Keyframe Help

[crimsonquill]

Would anyone with keyframe tweaking skills be willing to help a guy out?

I'm working on custom keyframes for a Tony Stark skope using the base of Super_Spy_VX_Gren (which apparently uses standard VX keyframes) but need some Keyframes transferred from Vertex's Vision (VX_Vision) which has a moving cape. Every time I have transferred any keyframes from Vision to the Super_Spy ones they do not show up at all during the Character Tool. I'm assuming it's because they are incompatible with the mesh.

Let me know if you can provide some wisdom to this rookie skoper.

- CQ

[hoss20]

I'll PM you my email. Go ahead and send me what you are working with along with which animations you want brought over from Vision to your skope. What I'll do is edit one animation so that it works with the skope and then provide the steps in what I did, so that you can try them yourself. Since it sounds like you want to learn how to do things, I figure this would work well.

Is your skope for  or  ? It makes a huge difference which version of the game one is trying to edit keyframes for. Moving one's way around 3rd Reich keyframes in Nifskope is infinitely easier. I can get into the differences at another time, if you like.

[crimsonquill]

I'll PM you my email. Go ahead and send me what you are working with along with which animations you want brought over from Vision to your skope. What I'll do is edit one animation so that it works with the skope and then provide the steps in what I did, so that you can try them yourself. Since it sounds like you want to learn how to do things, I figure this would work well.

Is your skope for  or  ? It makes a huge difference which version of the game one is trying to edit keyframes for. Moving one's way around 3rd Reich keyframes in Nifskope is infinitely easier. I can get into the differences at another time, if you like.

Ooops, I forgot that detail.. It's for 

- CQ

[hoss20]

Luckily, this is one of the easier edits needed to fit the animations from transferred keyframes so that they work. You were correct in assuming that it was the cape from the Vision keyframes that was causing the transferred animations to not work with the current keyframes. Here are the steps:

• Open the keyframes in Nifskope.
• Locate the new animation that was transferred and click on it.
• Look in the Block Details section and you will see a number value in the Num Controlled Blocks field (in this case, it is 48).
• Now, click on an animation from the original set of keyframes. You can always go with the Idle animation to be safe. In the Block Details, under Num Controlled Blocks field, you will see a value of 48. Over the years of skoping, I've learned that any mesh that has a moving cape in its keyframes will have 3 cape nodes: cape_top, cape_bottom_right, and cape_bottom_left. This accounts for the difference of 3 in the Num Controlled Blocks field.
• The previous step is merely an initial indicator of how many Controlled Blocks you may need to edit or add.
• Go back to the animation you want to edit and in the Block Details, click on the arrow next to Controlled Blocks to expand the list.
• When you click on the arrows next to each Controlled Block, you will see in the Value column of the Target Name field, the name of the mesh nodes that you have come across while skoping (Bip01, Spine01, etc.).
• In this example, we want to look for the cape nodes mentioned above. They will be located between Bip01 R Finger_pinky1 and Bip01 L Thigh. Once you've been skoping for a while, you will get familiar with the skeleton tree underneath the Handle or Bip01 NiNodes and get a better idea of where to start looking in the list of Controlled Blocks, so you don't have to click on every one before finding what you are looking for.
• Once you find the cape_top Controlled Block, you will delete the Value in the Target Name field, leaving it blank.
• Do the same thing for the next two Controlled Blocks (cape_bottom_right and cape_bottom_left).
• Save the keyframes and you will be good to go.

The reason the animations did not work after the initial swap is because they were looking to move the cape nodes, but the mesh did not contain cape nodes under the Handle NiNode, so the animations did not appear in order to be selected in CTool. I've sent the skope back with the added animations you wanted. I edited the Hover animation that you wanted, so that you can view it for reference while you try your hand with the other animations. Let me know if you have any questions.

[detourne_me]

Wouldn't this just be an easy fix by adding the cape node to the super_spy mesh?
I guess in the interest of saving space you could edit the keyframes.

[hoss20]

In this particular case, it works. In the past, though, I have found that doing this will then make the animations on the original keyframes disappear because the added nodes aren't found. I will defer to you on this, DM, as you have done a lot more keyframe editing than I have.

[detourne_me]

Oh I'm just speculating. Haven't got a PC with me now to find out, but since both vision and super_spy are based on vertex's work I figure the only difference would be the inclusion of the Cape node.
I'm not the most efficient for saving space with skopes though, and usually look for the simplest answers.

That being said, adding a Cape node to any basic mesh drastically improves the amount of keyframe options.