Horse System work around

[Legacy_GIANTSWORD]

               

I'm working on a very simple horse system that avoids all overhead from the available horse system by only changing the phenotype and tail appearance when you call your mount via the stable master outside towns or a widget.  

 

No issues until I call a horse as a halfling or gnome and when my phenotype changes I'm inside of a giant horse haha.

 

How can I scale the appearance down (or up) of the tail to match the rider in this instance? 

 

Thanks in advance for any advice!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

The appearance scaling is defined in appearance.2da. Assuming you haven't changed that you shouldn't be having "horse-hat" as they call it. Just a side note - have you looked at theKrit's Alternate Horse Scripts and Proleric's Horse Guide (in the Lexicon now) - between the two, especially the scripts, you can just about eliminate issues involving the overhead.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_GIANTSWORD]

               

I'm not getting "horse-hat" as they say, but rather a human sized horse on a halfline/gnome/dwarf.  

 

Looking at the appearance.2da and the only scaling option i'm seeing is the SIZECATEGORY which I believe is just for attack and armor modifiers.  Maybe my answer lies in the horse include.  It's definitely using the same tail for all the races its just scaling it somehow when you go to mount it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

Tail scaling is controled by the WING_TAIL_SCALE column in appearance.2da. The size of the horse is derived from the scale factor in that column for the rider. When the PC "mounts" his horse, the phenotype of the PC is changed to one of the mounted phenotypes - the pheno chosen is dependent upon whether the mount is a normal horse or a jousting horse. A "tail," which corresponds to the mount, is then attached to the rider and scaled based upon the factor from the WING_TAIL_SCALE column in appearance.2da

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_GIANTSWORD]

               

So I figured out the scaling issue!

 

to scale the tail (mount) properly you need to set the [mounted] appearance for that race FIRST, then apply your normal/large phenotype, THEN set the tailtype to the mount you want.

 

By setting the PC to the mounted appearance of their race it then scales the tale mount to match.

 

Didn't have to mess with the wing tail scale '>

 

Thanks for the replies Pstemarie!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

Personally I'd much prefer full size horses, assuming the animations were tweaked to allow it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_GIANTSWORD]

               

I agree, it looks a little strange to see a dwarf on a tiny version of a horse.

 

Highly considering limiting horses to full sized races and using goats and the like for small races.  Thoughts?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Proleric]

               

You could implement that by setting the X3_HORSE_RESTRICT_race flag on the mounts (see Lexicon).

 

The goat would still shrink (and horses would still get larger for half-orcs).

 

You can work around that shrinking to some extent by playing around with the mount model and mounted appearance scalings, so that's there's a closer match for the mounts each race is allowed to use. For example, you could make a goat which is the right size for a halfling (just by adding a scale directive to the decompiled model), then set the halfling mounted scaling to 100%, with a slightly different figure for gnome. You can also by-pass the mount and dismount animations, which will otherwise look odd.

 

However, a full set of mounting animations with no shrinking would be a huge amount of work, requiring skills that few of us possess, which is no doubt why the scaling system works like it does.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_GIANTSWORD]

               

Yeah, because I'm using differently scaled mounts, goats, deer, etc. I'm bypassing all animations of mounting/dismount altogether.

 

Player blows their mount horn, screen fades black quickly, horn sounds, then fades back in and your mounted.  Same for dismount.  I realize this is on the PC only but I feel its much better than wonky mount/dismount animations.

 

The goats and deer are absolutely beautiful models but they look really bad when they are running while you're mounted.  Is there any way to adopt the horse animations onto them?  Their front legs are completely stiff like chopsticks haha.  They look so good I'm willing to live with it but compared to the horse running animations they don't hold a candle.  It's strange because the non-mount versions of those animals have just fine movement animations.  Anyway to convert that over to mount version?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Proleric]

               

The "rigid legs" problem occurs when the tail's model type doesn't match the rider, preventing it from inheriting animations.

 

For part-based riders (model type P), the tail model needs to be type F, like horses. Typically, simple animals like deer or goats are model type S.

 

The solution is to make a type F version of the deer / goat model. I'm not sure exactly how that's done, though.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_GIANTSWORD]

               

Hmmm.  All my mounts I plan on using that aren't horses are the Q mounts.  I looked in the appearance 2da and they are either set to S or FW.

 

I tried changing them to F just as a shot in the dark but it's the same animation with the stiff legs.

 

Think I'll throw a thread up in custom content and see if I get any bites on this issue.  These Q mounts are so beautiful it's a shame they aren't animating correctly.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

I'll drop Draygoth, their creator, a PM and see if he has any ideas as to what's up. I've never played around with the non-horse mounts. 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Proleric]

               FW should work fine, if the models really are type F, but S models need internal work to convert them to F.


The value in appearance.2da needs to match what's in the model. For example, I added wing and tail nodes to an S model, but they didn't work until I changed the 2da to SWT. Conversely, changing the 2da to SWT doesn't work until you put the nodes in the model.


Draygoth will have the answers, no doubt.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

I've been through several of the models and the internal node naming is incorrect for several of the objects within the scene and do not correlate to naming used in the h_ba animation supers. If the naming convention is wrong, the nodes will not animate correctly - they'll be locked at the origin throughout the animation frames.

 

The naming needs to be corrected. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to do it. I'm far too busy with work, school, and the restaurant my wife and I have purchased. 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_GIANTSWORD]

               

That gives me hope that there might be a chance these beautiful mounts will animate correctly someday!  I have no idea how to go about doing this.  Hopefully Draygoth will come through.

Grats on the restaurant!