Ok, I know this is really a CS forum,but hopefully someone can help me.

I created a valve, and set up a keyframe animation that shows it opening and closing. This works fine, both in nifskope and in-game. However, I really don't want to just oscillate, I want to be able to "open" and "close" the valve using scripting and playgroup. ie. I'd like to be able to do 'playgroup IDLE2', and have it open, and 'playgroup IDLE3, and have it close, etc.

However, blender exports a completely empty .kf. I have tried everything I can think of, so I'm guessing it's the way I'm doing the animation.

What am I doing wrong? I've looked into similar models, like the animated faucets, but the water animations don't show up in the same way in blender, and I don't yet know how to recreate what that model is doing with a different model.

Thanks!

Update:
I have almost got it working. I managed to get it to where I can rotate the valve in either direction (forever), and stop it. At this point, I can use timers and scripting to manage the valve, but it's still a bit wonky.

I have it setup so that "closing" is idle2, "stop" is idle3, and "opening" is idle4. The trick is, if I run either idle2 or idle4, it runs forever. I have to run idle3, at which point it animates stopping properly. (it slows down and stops).

The wonkiness is that it starts immediately with no slow startup.