Update 2nd June 07: Found a naming error in the Animation Exporter.max file (Bip01 was called Bip01 NonAccum). Now fixed.

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These are 3DS Max 8 files that will allow you to make and export animations for Oblivion. The corresponding thread can be found at:

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=703621

A summarised version of the tutorial is below

A video of an example mocap animation made using the tutorial/files can be seen at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOLdkaoKTx0

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1) Get 3DS Max 8, The Civ 4 Exporter and NifCmd tool
2) Download my animation templates
3) Open up a copy of "Mr. Cellophane's Biped Rig.max" in 3DS Max
4) Make your animation by either:

Manually setting keyframes for the biped in the file (look up animation tutorials on the web for tutorials on this)

OR

Loading a motion capture file (e.g. .bip, .bvh) onto the biped. Do this by selecting the "Bip01" bone, go to the Motion tab, and click on "Load motion capture file" under the "Motion Capture" heading. If you load a motion capture file, make sure that "Restructure biped to match file" and "Set lowest starting foot height to Z = 0" are not checked. However, feel free to experiment to see what happens if you must.

5) Finalise or clean up your animation. I'd recommend using animation layers (do a Google search for more info about how to use them)

6) Save the file
7) Open a copy of "Mr. Cellophane's Animation Exporter.max". From this point on DO NOT SAVE - this file eventually gets corrupted so it's pointless
8) Go to File -> Merge Animation
10) Click "Source file" in the top left of the Merge Animation window and select the Max file that your animation is in
11) Select everything that has "Bip" at the start of its name in the "Source Nodes" column in the lower left of the Merge Animation window
12) Click the "Auto Name Mapping" button (it's 4th down in the middle and its icon has an arrow pointing to the right)
13) Uncheck the "Scale", "Modifiers", "IK" and "Custom Attributes" checkboxes under the "Main Attributes" and "More Attributes" headings in the upper right of the Merge Animation window
14) Click the "Merge Animation" button
15) Either play or scrub through your animation to refresh the scene and check that your animation looks like it should. It is possible to make changes to the animation at this stage (e.g. using layers or adding new keys etc) but remember that you CANNOT save the changes (if you save, close and try to re-open you'll find that it’s corrupt). You could try exporting the animation from the biped as a .bip file so that you can try to merge it from a fresh file later but I can't remember if this works or not.
16) Get the Civ 4 Tools toolbar active and click on the "Civ 4 Animation Manager" button (it has a picture of a guy running on it)
17) Under the "Actor" heading, click on "Add" and select the "Bip01 NonAccum" bone
18) Click the "Pick" button under "Accumulation Root" and select the "Bip01" bone
10) Enter a name for your animation in the box under "Active Sequence Name". NB: The format of this name MUST be in the format "SpecialIdle_XXX" where XXX is the name of your animation (you can use whatever name you want)
11) Check the "Loop Sequence" checkbox if you want the animation to loop and enter the start and end frames of your animation in the "Start Frame" and "End Frame" boxes.
12) Close the Animation Manager window and click the "CivilizationIV Export" button, give your file a name that doesn't have spaces in it and check that the file type will be "CivilizationIV KF File"
13) In the export options, make sure that the "Use App time" button is checked, that the "Process Script" in the upper right is set to "Default Process Script" and that "File Export Script" is set to "Single KF Export without NIF".
14) Extract the files from the "NifCmd Tools.rar" file to a directory (I'd suggest "C:\Temp")
15) Put your KF animation file into the same folder and open up a command prompt ("Run" icon in your start menu)
16) Navigate to your folder (e.g. "cd c:\temp") and when you get there, enter "UpdateKF XXX.kf" where XXX is the name of your KF animation file
17) There will now be a KF file in the folder called "XXX-out.kf"- this is your final animation file (you can rename it if you wish)
18) Put the final file into the "Oblivion\Data\Meshes\characters\_male\Idleanims" folder
19) Set the animation up in Oblivion TESCS and you're good to go (I presume that there are many tutorials for how to do this already)