why must you taunt me with such awsomeness, now i need to stop playing global adgenda :blink:

- http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/1696/12652841.png

ok, its final, ime playing oblivion again.

anyway, hows the 4 leged walk coming along drake? would you need to change it because of the new hands, or wouldn't they make mutch of a difference?

Why does this keep happening again and again? Maybe it's time for another host...

Well, here's a new one:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y3N8T0EE

And the new claws and remapped blades on the default bodyparts:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZSYAOKVT

Next up will be the Clothwraps Complete resource.

edit: The 4-legged animations aren't affected by this one single bit. I haven't done anything with the fingers in them at all.
I'm currently having some issues as I can't seem to find a proper reference for how a proper walk animation has to be structured and all this. The custom ones I found seem to be a total mess from an organizational point of view. The first frame is in mid-movement, then the same animation is repeated a non-fixed amount of times, different in all files, and it's not at all ending at a frame where a seamless transition to the beginning would be possible... in short this doesn't make any sense and there's nothing I could reproduce, to make those animations actual movement-animations for Oblivion.
I need a better reference badly.

Don't worry. As soon as I download these I will upload them to 4shared. As always the only problem with that is only 1 person can download the same file at a time.

Edit:
Just uploaded em just in case megaupload wants to play any more dirty tricks on ya tonight.

And here's the update for the Clothwraps Complete package, all NIFs to be replaced now including the new claws and the remapped blades.
Well, it was only 38 files to edit by hand, each time replacing 2 NiTriStrips by "copy branch"&"paste branch"... I'm used to far worse already. :ahhh:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DPGM8LH1

Anyways, I just hope I didn't mess up anything in these and they're all working for you.

But now I have to go to bed. Past 5:40 AM again. Have fun!... oh, and, give me feedback. :angel:

...

:snoring:

Drake, I"m looking for some references for you for 4-legged walk animations, but I'm going to need more specifics. Are you looking for refs specifically for a quadrupedal walk with shorter arms then legs? How fast do you want it to be moving? With more specifics I'll shuffle through my resources and I'll try to find you a few refs.

Oh, you got me wrong, Equinox. I'm not searching for 4-legged animation references, most likely there are none at all for Oblivion anyways. I'm rather in need of references for movement animations in Oblivion in general. Due to me not being able to access the disc or install the game I don't have access to the BSAs either right now. So I can't look at the proper Vanilla ones to see what must apply to these. So I downloaded the first set of walk/sneak animation replacements I could find... which unfortunately don't make any sense to me, as I described above.
I was already pointed towards further replacers which might have a better structure in their KFs, so I could make out some rules of how these have to be structured and will be able to reproduce this. But if these animations have "absolutely nothing" in common, what am I supposed to reproduce at all? What makes them walks and not just "moving poses"? (And I don't mean the "sliding sideways", all movement animations have in common to create forward movement after all, by this either.)

Alright now, thanks to Kurtchekov aka M1A2 ABRAMS, who figured out what was causing the CS to crash with my latest scripts, I hopefully was able to fix these things and corrected all erroneous or harmful scripts on the first page accordingly. I think this is something I should report to the OBSE devs as well, but apparently some new functionalities like complex array accesses don't like being used in a context.
According to Kurtchekov it was a line like

if eval (confArray[5]["combinations"][0]["req"] == 1 || confArray[5]["combinations"][2]["req"] == 1 || confArray[5]["combinations"][3]["req"] == 1)

which is causing the CS to crash on compile.
Looks totally fine and insuspicious, doesn't it? Well, apparently only from a C-syntax point of view!

Hopefully now you will have more success. Kurtchekov didn't as his dragons suddenly weren't affected at all anymore. But I'm stumped as to how this could happen. The more I make sure really ALL are affected the less this seems to be the case... weird...

Files are not accessible.... I think megaupload has something against you.

Yeah, I guess so. Their loss. Now they lost me.

While I'm able to download the package you quoted, the previous one, the new meshes for the main bodyparts, doesn't work for me now.
This happening again and again is not acceptible.
I won't use this host anymore.

The never-ending Dell issues have changed my level of tolerance. And MegaUpload repeatedly went beyond it.
Me upgrading to a premium account and paying for this unreliable service going on? Only in their dreams! :nono:

Guess I'll create a pre-beta testing download area over at the Nexus and upload all stuff there from now on.
Using MegaUpload was always meant to be a temporary solution anyways, so I guess "temporary" now has reached its end.

Just considering how much I wrote about this particularly minor issue here shows me I'm getting far too angry by it already. I have more than enough really bothersome issues already going on. I won't knowingly keep getting any more for sure!
Get what's uploaded there as long as you still can. My MegaUpload account will be deleted soon.

edit: Oh, and, don't worry. This is only affecting my tolerance towards nonsense from "companies". My attitude towards individuals hasn't changed a single bit at all. :angel:

Everything is still safe on my 4shared account.

Oh! My apologies. I am just itching to be of some use to you because I feel, well, absolutely useless. Just ... let me know if you need something more 'artistic' done. That's pretty much all I can possibly be of service to you.

i never had a problem with the mega upload files, not even the reportedly "broken" links.

but great your uploading it to nexus, they may be a bit slow, but they are reliable

I tried that link again for those cloth wraps and it works now! No idea why.....Oh well I'm gona get it and then put it on 4shared for safe keeping.

Drake (or anyone)-

Do these guys fly yet?

no, they do not fly yet, but they are still awsome, they will probably fly eventually from what drake has told us. currently drake is working on a 4 leged walk, so flying will have to wait

Well, no, that's not really the cause for why flying will have to wait. It's not like many people want to move around on all fours, now is it?
That's a personal preferance of mine, so I'm only doing it while I can't do much else.
Currently being without a system to mod on, or play the game for testing, is delaying almost everything apart from the few things I'm posting about now and then.

Flight however will be one heck of script work and coordination between several animations, movements and other stuff (which all also have to be created first), that I simply cannot do this without being able to use Oblivion or the CS. That's what's really delaying all this more advanced stuff, this and the fact that the race itself alone is not yet in a "complete" state even.

Alright, for a change I had some new ideas which could turn out to be a quite useful addition to my scripting approach.

A script for "layered clothing" (well, actually only clothing and armor is 2 independant layers) is already collecting dust in my development folders for several months now. I was yet unable to finish it or give it a test run, because my laptop breaking and all the other... less-enjoyable... happenings stopped its progress.
Today I was again for the upteenth time getting upset by people having trouble to understand my providing several alternative lowerbody meshes in all mods utilizing my script approach and how to use a different one of these on their side. So I was thinking, due to the nature of my approach I could simply move this selection process ingame as well. I mean, when I'm already making clothing beneath armor possible (not that it's rendered at the same time, but you will keep your clothing equipped 'invisibly' when equipping armor and can even change it underneath), why shouldn't I also cover another clothing layer, namely "underwear"? Why not simply giving you means to tell my scripts the items you're currently wearing should be the new "permanent underwear" for this particular race, or even only the player/yourself?

I admit, for anything else than my dragon race with full scripted control over all slots this would mean some further script work to get all slots covered. But why shouldn't I just start with this for my dragon race now and see how applicable it is? All slots are controlled, have their own "default" items as their actual bodyparts, and I can simply alter the NIF files these use on-the-fly already anyways.
Then in future I won't provide complicated means for alternative lowerbodies/underwear involving different installation routines, but instead all dragons will start the way I want them to look like (reptilian anatomy, unclothed, maybe I'll stick to human instead for convenience of the masses) and you get a bunch of different underwear/nvde meshes in your inventory or a chest somewhere (maybe even summonable for default-selection only?) and this way can tell the game which meshes should be the default. Some people apparently dislike installation instructions, so moving everything like this ingame will improve usability, or won't it?

Oh, and, after sleeping a good night (and the whole morning, but who cares?) I think I was over-reacting with this MegaUpload nonsense yesterday. Well, I think I will just refrain from using it in future but my files will stay there until MegaUpload itself deletes them. Only then I will delete my account. That thing with hosting everything at the Nexus from now on still holds though. I will upload the first packages there soon and correct my first post accordingly.

Oh wow you are going to redo the flight script and not just lift it off another mod?

Well that is cool.

May I make a few suggestions?

Good.

Well I've used Ismelda and Chingari's Demon race quite a bit and the flying is alright, but there are issues. It seems to function by engaging a form of the ~tcl console command. Then the animatiuons and such are replaced by flapping wings and a hanging body.
This means that when in flight these factors exist:

1. Magic and arrows don't touch the PC and often just strike the ground in the general direction of the player. Occasionally they hit. I pointed this out to Ismelda and she took away the ability for the demon to attack while in flight for balance (I kept an older version though).
2. No flight indoors. Possible I suppose but with no collision then one fly off into the void of the area outside of the interior walls.
3. No fatigue is used. In fact the flight is independent of stats and PC status. You can fly straight up even when unconscious or drained of all fatigue.

So if you are able to implement this without reliance on ~tcl then that is a major leap. That would solve much. Especially if you can get grounded archers and mages to hit the flying opponent.

For stat and character status and flight here are a few suggestions.
Flying taxes fatigue.
No flying if fatigued or unconscious, but gliding acceptable when taxed on fatigue.
For gliding a feather effect. Would just need to implement nudges in certain directions.

There is a demon-like CM partner that supposedly can fly, but I've not checked him out. That would be the only NPC I've seen that can fly (again purportedly).

I don't see how flight can be possible without the use of tcl. Maybe have a modified jump? I personal think being able to attack from air would be cool, and them not being able to hit from the ground makes sense. Ever try to hit something out of the air? It's hard to do. And definately a tax to fatigue would make sense.

I once found a levitation mod that gives levitation by continuously changing the actor's z coordinate and resetting fall damage. The one problem with using this for your dragon though is that the actor uses the falling animation while suspended in the air.

Saidenstorm's dragons have a pretty smooth flight. That might be something to look into. But, I think the same problem of not being fired at while in the air happens. I can't ever recall a time I was fired at while flying, but then I also fly high up in the air while in b/t cities.

My, why can't I find the numerous posts I wrote about my plans for flight capability for the life of me now? I went back 3 threads already without finding it... some more and I'll end up inside the thread-nirvana or something.

Oh, well, in short almost all your points were on my list already.
Especially being able to fly around for unlimited time without even remotely being fatigued is absolutely not realistic in my eyes.
A clever system of different fatigue impacts for different types of flight maneuvers/movements is mandatory.
Think of it this way. Every move of the wings consumes energy. When your energy level goes down too far you won't be able to gain height or even keep your current one any longer. So you will basically descend towards the ground until there's no energy left to move your wings. Of course you can try to push your last reserves into a few last flaps to gain height (who am I to tell if you're not aiming for an airship or a hovering platform of sorts only a few feet above you and may be able to reach it in time?), but this way you'll only loose energy even faster, and be sure when you're totally out of it you'll faint and loose consciousness finally... and we all know an unconscious dragon won't be any different to a rock dropping down to the ground. And I guarantee you high-velocity impacts will kill you!
How long you can stay airborne depends on your characters energy level and what kinds of flight maneuvers you perform. The more advanced ones require significantly more energy of course. Gliding while just holding your wings stretched out will preserve the most amount of energy for you, but even this won't last forever. At some point the dragon won't be able to hold its wings spread out any longer either and just drop down. Pray to The Nine you're close to ground already when that happens.

I don't know if I can do anything against the stupidity of Oblivion's NPCs. Them not being able to shoot targets "in the air", as there "can" be nothing in the air after all in Oblivion (without heavy trickery via mods), is hardcoded into their AI behavior as far as I know I'm afraid.

I didn't know some previous attempts actually used TCL to implement flight. I was always thinking the common way to realize it would be by using an invisible platform the player's standing on, which is then moved around via scripts. At least that's what I will use when I don't find a better way. Directly manipulating the player's/actors' position and orientation didn't lead to usable results, if I'm informed right. Worst of all you can't rotate an actor otherwise than around the axis pointing upwards, so my initial ideas about free flight angles like in Drakan had to be dropped already.
My flight will be a massive cooperation between scripted movements and custom animations for every move you can think of.
I can't make the dragon dive down or raise in arbitrary angles, so the amount of different fixed angles (i.e. different animations) has to be quite large to compensate this weakness.

I think you know where this is going now. I can't promise I'll succeed with everything planned, but I'll start small and work my way up until I achieved everything which could be achieved.

I'm not going to forbid flight indoors either. I mean, if there's enough space, why shouldn't you be able to at least hover a little to overcome an abyss or some such, or maybe perform a dive-attack down on your opponents? But be warned you'll have to be very careful when attempting to move your wings indoors. High-velocity impacts will still keep hurting or even killing you, even on close distance. And if I can get collision of the wings with your surrounding detected, them being your most sensitive and vulnerable bodyparts will quickly get you into trouble when you try to fly indoors. Scrap the wall, loose balance, loose control, drop down... do this at high speed and you'll sure break your neck or something! Guess you get where this is going to as well now. Again I don't know what actually can be achieved, but as long as I'm not running out of ideas I'll keep trying to achieve everything that's planned.

Now, I hope I won't loose track of this particular post again in future when this question comes up again.

Well you've certainly have a lot on your plate atm. I hope you plan on making the morphing to human a priority though that is just my personal wish.

I'd like to offer another suggestion too btw. Regarding the head changes. I personally didn't like what you had planned, but I also didn't see the problem with the way the head was looking up. To me it looks like you are planning to flatten the head somewhat and lower the placement of the head ie taking out some of the neck? Is that right? I'd think a better change would be to increase the length of the mouth rather than flattening the whole thing. Again, that's just my opinion so take it just for that. I'll give you a grain of salt too while I'm at it.

personally, i think the neck idea is a good one, and drake, your idea on creating an invisible moving platform, thats awsome. i'm not shure, but i think thats what they used on morrowind, and it worked pretty well. they just didn't have the animations.

and i'm not shure if it'll help, but the rideable dragon mod (i can't remember the name) seemes to have a really good flying motion.

The http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14528 I use that can fly by Chingari and Ismelda - to check out.

Then I also mentioned before this http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15351r than can fly - which would be the only known by me NPC that can fly - I need to check that guy out in game.

Posted for reference.

also Breeze at only point made a beta of a seducer race that could fly and also shape change - I think it was pulled though.