I sure hope you can get this to work out. This will bring so much reality to the game!

You know...there is a mod that supposedly provides travel services around Cyrodiil...maybe you could combine your mod with his...once you get it working...Total BLISS!

You need to work on your UVW Layout a bit, id recommend something like HeadUs UVLayout, since its quite an intuitive way to layout your texture co-ordinates. Bake in some ambient occlusion at the end with XNormal to bring out the details.
Otherwise the wheels look a bit high poly and low in detail, maybe make them a bit chunkier with thick wood and bolts, make them like they could take a beating.

http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/38/72/1387232_b27ccd3d.jpg

I know what you're saying about the UV. If you read the first post, I did mention the texturing was just a place holder, therefore I haven't really set the UV's yet.

I'm new to modelling, so would the ambient occlusion be a different texture, and if so, how would I go about getting it in game?

Maybe it's better to make the cart a part of the horse creature? Every turn etc. movement has it's animation which should be able to control the 'cart part' in the right way. Wheel rotation can be better adapted to the horses movement too this way. And it doesn't require any scripting that way. Although I have to admit that I would not even try this, still don't know enough about editing animations. Would take me years to do ... .

I wouldn't know how to do such a thing if I'm perfectly honest.

Alas, we have progress. Remember http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/5307/oblivion201008060308416.jpg?

Well, I've been playing around with the model and managed to get the wheels to animate -

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/173/cartanimation.mp4

Success...onto the next step

I think I will use this Wagon for the first one. Seeing as there's a few already lying around Cyrodiil, it makes sense.

Faster than I expected.
The scripts to pull the cart are ready.
It turned out not bad . . .but not excellent either, as the game imposes a few restrictions.
I will need a few days to clean up the esp and add comments to the code and, then, I will upload a Beta versiom to the Nexus.

That's good to hear. Can't wait to get this tested.

Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW47-kDtue0

Looking good. If you want, I can PM you the edited version of that cart to test it with the animation?

Hi Eclipse,

I posted some info over at The Wormhole, about animating cart wheels and getting the animations to more or less sync up to when the horse moves vs does not move...here is my post I made at The Wormhole:
.....................................

"Yeah, animations have a fixed speed and animation state, and have to either loop continously or play play just once once, as set up within the nif itself.

What'd I'd do, is make a single wheel rotation animation, that has the wheel rotate a small amount in a very short timeframe. Then, using a script, you'd call this animation to play over and over while the horse is walking or running (running state will require a second animation, in which the timeframe is even shorter, but can keep same wheel rotation increment as other anim), then stop calling the animation to play when the horse stops. LoopGroup function may or may nor work for this - not sure. If you parent the cart to the horse somehow, maybe use the parenting to use GetParentRef to check when the horse walks/runs, to then have the cart animate accordingly?

Problem is this: you'd need both wheels to be symetrical, with a good number of "spokes" (usage of word??), or those wooden bars that radiate out from center of each wheel to the outer edge of each wheel. These spokes need to be of equal distance from each other all the way around. The reason is so that each animated "turn of the wheel", rotates the wheel "one spoke's distance", so that the wheel's 3D state visually stays the same at beginning and end of the animation. You'd want the texturing to be symmetrical as well, on the spokes & wheel. You'd want the outer wheel rim to have a wood texture multiplied circumference-wise, as many times as their are number of spokes, basically.

The reason for the above, is because when an animation starts over to repeat, it jumps back to the 3D state of the beginning timeframe. So if you don't make the wheels symmetrical like the above, you'd see a sudden jump either in the 3D mesh's position or the texture placement each time the animation starts over again."


I hope the above info is useful.

Take care,
Koniption

Sure. Any time.



My experience with animations is limited, so let me ask you some basics:

If the animation is a play-once as you suggested, is there a way for the script to detect the end of the cycle, so it can reorder it to play again in synch? I suppose relying just on timing would not be reliable.

Would it be possible to setup four continuous-looping animations: a wheel-turn forward, a forward fast, a backward and a backward fast? And associate then with the anim groups Forward, Backward, Left and Right? If this is possible, it would be just a matter of using the PlayGroup function at the right times.

I can't make the textures well enough to my liking... but I made http://i888.photobucket.com/albums/ac87/MartutTES/Blahblahblah.png. (Ignore the red boxes, those are for collision)

I was going to make this mod... for a while actually, but I don't know enough about scripting to do so. :shrug:

If you want it I can find a means to send you the .nif. It doesn't have animations 'cause I haven't learned to animate yet.

Hmm, speaking of which I might work on animations after I finish my current mod.

That looks nice. I don't have much use for it at the minute, but when I have Qquix's script, I'm sure I could animate it and implement it into the mod, giving you credit of course.

@Qquix - Hmm, seems like I some how corrupted the file. :/

I'll have to redo it, but I'll take the things Koniption said into account this time.

Mkay.

Just let me know if you want it.

I have a textured version, actually, I just accidentally made the wood texture face the wrong direction.

I believe so (look at the listed functions at bottom of this link's page): http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/IsMovingForward

If you use "IsAnimPlaying" function to check if the cart is already playing one of it's wheel rotation animations, you can prevent the cart from playing the same or another anim too soon.
Also, I hope you're using OBSE for this, to be able to use the "IsAnimGroupPlaying" function, to help the parented horse and cart communicate with each other so that if the horse plays its "FastForward" anim, the cart plays the "Backward" animation (as you associated it below).

So all together, something roughly like this on the cart (the horse should be the "parent" ref, and the cart the "child" ref):

Begin Gamemode
set refVar to GetParentRef
if IsAnimPlaying == 1 ;; if cart is currently playing an animation, it won't play an animation again until the anim is done playing
return
elseif refVar.IsAnimGroupPlaying 7 == 1 ;; if horse is doing the fast forward anim
Playgroup Backward 0 ;; cart plays fast forward wheel animation once
elseif refVar.IsAnimGroupPlaying 4 == 1 ;; horse going slow backward
Playgroup Left 0 ;; cart plays slow backward animation once
....etc.....



Yes and no to first question:
1) No - you can't have the animations within the cart nif itself, be set to looping under the NiControllerSequence. You want those four animations, to be individually set up under a NiControllerManager. And under the NiControllerSequence for each of them, you want the setting that is "CYCLE_CLAMP", under "Clamp Type" in Block Details of Nifskope, so that each anim plays once and does not continously loop once started.
2) Yes - The above script sample I wrote, takes this into account. With the script, the cart anims that play only once, will keep playing/looping over and over as long as the conditions are met.

You don't want the cart nif itself to have looping movement animations set up within it, because there is no guarantee that the horse will keep trotting on continously. It is possible to have another anim within the cart nif that is a "stationary wheel" animation with a "CYCLE_CLAMP" setting (plays only once) - you can play this anim to stop the looping anim, until you call the looping anim again. But the problem with this approach, is one of sudden 3D mesh and texture state jumps - because you can't determine at what 3D wheel mesh state the wheel will visually be at in the looping anim, when you need to call the "stationary wheel" anim.

To answer second questions:
Yes, you can use those four animation groups and associate each of them to the horse's different animation movement states.

Koniption

The esp is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20878. I called it 'QQuix Conceptual - Wagon Away' to match the others in the set (and because I still plan to have a "Fly Away" and a "Sail Away").

When you send me the mesh, I will try to adapt the script to make the wheels turn, according to Koniption's comments.


@Koniption: Thanks for the explanation. It will help making the wheels turn.

I'd just like to throw some thoughts in here, I know this is an early WIP.

-- Perhaps depending on the type of cart the speed of the horse should be limited.

-- Maybe this could be integrated into such existing mods as Crowded Roads and Tamriel Travelers, but on a limited basis.

-- If you are riding in a "worthwhile target" sort of wagon, maybe there could be a chance bandits, Marauders, or Raiders spawning out of sight and coming to attack.

Is that just the 2 wheel cart you had a video of, or multiple wagons?

The purpose of the esp is to demonstrate the script capabilities.

The esp has two wagons to show that, using the included script, a modder can create a cart that can carry cargo and/or a wagon with a working door to a wagon interior.

This is a good concept. I wish to see proper wagons work in game, perhaps to also simulate trade between cities and/or settlements.