THE GOOD NEWS... I have made you a Dog Travois by creating a suitable sled model and firmly nailing gently tying it to a Malamute when it wasn't looking.
It's a single, fully-working Creature model. The Sled turns with the Dog but that doesn't actually look too bad, given its relatively small length and the fact that those poles wouldn't be flexible anyway.
THE BAD NEWS... Dogs have the habit of moving about. NWN Dogs are no exception. Even when standing still, they move; there's a sort of panting motif going on all the time.
This is bad news because OBVIOUSLY the Dog Harness must be tied round - wait for it - The Dog. Thus, any motion made by The Dog, hereinafter referred to as "The Uncooperative Canine Spleen", is transferred to the travois itself since it, in turn, must be linked to the harness. Thus, given the Dog's panting when at rest, the whole sled, baggage and all, tends to rise and fall somewhat as if breathing. This is faintly distressing.
When the Dog walks, the travois bounces up and down as the canine thorax rises and falls. In very flat, open terrain, this can look just a little comedic. If the fates conspire to make the Dog run, the bouncing activities of the travois become, shall we say, less than a benevolent symbiotic partner with real-world physical dynamics. (He means it looks silly; Fifi).
AT ALL COSTS the Dog must not be allowed to enter into combat, for then it is wont to lunge forward in a fearsome pounce... which is all very well except for the fact that as it does so, the travois flails up in the air as if utterly weightless. A Malamute's a powerful dog, but unless some tribe is transporting inflated hydrogen balloons in that baggage, this just looks ridiculous.
But it's not too bad when standing still and just walking normally.
In Conclusion... For the above reasons, I'm not happy with this yet. Obviously.
I have tried simply linking the travois to the model's Aurora Base so that it doesn't bounce about with the dog whilst having the Dog harness properly attached to the Dog's thorax. This works well in some respects but, at least to me, it isn't a viable alternative because you can see that the sled isn't actually tied onto the harness (which, let's face it, it sort of has to be, unless we're to accept that the Dog has arcane suction powers in its wake).
Ideally it probably needs a small skinmesh part for the leather ties joining the harness and the travois (squint at rubbish jpeg-distorted string things above) so that they stretch appropriately, but I don't have the time for that at the moment unfortunately. (Also, there's still the question of combat animation; when the Dog leaps, with the travois attached to the Aurora Base, the Dog leaves it behind with every lunge and then miraculously refastens itself). This is why, at present, I've just got the whole sled, baggage, harness assembly glued to the Dog itself; lesser of two evils.
As I say, I don't have much time just now since I've got to get all the new Maldrapur Chronicles stuff onto the Vault before I leave...
But this should provide a basic resource which, at some point, someone can perhaps rework and improve. You can always detach the travois from the Dog and use it as a Placeable model, sans chien. How that would work with a wing/tail noded Dog model I can't say, haven't had time to experiment.
