I'm trying to determine if it's possible to create an NPC to simulate an injured character lying on the ground that can interact in conversation. Basically, functionality of an NPC sitting in a chair but just lying down.

I planned on using the SetRestrained function on the NPC once on the ground but getting the NPC on the ground is the problem.

I have already tried setting the health to zero and scripting an OnLoad block to use the SetRestrained and Resurrect functions but all combinations (that I could think of) combined with the SetAV and SetUnconscious functions just produce nothing useful or occasionally an interesting animation.

Lastly, I tried using a bedroll, making the NPC sleep and then seeing if I could wake, restrain and converse with the NPC before it gets up. Sleeping gets the actor on the ground (bedroll) but restraining interferes with waking.

I would really like to use an animation that occurs when the actor is knocked down to the ground in a fight and then use SetRestrained.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I think the only way to make this look realistic is to make a new idle animation (which is not that hard in your case - someone lying on the ground injured should be fairly easy to do even if you're not a pro-animator). Everything else will look so bad and 'scripted' that it would probably be better to skip this feature.

I am sure that Phitt's solution is the best, but a much simpler one that MAY work, is to ensure that the NPC's Fatigue is negative (or at least 0). With odd mod combinations, I sometimes encounter NPCs or animals that are laying flat down, and the reason is that their fatigue is negative. So you could try that first unless you know how to create an idle animation.

I believe you're right about that but I just wanted to rule out any simpler methods before tackling idle animations. That will be something new for me and just haven't put a lot of effort into searching for idle animation tutorials yet. I think I have the necessary utilities, however.

Using an idle animation would allow other small gestures to be added (e.g., reaching out a hand) for a little more realism.

Thanks, I'll see what I can find.

While I've also encountered some unusual things in the game, I've never come across one like you described.

I had never thought of using fatigue in this manner but this might work as I only need to initiate a conversation. I want an NPC uttering his last words.

Using an idle animation would allow for a more developed dying sequence, however. It would be great if I could script a conversation that could be interrupted by a coughing animation and then immediately resume. But, I'll settle for a simple conversation and develop an idle animation later if possible or sooner if necessary.

Thanks

I seem to remeber that a Fatuige 0 actor will not talk to you.

But you could fake the dialogs with pop up message boxes.

You can only play 1 SI at a time per View.

You can only interrupt looping SI's so you would have to run a script constantly that would call two different looping anims on top of each other -> call #1 then use #2 (the gesture) to end #1 then run a timer to use the #1 to end #2 -> or you can just use the insanely easier furniture tell the npc to sit (use sitting Furniture Markers because Sleeping Markers force the actor to get up to talk) then you can just let the IdleManager run the gesture SI at its own pace or call it as desired.

That sounds exactly like what I'd like to try. So far I haven't found much documentation describing the animation markers and how they are used in any detail nor have I found any tutorials that involve the markers. I would definitely like to learn more about them, especially the furniture markers.

You mentioned "insanely easier furniture [marker]" suggesting it's possible to copy and modify an existing sleep animation to use the furniture marker. I've done basic modeling, rigging and animating and I'm reading about the .kf files in Nifscope now. Is there a direction you could point me for more information?

Thanks

Not really as very few people have even bothered with Custom Furniture Animations.

I mainly use them for creatures so that I can place them around areas like water ways and pools and critters will use them to make it look like they are drinking and some make it look like they are eating plant life I have a few for eating dead things among quite a few other animation related things that really give the world a feeling of being alive and not just a world where every living creature is waiting for you the player to show up to take a bite out of you.

For your purpose unless you need to see the actor being knocked down all it requires is the laying down anim (an altered sleeping anim would do) and the gesture (also a modified sleeping anim) all you need to do is within the IdleManager you can reference the Furniture Object and tell it to play then new anims just re-use the sit down/up of any other since they will not get seen it does not matter what you use.

If you want to see the actor getting knocked down then your sitdown anim would need to be the getting knocked down anim (would require you to make it from scratch as nothing exists) and a get up from that position anim can probably just use the getup from whatever sleeping idle you used.

To do what I want I definitely need to alter a bedrollentry and/or stirinsleep anim. If you don't mind me asking , what specific tools do you use? Initially, I tried Blender but importing an Oblivion idle anim kf file doesn't work. The few tutorials I've found lean toward 3dsmax.

I would like to find out if Blender is a viable option or if I should go for 3dsmax.

I appreciate your time. Thanks.

I use Max, but Blender is capable of exporting simple animations -> Transform's and some very basic Morphing support, I know work but some other Controllers may have been added recently, your purpose only requires Transforms so you should be able to use Blender for this.

Blender does have issues with importing BSpline Data (which quite alot of vanilla animations are comprised of) it also has issues with Data Entries where fields are set to Float_Max/Min especially in relation to scale fields -> just set all scale data that are Float_Max/Min to 1.0 and they will import.