making nodes appear/dissapear in keyframes

[seraglio]

Ive read several posts that refer to "scaling" an object/node like a gun or such in a keyframe to make it appear or dissapear in a particular animation. But I havent found a tutorial or a thread dedicated to how to do it. Anyone who knows how willing to write or re-write some detail on how to do it? I see the "scales" section in NiKeyframeData, I'm guessing it has something to do with this, but need more particulars to get started.

[detourne_me]

From my experience, this would have to be done by the mesher in 3DS Max.
In NifSkope, you could possibly take the bones and keyframes from another mesh and apply them to the one you are skoping.  For weapon and gun animations, Jik's Deadpool is probably the easiest to skope from (ie take weapon and gun and add to more complex meshes)
Another good series of meshes with scaling weapons are Gni's gambit/Reyima/crow/question meshes.

[White Knight]

You're on the right track.  Open the "Scales" section, open "Keys" and you'll see a number of keys.  Each "keys" has a time and a value.  The value is the scale of the Node.  Set to 0.0001 to make it disappear.  The Time is the time during that particular animation sequence when the Node will reach that scale.  If I remember correctly, scaling happens gradually from one key to the next.  For example, if at time=0.0000 value= 1.0000, and at time=1.0000 value=0.0001 the size of the node will shrink from 1.0000 (full size) to 0.0001 (not visible) during the time between time=0 to time=1.  The way I used to make things disappear, consider an imaginary animation with a time length of 4; set keys time=0.0000 value=1.0000(full size), time=0.9999 value=1.0000(still full size), time=1.0000 value=0.0001(suddenly gone), time=1.9999 value=0.0001(still gone), time=2.0000 value=1.0000(suddenly back), time=3.0000 value=1.0000(still back).  To change the number of keys change "Num Keys"  under "Scales".

Hope this helps.  As I look back and try to proofread this it looks awfully confusing,  but it really isn't.  Play around with the numbers and you should be able to figure it out.

[seraglio]

Awesome thanks a ton. So if num keys is 0, there is no pre-defined node that is shrinking or growing...can I add one?

[White Knight]

Yeah, but you'll probably need to add six keys.  That's to make a node disappear and reappear.