[SKY] Ancestor Moth in jar

[BrettM]

I have an animated ancestor moth in a jar. It works great in NifSkope, but the moth just sits there when I put the jar into CK. I can't figure out how to activate the animation so it works like the other bug jars. Havok and animation are enabled in BSXFlags.

 

I made it by taking a regular moth in a jar, ripping out everything under the NiBillboardNode, and substituting the shape and controller block from "ancestormoth.nif", keeping only the FlightLoop segment. (Naturally it wasn't quite that simple. I spent some time getting all the node names straightened out and manually adjusting the animation data to keep the critter inside the jar, as well as adjusting the rotation and size of the moth so it would look right. Okay, not some time. A LOT of time. That NiControllerManager and all its subsidiaries is a monster and hard to puzzle out!)

 

I couldn't just substitute the ancestor moth textures on a regular moth because the wing shapes are different and the textures just don't fit right. I also couldn't just add a simpler NiTransformController to the body and each wing, since the ancestor moth wings are not separate from the body like the other moths. I couldn't see any way to get it animated except with the whole NiControllerManager shebang.(I am totally clueless about how and why this actually works without separate wings, but it does do the job.)

 

Hmmm. Just had an idea. Perhaps I could use the wing meshes from the ingredient and just keep the regular moth body, so the usual moth-in-jar animation will work. But I'd really like to know if what I've done can be made to work, since it just needs to somehow be activated in actual use.

 

Anybody have a clue for me?

 

 

Edit: Holy frijoles. Tried my idea. Took about 5 minutes to substitute the ingredient wing for the monarch wing trishapes and change the body textures. Worked perfectly, both in NifSkope and in the CK. Sigh. Wasted most of a Sunday doing it the hard way, though I did learn a lot ... except how to make it work.

Edited August 25, 2013 by BrettM