Ok , I failed at Skinned Meshes with CTD's to the Boot , It works as Weapon Equip though , . Add a NiStringExtraData Node to the BSFadenode and and Add a Bone name to it . I successfully attached an animated mesh to the Pelvis Bone and Could Equip it .
Thank You , I had a go at this and it works well , I managed to create a few Simple animated Statics and Objects .Its a bit of a task , I might attempt skinned meshes And let you know
Hi thanks for sharing ,so this tutorial is to animate keyframed animations in 3dsmax to make simplier unskinned things like opening doors or sliding items , flags or the like?
Is not possible to implement a skin bone system ?
do you have made any animation sample to show of the possibilities of that tutorial?
key notes: I know about that, and it IS easier in the long run to do it in 3DSMax (so each time you export it again, you won't have to change it in NifSkope). I described it the way I did in the tutorial because it was quicker/easier than explaining how to do it in Max (which people tend to confuse.. increasing chances of ultimate failure).
If you're trying to get SKINNED meshes to work by control manager, I REALLY doubt you'll be able to pull it off. I was only able to get ONE mesh per NIF to be controlled; anything more crashes or freezes the game. In Oblivion, I had all 32 oars of my ship in one NIF (easier to place/script), but for Skyrim I had to make 32 separate NIFs... a pain I know but it works.
Bones: the way I did it was to keyframe the mesh directly, then JUST before exporting I linked it to a single bone. That ONE bone needs to be located at 0,0,0 and rotated 0,0,0. It also does NOT have any animation or keyframing at all (except maybe a start and end, but they're both identical). This is why I doubt skinned meshes in one NIF will work... one mesh, one bone is all I could get per file.
I haven't tried control managing a moving bone, though. I see no reason why it shouldn't work... as long as there's only one mesh (and one bone). This kinda limits what you can do with this technique... certainly rules out character animation.
I was reluctant to learn the new havok system (time is very limited), but I downloaded the SDK and checked it out anyways... to see if I could get custom collision to work. I couldn't; the Max plugin that comes with the SDK only exports HVK files... and without a way to extract the pertinent data (collision), does me no good. I may be overlooking something or going about it wrongly, as I didn't spend much time on it.
My point is that we BOTH may need to learn the havok system (which really isn't TOO different from what I saw) to get what we want working in-game. Oh... and my control managed animations do NOT show up in NifSkope. Why? I have no idea.... but they work in-game!
I believe this technique only works in-game because of legacy code still in the game engine. I think Bethesda did away with using control managers (in favor of the havok system), as I haven't seen any Vanilla NIFs with them. It still works, but in a limited capacity from what Oblivion could do.
So I hope I answered your question... to summarize: one bone/one mesh per NIF, NifSkope won't show the animation, the bone is NOT animated, and the mesh IS animated. Lemme know if you find out anything different or new. ...and sorry it took so long to get back to you; I haven't checked this 'mod' in a while cuz I figured nobody cared.. heheh
I just discovered that you can set parameters in the key notes, for example "start -name Idle" will automatically name your NiControllerSequence "Idle" allowing to skip one of your steps .
Anyway my animation isn't working under NifSkope aren't they specific steps with 3dsMax that you did not precise in your document? I think I missed something because under 3dsMax my objects are moving thanks to the hierarchy that links them to the bones, the nif file seems to not interpret the moves of the bones so logically my meshes can't move. Am I suppose to somehow "bypass" the bones and save the meshes position relatively to the world and not to their bones?
There is an addition you should make to the process; which allows your meshes to render their normals/bumpmaps correctly (as opposed to animated, yet smooth meshes):
= when exporting from Max, checkmark the box for the 'Update Tangent' setting
While I was revisiting the process (in an effort to simplify and/or speed it up), Saiden steered me to his tutorials (for Obliv/FO3, which I was already familiar with). Trying his process step-for-step didn't simplify anything, but the tangent thing gives me/you accurate meshes; so credit to him for that. I had initially left that setting out, because I had read in the forums somewhere that tangents were being problematic (I think it was the thread for the Max plugin.. don't remember).
Two dozen people downloading are more than I expected to be interested in this.. heheheh. I thought I was the ONLY one who cared about animated statics (unless that IS the case, and you guys dl'd this by accident)! Sorry for the initial omission.
If you mean poses for skinned meshes (NPCs, Player, creatures) then no. Other people have already posted how to do skinned mesh exporting, etc... and you need the havok SDK plugin for Max (which exports hvk files). I'm not into that kind of animation (yet), so I couldn't tell you the specifics or little 'tricks' you may need to do.
If you want to just make a static (of whatever.. including an NPC or creature), then yes you can use this. Just import the skeleton & skinned meshes, pose it (keyframing the MESH, not the skeleton), then follow this procedure. It will give you an animated mannequin-like thing (like a talking bear head on the wall or something).
This is mainly for buildings, containers, or other 'non-alive' things which have a set animation to be played on scripted command... like the drawbridges (I think, though Bethesda may have animated them differently - you could recreate that effect).
8 comments
It works as Weapon Equip though ,
I successfully attached an animated mesh to the Pelvis Bone and Could Equip it .
Cheers and Thanks Again
I had a go at this and it works well , I managed to create a few Simple animated Statics and Objects .Its a bit of a task , I might attempt skinned meshes And let you know
Thank You Very Much
Is not possible to implement a skin bone system ?
do you have made any animation sample to show of the possibilities of that tutorial?
how's realized something like that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdHjfqxLzpc
If you're trying to get SKINNED meshes to work by control manager, I REALLY doubt you'll be able to pull it off. I was only able to get ONE mesh per NIF to be controlled; anything more crashes or freezes the game. In Oblivion, I had all 32 oars of my ship in one NIF (easier to place/script), but for Skyrim I had to make 32 separate NIFs... a pain I know but it works.
Bones: the way I did it was to keyframe the mesh directly, then JUST before exporting I linked it to a single bone. That ONE bone needs to be located at 0,0,0 and rotated 0,0,0. It also does NOT have any animation or keyframing at all (except maybe a start and end, but they're both identical). This is why I doubt skinned meshes in one NIF will work... one mesh, one bone is all I could get per file.
I haven't tried control managing a moving bone, though. I see no reason why it shouldn't work... as long as there's only one mesh (and one bone). This kinda limits what you can do with this technique... certainly rules out character animation.
I was reluctant to learn the new havok system (time is very limited), but I downloaded the SDK and checked it out anyways... to see if I could get custom collision to work. I couldn't; the Max plugin that comes with the SDK only exports HVK files... and without a way to extract the pertinent data (collision), does me no good. I may be overlooking something or going about it wrongly, as I didn't spend much time on it.
My point is that we BOTH may need to learn the havok system (which really isn't TOO different from what I saw) to get what we want working in-game. Oh... and my control managed animations do NOT show up in NifSkope. Why? I have no idea.... but they work in-game!
I believe this technique only works in-game because of legacy code still in the game engine. I think Bethesda did away with using control managers (in favor of the havok system), as I haven't seen any Vanilla NIFs with them. It still works, but in a limited capacity from what Oblivion could do.
So I hope I answered your question... to summarize: one bone/one mesh per NIF, NifSkope won't show the animation, the bone is NOT animated, and the mesh IS animated. Lemme know if you find out anything different or new. ...and sorry it took so long to get back to you; I haven't checked this 'mod' in a while cuz I figured nobody cared.. heheh
Anyway my animation isn't working under NifSkope aren't they specific steps with 3dsMax that you did not precise in your document? I think I missed something because under 3dsMax my objects are moving thanks to the hierarchy that links them to the bones, the nif file seems to not interpret the moves of the bones so logically my meshes can't move. Am I suppose to somehow "bypass" the bones and save the meshes position relatively to the world and not to their bones?
= when exporting from Max, checkmark the box for the 'Update Tangent' setting
While I was revisiting the process (in an effort to simplify and/or speed it up), Saiden steered me to his tutorials (for Obliv/FO3, which I was already familiar with). Trying his process step-for-step didn't simplify anything, but the tangent thing gives me/you accurate meshes; so credit to him for that. I had initially left that setting out, because I had read in the forums somewhere that tangents were being problematic (I think it was the thread for the Max plugin.. don't remember).
Two dozen people downloading are more than I expected to be interested in this.. heheheh. I thought I was the ONLY one who cared about animated statics (unless that IS the case, and you guys dl'd this by accident)! Sorry for the initial omission.
If you want to just make a static (of whatever.. including an NPC or creature), then yes you can use this. Just import the skeleton & skinned meshes, pose it (keyframing the MESH, not the skeleton), then follow this procedure. It will give you an animated mannequin-like thing (like a talking bear head on the wall or something).
This is mainly for buildings, containers, or other 'non-alive' things which have a set animation to be played on scripted command... like the drawbridges (I think, though Bethesda may have animated them differently - you could recreate that effect).
FINALLY!