and then uses his own tools to convert the existing format into Fallout hkx.

 

I don't think there is much Anton could help.

[DexesTTP]

 

I hate to ask this I'm game for making some animations. But I don't no which blender version u's are using. It opens in clunky old blender with errors. Is this for the newest blend or some thing in between.

 

I used 2.77a and it seems to open fine.

 

Yeah, I use a kind of new Blender version too (2.76b) and it works fine. My hunch is that the file should work in blender 2.7x, but maybe not in earlier versions.

 

if it just script. have you guys tried to contact Anton ??

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34671

 

he made a script for blender to export directly from blender so you can convert to hkx. not sure about fallout maybe we can recycle the script from blender.

 

I thought I already addressed your earlier post, but apparently I forgot to do it.

 

Most of the scripting that was done for Skyrim assumed the existence of HKXCMD, a tool by Figment created around '11 (just after Skyrim was out) to convert .kf files into .hkx animations.

 

This means that Anton, Gerra6 and maybe others created tools to convert data between versions (which is cool) but never created something to put them in the game. Figment did.

 

Now, I already contacted Figment at the very beginning of this project (around the end of December) and had multiple occasions to talk to him about hkxcmd. The way he handled the data conversion was by taking the data from kf files using NifLib (a NifTools project) and then feeding it to the Havok SDK.

 

As addressed multiple times, the Havok SDK is what we are missing for Fallout 4. I have to recreate the whole file creation, data compression and animation storage part of the Havok SDK from scratch in order to have something that looks like an animation in game.

 

Now, this is not that bad. I already did the whole file creation and data compression in Jan/Feb/March. Now, what we are doing is storing animation data in the file. For that, we need to see what is an animation file for Fallout 4 (this is done), try to find similarities with what is an animation file is Blender (this is done too) and, finally, write a tool so that the similar things from Blender are converted and copied to Fallout 4 format (that's what I am doing at the moment).

 

The "helper" scripts that you are linking will come later. Also, I probably won't be the one who does it, and I probably won't even be needed for these scripts.

 

To be honest, most of the animations stuff is beyond me. I understand the maths of course, and what the file formats are. This is needed to write the base tools.

But at the same time, I have no idea what a good animation is or what tools would be needed to help animators. My whole experience with Blender was back in '09 when I was playing with meshes and stuff, moving cubes around, but it never got to me and I stopped soon after.

 

The only thing I think I can provide to animators is a way to take Blender/3DsMax animations and put them into the game.

[invalidfate]

   All my FO4 pose mods on Nexus were purely made only by 3ds-max, and I always used the skeleton directly imported from nif plugin.  Also in order to convert animation from skyrim, I need to run "pose converter" in blender, export the result in a kf file, and finally import it to 3ds-max for hkx export. A painful flow.... and usually an awful animation obtained for some complex dance animation

 

    After almost half year (play FO4 again when CK finally out), inspired from UMPAs approaches, the dance animation porting can be done by  3ds-max only. Now only some minor issuew need to be solved (ex. awful finger motion...), I guess we can re-use most of Skyrim animation, saving plenty time.

 

Below is a 3-min-long dance animation with music (cloth is a FO3 porting with skirt& breast dynamic)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcGzzlHdpOI

[ag12]

   All my FO4 pose mods on Nexus were purely made only by 3ds-max, and I always used the skeleton directly imported from nif plugin.  Also in order to convert animation from skyrim, I need to run "pose converter" in blender, export the result in a kf file, and finally import it to 3ds-max for hkx export. A painful flow.... and usually an awful animation obtained for some complex dance animation

 

    After almost half year (play FO4 again when CK finally out), inspired from UMPAs approaches, the dance animation porting can be done by  3ds-max only. Now only some minor issuew need to be solved (ex. awful finger motion...), I guess we can re-use most of Skyrim animation, saving plenty time.

 

Below is a 3-min-long dance animation with music (cloth is a FO3 porting with skirt& breast dynamic)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcGzzlHdpOI

 

Could you elaborate your work-flow and what tools exactly you used so that other people can try to trace your steps and start converting other animations?

That would be greatly appreciated!

[mike24]

Thanks all for you kind words.

 

I have now added the missing nif skeleton bones and rigged the CBBE body to it (Actually I did it 2 days ago, but then I received my HTC Vive and I got lost in virtual reality ).

 

Thank you! Now I can start testing my firsts animations! 

[volfin]

 

Havok Tools and the 3DsMax plugin isn't what matters in this thread. It is at most a stepping stone for understanding animations.

 

We are currently writing things that can convert animations made with Blender or 3DsMax into the Fallout 4 format, without a need for HCT. So as of now the first step is, depending of what you prefer :

- Work on a conversion tool by studying the internals of animation files, creating a reader for Blender/3DsMax animations and creating a writer for the Fallout 4 format

 

 

I appreciate the several responses to clarify the state of things. At the start I understood the point was to make a tool like FNIS, but once the CK came out, it was apparent that was no longer necessary. Then things got vague for me. I get the goal now.

 

 

​

[volfin]

 

Of course, you're welcome to use the blender project Lordescobar linked earlier, create an animation and give it to me as a .blend file. I WON'T CONVERT the animation, but it may help me go faster in writing the tolls by giving me material to test against.

 

(and just to be clear, when I say "give it to me" I mean "let me study the file". I'm not here to steal people's work, and as much as possible this animation file won't get out of my computer.)

 

 

Np, this is only good for testing, a quick walk cycle. Hope it helps.

walkcycle.rar

[DexesTTP]

Np, this is only good for testing, a quick walk cycle. Hope it helps.

Thank you very much. This file gave me one piece of information I was missing, namely the existence of a "0" frame. This is really cool because now I don't have to parse raw data

 

Update on my progress : I finished extracting the data from COLLIDA files, and i'm currently combining all this data into single tracks similar to the Havok tracks. Once I finish that, the "only" thing left is to put the data inside a HKX file and see what happens

[Guest]

Best of luck, Dex.

[AsariX]

Just something I wonder now, which is a bit technical, so maybe you figured out whether it's included or not:

 

Do the animations in Fallout support combining animations, or playing two animations at once? This is actually something I remember from Second Life. Animations had "priorities", and the animation with the highest priority would override animations of a lower priority. However, if the higher priority animation didn't specifically animate some joint, then that joint could still be moved by an animation of a lower priority at the same time!

 

Just an example of what could be done with this:

2 animation.

The first animation is a high priority animation for raising the characters left arm to look at his or her watch. Only neck and arm joints are actually animated, other joints are left in a "default" or "neutral" state.

The second animation is a mid-priority animation for walking. Almost all joints are animated for relatively natural movement: legs, arms, shoulders, chest/spine, neck head. Basically everything.

Running these two together resulted in a checking-watch-while-walking animation. For something like this, the walk animation was usually on a loop, while the check-watch animation was usually non-looped, but just occasionally triggered on a timer.

 

That was a really simple example, but there are dozens of applications. Not only walking-while-checking-watch, but also smoke/drink-when-seated, and even trickery to set the foot in a rigid angled position for high heels (usually combined with a slightly raised hip-offset for positioning).

 

But, these things are needed:

-Neutral or relaxed states/positions for joints

-Animation priority settings (but animators need to be educated very well on this matter, or half of them will set their priority to max for no other reason than stupid arrogance >.< )

-Being able to run multiple animations at the same time

[mike24]

 

Np, this is only good for testing, a quick walk cycle. Hope it helps.

Thank you very much. This file gave me one piece of information I was missing, namely the existence of a "0" frame. This is really cool because now I don't have to parse raw data

 

Update on my progress : I finished extracting the data from COLLIDA files, and i'm currently combining all this data into single tracks similar to the Havok tracks. Once I finish that, the "only" thing left is to put the data inside a HKX file and see what happens

 

 

 

 I cant wait more!!!    Really, thanks for your work, I hope you can finish your work and blender users can do  a lot animations!!

[DexesTTP]

Just something I wonder now, which is a bit technical, so maybe you figured out whether it's included or not:

 

Do the animations in Fallout support combining animations, or playing two animations at once? This is actually something I remember from Second Life. Animations had "priorities", and the animation with the highest priority would override animations of a lower priority. However, if the higher priority animation didn't specifically animate some joint, then that joint could still be moved by an animation of a lower priority at the same time!

 

Just an example of what could be done with this:

2 animation.

The first animation is a high priority animation for raising the characters left arm to look at his or her watch. Only neck and arm joints are actually animated, other joints are left in a "default" or "neutral" state.

The second animation is a mid-priority animation for walking. Almost all joints are animated for relatively natural movement: legs, arms, shoulders, chest/spine, neck head. Basically everything.

Running these two together resulted in a checking-watch-while-walking animation. For something like this, the walk animation was usually on a loop, while the check-watch animation was usually non-looped, but just occasionally triggered on a timer.

 

That was a really simple example, but there are dozens of applications. Not only walking-while-checking-watch, but also smoke/drink-when-seated, and even trickery to set the foot in a rigid angled position for high heels (usually combined with a slightly raised hip-offset for positioning).

 

But, these things are needed:

-Neutral or relaxed states/positions for joints

-Animation priority settings (but animators need to be educated very well on this matter, or half of them will set their priority to max for no other reason than stupid arrogance >.< )

-Being able to run multiple animations at the same time

 

 

Excellent question.

 

Havok animations are actually just that, animations. The animation file doesn't have a priority, actually it doesn't have anything else than an animation time and the actual animation data (with references to the animated bones only, and not any other bones).

 

Then, the engine associates animations to in-game events via what's called a behavior tree. The Havok behavior tree is a complex construct made of different controllers for animations, a set of variables that defines the actor state and generators to create controllers from states.

 

If this sort of things would be available in Fallout 4, then it would be defined in Behaviors. Now, the behavior tree is the same as the one in Skyrim was, so I'd recommend you check with Fore, which is an expert on behavior trees, or some other people that have some experience too (e.g. Aerisam over at TESRenewal).

 

Keep in mind that behavior trees are really complex things, so even though there has been a whole lot of progress made understanding them there is not much people were able to do. I think noone even created a behavior tree for Skyrim since it got out (except Bethesda of course).

 

Side note : I was thinking about a project, using the NodeRed codebase and the HKXPack tool, we may be able to manipulate the FO4 behavior tree with a bloc-based format similar to how most tools do it ('m thinking UE4). This is an idea that I might pick up when I don't have other side-projects, but if someone else is interested don't hesitate to tinker with that.

[Guest]

Just something I ...

Nope. That is not supported by the game engine.