I have created a playable race that is very tiny (about 8 or 9 inches tall, I'd guess). The actual height is 0.4, and maintained by script. The problem is that the camera (particularly in first person) sets way too high, and that makes it difficult to manuever. If you are in first person view and fly less tahn a foot over some object, your character is actually doing a faceplant on that object. It can be very confusing, to say the least.

Anyway Hrmchnd helped me a couple of moths ago or so to set the MCP over the shoulder camera to a perfect height for this race. I mentioned that I would like to lower the camera when not using the OTS cam, and he said that it woulod be a simple adjustment that could be done in nifskope...

...and that's where my problem becomes complicated. I'm not well-versed in Nifskope, I can barely manage to load a nif and sometimes manage to copy/paste something, but I can't seem to find anything in nifskope that would let me adjust the first person camera view lower than it would normally go. Does anybody know how this might be done?

Open "xbase_anim.1st.nif", find the node called camera (it's attached to "Bip01 Head", you can click on one of the nodes (white dots with lines) near where the head should be in the viewport and it should take you close to the camera node in the Block List), and try moving it down by right clicking on the Camera Node in the Block List, and selecting Transform->edit (has an icon next to it).

I must admit, I haven't tried this before, I'm not sure if it will cause problems. And this will affect the player in first person mode only, and with whatever race you play as.
Like I said I haven't tried this before, so maybe someone else can give you a better answer, or expand on what I've said.

I think I need a little clarification... I don't open the skin for the race?

I went looking for xBase_anim.nif, and the only place I found it was on my construction set cd... but there were two of them, one is about 40kb the other about 1.5 meg, I opened the bigger one, found the biphead01 and located the camera. I closed at that point because I need to know how I attach this to the particular race I'm making without altering it for all PC characters. An orc with a cameral at about toe level does not sound attractive...

No you don't. All races have their meshes attached to the skeleton in xbase_anim.1st.nif

You can extract the base_anim files from Morrowind.bsa, you edit the smaller one which shows a visible skeleton (white lines with dots, when show nodes is ticked in the render menu at the top). You can make sure by typing in xbase_anim.1st.nif when opening the file, and it will open the .nif instead of the .kf.
You can't attach the animation to only one race, because you can't attach 1st. person animations to individual NPCs AFAIK, only 3rd. person animations.

Perhaps an alternative would be to set the race height and weight as low as you can without problems in the CS, then scale it down the rest of the way through scripts?

That's actually the way it's done now... the race is set to a height of 0.5 and then scripted down from there to 0.4, which actually gives a net height of about
0.20...

The lack of ability to choose between races also made it difficult with MCP after Hrmchnd helped me adjust it. the OTS was perfect for the little guys, but all other races had the OTS camera at just under knee level unless the OTS was disabled in the configuration.

I see, I didn't realise how ludicrously small these guys were.

Well, if you don't want it to affect other races too, you'll probably have to wait for OpenMW or the crystal scrolls, unless somebody else has any ideas...

Yeah, they're tiny... but mighty with magic and they fly, too...

Well, thanks for trying. If nothing else you've given me some education....

Say, if it were a creature with a separate kif and animation file, it would work, right?

EDIT: A late thought here, but... if I pulled the xbase out and modified it to a good camera setting,, I could then save it in data files and it would be used, by all the races... but I could just simply rename the modified xbase_anim file when I want to play other races. I suppose it could even be a mod if users knew how to change back and forth...

It would work though, right?

No, sorry, but creatures don't have first person animations either, or even a camera node for that matter, as it's only needed by the player.
Also .3rd person animations don't have a camera node either, if you're wondering. The .3rd person camera is controlled by the game engine and so only the MCP can alter it atm.

You can't play as a creature anyway, so it wouldn't matter if you could.

edit: Yeah, that would work, and is what I was thinking in my first post.
I didn't mean you should save the animation files back into your .bsa, as you should never try to edit these. Renaming the modified file would cause the .bsa file to be used, switching it back to the regular camera view.

Ahh, I should have known that was what you intended... I'm slow on the uptake this morning, I guess.

I'm going to give it a try... I'll let you know how it comes out. Thanks again.

I dropped the camera node almost between the ankles of the skeleton, but there is no change in camera height in-game. Any ideas?

I suppose it must have something to do with the .kf editing the camera node, perhaps the camera is animated, which would explain.
Either try making the alterations on DN's .1st person enhanced's xbase_anim.1st.nif file, it might not have animations on the camera then, or learn how to use a 3d modelling program.

Or wait until either OpenMW or Crystal Scrolls, or maybe even the MCP, manage to handle the issues with setscale not scaling the 1st. person character correctly (or the problems with setting height too low in the CS).

edit: Actually I'm not going to suggest learning a modelling program if you will only use it for this, as editing the camera node may be tough, and may not even work.
It might be possible to strip the animation from the camera, by finding the camera node in the .kf, and deleting the reference (you said you'd found the camera node in the .kf, right? Find it again and try deleting it from the .kf).

However I'm not sure how the 1st. person animations will look like this.

After messing with it for a while, I found that it was a gender issue... You had me modify xbase_anim1st, and there is a second file base_anim_Female_1st You need them both to do both genders.

Anyway, it works well... with a few quirks... like you can't see your hands in first person when casting or hand to hand. I don't think that's a big deal though.If I want to see hands and weapons, 3rd person is handy.

Thanks a lot for your help, I really appreciate it.

I see, I'm glad you sorted it out!

Unfortunately you wont be able to see the hands unless you know how to use a 3d modelling program, in which case you just add scale animations to the Bip01 bone in the base_anim.1st animations (also meaning you don't have to edit the camera node).

In my "experiments" I came across an interesting observation that MW engine is able to correct some crazy settings created in NifScope.

Actual representation of an NPC (maybe of a PC as well) is a "Bounding Box". This is what other NPCs "see" (if it set too high for a particular NPC all other NPCs looks up at him/her) and how NPC "senses" his/her height ("Bounding Box" set too high, NPC will look down). But I am not sure that "Bounding Box" is "responsible" in your case.

I would like also to warn you that small PC races might be not playable: they will stuck in certain areas like stairs unable to jump and run/walk.

Dirnae: I really don't care too much about the hands issue, except that I think I will find a way so that they don't "flash" buy when changing modes from combat to cast to normal.

I've tried working with blender, and done a few tutorials, but it's just not for me, I think.


Other NPC's are looking in the appropriate direction, so that isn't an issue, thankfully.

As to the small size and stairs issue, here's something you may be interested to know. Small races seem to get stuck when their racial size is an unmodified 0.80 or less. Once in a while a 0.85 will get stuck, but not often. Less than 0.85 they almost always get stuck, but there is a cure. Using the setscale to reduce them will cross a "threshold" where movement is unrestricted.

This race I'm working on is set at 0.5 racial and then scaled to 0.4 of that. Collision works a little strangely on some floor surfaces when not flying or you intentionally try to fly through the floor. You drop into an area where you can see what lies both below and above you, and 3rd person view shows only the top of the head sticking out above the floor.

To create a halfling sized race (more or less) You can set the racial height to 0.85 and then use a script to setscale to 0.80 of that and you you have a small race without stair issues.

Good to know.