Making pieces appear/disappear during certain animations in FFvsTR

Started by windblown, November 28, 2013, 03:23:36 PM

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windblown

Here is a small tutorial I've done about how to get a mesh piece to appear or disappear during an animation in FFvsTR. Since Nifskope is not easy to explain I've put many pictures on it to help.

Link

I hope this is useful (and understandable) to somebody.


hoss20

I was given the opportunity by our good friend to preview this tutorial. I knew that the process involved scaling the involved mesh pieces during the chosen animations, but was a little unsure of where to make the adjustments. I have to say that this tutorial has saved me hours, if not days, of fumbling around in Nifskope. I have finally had the time to start working on the skope animations that I was needing help with. Luckily, Windblown was already working on this tutorial when I reached out to him for help. This was a great help. Thanks again, Windblown.

windblown

No problem :) I hope it's useful for both of you.

Looking forward to seeing that skope Hoss!

spydermann93

Holy Mackerel, this is amazing!

Can't wait to see what I can do after reading this.  Thanks Windblown! :thumbup:

AfghanAnt


vorelliwiseau

I'm interested in trying this out, and so I've started to!

I have a question, though: is NiControllerSequence the same as NiSequenceStreamHelper? I ask because I seem to be missing all mentions of NiControllerSequence in these keyframes I'm experimenting on. When I first open the keyframes, all the entries are marked 'NiSequenceStreamHelper'.

Are my keyframes broken, and if not, where do I go from here? Thank you!

windblown

Quote from: spydermann93 on November 29, 2013, 06:29:25 PM
Holy Mackerel, this is amazing!

Can't wait to see what I can do after reading this.  Thanks Windblown! :thumbup:

Quote from: AfghanAnt on November 29, 2013, 06:34:19 PM
Neato. Thanks Windblown!

you're welcome :) I hope it's helpful for you!

Quote from: vorelliwiseau on December 12, 2013, 01:15:08 PM
I'm interested in trying this out, and so I've started to!

I have a question, though: is NiControllerSequence the same as NiSequenceStreamHelper? I ask because I seem to be missing all mentions of NiControllerSequence in these keyframes I'm experimenting on. When I first open the keyframes, all the entries are marked 'NiSequenceStreamHelper'.

Are my keyframes broken, and if not, where do I go from here? Thank you!

I think that's because you are using FF keyframes, aren't you? if you convert them to FFvsTR, the NiSequenceStreamHelper will become NiControllerSequence.

I'm not completely sure if this procedure could be applied to FF keyframes since I've always done it with FFvsTR skopes.

vorelliwiseau

Thanks! worked like a charm. I have a question about looping animations, though.

Say I have something like a dude with retractable wings. I can make them appear, but how do I keep the wings in position without the 'fly' animation looping it back and making it disappear? Sorry for the inconvenience!

windblown

Quote from: vorelliwiseau on December 13, 2013, 03:10:19 AM
Thanks! worked like a charm. I have a question about looping animations, though.

Say I have something like a dude with retractable wings. I can make them appear, but how do I keep the wings in position without the 'fly' animation looping it back and making it disappear? Sorry for the inconvenience!

Don't worry about it, I'm glad people are using this :)

If you want the wings to be visible during the entire fly animation, you should change the values of every keys of the scales section of that animation to 1.0. For example:



If you want the wings to be hidden in one animation you should change those values to 0.0.

vorelliwiseau

Yes! I can make things appear and disappear now. Thanks!

There is the matter of positioning, though, like in my man Blue Falcon here: [gif supercompressed and spoiler'd for convenience]

Spoiler

EDIT: Found the solution! Go to your desired NiControllerSequence > desired NiKeyframeController > NiKeyframeData. Then just change the values for both NumRotationKeys and Translations > NumKeys to 1.

Then, just copy over the translation coordinates from mesh piece's NiNode to the Translation > Keys > Value in NiKeyframeData, and the rotation coordinates from the NiNode to the Quaternion Keys > Value in NiKeyframe Data.

I have one last question, though, but I'll save it until I'm sure I'm completely nonplussed. Thanks again, windblown!

WyldFyre

Does this also work on effects? Human Torch's flames or Green Lantern's aura for example. Or even the hand effects on Grenadier's Dr. Strange?
For Freedom!

windblown

Quote from: vorelliwiseau on December 14, 2013, 04:05:37 PM
EDIT: Found the solution! Go to your desired NiControllerSequence > desired NiKeyframeController > NiKeyframeData. Then just change the values for both NumRotationKeys and Translations > NumKeys to 1.

Then, just copy over the translation coordinates mesh piece's NiNode to the Translation > Keys > Value in NiKeyframeData, and the rotation coordinates from the NiNode to the Quaternion Keys > Value in NiKeyframe Data.

I have one last question, though, but I'll save it until I'm sure I'm completely nonplussed. Thanks again, windblown!

Ha! You've found the solution before I saw the question :thumbup:  Looking forward to seeing that skope!

Quote from: WyldFyre on December 14, 2013, 08:12:19 PM
Does this also work on effects? Human Torch's flames or Green Lantern's aura for example. Or even the hand effects on Grenadier's Dr. Strange?

Yes, it works for FX too (for example, my Oya skope uses this trick to show a fiery FX during some animations). By the way, if you want a Johnny Storm mesh that flames on/off, Detourne_me has a fantastic skope in one of his Yahoo groups.

vorelliwiseau

Hi, last question! Can this work on individial .nif files made and exported in Blender? I tried shrinking the NiNode of this one piece I made, and the keyframes don't recognize it or something.

I was wondering if you've encountered this before, and if so, is there something wrong with how I'm exporting the file? Or has my Nifskope simultaneously gained both sentience and the capacity for prejudice?

We had a cheap See and Say that did that, and the neighborhood waded in blood before the ordeal was over.

Randomdays

Hey V. I make it work on blender pieces by this : Import the original mesh in blender, put the old piece, like a gun, in edit and make sure all vertices are highlighted.

Import the new piece, put it in edit and make sure all the vertices are NOT selected.

Move the new piece onto the old and align it to the old piece in direction and size, join the two together, and last, put the combined piece into edit mode, deleting the old vertices.

The new piece should now by by itself and attached to the proper bone and have the disappearing/appearing properties of the old piece.

I'm sure nifskope can do it as a simple swap, but I don't know how to do that.

WyldFyre

Thanks windblown. :)

QuoteBy the way, if you want a Johnny Storm mesh that flames on/off, Detourne_me has a fantastic skope in one of his Yahoo groups.

Yeah, that's a very cool skope.  I was actually thinking of something else though.  I'm trying to skope a few characters who haven't been done before.
For Freedom!

windblown

Hey vorelliwiseau, sorry for the delay in answering.

If I'm understanding correctly your problem is that you changed in Blender the size of a mesh piece whose NiNode is referenced in the keyframes but the size is still the same in the animations, doesn't it? That's because the value chosen in the scales section makes the piece to appear in the size of that value (1.0 in the image I've posted the other day).

If that is the problem, the easiest way to fix it is to change the size of the piece in the NiTriShape Node instead of the NiNode (in the .nif file). Another option would be to change the 1.0 value of the scales sections to the desired size (0.5 for example and the piece would appear half the size).

I hope I didnĀ“t misunderstand your problem. Let me know if I did.

vorelliwiseau

It's all fine now, guys! I fixed the thing a few days back. Thanks for the assist, though - I'll keep these suggestions in mind next time I try something like this again.

detourne_me

Hey Windblown, I'm really happy that I can start to play around with this stuff now.  I've got a question about looping animations though.

For example, I'm using your Snowbird to practice on (Making a Rahne Sinclair skope) and I want to add the Wolf's run as a tumble animation.
I've been able to successfully bring in the wolf, and make Bip01 disappear during the animation, however the wolf disappears at 0.48, the time when the animation ends... but its looped, so the wolf disappears but the animation is still playing.
I hope you understand my problem.
I tried the same thing vorelliwiseau was talking about,  but couldn't quite fix it.

Thanks again for the great tutorial.

EDIT:
Ok so I found out that I had to set the flag to Cycle for that NiKeyframeController.... but now the wolf disappears for a bit in the middle of the animation.  very strange.

Here's a gif of what I mean,   also, The skin is a major kitbash of AA's work, definitely not for sharing.
Spoiler

windblown

Hey DM, I'm glad you're using this!

There must be a problem with the scales section for the WolfBip01 node (if that's the node that you're modifying), for its NiKeyframeController:
The size values for the scales of the animation should be 1.0 for every time value.
And the last time value should be 0.48 (if the animation lasts 0.48).

If you can't fix it, send it my way and I'll look for the reason to that bug. Btw, if you want I can send you my Rahne skope so you can take a look at the run animation.

seraglio


deano_ue

this is great but i have no idea  how to understand it lol. have to just keep trying

SickAlice

You'll get it UE. I felt the same way when I first read it, like I was reading scrambled code. Just walk through step by step on a test mesh/kf and it'll click.

@Windblown:
Thank for you this and all your help getting me to understand keyframing. This is an easy and comprehensive tutorial and I got the desired effect in the first go. I went from someone with no understanding of keyframes to understanding and being able to apply my ideas overnight. As it is I think this is vital information for anyone working on modding FFVTR, and currently am making a " workbench " page for the site that includes tutorials and materials specific to skopers and 3d modellers. I would like permission to host this on the tutorial side of that if you please.

windblown

Sure, no problem.  Glad you found this useful SickAlice.


@TUE, if you're still having problems with this let me know, I hadn't seen your post until now  :doh:

SickAlice

Good deal. It'll be awhile as I announced a lag in upload times but I think you'll happy with the results.

lion23dj

Hello people!!! I have a problem. I'm editing the keyframes and only appears "NiSequenceStreamHelper" and NOT "NiControlledSequence" so I can't see "number of controlled blocks"... What I can do???

Always thanks for the help

SickAlice

In order to edit keyframes in Nifskope they need to be converted (for the controlled blocks to show up on your end). I use EZNifconvert for that myself.

lion23dj


SickAlice

" Do or do not. There is no try. "
It's real easy once you get the system down, don't worry.

lion23dj