Animations & Robes

[Legacy_Proleric]

               Can anyone explain, in very simple terms, how to synchronise robes with animations?

I've read through several topics without finding a cookbook. I'm not looking for artistic perfection, just for robes that move roughly in sync.

For example, Zeiram's Custom Animations work with the HOTU robes, but not with the additional robes added in 1.69.

Evidently, there are also issues with the CEP robes, judging by rafhot's fix for ACP 4.0.

Also, if an animation set is associated with a new pheno, is there any way to make robes work, without duplicating the robes for that pheno? If not, why not?

I'm not ready for the GMAX learning curve just yet, so I'm looking for text editor solutions.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldMansBeard]

               I'll try.

The movement and deformation of robes is controlled by nodes (usually, but not necessarily, dummy nodes) that act as bones.

Within the robe model, each vertex of the robe has weights that tell it which bones to follow. For example, the verts in the lower part of the left sleeve will be weighted to follow the lforearm_g node, the upper arm to lbicep_g and around the elbow, partly one and partly the other. As the nodes move, the robe deforms to follow them.

The movement of each bone is controlled by its animation keys in the animations attached to the robe. There could be animations defined in the robe model itself but usually they are in separate files that the robe is supermodelled to. For example, the vanilla robe003 is supermodeled to the phenotype (pmh0 or whatever) which is in turn supermodelled to the animation files a_ba and so on. This ensures that, as the wearer of the robe moves, the bones move and the robe moves in sympathy.

The important thing is that all of the bones to which the robe is weighted are defined and given animation keys in the robe's supermodel(s). Otherwise, they won't move and the robe won't deform to follow the movements of the wearer.

The robes added in 1.69 had extra bones that weren't part of the old models. In some cases the standard supermodels (a_ba and so on) were augmented to add keys for the new bones. In other cases (the coat robes 020 and 021) new supermodels (such as a_ba_coat) were added to animate the bones that make the coat tails move.

Custom animation packages from pre-1.69 won't have the extra bones in them so they won't work for those robes. The new bones won't get moved when those animations are run so the robes won't deform correctly. The only way to fix this is to add the bones to the animation supermodels (which could be done in notepad) and give them animation keys (which is a skilled job requiring GMax/3dsMax or other special software).

Fitting robes to a new pheno is easily done in notepad - you just need to rename the model and, possibly, change its supermodel - provided the phenotype uses the standard nodes.

Does that help?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Proleric]

               Thanks.

I don't have the skills to fix the animations, so I might try tweaking the robes / supermodels. Failing that, I'll simply limit the availability of robes and/or script an animation by-pass when robes are worn. If the main issue is with the coats, that's containable.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Proleric]

               Fortunately, the problem isn't as bad as I thought (ignoring trivial cosmetic issues). It boils down to

• Preventing custom animated characters from wearing the long coats
• Duplicating robes that are required for special phenotypes

In SP, I can very easily control the availability of clothing to that end.

I did find one set of animations that didn't have the 1.66 female head fix. I found that deleting the (apparently redundant) positionkey sections from the neck_g and head_g nodes did the trick.