http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11811 allows you to add and play new Idle Animations without having to deal with nasty work-arounds, like replacing existing animations and creating temporary pseudo-races. It does this by creating (400) new animation slots in the Skyrim Behavior files.

This mod serves both gamers and modders.

Gamers can use it to make NPCs perform any standard or custom animation by simply copying the (.hkx) animation file under a pre-defined name into a special directory, and activate them by casting the FNIS spells.
(Note: although there can be different NPCs performing different animations at one time, this mod does not provide any synchronization of these animations, as needed for example in somne advlt type animation mods).

Modders can use the new animation slots to implement there own (behavior independant) animation invocation and synchronization.

The animation slots are implemented by extending Beth's behavior files (which was only possible thanks to TheFigment aka TheHologram's amazing http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=1797). Because of the anti-modding structure of these behaviors, my mod will always be incompatible to all other mods which modify behaviors as well (none known as of today). To make 2 behavior modifying mods compatible, they have to be integrated into one set of behaviors.
Currently this mod provides 400 additional animation slots. They can be used for all kind of simple animation tasks, (hopefully) including idle based combat overhauls like Oblivion's DR6 and CCAO. However due to the lack of necessary behavior information they cannot be used for regular combat animations.

Thank you Fore,

Would you mind sharing your "how to edit the behavior file" on the Wiki? So everybody can find it without searching the whole forum
If you don't have time, please share it here, and I can try to update the wiki on your behalf

Yessss.

Hope

Excellent! I have to say I didn't expect something like this so soon. Good work!

I'm a little ignorant on the details though -- I assume by "regular combat animations" you refer to animations that have hitboxes, and/or perform certain combat tasks like blocking?

Also, what kind of other things would a modder do with behaviors? (I know very little about behaviors.)

"How to edit" is easy: convert the behavior files to xml, using http://skyrim.nexusm...ile.php?id=1797 1.4, edit the xml with Notpad++, and convert back with hkxcmd. But that's probably not all you wanted to know.

To begin with, hkxcmd's description is not up to date, you find the behavior related commands here in this forum: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1336657-rel-havok-animation-converter-thread-2/page__view__findpost__p__20397540. And I have just uploaded on Nexus the xml files I have modified for this mod, with all modifications marked and easy to find. But I reapeat my warnig here as well: these are 150,000 lines, up from 125,000 in the original files, just to give you an impression.

But if you want more information I'm a little bit reluctant. First, I'm not a behavior expert by any means. I have looked at a data structure of of an unknown tool without documentation (except for the names of the classes and their components), figured out how existing simple animations are defined, and somehow succeeded in adding and integrating similar data. Not much I can really explain.

And foremost, I'm not sure if this really should be explained in a tutorial yet (if you mean that). I really don't want to sound elitist here. But if someone is dedicated and knows how to read xml files, s/he will understand by looking into my xmls within 20 minutes. If a tutorial is needed, s/he should stay away. You can break so much modifying these files.

With regular combat animations I actually mean anything where the weapon is unsheathed, including unsheathed walks. Unless, like in Oblivionn's DR6, all that is simulated using plain idle animations, and simulating the combat effects by scripting.

About other things I can only speculate (again, I'm no expert). Just the names of the behavior files give an idea: 0_master, 1hm_behavior, 1hm_locomotion, bashbehavior, blockbehavior, bow_direction_behavior, horsebehavior, idlebehavior, magicbehavior, magic_readied_direction_behavior, mt_behavior, shout_behavior, sprintbehavior, staggerbehavior, weapequip. There are a lot of state machines, defining all kind of sequences and interdependencies, timings, sound effects, merging of different animations in certain situations. Look at all the differences between Oblivion and Skyrim. All that seems to be behavior. And even more, because many things in Oblivion were handled by the engine, now in behaviors. That's why this stuff is so tremendously big.

So I guess if we want to maximize compatibility, modders would have to ask to have certain ranges within that 400 be reserved for their animations?

If OP or someone else is up to it, it'd be kind of cool to make anyone who does custom anims send them to the OP (or someone else who could take this up), and they would add everyone's animations to an esm that any mod using new animations would have as a master, so everyone could be guaranteed to be compatible.

Thoughts?

This would sure be a great idea, I think many users would appreciate that. Think about the success, all those pose mods had in Oblivion. Although I wouldn't like to do it. I can't always spend as much time for modding, as I do now.

Volonteers?

But not all idles fit here, especially not the one needing synchronization, timing etc. So at another place I'm discussing a managing tool which assigns the slots based on the users load order, and some ini files these mods have. I'm thinking of a wrapper function which defines something like a PlayIdle2(,), which would translate to the actual PlayIdle based on the managing tool's output. Just a vision.

Hypothetically speaking:

The approach you suggest limits people to 400 animations total, even for mods that they have not downloaded, and will never need. This might make sense for highly popular mods, but I think would be a problem for lesser mods.

But you could define a papyrus script that associated mod tag names with animation files. And, you could build a program to automatically build this script, and give names to the associated files.

Overhead would be: need to run the program at mod install time. And, to be safe, every animation should have two copies (the original copy and the copy which has been renamed so that the game can use it). Also, everyone using this approach will need to download a program to do this script building and renaming. (But mod authors could provide prebuilt versions of this script, approximating your proposal.)

A more advanced version of this system could be managed by skse at run time -- this will not be needed, though, until it starts making sense to have more than 400 distinct animations modded into the game at the same time. And, someone could release an update of this behaviors file with more slots in it to achieve the same end.

Who suggests a limit of 400? That's the current status. But if this is possible, 4000 can be possible as well. Although xml size is terrifying, resulting memory requirements should not be a problem.

That's basically the same I was proposing, except I don't think a newly compiled papyrus script is necessary. A text file with an index table (and maybe some info like mod specific file and animation names) should be sufficient. I think.


One side note: does anyone reading this know of a good XML Tree Viewer ? That would really help understanging the behaviors.

great news and mod but can u explain whats a behaviour file doing exactly ? Also it is possible to use this for new combat animaions like spear , crossbow or differently hold sword etc?

Do ypu want to make me sound silly? I just found a way to add some more slots. And I'm just speculating what all that means. I made a few assumptions about http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1354891-rel-fores-new-idles-in-skyrim-fnis/page__view__findpost__p__20426547 and http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1336657-rel-havok-animation-converter-thread-2/page__view__findpost__p__20430727. But explain, and EXACTLY?

No.

Unless you want to something like DR6, where most everything is simulated using idles. If you want new combat animations you will have to add them to the spcific 1hm behaviors. But probably that's much harder than what I did, because you have to add those combat specific parts.

Can you call these animations from scripts?

Coal wants a skooma pipe!

Thank you for your work and the funny video. I was laughing to tears.

Sure. That's the whole sense. This spell is only "proof-of-concept", and to get a broader recognition. Look at the script coming with the mod (FNISeffect2Script.psc), and see how easy it is.

And it could be so much easier, if Beth had not only choosen an academical script language approach, but also had care for some simple language features, like strings and formatted output.

Thanks. The next release will include all 17 of Umpa's dance animations. And maybe I find some others.

I'm quite surprised this thread hasn't got more attention.

I'm sure this got A LOT of attention... it's just the big shots are too busy making use of it