http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29853
Skeletal Variation adds the ability to create fat, thin or otherwise malformed NPCs whose clothing will adjust seamlessly, and to change NPC's shapes and sizes on the fly.

Skeletal Variation alters body parts by changing the scale of the 'skeleton' a character uses- make their spine bones bigger, everything 'rigged' to it like their torso, their shirt and so on, will grow. You can create NPCs who'll /always/ appear fatter or thinner, whatever clothes they're in. As well as increasing the scale of their bones, you can also change their length, change their angles, or scale them to zero to remove them altogether.
This can be done on the fly as well, by playing various edited idles on NPCs with the new skeleton.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZW_3EIlHqk It shows you can...

• http://i48.tinypic.com/2w3ngk6.jpg
  
• http://i50.tinypic.com/2sb9ysx.jpg
  
• http://i47.tinypic.com/35lb3om.jpg
  
• http://i49.tinypic.com/65y6wx.jpg

You can also play around with the skeletons in crazy ways, to produce insane effects for use in the Shivering Isles. Behold!

• http://i50.tinypic.com/23wtjxl.jpg http://i50.tinypic.com/2ennt54.jpg
  
• http://i49.tinypic.com/6scpqc.jpg
  
• http://i45.tinypic.com/2qnwmdd.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJSJS6Ng3dk
The skeletons and animations included allow you to do this to NPCs, and a comprehensive guide for how to create new body shapes and apply these sort of changes to creatures is also included.

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Finally released! Enjoy making fat people, or thin people, or slicing people's left hands off or what have you. I probably won't be making any more as I've got a billion other things to finish, but I will update the package with any new skeletons or animations people make. In particular I'm keen to see if anyone can turn the rough outline of Morrowind-style beast legs I included in the download into a decent-looking relzable result.
Skeletal Variation has one known bug- NPCs will greatly exaggerate their headlook. This is, to the best of my knowledge, unfixable.

This is amazing! This will surely be a lot of fun to use, thanks a lot Toaster :foodndrink:

Thank you very much TheTalkieToaster, amazing resource :foodndrink:

Superb! Thank you. Now Reneer can fix his mod and it's variated NPCs galore :]

...how?!

How did you do this?

(quick guess: special anims that expand various points, and then using ToggleSpecialAnims - though I honestly don't know if animations can do that.)

It's glorious, isn't it? One of those discoveries that opens up so many possibilities.

Since the skeleton adds bones not referenced in the normal animations ... basically, yes, something like that works. Animate only those new bones, their changes "stick" through normal Oblivion animations.

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1069780, but Khadir's pretty much explained it.
It just sticks new bones inbetween existing ones. Since the new ones aren't changed by the existing animations you can scale/transform them and that carries on up the tree, and the changes never get reset by animations. Unless you can make new anims targeted at those bones specifically to manipulate them.

The 'adding new bones' thing turns out to be a flaw, though, as it apparently messes up the engine's headlook calculations so it goes to extremes on NPCs with the new skeletons. I don't know if it's because my new skeletons are missing fields on the added bones; I asked Niftools but they didn't seem to know either.

Heh, that all went over my head. I don't know anything about animation or bones; I guess I'll have to look into that WIP thread.

Haha! Ceiling cat is awesome! Looking forward to what people will do with this. Good job!

Interesting stuff, thanks!

http://www.jpbrown.co.uk/images/left%204%20Dead%20Tank.jpg

This is awesome!

He's actually using SkeletonTank.nif .

This is awesome. Seriously, ceiling cat could be used in some disturbing ways.

Ported to FO3 and we've got playable Super Mutants!!! ^_^

Lol That looks rather awkward The ceiling cat spells win though

Edit: Just seem the Comments section-- I guess it would not be possible for what I was thinking, then.

Just out of curiosity at the moment, would it be possible to apply this to the Player, or would that cause issues overall? Whilst I *think* I understand it, I really do not know enough about how .nif/animations work in-game, so... Yes, sorry if it is a stupid question

How does this work with body replacers? Particularly female ones? Forgive me if this was asked before and answered.

This can easily be applied ot the player, thats how Im doing it for my centaurs, all you have to do is use an OBSE command to change a string gamesetting. Also, if you direct the player (or NPC's) skeleton to one in another folder you can make them use an entirely different set of animations that are independant of the original ones in the character\_male folder.

So yeah, this is a pretty awesome discovery. :goodjob:

Oh, what gamesetting?
[Edit]Found it. Well, that pretty much makes my years-long-quest for full skeleton replacement a bit of a waste of time. On the bright side it did morph into complete animation replacement for existing actors so it hasn't been a total waste . Now I've got to finish off my Playable Goblin mod and write the Playable Creatures tutorial though...[/Edit]

Changing the PCs/NPCs directories is not what I would personally consider an acceptable solution for a lot of implementations, as it plays merry hell with idles. For completely alternate skeletons where you don't need to use the existing idles sure.

I can only imagine this being added to Deadly Reflex.

Amazing resource. I wish I had the ability, talent, or inclination to make something with it.

This is freaking amazing!

Will the wonders of oblivion modding ever stop?
Great work!

Can this be used to make NPC act like they have broken or injured legs and arms (not cut off, but like "wonky" movement)?

You *can* apply a bone transform on the fly (for example, putting a 15 degree crick in someone's arm if it's broken) but you can't change the animations. I've got another project for handling that.

:drool:

I sure would like to make the NPC limp when shot in the leg with an arrow.

I am doing this now in my archery mod (leg shot makes the NPC fall to the ground and crawl for a short time using the bed crawl animation.) It is unsatisfying because it is too short of a duration.

How far along are you on this?
Is there another thread for this project?

The project mechanics have been sorted for about a year and a half, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOPz0QPJAfo. For practical usage it requires an OBSE plugin, and to change animations on the fly it requires a few extra OBSE functions. Scruggs kindly volunteered to write the plugin but him and the rest of the xSE team are busy at the moment, so your guess is as good as mine.

(The playable goblin in the video is a 'regular NPC' with full animation replacement rather than one using a different animation directory the way Da Mage suggested)