Once upon a time someone had figured out how to edit... I think it was the z plane of the kf files... of the imp. This made it so you could make different versions that appeared to be flying at different heights... This would be good so that if you scaled up an imp in the CS, it wouldn't fly too high, of if you scaled down an imp to make a really small one, it wouldn't fly too low...

Only problem is I can't remember who it was that pulled that off...

Anyone here know anything about this? Remember who it was? Have the files? Know how to do it? Know of any mod out there that already has this?

Desperation bump?

MMM has imps which come in different sizes, and flying at the same height, so you might ask one of them to ask how they did it. Other than that, I have not a clue on how this was done, though moving the imp through the z-plane (changing it's z-axis height) might do the trick.

Given my limited knowledge, I'd expect a modification of the Translation component (in the z axis) of the Bip01 or BipNonAccum bone should do the trick.

XMarksTheSpot was the modder who figured it out back when we were working on the Lore Creature Expansion. I'm going back and forth with him in email right now about it. He imported the animations into 3d Studio Max, edited the heights, and then re-exported them back to kf files... we're trying to figure out how to accomplish the same thing in NifSkope right now so I don't have to bother re-installing 3ds because I don't have the HDD space for it at the moment... but if I can't get it figured out I might have to resort to getting rid of things to make room for 3ds and use that.

The problem is that each kf file has an average of 100 different interpolator blocks... if I have to change the Z field for every one of those then that's going to be an insane undertaking (28 files times 100 blocks = 2,800 manual field edits), plus I have no idea what to change it to.

MMM Has small imps flying just as high as the larger ones??? Are you sure??? I had never noticed that... I'm wanting to make an imp that's only about 1/4 the size of a normal imp but that flies at the same height as the player's face, and I don't remember ever seeing that before... also with an animation like that, it would also make it possible to have normal-sized imps which are flying 20 feet above the player - might make it interesting for the player to have to deal with sky imps raining destruction magic down from above.

That would indeed be cool. Consider this a supportive bump.

So you've tried modifying the above bones' interpolators ? In any case, to do batch modifications, you can use PyFFI - PacMo added a few spells on my request sometime ago, some of which might be of use.

Have you tried Using the Lore Creatures Gargoyle, that one seems to hover lower than the imp models,

You will need to remove the horns, if going for the imp look, little bitty gargoyle would be cool has well.

I am pretty sure the imp texture and uvmap will match up on gargoyle model once again, at least should match up.

Tip: The More Endurance and Fatique they have the more they will fly and hover..

My advice can't help with model stuff..

Didn't understand what exactly to edit until this morning when he was able to explain it a little better to me (only the spine), but I am stuck at work all day today and not able to try messing with it... hopefully tonight I'll get to tinker with it a bit...

Hey Core! Yea that's right! I had forgotten that we made the gargoyle bigger than a regular imp and subsequently had to make him fly lower... THAT's how I knew XMarksTheSpot was the one who figured it out... Man I need to quit disappearing from modding for years at a time... it makes it really hard to pick up projects where I left off.

There would be no texturing or model edits required actually. The only files that are changed to change the flight height is the kf files... you just apply the kf files to an imp instead of a gargoyle, and there you have your lower-flying imp...... what we don't have is the higher-flying imp though... I just need to get the process figured out or somehow convince X to do it for me.

Alternatively, just add a new bone into the skeleton between Bip01 and Nonaccum or something like that which has a Z offset. E.g. Skeletal Variation.