Add a sprint feature to Oblivion, with sprinting animations, horse galop and fixed lighting issues.

Sprinting should be a core feature of the game. Its something we all use naturally and the game lacking it is disapointing. Fortunately, the modding community has been great and has given us many implementations years after years. This is my iteration of the feature, using all previous work to give us a easy to use, configurable and light mod.



Summary

- Requirements
- Credits
- Compatibility
- Features
- How to swap sprinting animations?
- Formulas
- Known issues


Requirements

- OBSE : OblivionScriptExtender
- NorthernUI : for gamepad users


Credits

- OBSE Team for their very handy functions and the Wiki  for all the documentation
- Eri for Realistic Sprint and Gallop  and Freyr95 for the fixed and polished version and Skrawdaddy for the Gamepad version
- DiemCarpe for Skyrim Sprinting for Oblivion
- Just Chill for Oblivion Subtle Sprint and the ModPCMovementSpeed function highlight
- ElAlquimista for Combat Stance Reanimation and the three animation that I use for sprinting.
- All the community here for creating, improving and testing great mods for years.


Compatibility

Should be compatible with any mods.

- It does not work for Nehrim : I have to use Oblivion.esm as master file because of event handlers. You can swap masters using Wrye Bash and it should work just fine (thanks @Yinsolaya for the hint and @shinenyuri for testing).

- I have not tested horse mods but it should be compatible. I you have trouble with, contact me and tell me which mod you are using so I can try make it work.


Features

- Configuration : Mod is delivered with an ini config file where you can choose the sprint key, enable animations, change the spped modifiers and fatigue drain variables.

- Gamepad support : configurable through ini file

- Animation : mod contains multiple version of the sprint animation. Default ones are Combat Stance Reanimation version of sprinting. But Realistic Sprint and Gallop sprint anims and base oblivion run animation are in the package, for you to choose animations that suits you playstyle (how to in the "Swap animation" section of this page)

- Sprint : using ModPCMovementSpeed function from OBSE. Your attributes are no longer buffed up by a silent spell and so dont affect others aspects of the game.

- Horse gallop : horses benefit from sprinting using a hidden gallop spell/ability (fortify speed : 10).

- Fatigue drain percentage : sprinting cost is independant of your level. However, base Athletics are factored into the formula.

- Fatigue thresholds : avoid the "falling because exhausted" behavior as well as small recovery time condition after have empty fatigue by sprinting.

- Light Magic Effect is fixed. Light now follow the player when you start or stop sprinting.


Formulas

Sprint fatigue drain :

FatigueDrainPerSecond = ( PlayerBaseFatigue / FatigueDrain ) * ( (100 - (PlayerBaseAthletics / 2) ) / 100 )

Where FatigueDrain is 10 and value can be changed in the ini file.

The formula for drain is the same for sprint and gallop.

I'm not a maths head so I kept it simple for now, but if you have suggestions contact me.


How to swap sprinting animations?

Sprinting animations are in the "Meshes/characters/SpecialAnims/OblivionSprinting/" folder. There are three files named :
- WalkFastForward_sprint.kf
- TwoHandFastForward_sprint.kf
- OneHandFastForward_sprint.kf
These files are the current in-use animations.

There are other sets of files with OG_***.kf, ERI_***.kf, CSR_***.kf prefixes. The prefixed files are alternate sets of animations that comes from others mods :
- OG_ - Original Game,
- ERI_ - Realistic Sprint and Galop,
- CSR_ - Combat Stance Reanimation
To use one of those sets, remove the current in-use animations from the folder. Then rename the files from the set you want by removing the prefix.

You can mix animations from differents sets, or use your own custom animations. As long as they match the names WalkFastForward_sprint.kf, TwoHandFastForward_sprint.kf, OneHandFastForward_sprint.kf.

By default, the mod is using CSR set.


Known issues

This is a first batch for this mod and even if I tried to cover a maximum of use cases, some bugs may still be there. If you experience one, contact me and give me all information you find useful so I can reproduce it and find a solution.

Lights :

- The light does off/on when I start or stop sprinting :
Its because of the engine behavior : the magic effect are dispelled at the end of the frame and if we want it to follow the player, we have to wait the new frame to refresh it and make it visible. So the is a little time gap where there is no light. I tried to make this gap the smallest possible, and still thinking to solutions to reduce it even more.

- The light from enchanted items does not follow me when I sprint :
I had to make a choice here between performance and convienence or fixing the issue. For now, if you have an enchanted item with light and you start to sprint with, this mod will just disable the light for it. You can reanable the light by re-equipping the item.

- My current effect tab show a "Script effect" :
Its meant to be there. I'm using a Magic Effect Script to keep track of the duration of the light. This effect will vanish when the timer is 0 or is you dispel the light spell.

Horse :

- There is a weird animation when I dismount my horse :

It happens only if you are pressing Sprint, Forward and Dismount at the same time.
Warning : this bug can lead to a CTD. I'm investigating this issue so be careful when you dismount your horse. (note to myself : check anim groups)

That is all I have in mind. If you find other cases where it doesn't work at it should be, just let me know.


To do next

- Add in-game configuration using LINK++
- Add Gamepad support for NorthernUI users
- New sprint animations (not my zone of confort -welp-)
- Improve gallop part : new fatigue drain calculation and better speed boost solution
- Find a convinient solution for enchanted item with light
- Add litle experience boost for Athletics when sprinting
- Implement collision system from Realistic Sprint and Gallop. It's a nice niche feature.
- Open to all ideas


Thanks for reading !