[CE] Conan Exiles - Adult Animations Framework discussion

[Chekist]

The main issue with mods in Conan Exiles is that they overwrite entire asset instead of expanding it, be it blueprint, datatable, animation montage or whatever. It means that mods that modify the same asset are incompatible. Funcom devs said that they "will look into this" but I wouldn't hold my breath. They may make stuff like items datatables expandable bu I doubt they will make blueprints or animations montages expandable.

 

It's not that hard to make your single custom animation play, but as the only way to make them playable is through animation blueprints (AB_human_female, AB_human_male) and BasePlayerChar blueprint, that means that animation mods would be incompatible with eachother. Being said that I propose for people interested in making adult animations mods organize and try to make a single adult animation mod with open source that would cover both sex animations, adult emotes, etc, and use animations from various animators.

[Guest oxyg1n]

I agree with you Chekist.

 

Let me just outline the structure of my mod. The prefix to my mod's files is "SXM_" so that I can easily find mod files. The main files are "SXM_BPChar" which is a character blueprint class and "SXM_AB" which is the main animation blueprint that has all the mod's animations in it.

 

The only modification to the game's asset is that I'm shoving SXM_BPChar to be between BaseBPCombat and BaseSurvivalChar. (I set the parent of SXM_BPChar to be BaseBPCombat and I reparent BaseSurvivalChar to SXM_BPChar.)

 

This way I don't have any of my mod's logic mixed in with the game's logic. So when the developers make a change my mod's logic isn't erased. I'd just have to put SXM_BPChar between BaseBPCombat and BaseSurvivalChar again. I'm just doing it this way to protect my work.

 

But even then, we still have a problem of multiple mods modifying the same thing. Even being a parent of and reparenting the same game class, we still have the same issue.

 

I was thinking that if we had only one master mod that did this. And then the actual game mods could query this master mod somehow and hook-in to the game. This master mod could control the order and handle dependencies some how. It would be kind of like a mod and then actual game mods would be like sub mods that could do specific things. IDK!

[Rebel Girl]

Like this?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=872681966

[Guest oxyg1n]

Like this?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=872681966

 

Haha, that's exactly what I was thinking we'd need. Low and behold it exists already... Although this means I would have to rewrite the majority of my mod. I'm going to watch this and see what happens.

[Rebel Girl]

Yay! I is helpful.

[Chekist]

How sex animations should be staged? I assume they should be separated in 3 stages:

1)Transition from Idle animation

2)Looping sex animation

3)Ending animation/Transition to idle animation.

 

I'm trying to create basic rigs (male and female) for creating animations, this weekend will try to make a basic animation or two.

[Guest oxyg1n]

How sex animations should be staged? I assume they should be separated in 3 stages:

1)Transition from Idle animation

2)Looping sex animation

3)Ending animation/Transition to idle animation.

 

I'm trying to create basic rigs (male and female) for creating animations, this weekend will try to make a basic animation or two.

 

Yeah, that's the general idea. But when you change the Anim Instance on a mesh with SetAnimInstanceClass, there is no transition, it's just very jerky. So I included the idle animations so that it could only jerk from idle to idle or from combat to idle. Then once the idle is playing in AB, it can transition smoothly to the next state.

 

The idle state is this:

 

The mount state is this:

 

And the unmount state is an exact copy of the mount state but it's set to play in reverse from the end of the animation (i had to manually put in the number of frames of the animation):

[Chekist]

 

How sex animations should be staged? I assume they should be separated in 3 stages:

1)Transition from Idle animation

2)Looping sex animation

3)Ending animation/Transition to idle animation.

 

I'm trying to create basic rigs (male and female) for creating animations, this weekend will try to make a basic animation or two.

 

Yeah, that's the general idea. But when you change the Anim Instance on a mesh with SetAnimInstanceClass, there is no transition, it's just very jerky. So I included the idle animations so that it could only jerk from idle to idle or from combat to idle. Then once the idle is playing in AB, it can transition smoothly to the next state.

2017-03-16 09_33_36-SXM_AB.png

 

The idle state is this:

2017-03-16 09_34_25-SXM_AB.png

 

The mount state is this:

2017-03-16 09_34_52-SXM_AB.png

 

And the unmount state is an exact copy of the mount state but it's set to play in reverse from the end of the animation (i had to manually put in the number of frames of the animation):

2017-03-16 09_35_24-SXM_AB.png

 

So basically, the animations should start from the idle pose to assure smoothless transition?

 

Another thing I noticed that you can separate an animation into stages when you import it by selecting start and end frame. So basically I can make an animation, then you can split it into stages when importing and loop the sex part of animation.

 

How do you handle the orgasm stage?

[Guest oxyg1n]

 

 

How sex animations should be staged? I assume they should be separated in 3 stages:

1)Transition from Idle animation

2)Looping sex animation

3)Ending animation/Transition to idle animation.

 

I'm trying to create basic rigs (male and female) for creating animations, this weekend will try to make a basic animation or two.

 

Yeah, that's the general idea. But when you change the Anim Instance on a mesh with SetAnimInstanceClass, there is no transition, it's just very jerky. So I included the idle animations so that it could only jerk from idle to idle or from combat to idle. Then once the idle is playing in AB, it can transition smoothly to the next state.

2017-03-16 09_33_36-SXM_AB.png

 

The idle state is this:

2017-03-16 09_34_25-SXM_AB.png

 

The mount state is this:

2017-03-16 09_34_52-SXM_AB.png

 

And the unmount state is an exact copy of the mount state but it's set to play in reverse from the end of the animation (i had to manually put in the number of frames of the animation):

2017-03-16 09_35_24-SXM_AB.png

 

So basically, the animations should start from the idle pose to assure smoothless transition?

 

Another thing I noticed that you can separate an animation into stages when you import it by selecting start and end frame. So basically I can make an animation, then you can split it into stages when importing and loop the sex part of animation.

 

How do you handle the orgasm stage?

 

 

Yeah, any of the animations in a state machine will have smooth transitions - you can even control the timing too.

 

Yeah, UE4 is pretty robust and powerful when it comes to working with animations. It's been quite a fun learning experience.

 

The orgasm stage is something I haven't tackled yet.

 

But from the beginning concept of my mod, I've wanted it to be a tool for RP instead of just something you press play and watch. I wanted it to be something that you interact with and be apart of. That's why I've included a player moan key so that the player can moan when they want to (female only for now). There is also a speed control. So if a player wants to have an orgasm - just turn up the speed and spam the moan key and say that you're cumming in chat. But then it would be nice to have an ejaculation effect. It's just something I haven't looked into yet.

 

I was thinking an ejaculation could just be a particle emitter attached to b_penis_3.

[Chekist]

Yeah, any of the animations in a state machine will have smooth transitions - you can even control the timing too.

 

Yeah, UE4 is pretty robust and powerful when it comes to working with animations. It's been quite a fun learning experience.

 

The orgasm stage is something I haven't tackled yet.

 

But from the beginning concept of my mod, I've wanted it to be a tool for RP instead of just something you press play and watch. I wanted it to be something that you interact with and be apart of. That's why I've included a player moan key so that the player can moan when they want to (female only for now). There is also a speed control. So if a player wants to have an orgasm - just turn up the speed and spam the moan key and say that you're cumming in chat. But then it would be nice to have an ejaculation effect. It's just something I haven't looked into yet.

 

I was thinking an ejaculation could just be a particle emitter attached to b_penis_3.

Isn't it better to add another stage in montage for orgasms? This way we could have slightly different animations for orgasms, instead of just speed up sex loop. It could be triggered by key too.

 

Anyway, finished the male animation rig (had to attach penis and correct head mesh, combine everything into a single mesh and weighpaint everything from scratch)..

Will upload male, female and male+female scenes posed into idle animation when I finish weighpainting female rig. This way people can start animating without having to do all that stuff.

[Guest oxyg1n]

 

Isn't it better to add another stage in montage for orgasms? This way we could have slightly different animations for orgasms, instead of just speed up sex loop. It could be triggered by key too.

 

Anyway, finished the male animation rig (had to attach penis and correct head mesh, combine everything into a single mesh and weighpaint everything from scratch)..

Will upload male, female and male+female scenes posed into idle animation when I finish weighpainting female rig. This way people can start animating without having to do all that stuff.

 

 

Yeah, that's fine having orgasm animations and I'm not against the idea. I just don't have any to use right now. I'm about to add some animations that have about 5-ish stages. So I'm gonna add some keys to advance between those stages. Then there could be a orgasm key with it's own sounds, animations and particle effects. UE4 is pretty versatile. In the future, this orgasm stage could be something the player couldn't trigger manually. They'd have to fill their "orgasm meter" to trigger it or something like that. I'm just brainstorming.

[Chekist]

FBX and maya basic rigs for animating. Attached correct weight-painted head meshes for both male and female, attached male genitalia for male mesh.

There are two files for each mesh: zeroed (T-pose) and posed into 1st frame of normal idle animation.

 

Why only basic rigs without IK handles and control curves? Because of the already existing Funcom Ik handles that are already part of the skeleton, and what is worse, they are in the arms and legs hierarchy. And it gets even worse, those ik handles have influence over the mesh..(even in ingame base models).

Maybe someone else can create control curves and proper inverse kinematic handles, making a proper animation rig out of this. You can animate bone by bone however.

animashun.7z

[YVH155]

FBX and maya basic rigs for animating. Attached correct weight-painted head meshes for both male and female, attached male genitalia for male mesh.

There are two files for each mesh: zeroed (T-pose) and posed into 1st frame of normal idle animation.

 

Why only basic rigs without IK handles and control curves? Because of the already existing Funcom Ik handles that are already part of the skeleton, and what is worse, they are in the arms and legs hierarchy. And it gets even worse, those ik handles have influence over the mesh..(even in ingame base models).

Maybe someone else can create control curves and proper inverse kinematic handles, making a proper animation rig out of this. You can animate bone by bone however.

animashun.7z

Yeah I opened your files and this isn't really animatable unfortunately. This just needs IK and, first off, configuration of the twist bones. Unfortunately that's something probably not even hidden in the game files because it's baked into the animations. Wonder if Funcom would provide a rigged version themselves, seems kindof a service they'd wanna provide considering they wanna be mod-friendly. Have they succeeded with reanimating ARK by chance? We might be able to glean some hints from that.

[Chekist]

 

FBX and maya basic rigs for animating. Attached correct weight-painted head meshes for both male and female, attached male genitalia for male mesh.

There are two files for each mesh: zeroed (T-pose) and posed into 1st frame of normal idle animation.

 

Why only basic rigs without IK handles and control curves? Because of the already existing Funcom Ik handles that are already part of the skeleton, and what is worse, they are in the arms and legs hierarchy. And it gets even worse, those ik handles have influence over the mesh..(even in ingame base models).

Maybe someone else can create control curves and proper inverse kinematic handles, making a proper animation rig out of this. You can animate bone by bone however.

animashun.7z

Yeah I opened your files and this isn't really animatable unfortunately. This just needs IK and, first off, configuration of the twist bones. Unfortunately that's something probably not even hidden in the game files because it's baked into the animations. Wonder if Funcom would provide a rigged version themselves, seems kindof a service they'd wanna provide considering they wanna be mod-friendly. Have they succeeded with reanimating ARK by chance? We might be able to glean some hints from that.

 

Another possibility would be trying to make a rig from scratch (editing the skeleton, removing those handles that became joints and serve no purpose) and reskinning everything..

[YVH155]

 

 

FBX and maya basic rigs for animating. Attached correct weight-painted head meshes for both male and female, attached male genitalia for male mesh.

There are two files for each mesh: zeroed (T-pose) and posed into 1st frame of normal idle animation.

 

Why only basic rigs without IK handles and control curves? Because of the already existing Funcom Ik handles that are already part of the skeleton, and what is worse, they are in the arms and legs hierarchy. And it gets even worse, those ik handles have influence over the mesh..(even in ingame base models).

Maybe someone else can create control curves and proper inverse kinematic handles, making a proper animation rig out of this. You can animate bone by bone however.

animashun.7z

Yeah I opened your files and this isn't really animatable unfortunately. This just needs IK and, first off, configuration of the twist bones. Unfortunately that's something probably not even hidden in the game files because it's baked into the animations. Wonder if Funcom would provide a rigged version themselves, seems kindof a service they'd wanna provide considering they wanna be mod-friendly. Have they succeeded with reanimating ARK by chance? We might be able to glean some hints from that.

 

Another possibility would be trying to make a rig from scratch (editing the skeleton, removing those handles that became joints and serve no purpose) and reskinning everything..

 

Depends on how well the retargeting system in Unreal works. The skinning technically doesn't have to be 100% accurate, just give you a solid idea what the end result on the game assets will look like. The new rig would just have to be very much like the old one (the closer in structure the better) and with that it could be possible to retarget the animation files to the in-game skeleton via this one. However, that would likely result in those prop bones breaking down and ik chains for the limbs not working (unless we remake them exactly as the original rig. Truth be told if they're using a simple FK/IK blend that should be possible. The main deal will be to ensure the engine can take over properly to place hands and feet where they have to be).

[Kargrin]

Mod that changed animations if it helps anyone : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=879072664

[cdagenhall]

I got a hold of a copy of motionbuilder 2017 and it imports the conan FBX Skeletal Mesh just fine. Export the skeletal mesh from UE4. Open in Motionbuilder ( not import) just open it. From there you need to characterize it - this will cause it to use the motionbuilder control rig. Characterizing is about the same exact process as retargeting in UE4. This will give you a FK/IK control rig.

 

You can turn this on or off also and animate just the bones if you wish. Press the Bake to skeleton button when you are done and export the anim only using the export animation selection which is hidden under the motionbuilder logo on the right above the control rig. You don't even have to re target just upload the animation only and select the sk_human_skeleton.

 

I went to autodeskeducation.com and told them I needed this for non profit / non commercial educational purposes. I use it for my art class so they sent me the key and password and download link. Simple as that. No need to rig anything in Maya or use any rig that is not native to Conan.

[Dragoonhentai]

If you are good with blender u suppose you can do it there too.   its free  as well.  Dunno if you can export teh skeletal bones as well but UE4 has its own animation rig why would you need to go outside of it ? 

[Kris]

Given the availability of the engine, I wondering why people don't just create their own UE4 project?

 

What is Conan Exiles providing that you can't provide yourself?

 

Slightly back on topic, does Conan Exiles use the gameplay abilities system developed by Epic?

[Dragoonhentai]

Well for one conan exiles is like a sand box with pre built ease of modeling animation and blueprint that are easy to modified to our own liking without having to learn all of UE4 assest and code.   

 

Conan Exiles Uses code that unreal event block has.  And yes funcom has their own C++ code that is locked away.  You can think of their platform to lego pieces.  

 

If we were to create our own Project in UE4....that like asking us to pour plastic into mould and create lego from the ground up when we can just piece thing together that is already there or repaint the blocks ourself 

 

The conan exile dev kit is free from unreal go check it out 

 

[Kris]

Besides a few custom Blueprint nodes, everything I've seen and read about is uses the standard UE4 methods and editor.

 

Hence the questions

 

I mentioned the Gameplay abilities system, as it would allow people to add new interactions without the need to replace the core animation Blueprint.

 

Gameplay abilities are can be activated manually or by using the gameplay tags.

They are saved as separate assets, allow you to handle animations, block other abilities etc.

It may be a better approach then replacing the animation Blueprint.

[AshleyLove200]

have a look at this sex mod http://www.loverslab.com/topic/78664-cewip-conan-sexiles/

[Huma]

My list of crimes, for which I am hung upon this cross, Blackmail, sullying a virgin, and Fornicating with low beasts.

 

 

Which does not help my patience in waiting for the beast aspect of Exiles modding.