Guest Speaker - Setting up new Idle Anims for NPCs - by: bg2408

[bg2408]

Do you want your NPCs to do something not already available in Oblivion, like using the Shivering Isles smithing animations? Or just dance around in an inn at night? There are several ways to do this. Most of them are highly problematic, though one is very easy, and very safe. To save time and space I'm only describing the easy and safe one, not the "use at your own risk" methods .

1. Create a new Misc Item with a value of 0. Call it e.g. "MyIdleTriggerer". This is extremely important. Seriously. Do not forget!

2. Creating a new idle: In the CS go to Gameplay -> Idle Animations. There you'll see trees. Each "subrecord" shares the same conditions as their master records. Considering that they're usually very specific, do not put your new idle into one of the existing categories. Instead click on one at the top list, under "IdleAnims" and choose "Insert Sibling".

3. Add this as condition to your idle: GetIsUsedItem MyIdleTriggerer

4. Add your idle animation's .kf file to the idle anim. Idle anims must be located at meshes\Characters\_male\IdlEanim, however you can use as many subfolders there as you like. Also check "must return a file" and "Special Idle".

5. Another hint: Add the animation's kf file with tes4edit. For two reasons. On the one hand tes4edit removes some dirt that is always created when you create a new idle anim. The TesCS will complain the next time you start it, but this can be ignored. On the other hand you don't need to unpack bsa files, in case you want to use a kf file that's packed in one (like e.g. the Shivering Isles Idle Anims).

6. If (and only if!) your idle animation contains any kind of displayed items (like e.g. quill and book for the writing animatioN) go at the object window to "Misc. -> AnimObject" . There either duplicate existing items (like e.g. if you make the Shivering Isles writing animation useable) or create a new one. Now in the new object's list assign the mesh if it is still missing, and then select from the list of Idle Anims your new Idle. Note that an idle can have more than one anim objects, e.g. writing uses two (quill and book are separate items).

7. Now the only thing left to make your idle work is to give your NPC the item in question, then give him an AI package "Use Item At" with whatever time and place you wish, and select as used item "MyIdleTriggerer".

Yes, there are other possibilities, which may look easier at first - but they're incredibly wonky and often require a huge amount of conditions to work somewhat right. This method is, in effect, a lot easier.

PS: I've put together a premade package for NPCs for some standard idle anims using this method - may be worth a look.

[InsanitySorrow]

A couple of suggestions for you:

1) Break the tut clearly down into steps, as can be seen in my classes

2) Add images into the tut for each step to give the reader a clearer understanding of what they are supposed to be doing.

[DarkRider]

Another great lecture bg! Adding some pics might make things easier for the novices to follow, but good content.

[Section_31]

Very nice guide!

However this begs several questions, some of which is unrelated to animation. I will ask the related ones here:

1. How does the game detect that a certain object is being used by right hand or left hand? Is it possible to switch the objects position? The example, as you mentioned above, is the smithing animation. Another example is animation for making potion (commonly seen in Mages Guild)

2. How does an object have the correct position when being used by NPC? One example is sweeping (cleaning) floor with a broom. How to make the NPC actually hold the broomstick instead of the bottom edge (brush) of the broom?

3. I have checked and seen many original Oblivion animations which I never realize existed. Some examples are exhaustion, injury, and guard salute. Why no NPC seemingly animate like those in appropriate situation? Or perhaps an even better question, are these animations actually being used?

[onra]

just a small addon ...

use an existing misc item like a quill or a repair hammer instead making anew one and rename its ID to for example "dance tokken"...."blacksmith tokken" or whatever idle you want to use....then name the item used quill or broken repair hammer...this way the idleanim tokken show up in the npc inventory as a proper item and not as trigger or whatever...just a minor atmosphere addon

[bg2408]

1. How does the game detect that a certain object is being used by right hand or left hand? Is it possible to switch the objects position? The example, as you mentioned above, is the smithing animation. Another example is animation for making potion (commonly seen in Mages Guild)

The game itself doesn't detect it at all, it's all part of the .kf file which defines the whole animation.

Animators are very rare (probably the rarest breed of Oblivion modders). Unfortunately I have no idea how to edit the .kf file to use the other hand.

2. How does an object have the correct position when being used by NPC? One example is sweeping (cleaning) floor with a broom. How to make the NPC actually hold the broomstick instead of the bottom edge (brush) of the broom?

I am sorry, but I have no idea. I'm no animator .

3. I have checked and seen many original Oblivion animations which I never realize existed. Some examples are exhaustion, injury, and guard salute. Why no NPC seemingly animate like those in appropriate situation? Or perhaps an even better question, are these animations actually being used?

Most are being used, but very rare. Example given some of the special greetings animations are only played when two NPCs of a specific faction initiate dialog with each other. Exhaustion and injury are used in quests.

As for why they are not used more often, I think that has to do with Bethesda (at least while working on Oblivion, it was their first time they used something like them at all) not being really secure about using animations. The idle animation system of Oblivion also isn't that great imho, but compared to Morrowind it was a gigantic leap forward .

I guess you could breathe a lot of life into the world by actually having a lot of animations played more often.

[Section_31]

Thank you very much, bg2408!

Yes, indeed, animators are very rare and the knowledge about it looks more obscure. My previous online searches proved it; some available (information) are almost exclusively covered using 3DMax, whereas the majority of Oblivion modders use Blender.

Nevertheless, I intend to unravel the secret of TES animation and add more variety, if I wasn't mistaken mr_siika already made some animations within one of his plugins. Perhaps I can convince him to teach and share some knowledge...

[grond]

2. How does an object have the correct position when being used by NPC? One example is sweeping (cleaning) floor with a broom. How to make the NPC actually hold the broomstick instead of the bottom edge (brush) of the broom?

I might have some clue about this, detective. I'm only beginning my Animations Quest ( and I have mapmarkers turned off... ) but I've read that in order to get an NPC to hold an object correctly, the object's position in Blender is important. For my project, I've read that I need to resize and rotate my object in Blender so it's aligned with a similar vanilla game object I've imported. That way makes sense to me, because that way the two objects can share animation 'points', to coin a phrase.

It's the way the devs set the objects that determines which end of the broom is held, I believe. I'm unsure as far as going about changing which hand holds it, though.

[spicydeath82]

yeah, x=0, y=0 ,z=0 is the objects origin when making meshes for morrowind or oblivion. that spot where the red blue and green line all intersect.

[Hawke5781]

BG

Thanks for putting your time into this tut, I am very new to CS and found it very easy to follow and very easy to use. it took me a few minutes to think it through then my animation was working. Thanks again and keep the tips coming