Centaur in the works, fully functional (update 04.05.2017 - nexus link pg 1)

[wishnot4]

 

 

 

some tips you may or may not know:

the save/load animation can be used to copy the selected nodes animation only.

but be warned, it can only be applied to nodes of the same name...so keep than in mind if using the "Rename Objects" tool.

 

if you hold down Ctrl on your keyboard you can select multiple objects with your mouse by clicking on them.

that's not just for 3ds max, it works in other programs and windows itself.

 

you can copy keyframes by selecting them on the time bar* and then hold down Shift, as you are holding down shift drag the keyframes with you mouse, you will now be dragging a copy of the selected keyframes.

 

there is a useful hidden tool for the time bar*, right click on the time bar* and go to configure, and then click on "Show Selection Range"

with this you can "change time" if you have multiple (eg: all) keyframes selected, just click and drag the white arrows.

it comes in useful if you want to speed up, slow down or even reverse the animation.

 

 

*i don't know the real name of it

 

Thanks for the tips.  I'll keep them in mind when I get started on the main animations. 

[wishnot4]

Just an update.  I've got my centaur rig 100% functioning now.  I've got to go to work here shortly, so won't have time to test out my quick animation idea.  Hopefully, it works and I'll have several animations knocked out by tonight after I get home from work.

[XcOm04au]

Hey man thats awesome, hope we can see some gifs but no biggie if you dont

[wishnot4]

Well, Other than a test animation to see if it worked, I haven't made any animations yet.  I did try the technique I discussed earlier, but so far, the save/load animation isn't doing anything.  I'm going to do a little more research and see if I can figure out how to do it.  That technique would greatly(and I mean GREATLY) reduce the amount of animation time needed to make all the animations.

[MadMansGun]

Well, Other than a test animation to see if it worked, I haven't made any animations yet.  I did try the technique I discussed earlier, but so far, the save/load animation isn't doing anything.  I'm going to do a little more research and see if I can figure out how to do it.  That technique would greatly(and I mean GREATLY) reduce the amount of animation time needed to make all the animations.

 

the nodes need to be selected before you load the animation onto them

 

[wishnot4]

 

Well, Other than a test animation to see if it worked, I haven't made any animations yet.  I did try the technique I discussed earlier, but so far, the save/load animation isn't doing anything.  I'm going to do a little more research and see if I can figure out how to do it.  That technique would greatly(and I mean GREATLY) reduce the amount of animation time needed to make all the animations.

 

the nodes need to be selected before you load the animation onto them

 

 

Both when I'm first importing the animation and when I use the save/load feature?

[MadMansGun]

 

 

[wishnot4]

Yeah, that's what I did.  But the only bone that is animating is the Horse COM.  They have the same name, have to sense that's how I'm selecting the bones, not to mention that its the same save file being loaded up on two instances of 3ds max.  Could I use the save/load trick one bone at a time.  Though, that probably won't save me any time.

 

Edit: Never mind.  While I couldn't get it to do that.  Your tutorial made me realize that I could load both animations up on the rig, it extends the time and moves the second animation to the latter part of the time line.  As soon as you reminded me that I could move the animations, I was like.  Well, hell that's much easier than trying to save load the animation.  Thanks again for your help.  If this exports correctly, then you have just streamlined the process for my centaur animations. 

[MadMansGun]

Yeah, that's what I did.  But the only bone that is animating is the Horse COM.  They have the same name, have to sense that's how I'm selecting the bones, not to mention that its the same save file being loaded up on two instances of 3ds max.  Could I use the save/load trick one bone at a time.  Though, that probably won't save me any time.

 

Edit: Never mind.  While I couldn't get it to do that.  Your tutorial made me realize that I could load both animations up on the rig, it extends the time and moves the second animation to the latter part of the time line.  As soon as you reminded me that I could move the animations, I was like.  Well, hell that's much easier than trying to save load the animation.  Thanks again for your help.  If this exports correctly, then you have just streamlined the process for my centaur animations. 

 

its strange that its not working, try just selecting the leg nodes, maybe a node somewhere is connected in a different way that makes part of the save incompatible.

i had a problem like that when i converted one of my animations into a killmove. in my case the problem was the pelvis node and i bypassed the problem by not having the node selected. 

[wishnot4]

 

its strange that its not working, try just selecting the leg nodes, maybe a node somewhere is connected in a different way that makes part of the save incompatible.

i had a problem like that when i converted one of my animations into a killmove. in my case the problem was the pelvis node and i bypassed the problem by not having the node selected. 

 

That's a good idea, but it seems that I can just load both animations up on the rig and edit from there.  Anyway, I had a set back I'll have to work on before I can get back to the animations.  I fixed the skeleton.hkx so that the horse body stopped twisting up when I played the animations in the CK.  Well, when I went into game to check it out, this time it was doing something very strange.  The character was a mile away from the camera and sort of stretched out.  Not sure what I did to cause that.  Posed the question to Groovtama since he's the skeleton expert.  Also, I'm going to have to take a break from the centaur stuff, have to knock out some work on the team's main mods - they're waiting for my stuff.  Don't worry all, I'll get this, it'll just take some time.

[XcOm04au]

half man, half mammoth centaur...half horse, half werepanther centaur....so many cool ideas spring to mind.

[MadMansGun]

 

That's a good idea, but it seems that I can just load both animations up on the rig and edit from there.  Anyway, I had a set back I'll have to work on before I can get back to the animations.  I fixed the skeleton.hkx so that the horse body stopped twisting up when I played the animations in the CK.  Well, when I went into game to check it out, this time it was doing something very strange.  The character was a mile away from the camera and sort of stretched out.  Not sure what I did to cause that.  Posed the question to Groovtama since he's the skeleton expert.  Also, I'm going to have to take a break from the centaur stuff, have to knock out some work on the team's main mods - they're waiting for my stuff.  Don't worry all, I'll get this, it'll just take some time.

 

the only times i have seen stuff like that is:

when the nodes list for havok is wrong but it still exported a .hkx anyways.

if nodes are missing from the scene, (Eg: Werewolves http://www.loverslab.com/topic/60847-dragon-animations-creature-on-creature/?p=1609023 )

and when i unlinked a node in the dragons neck to see what would happen (the dragons head ended up 200 feet away)

 

half man, half mammoth centaur...half horse, half werepanther centaur....so many cool ideas spring to mind.

at least 1200 animations are needed to do all of that, no one in there right mind would even try.

[IGotBored]

I'm not a modder so I don't know but it seems to me your best bet to save yourself a lot of stress is making it a follower or a mount.

[Blaze69]

half man, half mammoth centaur...half horse, half werepanther centaur....so many cool ideas spring to mind.

at least 1200 animations are needed to do all of that, no one in there right mind would even try.

Not neccessarily, unless I'm mistaken. If you use the same skeleton and rig for all of them, and only change the meshes, you would only have to make the anims for one centaur rig. Okay, that is stil a ton of anims, but not as many as those (unless those 1200 are for just one rig, in which case you are completely right  ).

 

For example, the Monster Girl mod for Oblivion has regular centaurs from the Centaur Race mod, but also has half-human-half tiger centaurs (regular centaurs with tiger body meshes rigged to the equine/horse centaur skeleton) and also full-on tigertaurs (same as before but with Khajiit upperbodies and heads instead of human ones).

 

I guess the same would apply here, just rig a tiger/panther/mammoth/whatever-looking body mesh to the horse-half of the centaur and choose the appropiate humanoid race for the torso/head.

 

Just my two cents, though. If I'm mistaken, feel free to correct me. I would like to know if I'm right or wrong.

[wishnot4]

Okay, first, I think I've got it figured out.  Had something in the wrong order on my skeleton.hkx file.  About to load the game up and see if that fixes it.  Second, I've already made the follower npc version.  It's up on the nexus.  I just hate it.  It's ugly and not what I wanted when I first started this project almost a year ago.  Third, you are right, I could make all those other types of centaurs by just making new meshes on the same rig.  And maybe, if I can get some animations going without the issues I've had so far, then I might think about making those meshes.  But for now, I have a pretty full plate as is(have to get back to making the snake tail animations for my mod team, not to mention the list of new sea creatures I have to rig to work in game.)

[XcOm04au]

by the way I wasn't seriously suggesting trying to do what I was saying, but in the future I guess as long as everything with the centaur is fleshed out then future adaptations are possible. Hope everything is going well with the centaur

[RomeoZero]

Have you seen Anton tools for Skyrim ?

[wishnot4]

Yes, but those tools aren't for what I'm doing.  And I've talked to anton and he says most of his project stuff is for animating non character items, like his wings.

Okay, I've got the rig exporting pretty good now.  The only issue is the human body is too low and isn't staying at the horse neck join.  But since the rig is exporting clean animations, and I was able to successfully merge horse and human animations, things are looking good.  I will be taking a break from it though.  There are a few reasons for this, 1) I'm behind on my other mod projects and need to get back to them. 2) I currently have no way of making the centaur's animations race exclusive - this means that if I were to start making the animations, they would overwrite the vanilla animations.  Now, in many cases, with my current rig, this wouldn't be an issue.  But there would be several animations, sitting for example, where I'd have to edit the animation so much that the non-centaur races would look odd when sitting.  3) I don't like the fact that currently all the special races I'm making have to use the same skeleton.hkx file.  Basically, the issue is that the skeleton.hkx is getting to be a bit unwieldy. It currently has the gorgon/tsaesci races, the centaur race, the regular humanoid races, and we're planning on making a mermaid addition too.  Reason 3 is the least of the issues though, and can be worked around if 1 and 2 are resolved.

[XcOm04au]

Thanks for the update

[XcOm04au]

I have ben given permission to share some news.

 

Quote:

 

 

wishnot4

There is some possible good news.  I'm working with an expert over on skywind who is helping make the centaur's have a custom HavoK project, so that they won't break the other playable races.  I've made some progress, but there is a lot to do and are schedules haven't been lining up for very long.  If this works, then I can make the mermaids have their own custom skeleton.HKX.  But I still have a lot of work to do, not just for the centaurs, but for my other projects as well.  Beast of Tamriel had a big update coming.

 

 

I have also been instructed to say this is not guaranteed to work, but he has made a little progress.

[wishnot4]

Still not 100% certain yet that it will work for the centaurs, but the custom havok project did work for the whales I used as a trail run.  This means that chances are good that I will be releasing true custom races in the near future.

[XcOm04au]

I dont know how exactly to say this, but there hasn't been, in my opinion, a great leap forward in mods such as this in a long while. I hope all goes well.

[D C]

Looks like a christmas gift is coming,and what happend to tsaesci tail?

[XcOm04au]

Somehow I dont think this will be ready for christmas, perhaps in the future

[wishnot4]

I work on several projects at once.  I can't help myself.  I've got the Tsaesci tail in the works.  In fact, I've already made several swimming animations with it.  Just trying to work out the kinks with the HDT. Centaurs are making progress.  The new havok project isn't working even 50% but it is working for example the walk forward animation I made for the centaurs is actually being used by the NPC version.  They preform several of the animations as they are supposed to.  Another example, when attacked they actually ran away.  Played the vanilla animation because I hadn't made a run forward one yet, but they actually played an animation.  There's been a lot of instances though where they just do the T-pose.  So, hopefully, the guy who taught me how to make custom havok projects will be able to figure out what I'm missing.