Alright now, I am trying to make an animated object for oblivion.

I have tried exporting it to the nif format in both Blender and 3dsmax, however with both I have had an issue.

When viewed in nifscope ... the object is missing the NiControllerSequence node, and instead the animation is tied to a simple NiNode.

As far as I understand, all animated objects in Oblivion have a NiCOntrollerSequence ... but my exported nif does not.

So I was wondering if there are some specific tweaks I need to do to the model to make it export right.


Here are the screens.


A normal animated object has a NiControllersequence.


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4786430499_d8bcc52c74_b.jpg



But mine does not!

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4787061666_e70d38c070_b.jpg

You may not need one, but if you do, then you also need a NiControllerManager to go with it.

The NiControllerManager provides the interface to scripted initiation of the animations - i.e.its the hook to the PlayGroup function. It connects to an array of NiControllerSequence nodes. Each NoControllerSequence then handles a single animation that can be called for, so it will have a name to use as the PlayGroup operand, and there are a fixed set of those names to choose from. Levers and buttons need these, so they can move when the player activates them, usually with PlayGroup Forward and PlayGroup Backward.

If the animation doesn't need to be controlled from outside (like a waterfall, that just keeps going whatever you do), then you don't need either node type, you just need an animation controller or few (there are several types) and the associated NiTransformInterpolator(s) to provide the timescale/amount relationship. These are hung off the node that's going to be affected by the animation, which is usually not the whole object.

There are a few in-between cases, such as when an object does an Idle animation, but can still change it on demand (e.g the Hist pumps). These are usually set up so that "Idle" is a playable group, and it's always possible to create an animated object so that it only has "Idle" available as a degenerate case.

So what does yours need to do? All I can see is a Transform, which means a piece of mesh is moving, but it could be a rotation, or bouncing up and down, or stretching. It doesn't give me any clue as to whether it needs any outside interaction.

It is hard to see what you need your animation to do.

But if you haven't already, read the "Part 1" tutorial at this website:

http://sites.google.com/site/saidenstorm/oblivion3dsmaxanimationtutorial

In that tutorial, where he says to type the following into time zero on the Dope Sheet (if you are NOT using CivIV Exporter): "start -name Idle -loop" ....you can change the word "Idle" to a different animation Playgroup name (like "Forward", or "Left", etc) and leave out the "-loop" part if you don't want the animation to loop in exported nif. Also, if you are using the Niftools exporter (and not CivIV exporter), be sure to export the animated nif with "Nif w/ Manager" setting chosen in the Niftools exporter (area to lower left of the exporter's pop-up window).

Koniption

Thanks for the reply


@ ghastley :


I am trying to make a looped animation ... something quite like a water fall. It does not need to be controlled from outside ... it just needs to auto-start and keep on going till infinity. So do I not need a Nicontrollersequence at all ?

So ... is mine alright then

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4787061666_e70d38c070_b.jpg

It has a transform controller and transform Interpolator.


@ Koniption:

I have niftools exporter ( 3dsmax 9 so no Civ4 tools). If I export with manager ... my animation messes up. Only half of it gets exported.

Insufficient Data.

It's quite possible your animation is "working" in the sense of doing what it's set up to do. If the Interpolation data says start at zero, end at zero, and take a second to get there, you won't see anything happen when it changes from zero to zero. It's possible the export has included only a single keyframe, so there's no time to move.

A loop is going to need a minimum of three keyframes, as the first and last must be indentical to make it loop properly, and you need another to make a difference. Does your interpolation data include enough entries? Are the values of the transform different at at least one of those? We need block 6 expanded to know if there is enough content to show.

The loop (or not) is set in the Flags in the NiTransformController. It's possible that the cycle flag is off.

Ah, nevermind .. that animation was screwed up. I've tried another one and its fine

.