Skyrim Animation Guidance

[Bubbajones_ya]

So I was just about ready to start messing with animation today when I got the message that my 3DS max 2012 license has expired....... Even though it's a student version, it seems I can not renew it based on what I understood reading. It seems like it may not be available for me to purchase even if I had the money to so I'm a little upset and confused about that process. 

 

This is unfortunate because I have the havok content tools and everything I needed for 3DS Max 2012, but I can no longer run the program. Because of my student license, I have access to 3DS Max 2017, 2016, and 2014. I currently have 2016 installed and working, but have not used it yet. I just read over a great guide today that would have been prefect for animating in 3DS Max 2012, but it looks like that option is out the window for me now.

 

I have messed with Blender before, and got some preliminary animations working for a T-Rex I made back in the day, but it's been a while and I'll need to look things up.

 

 

My questions are, can anybody point my in a good direction for where I should start making animations for Skyrim (3DS Max 2016? Blender?)

 

From my research, I don't think it's possible to animate with 3DS max 2016 because there are no havok tools available. If this is the case, can someone send my to a link for a good guide for animating in Blender? I'll be looking that up now after typing this, but some guidance from people who may actually be doing that right now would be great!

 

Any rigged skeletons, videos, walkthroughs, or writeups from people who have animated or are animating now would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

[Leito86]

2010-2012 only unfortunately...

[downjonsie]

Yah... Your best bet is to learn Blender animating or (now I'm not suggesting illicit activity) torrent a 2010-2012 v. of 3ds Max

[Guest]

You can animate in any version of max (up to 2015 to save in 2012), but yeah you need 2010 or 2012 to export with HCT.

Maybe by saving in FBX, import in blender and export. 

But never try, I still don't use blender.

Someone familiar with blender will be able to tell you more and if it's possible.

[Bubbajones_ya]

Thanks for the responses guys! It's too bad my version expired... I had a lot of plans and potentially upcoming time that I could have made use of it!

 

As a side question, I was making a weapon from Final Fantasy VIII in 3DS max 2012 and didn't get around to finishing it. The model and UV map is done, but the texture wasn't. I can't recall if I ever exported it as an NIF. Can I open and export this in 3DS Max 2016 or blender and be safe? I think I probably can. I spent quite a while on the model (it was Squall Leonhart's second gunblade but I made the gun portion a desert eagle and spend a bit of time modeling it.)

 

 

Back on topic, I found this article writen by Spoons666 for making poses in blender:

 

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/70538-skyrim-custom-pose-tutorial/

 

I downloaded Anton's tools as listed in the tutorial, quickly tried following it to see what I could do with blender and am so far quite pleased with my initial results. Spoons666 doesn't list needing nif scripts or anything, so I didn't bother installing them. The tutorial entails opening the "example_female_UNP" blender file, then setting the pose, hitting "run script" in blender, then running the command prompt to change the output file to a .hkx file. I had bledner nif scripts installed, but I had blender 249 installed before making this post. I just installed version 2.78 (or 2.79, the current version) and didn't re-install any scripts, so I don't know if I need to reinstall them. When it comes to making models for Skyrim with blender, I'll have to look more into this.

 

As for the tutorial, I made an awful pose quickly, replaced it with my mt_idle.hkx file in the female animations folder, and ran the game. I didn't update FNIS as suggested. To my surprise, the pose came up in game!

 

I tried messing around with making an actual animation by setting the keyset to "location" in blender, then entering in 30 frames (instead of 1 as how the file is setup) and made a rudimentary animation setting keyframes in random spots along the 30 frames. Quite surprisingly, that animation played out in game just how it looked like in Blender! All that's needed to do is change the .kf file to .hkx file with the supplied tools after running the blender scripts.

 

 

It feels like I am getting quite lucky with my learning recently so I'm optimistic for what I want to do. My end goal is to animate limit breaks from Final Fantasy, but that may take a while.

 

I've managed to get node scaling working in scripting, armor swapping etc so I'm picking that up quickly. Now I'm starting to learn how to animate! I hope I can find details on adding keynotes in blender animations though, but I'm not sure if that will work with the export script made by Anton. If not, I think I can manage to script in sounds during animations instead which may work!

 

 

 

My next big thing is looking at how to add custom animations to the game. I know the FNIS function is needed and there should be documentation about it somewhere. Hopefully it's not too difficult!