If the Author of this tool is still active, could you please make a demonstration video, of how to install and use this? Please, it sounds like what i have been looking for. :)
i am using Fnis Pcea2 and my animation sets has to be in the Pcea2 Folder in order to work, and i dont really want most of the features of this Mod, what i really seek is to have a way to be able to hotkey the animation sets , so that for example by pressing D-pad right i get one set of Pcea2 animations, and with pressing D-pad left, i would get another pcea2 animation set.
can you make that possible as an standalone version of this mod ? that would be great...
So I installed your mod, but unfortunately there were some bugs with another mod, so I restarted Skyrim with the other mod disabled. And now I can no longer see the spells from your mod. How to get them back?
Your mod looks very promising, but I think both the mod and the presentation here on Nexus need a bit of polishing. I hope you continue working on it.
If you have SkyUI go into the AnimationSelectoR1 tab of the MCM and click on the text button. That will fix up everything.
Without SkyUI you might have to use the console. Player.AddSpell XX0063AE Player.AddSpell XX0058E5 Player.AddSpell XX0058E6 Where XX is the ID of the mod.
This is another thing I have to improve. I should include another way to get the spells, but I also don't want to run unnecessary scripts or make changes to a merchant or the like (which has compatibility issues).
Also, it would be helpful if you could elaborate which mod is causing a conflict, just so I can look at it and maybe add a warning to the main page.
The spells are now added automatically once upon using the potion if you don't have them yet. I had to make a special Property for it but that's not too much of a waste.
Hello again. I recently tried to keep the .hkx files with original names instead of renaming to Aasr1.hkx, etc. etc. but it fails to work for me. I believe in order for this to work I need to use the "Modders" version of FNIS correct? I did use GenerateFNISforModders.exe but I get an error: "ERROR(2012): Could not generate: FNIS_AnimationSelectoR1_Behavior.hkx"
If you can help me get this working I'd greatly appreciate it. Or any advice or information.
Also, it would be helpful if you could elaborate which mod is causing a conflict, just so I can look at it and maybe add a warning to the main page.
I'm sorry, that was bad wording on my part. There was no conflict, it was just some mod randomly bugging out. I don't think it had anything to do with your mod.
A couple suggestions: Add at least one animation pack to the main installer. It doesn't have to be a big one. Just something the user can play with immediately after installing (well, and running FNIS). E.g. A1-A10 or sth. It should be explained in the UI which ones are working out of the box. Make A1 the default instead of A75. If that's not possible -> Install the initial pack to A65-A75. This animation pack should be set to "recommended" in the fomod installer (default = install, optionally disable).
Oh yea, a fomod installer would be nice. I didn't understand what the "Default Tokens&Icons" option is. Fomod enables you to add explanations. Good tutorial: http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/44914/?
Also it would be nice if the descriptions of the spells would be more helpful. I don't know if you can add descriptions to the list of spells, but that would be nice, too. How to configure more spells. I didn't understand how to use the hotkeys. Like, at all. Or why some are uppercase, some lowercase. Again, a description/explanation in the UI would be nice. Resetting the spells from the menu did work, but there was no feedback. A little "ASR spells have been added!" message would be nice.
Oh, I just realized there is a readme in the .zip. But it doesn't get installed by the installer, so I never knew it existed. That could be improved, too.
Again, I think you're onto something here. It's just that people haven't figured out how to use it.
I considered fomod, but since I only have one option and don't know fomod well it didn't seem worth the effort. It would also make it more confusing for people not using the NMM.
I will look into adding a description to the spells, it's pretty much the only place where I can write a few lines without it being obstructive.
Adding descriptions to the in game menu is awkward. You have to read the readme, and after that long descriptions become a waste of space. I might have to improve the readme some further. The information on the main page is generally the most recent. Additionally: you don't have to use any MCM options except for the Spell button. They're mostly for aesthetics. Some options, like the Hotkeys, are too complex to explain properly in-game. But I could look into smaller font sizes for the menu to add a few lines of instructions.
The button to add ASR spells and potion cannot fail easily and if it failed there would be no feedback if I added that. Additionally, if you press it while everything is in order it does literally nothing. It would always either say 'I added/removed *something*' or 'You pressed this button for no reason.' or nothing at all because of some major error.
The readme is not added on purpose because it could literally be anywhere. How are people supposed to know where the readme is? And I don't think the Data folder needs more files. Putting it directly into the Skyirm diretory seems kinda rude. So I opted to leave the readme in the .zip (or your temporary extraction folder). I might add a copy to the AnimationSelectoR1 folder, though. That makes a lot of sense since it will be close to the LIST.TXT file people might edit.
Once again thanks for your feedback! I hope you can understand my perspective on it. Some things can't be accomplished in an appropriate fashion. But I will implement the things that work well.
Awesome! Everything is in working order with the new 1.05 release. I'm still testing the release to see if I find any strange happenings but all-in-all, it's working as intended currently. I finally have custom animations playing while using this mod. *Thumbs Up*
I do have a few suggestions that may simplify the use of this mod even more. Although, since I am not familiar with the scripting process I have no idea if what I'm thinking can be implemented.
First off, when within the AnimationSelector menu, upon choosing a block (example: " A" ), the sub-menu asks, "How Many?". I believe this is confusing to the user. For me, even after reading the How-to, upon reading that sub-menu text ("How Many?" ), I think to myself, "I should just choose all 75 blocks so I can cycle through the animations later." Which is not the case as we know.
The AnimationSelector Menu is specifically used to choose which "Index" (Animation #) you wish to play from a "block" (Letter: A-Z) listed in the menu. My suggestion is that instead, maybe the sub-menu text should read "Choose Animation #" or something similar that is clearly evident of what you are using the AnimationSelecor Menu for. If I read "Choose Animation #" the first time around I think maybe I would have concluded a lot faster what the AnimationSelector Menu is actually for. I believe this aspect is probably easy to implement since it's basically changing a few text strings around for UI clarification and not actual re-scripting.
Example: Open AnimationSelector Menu > Choose "Block" (Letter: A-Z) where animation is stored > sub-menu text Pop-Up reading "Choose Animation #" > List of animations 1-75 > Select number and animation# plays. ///Obviously only if "self" and "Target" spells are not equipped///
Another thing I noticed when trying to use the favorites aspect of AnimationSelector was that it only cycled in positive increments and never in negative increments. Meaning, if I only had 3 favorites set after I pass my third favorite, the mod currently forces me to cycle through the remaining 72 slots before I can return to the first saved favorite slot. I'm unsure if the the scripting allows for this but implementing a cycle through "actual set favorites" rather than a cycle of the the "total number of favorite slots" would make using the favorites a lot more simplified and user-friendly.
Yet another suggestion , the Menu within MCM, currently remains a bit vague in my opinion. Small adjustments to clarify what certain things represent will greatly increase the understanding of the options within the MCM AnimationSelectoR1 menu, similar to what I suggested above in regards to the AnimationSelector Menu. "How many tokens per type?" this option is used to set how much animations one wishes to display per each "block" (Letter:A-Z) correct? I believe at the bottom portion of the MCM UI frame(menu) there is an area in which text can be displayed. After highlighting over certain aspects of the AnimationSelectoR1 menu you could display a description of what the highlighted option is actually for.
For instance, in regards to the text "How many tokens per type?", the description could read, "Set # of animations to select per "block" (Letter:A-Z)." Or you could also just change the current text "How many tokens per type" to "Set # of animations per "Block" (Letter:A-Z)" instead of adding a description.
Also, the toggling of the "Blocks" from within MCM AnimationsSelectoR1 menu currently does not self-explain with the toggle is meant for. One can deduce through trial and error what this toggle option is for but I believe a displayed description would be nice, if it can be done. And while I'm talking about the toggle option within the MCM AnimationSelectoR1 menu,
**Possible Bug** block "A" can still not be toggled like the rest of the letters. I can mouse over and highlight block "A" but thats it, when I click on block "A" nothing occurs.
Now on to my personal wish of what I'd like this mod to do. I am impressed with the current state but if on top of everything this mod could do, if we had the option to Name our Animations to be displayed in named groups from within the menu itself that would be an awesome addition to a more polished user-friendly UI!
I get that the mod does this currently to a degree but instead of just choosing which animation number to be played from a certain "block"(Letter:A-Z), if the "Block"(Letter:A-Z) could be read as a "Group Name" (Example: Standing Poses) it would allow for a more clear representation of what type animations are contained from within each "Block". To clarify things a bit of what I mean, 26 letters = 26 Group Names, 75 animations per group = Custom Text displayed Describing Animation Selected.
I choose group name " Dances " > I can select through 75 animations (assuming I have 75 animations within the group) > When I (hightlight over/Choose) an Animation #1-75 > I get a text displaying (description/name) of what the currently selected animation is.
This eliminates having to collectively remember where you put which animations and which of the 75 animations is which. What I mention about group naming goes well with the custom Icons we can create for the current "blocks"(letter:A-Z).
I'm sure this is already possible with knowledge of FNIS from the user-end but that's the whole point right, a mod does the hard work for you, or in every case the mod creator And I appreciate all the hard-work all you've put into this mod.
I'll end this increasingly longer post with a Thank you for your hard work, I appreciate what this mod does and is capable of. Thanks for the quick fix as well, glad to actually start using this mod.
First off, thanks for your detailed feedback. I'll try to address all the matters you brought up; many quite important.
Regarding the Animation Selector menu sliders: I too regret the fact the menu sliders have this 'how many?' dialogue. It is just a 'normal container' and the tokens are ordinary misc items; clutter, so there was nothing I could do to change this: You basically loot a given amount of tokens form a container, say 30 of A. That is how the information is then processed in the script: play number 30 of A. It is a good idea to clarify this matter in the instructions, since I cannot change it and kinda forgot about the awkwardness (you stop reading that 'how many?' fairly quickly ).
Regarding favorites cycling: 12 slots. Not 72. That would just be painful. 12 was chosen because of the F keys F1 - F12; however, it turned out binding such things to keys is somewhat awkward so no such feature was implemented (yet). I realize the cycling could be improved, but it is not easy to come up with an elegant solution. 12 slots isn't that much to cycle through when you use the potion; so I found the current state 'acceptable'. Not really optimal, though. One problem is that I want to use only one hotkey and quickslot to keep things somewhat neat. Cycling backwards would probably require the use of an additional key. #EDIT: Maybe... you cycle... backwards.. while sneaking...? That should be easy and requires nothing. You can also have the same animations in favorites multiple times... maybe I should document that as well. It's not a bug, at the very least; after all it's somewhat difficult to overwrite favorites in a structured manner and allowing the same animation multiple times makes it slightly easier.
The MCM menu: Uh, yeah. Now that I look at it that way the menu is retarded. The hell are tokens (okay, they might figure that one out).. but the hell is a type??! Well, uh... I know it! In my defense: the token count limiter (as I'd call it) is a really old feature you don't really have to use anymore. Legacy! But I still have to change the wording on that one... absolutely. I'm not really supposed to say token anymore, either way. I decided to call the things 'blocks' - it's somewhat less confusing.
I also can't believe I practically did not document the letter toggles. They might be kinda self explanatory, but they should still be explained somewhere. It's awkward to add description in game. It will be added to the readme.
Letter A must not be toggled off because it's essential to the funcitoning of the mod. Its toggle logic is 'commented out', deactivated. Why I didn't do that to the A entry as well I'm not sure. Either because it seems incomplete then or because the number of letters will be odd then; which makes the menu more ugly. You'll live this one down.
Now for your wish: It is true that currently the blocks are quite large and it's not easy to keep track of an animations index; that is, in part, what favorites are for and why the block size can be adjusted from 10 to 75. Also the favorites output on hotkey + menu exit; You can screenshot it to 'take notes' to work with the files in Windows, since you can easily identify them from their ingame string (the *BLOCK*asr*INDEX*.hkx thing). Of course this is not very convenient; but the problem is the difficulty of attaching information to the individual animations (like, say, a sub-category). In that regard FNIS does all the heavy lifting and I am not aware of any FNIS functionality in that regard; say, an animation tag, or the like. Basically that's what you have the different blocks for. Keeping track of which of your 75 dance animations in block D is which currently has to be accomplished by traditional means. Pen and paper.
Such a feature seems rather useful, though; say, the ability to attach keywords to individual FNIS animations; but I think this is something fore hisself would have to add. But no matter that, I will be keeping it in mind for future development.
Again: thanks for your valuable feedback. You made many good points. I hope I'm not sounding too dismissive on some matters. I just try to give you a realistic prospect. Hype is... overrated.
23 comments
i am using Fnis Pcea2 and my animation sets has to be in the Pcea2 Folder in order to work, and i dont really want most of the features of this Mod, what i really seek is to have a way to be able to hotkey the animation sets , so that for example by pressing D-pad right i get one set of Pcea2 animations, and with pressing D-pad left, i would get another pcea2 animation set.
can you make that possible as an standalone version of this mod ? that would be great...
Going to test this out and see what the spells are like.
Your mod looks very promising, but I think both the mod and the presentation here on Nexus need a bit of polishing. I hope you continue working on it.
That will fix up everything.
Without SkyUI you might have to use the console.
Player.AddSpell XX0063AE
Player.AddSpell XX0058E5
Player.AddSpell XX0058E6
Where XX is the ID of the mod.
This is another thing I have to improve. I should include another way to get the spells, but I also don't want to run unnecessary scripts or make changes to a merchant or the like (which has compatibility issues).
Also, it would be helpful if you could elaborate which mod is causing a conflict, just so I can look at it and maybe add a warning to the main page.
I had to make a special Property for it but that's not too much of a waste.
The plugin also works now. cough cough
Thank you! That's something I really wanted to have for a long long time.
If you can help me get this working I'd greatly appreciate it. Or any advice or information.
Cheers
Thank you for your answer, it's working now. I got it to play my animation.
I'm sorry, that was bad wording on my part. There was no conflict, it was just some mod randomly bugging out. I don't think it had anything to do with your mod.
A couple suggestions: Add at least one animation pack to the main installer. It doesn't have to be a big one. Just something the user can play with immediately after installing (well, and running FNIS). E.g. A1-A10 or sth. It should be explained in the UI which ones are working out of the box. Make A1 the default instead of A75. If that's not possible -> Install the initial pack to A65-A75. This animation pack should be set to "recommended" in the fomod installer (default = install, optionally disable).
Oh yea, a fomod installer would be nice. I didn't understand what the "Default Tokens&Icons" option is. Fomod enables you to add explanations. Good tutorial: http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/44914/?
Also it would be nice if the descriptions of the spells would be more helpful. I don't know if you can add descriptions to the list of spells, but that would be nice, too. How to configure more spells.
I didn't understand how to use the hotkeys. Like, at all. Or why some are uppercase, some lowercase. Again, a description/explanation in the UI would be nice.
Resetting the spells from the menu did work, but there was no feedback. A little "ASR spells have been added!" message would be nice.
Oh, I just realized there is a readme in the .zip. But it doesn't get installed by the installer, so I never knew it existed. That could be improved, too.
Again, I think you're onto something here. It's just that people haven't figured out how to use it.
It would also make it more confusing for people not using the NMM.
I will look into adding a description to the spells, it's pretty much the only place where I can write a few lines without it being obstructive.
Adding descriptions to the in game menu is awkward. You have to read the readme, and after that long descriptions become a waste of space.
I might have to improve the readme some further. The information on the main page is generally the most recent.
Additionally: you don't have to use any MCM options except for the Spell button. They're mostly for aesthetics.
Some options, like the Hotkeys, are too complex to explain properly in-game.
But I could look into smaller font sizes for the menu to add a few lines of instructions.
The button to add ASR spells and potion cannot fail easily and if it failed there would be no feedback if I added that.
Additionally, if you press it while everything is in order it does literally nothing.
It would always either say 'I added/removed *something*' or 'You pressed this button for no reason.' or nothing at all because of some major error.
The readme is not added on purpose because it could literally be anywhere. How are people supposed to know where the readme is?
And I don't think the Data folder needs more files. Putting it directly into the Skyirm diretory seems kinda rude.
So I opted to leave the readme in the .zip (or your temporary extraction folder).
I might add a copy to the AnimationSelectoR1 folder, though.
That makes a lot of sense since it will be close to the LIST.TXT file people might edit.
Once again thanks for your feedback! I hope you can understand my perspective on it.
Some things can't be accomplished in an appropriate fashion. But I will implement the things that work well.
I do have a few suggestions that may simplify the use of this mod even more. Although, since I am not familiar with the scripting process I have no idea if what I'm thinking can be implemented.
First off, when within the AnimationSelector menu, upon choosing a block (example: " A" ), the sub-menu asks, "How Many?". I believe this is confusing to the user. For me, even after reading the How-to, upon reading that sub-menu text ("How Many?" ), I think to myself, "I should just choose all 75 blocks so I can cycle through the animations later." Which is not the case as we know.
The AnimationSelector Menu is specifically used to choose which "Index" (Animation #) you wish to play from a "block" (Letter: A-Z) listed in the menu. My suggestion is that instead, maybe the sub-menu text should read "Choose Animation #" or something similar that is clearly evident of what you are using the AnimationSelecor Menu for. If I read "Choose Animation #" the first time around I think maybe I would have concluded a lot faster what the AnimationSelector Menu is actually for. I believe this aspect is probably easy to implement since it's basically changing a few text strings around for UI clarification and not actual re-scripting.
Example: Open AnimationSelector Menu > Choose "Block" (Letter: A-Z) where animation is stored > sub-menu text Pop-Up reading "Choose Animation #" > List of animations 1-75 > Select number and animation# plays. ///Obviously only if "self" and "Target" spells are not equipped///
Another thing I noticed when trying to use the favorites aspect of AnimationSelector was that it only cycled in positive increments and never in negative increments. Meaning, if I only had 3 favorites set after I pass my third favorite, the mod currently forces me to cycle through the remaining 72 slots before I can return to the first saved favorite slot. I'm unsure if the the scripting allows for this but implementing a cycle through "actual set favorites" rather than a cycle of the the "total number of favorite slots" would make using the favorites a lot more simplified and user-friendly.
Yet another suggestion
For instance, in regards to the text "How many tokens per type?", the description could read, "Set # of animations to select per "block" (Letter:A-Z)." Or you could also just change the current text "How many tokens per type" to "Set # of animations per "Block" (Letter:A-Z)" instead of adding a description.
Also, the toggling of the "Blocks" from within MCM AnimationsSelectoR1 menu currently does not self-explain with the toggle is meant for. One can deduce through trial and error what this toggle option is for but I believe a displayed description would be nice, if it can be done. And while I'm talking about the toggle option within the MCM AnimationSelectoR1 menu,
**Possible Bug** block "A" can still not be toggled like the rest of the letters. I can mouse over and highlight block "A" but thats it, when I click on block "A" nothing occurs.
Now on to my personal wish of what I'd like this mod to do. I am impressed with the current state but if on top of everything this mod could do, if we had the option to Name our Animations to be displayed in named groups from within the menu itself that would be an awesome addition to a more polished user-friendly UI!
I get that the mod does this currently to a degree but instead of just choosing which animation number to be played from a certain "block"(Letter:A-Z), if the "Block"(Letter:A-Z) could be read as a "Group Name" (Example: Standing Poses) it would allow for a more clear representation of what type animations are contained from within each "Block". To clarify things a bit of what I mean, 26 letters = 26 Group Names, 75 animations per group = Custom Text displayed Describing Animation Selected.
I choose group name " Dances " > I can select through 75 animations (assuming I have 75 animations within the group) > When I (hightlight over/Choose) an Animation #1-75 > I get a text displaying (description/name) of what the currently selected animation is.
This eliminates having to collectively remember where you put which animations and which of the 75 animations is which. What I mention about group naming goes well with the custom Icons we can create for the current "blocks"(letter:A-Z).
I'm sure this is already possible with knowledge of FNIS from the user-end but that's the whole point right, a mod does the hard work for you, or in every case the mod creator
I'll end this increasingly longer post with a Thank you for your hard work, I appreciate what this mod does and is capable of. Thanks for the quick fix as well, glad to actually start using this mod.
I'll try to address all the matters you brought up; many quite important.
Regarding the Animation Selector menu sliders:
I too regret the fact the menu sliders have this 'how many?' dialogue.
It is just a 'normal container' and the tokens are ordinary misc items; clutter, so there was nothing I could do to change this:
You basically loot a given amount of tokens form a container, say 30 of A. That is how the information is then processed in the script: play number 30 of A.
It is a good idea to clarify this matter in the instructions, since I cannot change it and kinda forgot about the awkwardness (you stop reading that 'how many?' fairly quickly
Regarding favorites cycling:
12 slots. Not 72. That would just be painful. 12 was chosen because of the F keys F1 - F12; however,
it turned out binding such things to keys is somewhat awkward so no such feature was implemented (yet).
I realize the cycling could be improved, but it is not easy to come up with an elegant solution.
12 slots isn't that much to cycle through when you use the potion; so I found the current state 'acceptable'. Not really optimal, though.
One problem is that I want to use only one hotkey and quickslot to keep things somewhat neat. Cycling backwards would probably require the use of an additional key.
#EDIT: Maybe... you cycle... backwards.. while sneaking...? That should be easy and requires nothing.
You can also have the same animations in favorites multiple times... maybe I should document that as well.
It's not a bug, at the very least; after all it's somewhat difficult to overwrite favorites in a structured manner and allowing the same animation multiple times makes it slightly easier.
The MCM menu:
Uh, yeah. Now that I look at it that way the menu is retarded.
The hell are tokens (okay, they might figure that one out).. but the hell is a type??!
Well, uh... I know it!
In my defense: the token count limiter (as I'd call it) is a really old feature you don't really have to use anymore. Legacy!
But I still have to change the wording on that one... absolutely.
I'm not really supposed to say token anymore, either way. I decided to call the things 'blocks' - it's somewhat less confusing.
I also can't believe I practically did not document the letter toggles.
They might be kinda self explanatory, but they should still be explained somewhere.
It's awkward to add description in game.
It will be added to the readme.
Letter A must not be toggled off because it's essential to the funcitoning of the mod. Its toggle logic is 'commented out', deactivated.
Why I didn't do that to the A entry as well I'm not sure.
Either because it seems incomplete then or because the number of letters will be odd then; which makes the menu more ugly.
You'll live this one down.
Now for your wish:
It is true that currently the blocks are quite large and it's not easy to keep track of an animations index; that is, in part, what favorites are for and why the block size can be adjusted from 10 to 75.
Also the favorites output on hotkey + menu exit; You can screenshot it to 'take notes' to work with the files in Windows, since you can easily identify them from their ingame string (the *BLOCK*asr*INDEX*.hkx thing).
Of course this is not very convenient; but the problem is the difficulty of attaching information to the individual animations (like, say, a sub-category).
In that regard FNIS does all the heavy lifting and I am not aware of any FNIS functionality in that regard; say, an animation tag, or the like.
Basically that's what you have the different blocks for.
Keeping track of which of your 75 dance animations in block D is which currently has to be accomplished by traditional means.
Pen and paper.
Such a feature seems rather useful, though; say, the ability to attach keywords to individual FNIS animations; but I think this is something fore hisself would have to add.
But no matter that, I will be keeping it in mind for future development.
Again: thanks for your valuable feedback. You made many good points.
I hope I'm not sounding too dismissive on some matters. I just try to give you a realistic prospect.
Hype is... overrated.
Technically there was only one minuscule error that is fixed, apart from other patch stuff I did.
I guess I should test it for a fifth time just to be sure.
#Edit: It appears to work fine.
I'll go back to working on tail physics now unless you shout at me here or send a message.
Oh and don't tell anybody about the tail physics, please.