[WIP] Amethyst's Animated Harp

[AmethystLR]

** Note: I still consider this a beta, until I can get enough feedback, to work out issues. **

 

Name: Amethyst's Animated Harp

Version: Beta

Date: 7/3/2012

Category: Miscellaneous

Requirements: Oblivion Patch 1.2.0.416, Oblivion Script Extender v 20 (OBSE)

Author(s): AmethystLR

 

Description

===========

Have you ever wanted to role-play a bard properly? Or perhaps you wish a companion or NPC would seranade you? This allows you to play a harp yourself, or have someone else play it for you!

 

Location

========

Spells and items given on start of mod.

 

Details

=======

The version of this mod for NPC's is fairly straight forward. Activate the 'Play Harp - NPC' that you receive on startup, then cast it on the NPC of your choice. They will start the animation, equipping the harp, then music will play. To end it, simply talk to them.

 

The self version is a bit more in depth to start. On startup, you receive 'Play Harp - Self' as well as two clothing items. '- Harp -' Which is the model of the harp, and '- Reset Idle Animation -'.

 

Equip the Harp, and cast 'Play Harp - Self' to start. (You may have to cast a couple times to get both the animation and music. Make sure you have '- Reset Idle Animation -" Hotkeyed, so when you're done you can equip it, to end the animation back to your default idle.

 

Make sure you have OBSE 20, as this mod uses the Playidle function from that.

 

Install

=======

1. Extract the files to a temporary location.

2. Examine the folder structure and make corrections where necessary.

3. Copy files to (install folder)\Oblivion\Data\

4. Start Oblivion Launcher, click 'Data Files', place a checkmark beside the .esp file(s).

 

Uninstall

=========

1. Start Oblivion Launcher, click Data Files, uncheck the .esp file(s).

2. Delete the files/folders associated with the mod.

 

Oblivion\Data\Meshes\Characters\_Male\IdleAnims\Harp

Oblivion\Data\Meshes\Harp\

Oblivion\Data\Meshes\idleobjects\Harp

Oblivion\Data\Sound\fx\Harp

Oblivion\Data\Textures\Harp\

Oblivion\Data\Textures\Menus\Icons\Harp

 

 

 

Incompatibility

===============

Shouldn't be incompatible with any mods.

 

Known Issues or Bugs

====================

- Reset idle doesn't always work. It does most of the time it seems.

- The animation sometimes causes player to autowalk more than normal (Hit w once, and they keep walking for a time, unknown as to why.)

 

If you do find any other bugs or issues, please report them. If you know how to fix it, by all means do so, or tell me your ideas!

 

 

History

=======

Beta Release

 

Contact

=======

You can find me here on LL, either a PM or in this thread.

 

Credits

=======

 

Thanks to Robin Wood at http://www.robinwood.com for the original harp mesh.

Thanks to Sally Fletcher at www.heavenlyharpist.com for the music

Thanks to Kaizit (Stesha) for the harp animation

Thanks to Reaper1911 for the inspiration for this with his Animated Lute.

Thanks to Bethesda for creating Oblivion.

Thanks to LHammonds for the Readme Generator this file was based on.

 

Tools Used

==========

Blender - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12248

GIMP - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14920

NIFSkope - http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope

TES4Edit - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11536

TES4Files - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8489

TES Construction Set - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11367

Readme Generator - http://HammondsLegacy.com/obmm/tools_readme_generator1.asp

 

Licensing/Legal

===============

You can do whatever you want with this mod but all I ask in return is that

you give me credit if you distribute any part of this mod.

 

Changelog:

Fixed texture paths for idleobjects/harp/harp.nif 7/4/12

 

 

 

[Guest]

Thanks! I'll give it a go and see how it works!

 

(have always wanted to play as a bard, I've tried an animated lute mod with mediocre success. I'll make a new character for this. Maybe even leliana from Dragon Age if possible.)

[AmethystLR]

Thanks! I'll give it a go and see how it works!

 

(have always wanted to play as a bard' date=' I've tried an animated lute mod with mediocre success. I'll make a new character for this. Maybe even leliana from Dragon Age if possible.)

[/quote']

 

I hope you like it! Let me know if you find any issues I have to fix. This is still a beta so I know there will be. The issues I have at the moment I'm just not sure how to fix. (Scripting is haaaard )

 

You probably used the same lute that I got the inspiration from to do this. I just ended up taking a different route in executing it, such as using spells instead.

[Poontank]

Whoa, already finished? This is great!

I'll also create a new character specificly for this mod. Something I'm doing frequently, up to now just to wear particular outfits however.

My line-up of 'actors' is still direly missing a musician character. I guess I will call the bardy-babe 'Jo Strumma'...

 

Too bad I'm busy with finalizing a mod myself, so I will not be able to test it before tomorrow . Thank you very much for this!

[adrenaline]

Wow, thanks. This is awesome!

I saw this on Nexus, and just found that you are also here!

(Please forgive me that I only remember your impressive avatar before.)

 

Actually I am writing a Readme translation of this.

It will be my pleasure to collect the feedback for you.

[adrenaline]

I've tested it. There are three problems I've encountered:

 

1. The "Play Harp - Self" works good, but I can't stop it with "Reset Idle Animation", as you have mentioned it doesn't always work.

 

2. After using "Play Harp - NPC", I found the harp playing by NPC is "purple".

 

3. Sometimes the position of the harp playing by NPC is higher than their hands.

 

 

 

 

 

[AmethystLR]

I've tested it. There are three problems I've encountered:

 

1. The "Play Harp - Self" works good' date=' but I can't stop it with "Reset Idle Animation", as you have mentioned it doesn't always work.

 

2. After use "Play Harp - NPC", I found the harp playing by NPC is "purple".

 

3. Sometimes the position of the harp playing by NPC is higher than their hands.

 

 

 

[img']http://i.imgbox.com/aak1HapN.jpg[/img]

 

 

 

Thanks for the feedback! I know the idle animation problem is probably something wrong with my script. I'm not entirely sure how to fix it though >.< I'll play with it more.

 

I didn't create the animation, Stesha on tesnexus did (The person that's currently on hotfiles for resources) I'll let her know. Maybe she'll also know why the characters seem to 'autorun' afterwards sometimes.

 

I've never encountered the harp turning purple, wierd. I'll do more testing on different NPC's, and see if it still happens. What sort of conditions were there? Outside, inside? anything specific that caused it? Not sure why that would happen when the dds is obviously there. >.< (oops. >.>)

 

Edit: Okay, the texture -was- there. But the filepath I had for the .nif was /c:/games/oblivion/data/textures/harp/harp.dds' So obviously, if you use a different path, it won't work. xD I fixed it. Updating the first post to reflect that, so all you have to do is drop the meshes folder in.

 

Also: Here's the snip of code that controls the reset idle item. Perhaps someone can tell me why it doesn't work?

 

scn AmeResetIdle
Short DoOnce
Begin OnEquip
If DoOnce == 0
	Player.PickIdle
	set DoOnce to 1
EndIf
return
End

[adrenaline]

I found another problem.

When I tried to make my character sit on chair, the character started to do the harp playing motions instead of sitting.

[AmethystLR]

I found another problem.

When I tried to make my character sit on chair' date=' the character started to do the harp playing motions instead of sitting.

[/quote']

 

I think something is wrong with how I arranged the animations for Pickidle. >.< I tried manually typing player.pickidle in console, and for some reason, it keeps choosing the harp, instead of a normal idle. *rubs forehead*

 

Thanks for bringing that to my attention though, as I said in the title, It's very much a WIP.

[labrat]

Excellent you beat me to it. This has been on my (long) list of things to do for a while. There's an old guy busks round a few of the towns that I visit on a harp almost identical to that one (19 string "half-size" clarsaich as he calls it or Tellyn/Tellan if he's in Wales/Brittany). He writes a lot of his own music or plays old dance music and the sound is pretty good (to my ear).

 

I have a copy of the CD he flogs and the plan was to make an animated harp(ist) and simultaneously play the tunes the animated fingers are striking. Maybe even use a little keycapture feature where the player could tap a key and the harpist would play the right note. (He's given me full permission to use the music anyway I like).

 

If you don't mind I'd rather not re-invent the wheel, so perhaps we could collaborate and see just what's possible ?

 

I'm attaching the first track on the album as a zip file. I converted it from .wav to .xwm (Skyrim format) using SkyrimSoundTools off the Nxus as it is about 1/30th the size of a .wav - and it's very easy to convert back into a wav using that same mod tool. Let me know what you think.

 

 

 

[labrat]

I found a couple of pics of that harpist - busking at some mediaeval bash or other in costume.

 

 

 

 

The box in front of him is a Hammered Dulcimer - that would be a bit of an animation challenge I think.

[Poontank]

Wow, a collaboration of you two will certainly bring about something amazing, I imagine.

Not that I am a big fan of medieval music, but in the context of the game it will fit very well.

 

Sadly I still have to try out the mod yet. Sorry about that, Amethyst! I sure appreciate the work you did there. The good thing about it - there is still a wonderful new mod waiting for me to experience, and to enhance my character roster with a real bard playing a suitable instrument.

[AmethystLR]

 

 

Excellent you beat me to it. This has been on my (long) list of things to do for a while. There's an old guy busks round a few of the towns that I visit on a harp almost identical to that one (19 string "half-size" clarsaich as he calls it or Tellyn/Tellan if he's in Wales/Brittany). He writes a lot of his own music or plays old dance music and the sound is pretty good (to my ear).

 

I have a copy of the CD he flogs and the plan was to make an animated harp(ist) and simultaneously play the tunes the animated fingers are striking. Maybe even use a little keycapture feature where the player could tap a key and the harpist would play the right note. (He's given me full permission to use the music anyway I like).

 

If you don't mind I'd rather not re-invent the wheel' date=' so perhaps we could collaborate and see just what's possible ?

 

I'm attaching the first track on the album as a zip file. I converted it from .wav to .xwm (Skyrim format) using SkyrimSoundTools off the Nxus as it is about 1/30th the size of a .wav - and it's very easy to convert back into a wav using that same mod tool. Let me know what you think.

[/quote']

 

 

 

Oh, that sounds lovely! It definantly sounds like it's coming from the correct size harp. The song I currently have seems like a full size floor harp.

 

I would definantly like to collaborate. Feel free to work on any part of that mod and modify it. At this point it seems to be a very shaky and unstable wheel. xD Part of it is due to scripting, and another may be where I'm placing the animations in the CS. I'm having issues with NPC's playing the animation for their normal idle. I'm not terribly skilled at animation and scripting, lol.

 

The animation I was given needs to be refined too. Apparently there's a frame or two where the hands drop below the harp, so it ends up looking unnatural.

 

I found a couple of pics of that harpist - busking at some mediaeval bash or other in costume.

 

The box in front of him is a Hammered Dulcimer - that would be a bit of an animation challenge I think.

 

That looks almost exactly like the harp I have in game!

 

Wow' date=' a collaboration of you two will certainly bring about something amazing, I imagine.

Not that I am a big fan of medieval music, but in the context of the game it will fit very well.

 

Sadly I still have to try out the mod yet. Sorry about that, Amethyst! I sure appreciate the work you did there. The good thing about it - there is still a wonderful new mod waiting for me to experience, and to enhance my character roster with a real bard playing a suitable instrument.

[/quote']

 

Don't worry about not trying it out yet, there's still fixes to be done. That's why I put it as a WIP, since I knew it wasn't fully functional. >.< Of course, that's also why I posted it, so those more experienced than I at animation and scripting would take a look at it possibly, and go "Oh, yeah, you need to do this" <.<

[labrat]

@AmethystLR

 

Great, I'll wade in and see if I can bugfix for you. I love it when someone else has done all the hard work and I get to tweak the gnarly bits. Getting animations to behave in gamespace can be a lonely and frustrating business but, (touches wood), playidle and pickidle are very gradually becoming less opaque to me.

 

Glad you liked that music, that's one of the original compositions. There's something haunting about it (and the rest of 'em) I think. I'll attach another one. I'm amazed at the range you can get out of 19 strings (F below mid-C to 2nd C above mid-C). To me it almost sounds like someone else is playing a simple piano backing, but it's just the left hand on the low strings.

 

 

 

PS @Poontank,

a collaboration of you two will certainly bring about something amazing, I imagine.

Yes, and we all know what your imagination's like

No, seriously, it looks like AmethystLR has done the work and I'm quite happy to help tidy up.

[AmethystLR]

Hah, so.. my harp just somehow got on the hot files list on the nexus, and it's still a buggy wip. x.x

[Poontank]

Now I have tried the mod. Had to deactivate it again for the time being until it's fixed - it conflicts with this mod which I've grown very fond of. NPCs totally glitch out when eating. They constantly switch between the 'holding an invisible harp' and the eating animation. Makes them look like they are juggling their food... I was a bit startled when I saw it for the first time.

 

Nevertheless it's a great mod and I congratulate you on making 'Hot File'!

I will go ahead and create my 'Jo Strumma' bard girl anyway, in preparation for a future fixed version.

[AmethystLR]

Now I have tried the mod. Had to deactivate it again for the time being until it's fixed - it conflicts with this mod which I've grown very fond of. NPCs totally glitch out when eating. They constantly switch between the 'holding an invisible harp' and the eating animation. Makes them look like they are juggling their food... I was a bit startled when I saw it for the first time.

 

Nevertheless it's a great mod and I congratulate you on making 'Hot File'!

I will go ahead and create my 'Jo Strumma' bard girl anyway' date=' in preparation for a future fixed version.

[/quote']

 

Yeah, unfortunately I don't know what's causing them to use the animation like that. They -should- be just using it when the spell is activated. Hopefully Labrat can work his magic on it.

[labrat]

Hopefully Labrat can work his magic on it.

 

Did you ever see a British magician called Tommy Cooper?

 

What I've noticed so far.

1) the music competes with the standard background music.

2) if an NPC is equipped with a weapon they keep hold of it

3) package idles kick in and odd conflicts occur e.g. like suddenly running away while the music still goes on.

4) the animobject doesn't always position properly

5) there may need to be a bit of tweaking to coordinate the animation with the music. - the animation seems to stop before the music even if the animation isn't interrupted. That's probably just a question of jiggering the .kf so it loops for the tune length.

 

 

I'm starting working on it just now. A bit like a cat trying to help with the knitting.....

I think the first couple of things I want to try are to cut off the background music when the harp's playing and to make sure that NPCs unequip weaponry before attempting to strum strings.... Those should be fairly simple to do.

 

Then next I want to look at the prioritisation the animation gets maybe making an AI package and stopping the NPC doing anything else until the harp animation has concluded.

 

 

So far I've quickly looked at the animation setup and I'm trying a couple of tidy ups that are just ideas, they may not fix any problems but I like to simplify things and reduce the number of variables/conditions if I can,

 

1) I've created a dummyHarpIdleToken item that isn't ever assigned and made the condition of the playidle animation that an NPC must possess one before harping. Basically that means that the idle won't get picked up by pickidle but the condition is ignored by a direct playidle command. That should stop random unprovoked harping. (leastways that's a way of doing it in F03)

 

2) I've changed the script for the NPC spell effect so it reads

 

scn AmeHarpTarget

ref anim

 

short doonce

 

begin scripteffectstart ;instead of gamemode

if doonce == 0

set anim to AmeHarp

; will insert equip check here

playidle anim 1

; will insert kill background music here

playsound AmeHarpMusic

set doonce to 1

endif

end

 

Trivial stuff, probably not necessary but did it because I'm not too sure about "gamemode", doonce wasn't being set to a non-zero value and I'm not sure that you need to kick off the sound and the idle in two separate blocks. If this knackers something else please tell me.

 

 

I hugely enjoy tinkering with this stuff but please appreciate I'm just enthusiastic not expert, and I've got to get back into Oblivion mode after a few months in Fallout3

[AmethystLR]

 

I'm starting working on it just now. A bit like a cat trying to help with the knitting.....

 

That's exactly how I feel trying to do this. I'm by no means a scripting expert (I'm a novice in every sense of the word) Hopefully those changes help!

 

Making the background music suppressed would be good. I thought about making the music part of the background (Using the soundstream function) But I decided to go with playsound, like a sound effect.

 

Whatever gets this thing to work properly would be fine by me! I keep tinkering with the script, but all I do is more of the same, and still have the same issues.

 

Also, I haven't seen that British magician. xD

[adrenaline]

How about going to ask for help on Nexus too?

Although it might be a little inconvenient to for help there (For example...DO NOT MENTION LL OVER THERE),

there are also a lots of experts and nice people too. The more people you ask, the sooner you will get the solution.

[AmethystLR]

How about going to ask for help on Nexus too?

Although it might be a little inconvenient to for help there (For example...DO NOT MENTION LL OVER THERE)' date='

there are also a lots of experts and nice people too. The more people you ask, the sooner you will get the solution.

[/quote']

 

Well, my mod is actually posted over there, in fact it's a hot file for some reason (No idea why, I stated it was a WIP. xD) Anyways, on my post I mentioned the issues it had, with the hopes that someone would know how to fix them, and be willing to.

[labrat]

 

Also' date=' I haven't seen that British magician. xD

[/quote']

 

The sadly missed Tommy Cooper was a British Institution. A big-hearted, heavy-drinking clown in a fez who mixed benign comedy with well-rehearsed magic routines that always went disasterously off-script. His catch phrase was "Just like that!!" (which it invariably wasn't). He died on stage so professionally that people laughed and applauded thinking it was part of his act.

 

 

-----

 

Still tinkering.