HKXCMD 1.5

[Guest]

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This is an updated version of figment's HKXCMD (link below).  Hopefully animators will find it useful.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/1797

 

 

I fixed HKXCMD so that it properly export KF files into HKX (see pictures).

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• Submitter
  cedec0
• Submitted
  12/06/2017
• Category
  Other
• Requires
• Special Edition Compatible

 

[SassaAria]

This looks valuable.

DL'd.

Bogged down with other mod-things at moment, but animation is coming eventually.

Have played with Figments Version & Anton's Blender toolset, so excited to see how it works together.

 

Is there anything else you're working on with this? Or is it now the way you want?

[Guest]

Sorry for the late reply.

 

Quote

Is there anything else you're working on with this? Or is it now the way you want?

 

I am with HKXCMD now (thought I still have source files to recompile it if I need to).  HKXCMD version 1.4's exportKF lost

two frames and about 2% of your animation data (poor HKX compression).  My recompiled version keeps all frames and about ~99.8% of the data (the .2% is unavoidable HKX compression loss).

 

If you are about to get into animation, have a look at the Maya 2016 Nif Plugin (for easy animation) I just published.  Its probably the simplest way to do Skyrim animations.

[SassaAria]

17 hours ago, cedec0 said:

Sorry for the late reply.

 

 

I am with HKXCMD now (thought I still have source files to recompile it if I need to).  HKXCMD version 1.4's exportKF lost

two frames and about 2% of your animation data (poor HKX compression).  My recompiled version keeps all frames and about ~99.8% of the data (the .2% is unavoidable HKX compression loss).

 

If you are about to get into animation, have a look at the Maya 2016 Nif Plugin (for easy animation) I just published.  Its probably the simplest way to do Skyrim animations.

Huh for some reason didn't get notification of your reply.  Maybe cos my AvatarName got lost in snip?

 

Am probably asking this way too early, cause I'm not using this yet.

But you're here now, so just in case.

Will this HKXCMD work with current XMPSE skeleton, instead of just vanilla Skyrim (which was i think 99 bones)?  And if so, are there any parameters for adding custom bones that I need to observe?

For example, have ideas how to add animated tongue (understand anything about "the head" can cause gamecrash).

 

With the availability of 3dsmax and HCT-tool being basically nil (unless you are willing to do...) , this is really the only tool for getting animations back into Oldrim.

And so being able to work with XPMSE or new bones would be great.

 

Have looked hard at Maya in past.  Saw your update today.

Will keep as backup plan.

Have another animation gameplan using Blender as the gateway. 

Hopefully I survive that lol.

[Guest]

Quote

Will this HKXCMD work with current XMPSE skeleton, instead of just vanilla Skyrim (which was i think 99 bones)?  And if so, are there any parameters for adding custom bones that I need to observe?

 

HKXCMD (my version + old version) can work with any skeleton.  I use the lastest XPMSE when converting animations for example (though I rarely use the extra bones).

 

Quote

 

For example, have ideas how to add animated tongue (understand anything about "the head" can cause gamecrash).

 

 

Not my area of expertise, but again HKXCMD works with any type of skeleton.  Though if you create a mod with Tongue animations and the player doesn't have the right bones installed in Skyrim, that will result in T-pose.

 

Quote

With the availability of 3dsmax and HCT-tool being basically nil (unless you are willing to do...)

 

I have the "havok content tools".  It is available if you know where to look:

 

Havok Content Tools MegaPack: Download - YouTube

 

(I even managed to track down the Havok SDK (source code of Havok engine used in Skyrim) which I needed to recompile HKXCMD.  Now finding THAT was challenging)

 

Quote

 

Have looked hard at Maya in past.  Saw your update today.

Will keep as backup plan.

 

 

However, setting up 3dsmax to properly export to Skyrim is a difficult and complicated process.  I never managed to set it up in a way that didn't result in large information loss (proper import/export of hand animations was impossible, at least for me, as of two years ago).  Maybe some of this has been fixed in the last two years, but, since I find Maya far easier to use than 3dsmax, I have no incentive to go back and check. 

 

Here is something I wrote two years ago about the problem:
 

Spoiler

Most Skyrim animations are made using 3ds max (the animation tutorial on Nexus are also based around 3ds max).  Problem is 3ds max can't import or export hand animations.

 

Here is an example of the problem 3ds max modders run into:

 

http://forums.nexusm...tion-in-3dsmax/

 

Quote

 

#1 [Problem with main character hands/fingers animation in 3dsmax: post #1]
Adweril
Posted 11 October 2014 - 10:09 AM
 

Hello,

 

I'm importing the Skyrim main character animations into 3dsmax 2012 using the NIF Importer/Exporter.

I'm using the vanilla skeleton.

I converted the animations using hkxcmd mentionned in many tutorials.

 

My problem is that the imported animation doesn't animate the fingers... 

For example, the h2h_idle (3rd person) correctly animates the body, but hands are not.

 

3dsMax (hand opened):

 

In-game (hand closed):

 

How can I get the fingers closed like in-game ? Am I missing an import ? 

I assume the hand/fingers get their animation from another file...

 

Thanks for your help

 

Since 3ds max can't do hand animations and most Skyrim animators use 3ds max (which Nexus tutorials recomend), right now most Skyrim custom animations don't have hand animations.

 

Here is an example from Unarmed Warfare - New Animations For Hand To Hand Combat:

 

 

 

As for blender, I found the interface difficult to navigate and the setup even more complicated that 3dsmax.  What is more, since blender exports to KF rather than directly to HKX (as 3dsmax does with properly set up havok content tools), there was no advantage to using it over Maya.  Basically, Blender does the same things as Maya with the plugin, but is extremetly difficult to set up, has a hard to navigate interface, and limited options (unless you spend a mountain of type manually installing extra plugins).  What I can do in Maya with one push of the button (through easily created hotkey scripts) would take me more than five minutes in Blender.

 

Well, good luck with your projects.
 

[SassaAria]

12 hours ago, cedec0 said:

 

HKXCMD (my version + old version) can work with any skeleton.  I use the lastest XPMSE when converting animations for example (though I rarely use the extra bones).

Perfect! Thanks for confirmation you have it working with XPMSE.

12 hours ago, cedec0 said:

 

Not my area of expertise, but again HKXCMD works with any type of skeleton.  Though if you create a mod with Tongue animations and the player doesn't have the right bones installed in Skyrim, that will result in T-pose.

 

Adding bones to XPMSE is actually quite easy in nifskope.  Have added many, and weighted and got in game.

So that opens doors for many new options.

12 hours ago, cedec0 said:

I have the "havok content tools".  It is available if you know where to look:

 

Havok Content Tools MegaPack: Download - YouTube

 

(I even managed to track down the Havok SDK (source code of Havok engine used in Skyrim) which I needed to recompile HKXCMD.  Now finding THAT was challenging)

That sounds like serioulsy impressive detective work finding SDK!

And lucky for all of us.

 

 

12 hours ago, cedec0 said:

 

However, setting up 3dsmax to properly export to Skyrim is a difficult and complicated process.  I never managed to set it up in a way that didn't result in large information loss (proper import/export of hand animations was impossible, at least for me, as of two years ago).  Maybe some of this has been fixed in the last two years, but, since I find Maya far easier to use than 3dsmax, I have no incentive to go back and check. 

 

Here is something I wrote two years ago about the problem:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Most Skyrim animations are made using 3ds max (the animation tutorial on Nexus are also based around 3ds max).  Problem is 3ds max can't import or export hand animations.

 

Here is an example of the problem 3ds max modders run into:

 

http://forums.nexusm...tion-in-3dsmax/

 

Quote

 

#1 [Problem with main character hands/fingers animation in 3dsmax: post #1]
Adweril
Posted 11 October 2014 - 10:09 AM
 

Hello,

 

I'm importing the Skyrim main character animations into 3dsmax 2012 using the NIF Importer/Exporter.

I'm using the vanilla skeleton.

I converted the animations using hkxcmd mentionned in many tutorials.

 

My problem is that the imported animation doesn't animate the fingers... 

For example, the h2h_idle (3rd person) correctly animates the body, but hands are not.

 

3dsMax (hand opened):

 

In-game (hand closed):

 

How can I get the fingers closed like in-game ? Am I missing an import ? 

I assume the hand/fingers get their animation from another file...

 

Thanks for your help

 

Since 3ds max can't do hand animations and most Skyrim animators use 3ds max (which Nexus tutorials recomend), right now most Skyrim custom animations don't have hand animations.

 

Here is an example from Unarmed Warfare - New Animations For Hand To Hand Combat:

 

I saw that Hand issue discussion in I think Pornphile's thread with some workarounds.

Nice that isn't an issue in Maya.

 

12 hours ago, cedec0 said:

 

As for blender, I found the interface difficult to navigate and the setup even more complicated that 3dsmax.  What is more, since blender exports to KF rather than directly to HKX (as 3dsmax does with properly set up havok content tools), there was no advantage to using it over Maya.  Basically, Blender does the same things as Maya with the plugin, but is extremetly difficult to set up, has a hard to navigate interface, and limited options (unless you spend a mountain of type manually installing extra plugins).  What I can do in Maya with one push of the button (through easily created hotkey scripts) would take me more than five minutes in Blender.

Blender UI can be heaviy customized and the toolset has improved by leaps and bounds, and it's opensource.  But yeah, the different UI throws alot of people off.

With Maya eventually you have to commmit, and now your stuck with subsciprtion, and I i keep seeing rants about stability as software gets bigger, without Autodesk addressing it.

But yes, Maya has an amazoing featureset.

As a tip, though it sounds like Maya is home for you, you may want to check out>
 

Spoiler

 

Akeytsu.

Just came out of Beta.  The fbx container worked well enough in my first tests - though i was just testing weights.

Made for animators -by animators.  Tut videos are well made.

But I haven't tested enough to tell you if there any issues.

 

12 hours ago, cedec0 said:

Well, good luck with your projects.
 

Thank you VERY much for answering all those questions and for making this improvement on Figments toolset.

Good luck with your projects too!

[Tsaxaman]

So I m trying to figure out the camera3rd issue that hkxcmd can't properly translate it to the final hkx file. This looked like the most relevant and recent place I could post or even strat talking about this.

 

Is there something that can be done about this? Maybe a workaround? 

 

As it is animations that affect crouch conditions are a no-go as the camera bobs to the standing position.

[Frosferes]

Is the source code available anywhere?

[Bad Dog]

Very nice. Playing with it now.

 

I have a problem with both this and hkxcmd 1.4 -- when I convert from XML to HKX I don't get a binary file--I get a file with the HKX extension, but it's a text XML file. Am I doing something stupid or whut? [EDIT: Something stupid, found the switch for this.]

 

I've written an export/import addon for Blender that I've just extended to cover animations. I'm using hkxcmd to convert from KF to HKX behind the scenes. Would you be willing for me to distribute this with that tool?

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Bad Dog