How To Edit Skyrim Existing Animations In Blender

Introduction
Since I've gathered some noesis most unit/leaderhead cosmos and custom blitheness creating now I think it's time to share some of this knowledge by writing some tutorials. Delight note that I don't merits to present the best solution for the tasks at hand hither, most of the stuff I learned by looking into the fabric that is already nowadays and trial and mistake, and I would advise everybody to practise the same. As long equally you work simply with copies, you tin can't break anything subsequently all.

Further always remember that in that location are a lot of other tutorials out there, in this forum as well as in the whole of the internet. I simply want to highlight The Coyote'due south NifSkope and his Animate with Blender and Nifscope tutorials considering they helped me the nearly and if y'all don't empathize something hither, these tutorials might help you further.

As a last note, since you are interested in modifying animations, I have it that you already have some experience with unit/leaderhead also as with Blender and NifSkope. Otherwise, y'all should think about gathering those kickoff, because it volition brand the following much easier to sympathise.

Edit: I used Blender 2.49b and NifSkope one.13 for this tutorial. As MightyToad pointed out, some of the steps might be different / work non at all with other versions.

Exchanging the effect of a unit

Effects are all the bully things that are visibile for a short time during an animation, for case the flint spark of the musketman or the burglarize smash of the infantry vest to this category. Besides projectiles belong to the effects. A list of all available effects tin can exist institute in the Civ4EffectInfos.xml. I'll demonstrate how to exchange these effects past giving the infantry model a laser attack effect. For this, I open the infantry_md_rangedstrike.kf with NifSkope. And then, I search in the NiTextKeyExtraData Text Fundamental list for a fitting entry. It can be found at 0.iii seconds and reads "Effect:RIFLEBLAST_MODERN:EFFECT_RIFLEBLAST_MODERN". The start part (Effect:RIFLEBLAST_MODERN) defines at which note the effect should happen. If you look at the infantry.nif, you lot tin can notice that note to be placed at the stop of the rifle, as it should be. The second part (EFFECT_RIFLEBLAST_MODERN) defines which effect should happen. I modify the entry to "Outcome:RIFLEBLAST_MODERN:EFFECT_INVASIONSHIP_LASERFIRE_BIG" and are washed exchanging the effects. Simply to give the new attacking blitheness a fitting sound, I further change the adjacent entry "SOUND:AS3D_UN_RIFLE_FIRE,AS3D_UN_RIFLE_COCK" to "Sound:AS3D_UN_SDI_LASER" (read more than well-nigh modifying sound effects here). And with this, I've finished the exchange.

If the desired effect is to small/big or acts in the wrong direction, one can modify information technology by modifying the corresponding node in the unit's nif. The calibration changes the size of the effect, the rotation influences the management and the translation the place the effect happens.
Removing the animation of a os

Removing the animation of basic from an existing animation is quite simple. Let's remove the animation of Catherine's right arm in her greeting sequence. To practice and so, I open the catherine_greeting.kf in NifSkope and search the Controlled Blocks for the entries of "b_clavicle_R", "b_bicep_R" and "b_forearm_R". These entries tell me which Interpolators belong to these bones (112, 115 and 118 in the case at paw).

The easiest way to deactivate these bones is to rename the entries in the Controlled Blocks list. For example, I could doubleclick on the Txt symbol left of the "b_clavicle_R" entry in the detailed view of the Controlled Block with the same proper name, then modify the entry to "deact_b_clavicle_R" and save the kf file. At present the Controlled Block is bond to a non-existing bone and "b_clavicle_R" has no animation info anymore.

All the same, if the interpolator is a "NiTransformInterpolator", there is an better fashion. Go to the respective "NiTransformInterpolator" and remove its "NiTransformData" child node and your are ready.

In this node the animation information for unlike time values is safed. Without this entry, the bone will just go to the position given in the "NiTransformInterpolator" directly and then stand yet for the rest of the animation sequence. This way, the bone start with a more than natural position and the kf file will non be chaotic with useless animation commandos for non-existing bones.
A "NiBSplineCompTransformInterpolator" interpolator cannot be altered in this way, just utilize the starting time methode for quick changes. If y'all want to go the 2d way with this interpolator, you tin can either replace information technology with a "NiTransformInterpolator" in which you put in the starting blitheness position manually or you tin import-export the blitheness with Blender. This will plow all "NiBSplineCompTransformInterpolator" into "NiTransformInterpolator". Just replace the "NiBSplineCompTransformInterpolator" in the original kf file with the corresponding "NiTransformInterpolator" then.

Calculation and animative a os to an existing skeleton

When creating a new unit of measurement/leaderhead for an existing animation set, you might stumble upon the need to animate some parts that have no animation yet. To give an instance I'll work with, I will animate the caput jewelry (Bindi) of my Mangammal leaderhead for the greeting animation. Of course, the same technique can be used for units equally well. Mangammal uses the Mansa Musa blitheness set, and since Mansa has no head jewelry, he has no animation for information technology. We will alter that now.

The outset footstep is to add the necessary bone to the skeleton and weight to the mesh. For this, I import the leaderhead into Blender. Later the import process is finally finished, I select the mesh with the bindi, go into the Edit Mode and select the vertices that shall be influenced past the newly-to-create bone. Next I create a new Vertex Group past clicking the "New" button in the "Vertex Groups" carte, telephone call the new group "b_bandi" and give the selected vertices a one.0 weight for this grouping. Also I remove the "b_head" weight for this vertices, except for the uppermost. Giving the vertices at the edge between ii groups a weight in both groups often helps to polish out the edge in the blitheness.

At present I also accept to add together the new os to the skeleton. For this I change to the Wireframe Draw Type, select the skeleton in the Object Mode and change into the Edit Manner. Here I select the "b_head" os and duplicate information technology past pushing "shift+d". The new os is selected automatically and can be moved to the place the "b_bandi" bone shall be find its place. I farther rotate and rescale the bone to fit to the bandi. And then I rename the bone to "b_bandi" and make it a kid of the "b_head" os. At a last stride I make sure that the terminate of the bone that is connected to the parent bone (the one with the dotted line) is at the point that desire to employ equally the crucial betoken later.

At present the first part with Blender is completed. To check if the bone works with the mesh i can modify into the "Pose Fashion" and move the os around a bit. The weighted mesh should follow the motility. After that, the leaderhead is saved under a working title.

The next pace is to nifswap the modified mesh to the original leaderhead. However, NifSkope won't permit you paste the NiSkinInstance since the original leaderhead lacks the newly introduced "b_bandi" bone. Observe this bone in the Blender export and import it to the respective place in the original leaderhead. And then make certain that the Flag of the new bone is 22 if information technology has no childs and 6 if it has any childs. Farther check if the parent bone of it has a Flag value of 6. If you lot are working with a unit, you lot'll also accept to add the new bone entry to the "NiMultiTargetTransformController" Target list. Now the nifswap shall be no problem anymore.

Next I import the modified leaderhead together with the greeting animation into Blender again.

Here I change into the "Animation Section".

Next I select the skeleton and modify into the "Pose Style" and brandish the "Action Editor" in the right window.

In this window, you tin can see all the bones that take at to the lowest degree one blitheness order (each diamond represents one order, if diamond are connected, it ways that both comprise the aforementioned data). You might likewise notice that some of the bones are displayed dark-green while others are gray. All the green basic have an entry in the Activity Editor window, all the greyness ones have not. Therefore, besides the "b_bandi" bone is grey. This I'll change now by starting the "Blitheness Record", selecting the "b_bandi" os and rotating it for about 50°. At present a new entry appears in the Activeness Editor window.

Of grade the bandi shall not start in the greeting animation in this position, so I rotate it back to its old position. The animation diamond remains however. Now, with the bone however selected, I copy the current pose of the "b_bandi" bone with the selection of the same proper noun in the "Pose" card. With this option, the position of all selected bones is saved.

Adjacent I move the green line in the Action Window to the time the bandi shall get-go moving independently from the caput. Here I past the saved pose, creating another diamond in the process. Next I move to the time step at which the bindi volition reach it farest bespeak from the head and rotate the "b_bandi" bone to match the movement. Again a diamond is created.

The same I do now for the rest of the animation. Ever call back that you have to define how long a bone should remain in a certain position the same fashion I did at the start by creating the second diamond. Also it is important to have a animation diamond (better ii) at the end of the animation bridge. Otherwise the meshes influenced by the bone will turn invisible afterwards the last animation guild (and that is but the best case scenario). When all animation is done, the result tin can be tested by moving the green line effectually again. Subsequently that, the animation is exported and the Blender piece of work is done.

The new animation file can at present exist cheque with NifSkope. Now the last step is to import the new animation information into the original animation file. I do this by open both animation files with NifSkope. In the exported file I search in the Controlled Blocks for the "b_bandi" bone and copy its "NiTransformInterpolator" into the original animation file.

In the original blitheness file I create a new Controlled Block by raising their number by one and refresh the Controlled Blocks list with the dark-green double-arrow. For the interpolator of this new block I use the copied "NiTransformInterpolator", for the String Palette the local "NiStringPalette" is used, the other entries are filled in using the exported file as template. And then the file is saved, and the process of creating a new animation is finished.

Last edited: Mar 21, 2020
Is there anyway you can make a minor tutorial of how to animate a unit of measurement based on a current animation? Information technology seems that all tutorials here go beyond that, about custom animations etc. I accept a lot of tanks I want to animate, and would like to simply adjust them to the normal tank animations. Do you think yous could create a tutorial like that?
tesb Emperor

Joined:

Jan 16, 2010

Letters:

1,593

you need to take your custom tank mesh.
import a normal civ4 tank and its bones.
at present you take to apply bone weight to your mesh the same way the normal tank does. there is a tutorial here. basically you just need to rig your tank mesh to the existing tank skeleton.
This tutorial should come up in handy:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=320560
Since there are not many bones used in a tank unit of measurement, mayhap y'all can rig them past mitt instead of using the bone weight copy script. Merely all other steps should be the same.
For nifswapping, try the get-go part of this:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9203025&postcount=3534
tesb Emperor

Joined:

Jan xvi, 2010

Messages:

1,593

practice yous know how the fading animations are handled, especially the die fade animations? what do i accept to add to the *.nif to vanish when dying?
edit:
i know that the base nif needs a NiAlphaController for its textile and the animation needs NiFloatInterpolator + NiFloatData, however i tin add together them to the listing in animations Controlled Blocks. i tin can add new blocks but tin can't change them.

edit: i got information technology to work, but is a very boring taks to do manually innifskope. is there a possibility to do that automatically when exporting the animation in blender?
I did what you suggested, and Information technology seemed to work fairly well, untill I placed the unit into cIV information technology didn't testify up. It isn't a carmine hulk, or the whole pedia page is missing abreast the button, it just simply doesnt prove upwards and I simply meet a ships shadow. any chance you tin take a await?
Attached Files:
tesb Emperor

Joined:

Jan 16, 2010

Messages:

one,593

if the pedia folio is just the button and at that place is no description/pedia entry the link in the fine art defines to the *.nif is wrong or the *.nif is corrupted/non working.
if the *nif is just non showing, i.east. the pedia is ok, but you just don't see the model at that place might exist the example of wrong consign options on blender (if you apply that): i.due east. disable export peel division.
Ok the disable export skin worked, but the animation failed, it is 100% unanimated
Whatever suggestions? Is there anyway in blender to tell what blitheness a vertex is fastened to? when I hitting assign, nothing seems to change
With assign you add together the set weight for the set vertex group to the selected vertices. If you hit select all vertices with some weight for the ready vertex grouping will be selected (additionally to the already selected).
Merely wanted to showtime an answer, simply this way it is fine, besides.
I want to crash-land this thread with an update. The newest version of Nifskope won't permit you complete the final step in this tutorial.
Subsequently y'all paste your new "NiTransformInterpolator", Add one to the "Num Controlled Blocks", and update the array. When you become to the new <empty> block to link to the new "NiTransformInterpolator" at that place is null there. No way to link to it and no manner to keep. After a lot of frustration I finally switched to the old Nifskope 1.ane.iii and Tadah! It worked first try.

So, the Nifskope Devs must have overlooked this with the newest version. Also, This tutorial has been invaluable and quite dummy proof. Thanks Saibotlieh.
Many thanks, this should exist quite helpful especially for new people not having used the old versions of the NifSkope before. Considering of this, I have also added a remark in the opening mail service for description.
Also, I am very happy that the tutorial was/is useful for you. Glad I can be of help.