Looking to improve animations

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MiroslavXO
Posts: 107
Joined: 13 Feb 2016, 01:07

Looking to improve animations

Post by MiroslavXO »

Hi, my name is Miroslav and I'm looking to improve animations. I have good experience with Maya and Motionbuilder, basically what I do is motion capture editing and tracking for AAA games, and I also currently working with Skywind team when I have time doing animations.

You can find alot of mod for meshes and textures but there is no mod that can improve animation, I would like to give more life to first person because all of the animations are linear and mostly lifeless. I did ask on Nexsus for help and I got directed to Nifscope and Liztail's Animation Kit, but I am having trouble with this technical part, specifically doing exporting/importing data.

I did try this part by myself, but as I said I don't know how to work with technical part. I can import for example "WeaponOneHand; Chop.nif" and I can see animation, but what I need is also a mesh and a weapon so I can see what I'm actually doing, because animatig solo on skeleton is blind.

I would like to know is this possible, I would like to do a simple test on one animation if someone can send me .fbx for example "SpellCast; Touch.nif" and I can do the other part, fixing and improving animations. Then I can resend .fbx so you can see if it works in game. Is there anyone who knows this technical stuff?
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raevol
Posts: 3093
Joined: 07 Aug 2011, 01:12
Location: Caldera

Re: Looking to improve animations

Post by raevol »

Unfortunately I can't help, but I wanted to say I really appreciate you for wanting to do this! It's sorely needed! Hopefully someone can help get you headed in the right direction.
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DestinedToDie
Posts: 1181
Joined: 29 Jun 2015, 09:08

Re: Looking to improve animations

Post by DestinedToDie »

Welcome.
MiroslavXO wrote: I did try this part by myself, but as I said I don't know how to work with technical part. I can import for example "WeaponOneHand; Chop.nif" and I can see animation, but what I need is also a mesh and a weapon so I can see what I'm actually doing, because animatig solo on skeleton is blind.

Is there anyone who knows this technical stuff?
I have some minor experience. I think the way to see what you´re actually doing is to load armor+weapons to the scene, rig them to your skeleton and then after you´re done animating you can delete those parts.

By the way. Your specialty is much needed here in the OpenMW team. We are making a small demo game that would be separate from Morrowind and free. For that, we need assets, including a completely new skeleton animated from scratch. Since you wrote in the ´join the team´ section, perhaps you might be interested.

We are currently making a story draft so there isn´t much on the roadmap, but it does contain the steps to get the most basic animations: https://bugs.openmw.org/projects/examplesuite/roadmap

To start proper, you need to install the OpenMW-Template, which is kind of like an empty game viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3003

Here´s a little guide to do almost everything: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=3330
Biboran
Posts: 84
Joined: 03 Feb 2016, 12:50

Re: Looking to improve animations

Post by Biboran »

Maybe you can make a normal and non-segmental bodies too? :mrgreen: But I do not know possible this now openmw or not.
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DestinedToDie
Posts: 1181
Joined: 29 Jun 2015, 09:08

Re: Looking to improve animations

Post by DestinedToDie »

Creature bodies are definitely non-segmented. I still haven´t figured out why Morrowind NPC models are in separate pieces (aside from head, haircut).

And I´m not sure how to make a non-segmented NPC body. Insert the entire body into 1 bodypart and leave other bodyparts empty? Head is still going to get segmented, if you want to use different head models.
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MiroslavXO
Posts: 107
Joined: 13 Feb 2016, 01:07

Re: Looking to improve animations

Post by MiroslavXO »

@DestinedToDie

Currently I just wanna focus on 1st person Morrowind animations, I have all the nifs. Beside my job and doing Skywind in free time I don't really wanna focus on one more project.

Importing weapon mesh in .nif animations is not a problem, but I need to see exactly where is the position of the first at last frame of that weapon, for example on "WeaponOneHand; Equip". But there is probably some script doing show/hide weapons, because I believe all weapons are constrained in hand all the time, and the script is doing the job. That's why I need help, because of this type of things, but maybe I will figure it out, just need to find a good research.

As for models and separate pieces for body, probably because there is no skinning.

@Biboran

I know how to model, but I'm a not a organic modeler, I can do hard surface, but I wanna try to make a replacement for the hands.
Biboran
Posts: 84
Joined: 03 Feb 2016, 12:50

Re: Looking to improve animations

Post by Biboran »

Good luck! Maybe someday after you do first person you can do rest bodyparts. :mrgreen:

The effect of magic is now also possible to significantly rework. By the way, someone working on the easy import resources Oblivion and Skyrim. Maybe something can be borrowed from skywind? :shock:
argonvegell
Posts: 225
Joined: 08 Dec 2015, 23:45

Re: Looking to improve animations

Post by argonvegell »

have you looked into this mod though?

Morrowind Combat Redefined by The Holy Wraith
http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/40196/?

Here are videos of the mod:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8XGZ71oh9s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hKanT3vUJM

But there is a bug though, when using this mod, some creatures and NPCs cannot move, their arms are moving, but their legs aren't.
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MiroslavXO
Posts: 107
Joined: 13 Feb 2016, 01:07

Re: Looking to improve animations

Post by MiroslavXO »

I find some stuff that I need to read, but that guy knows how to solve this problem. On the other side stuff like that, broken wrists, bad grips, clipping between mesh, linear animation is what I wanna fix. I will probably contact him when I get free time. Ty.
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MiroslavXO
Posts: 107
Joined: 13 Feb 2016, 01:07

Re: Looking to improve animations

Post by MiroslavXO »

I made some progress, currently doing/testing animation for magic idle loop 1st person. But I have problem, can someone tell me where to look for in and out frame for every animation, because as it seems Tes Construction Set is not givin me correct numbers.

Sample clip.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3ff1e1d7nca1fhb/test.mp4?dl=0
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