With the release of kNVSE, animation mods have become far more prevalent in New Vegas modding. While kNVSE removes a ton of compatibility issues, there can still be some confusion among users, especially with iron sights mesh patching. The following is intended to be a pain-free guide to getting animations, mesh patching, and kNVSE set up in your game, and is aimed at the average user. Advanced processes, like how to mix-and-match kNVSE animations, how to edit .jsons, and how to use SNIFF are outside of the scope of this guide, as it intended to remove having to use third-party programs for the average user.

Moreover, this is by no means comprehensive--just what I perceive as the most straightforward way to get nice looking animations in your game without headaches.

BASELINE ANIMATIONS
Before jumping into kNVSE animations, we can get a solid animation base that simply overwrites  vanilla animations. Doing this allows us to fill in some gaps not covered by kNVSE mods and, more importantly, get mesh patches for iron sights.

1) Install any weapon mods that you like to use: WMIM, WRP, WME, WMX, EVE, etc.
a) Large mods, like Fallout 3 Weapons Restoration, or TTW, can also be grouped into this category.

2) Download non-kNVSE animation mods to create a "base." I recommend FNV Clean Animations (my old mod) and Anniversary Anim Pack (hitman's old mod). These are recommended both because they are very simple to install, and between the two, touch on at least one animation for almost every gun in the game.

3) Regardless of which base you use as an install, you will need to use the patches provided on Anniversary Anim Pack to patch whatever weapon mods you are using. These patches modify the
meshes to receive iron sight animations properly, and will work for any animation mod that adds real iron sight animations (almost all kNVSE mods do).

kNVSE ANIMATIONS
Now we can move on to kNVSE animations. kNVSE work by directing a specific weapon ID--or set of weapon IDs--to use a unique folder with a specific set of animations. kNVSE animations will always override your vanilla animation replacers, regardless of Load Order; however, they will not overwrite them, as the unique folders are stored in a folder separate from the vanilla animations.

1) Install xNVSE and kNVSE. kNVSE animation mods will not work without these two mods.

2) Install kNVSE animation mods from your preferred mod author. Now, you should no
longer have to use a third-party program to patch in iron sights, as
nearly all of your meshes should be covered.

3) Should a mod author provide a mesh patch for iron sights for a kNVSE mod, always download and install it. Chances are you already have the meshes, but it's better safe than sorry.
a) If no patch is provided, and you aren't receiving iron sight animations, you will have to use SNIFF. Covering its usage is outside of the scope of this brief guide, but there are instructions on its mod page on how to use it. However, hopefully, you should be able to avoid this in most cases.

COMPATIBILITY
Please note that a kNVSE mod author may not have created animations for all of the above-listed
animation mods in mind. For example, I don't support mods like WMX or WME at all. This does not mean the the animations will not work with those weapon mods--it is likely they will--but you may encounter clipping and other visual glitches if you use them. You might consider this when creating your mod list.

FINAL NOTES
Please consider supporting your favorite animators (not just me). The easiest,simplest way to do this is to make sure you leave an endorsement. Encouraging comments--or helpful feedback--are also always appreciated.

Animating is hard, time-consuming work, and often very fiddly work. You might also consider giving animators a small donation for their work--one good-looking animation in a set can sometimes take hours, and even a very small contribution can go a long way in keeping motivation up and preventing burn out. If you enjoy any of the animation mods that are flooding the Nexus, please support your favorite mod authors.