F&F: Creatures

[cryonaut]

Due to the nix hound having mandibles and a slightly different head/neck structure, i worry about the wolf's animations not being usable with it... but we can give it a try i suppose... i will get to work on completing the nix obj, or at least getting it to a point where i am somewhat satisfied with it. the main thing i dislike about it right now is the textures. i'm having a really hard time getting decent textures for it.

[raggidman]

The crabs new look interesting, but where do they come from?

So maybe these new crabs are either:
imports? - that could be a clue in a new quest - as in from where do the new crabs come? or

mutations? The blight is dead? Maybe, but what is its legacy? Another quest - perhaps connected with the problems that certain beings are due to deliver to the delightful Fyr Family?

Hey, and if they are mutations, maybe they could be land crabs?

[raggidman]

Tried to edit this into my last post, but I can no longer access my own posts to edit them?? Ah, well, needs must.

RE animating Guar, I would have assumed that you would want to do that separately from a wolf or a nix hound because they have very different rear feet - which are huge in proportion, but then again maybe the 'endearing' awkwardness of the Guar's walk was created by applying the same movement used by other animals. Worth lookng at closely.

The number of differnet movement structures might depend on just how distinctive you want your creatures' movement to be vs mem and processing requirements. You should not be surprised to see that creatures in many games use the same movements.

[raz]

This is method of creating animation for Oblivion in 3dsMAX and Civ4MaxTools7 plugin. It work, it work:bounce::bounce:
3dsMAX's part:
1. Make your model, of course
2. Make bones for that model. I think all of you know how to do that
3. Add Skin modifier to model and add bones to it.
4. Make sequence of keyframe animations. For example: 1-60 frames - Idle animation, 61-100 - ForwardAttackPower, 101-... etc.
5. Create Dummy helper. It should covers all model. The top level of bones should be children of this Dummy.
6. Utilities->MAXScript->Civilization4 Animation Manager. Panel Actors - click Add and select Dummy helper. Panel Active Sequence->Active Sequence Name type the fixed names of sequences (Idle, ForwardAttackPower, Forward, FastForward etc). Create individual sequence for all kinds of animation (Append New Sequence to create new). Don't forget to set Start Frame and End Frame for all sequences.
7. Then click More... button on top of Utilities panel. Select CivilizationIV MAX Plugin and click Edit Process Script. In Script Editor add this plugins: Create ABV, Remove Hidden Objects Plug-in, Remove Tagged Objects Plug-in, Scene Graph Optimization, Stripify Geometry, Skin Analyzer. Save and Ok.
8. Hide all bones.
9. File->Export...->Save as type: CivilizationIV (*.KF, *.NIF, *.NIF). Select Process Script: Default Process Script and File Export Script: Multiple KF Export with NIF.

CS's part:
Move new NIF and KF files to Oblivion/Data/Meshes/Creature/*Name of creature* directory. In CS select New on creature field. Add NIF file. If Old Version: old skin info warning will appears click Yes to all. That's all. Switch to Animation panels and see your animation.

Thanks to niftools.sourceforge.net, http://www.civfanatics.net and Civ4 MaxTools tutorial
I hope that information will help somebody . And sorry for my language. I think I made a terible quantity of mistakes :confused:.
If you want you may look on my first animation. Unrar it to Oblivion folder and fasttravel to ImperialCity Market District.

[Axen]

Does tweening (which makes animation transitions smoother, like when going from running to idle) work?

[raz]

Does tweening work?

I don't know, because I doh't have model with few types of animation to test it. But I think "Yes".