[ALPHA] The Oblivion Centaur Project : IV

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:54 pm

The Oblivion Centaur Project
Alpha v0.1: http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/775-the-oblivion-centaur-project/ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vahCHMYrf5E

Authors:
Da Mage
Koniption
PacificMorrowind

With Credit to:
Amorilia – Bug fixing Blender animation exporters
Andrew Maneri - Oblivion Mount Project Animation Warper (OMPAW)
TheTalkieToaster – Varied NPC Skeletons
Reneer – Teaching me how to add dummy bones
Drake the Dragon – Animation help
scruggsywuggsy the ferret – Creating an OBSE function for me

Bug Testers:
YX33A
nottlong
zaldir
Ysne58
Lanceor
Meo

What is The Oblivion Centaur Project:
Main Aim:
The aim of this mod is to make a playable centaur race and NPC centaurs.

Side objectives:

Possibly creating some special centaur armours/clothing

I want help!:

I am looking for anyone with good texturing skills to help 'merge' the horse and torso together smoothly. I have tried and failed every time.
I need modellers to edit the horse bodies to fit those of body mods. I don't use any body mods so I only work from the vanilla models.
Animations! To be fair, I'm not an animator, so I'm looking for anyone who can make animations to help make some of the custom attacks.

If you can help with any of these, post in the thread here or drop a PM.

History of the Mod: (Long and properly not very interesting):

Spoiler

I started this mod a long time ago, in fact I think way back in May 2008 I had my first attempt. It didn't get very far, and I never announced my intentions at the time, but it was when I started this. I call that version 1, and no, I don't want to talk about it.

It took nearly another year and a half before I finally had the knowledge to attempt it again, and so started version 2, I admit know, even then I hardly knew what I was doing, but I did make progress and eventually announced my work on the 21st September 2009. This version did not stay around long, it looked horrible and soon after showing it off and receiving feedback, I went back to basics and version 3 started.

This is where it all started coming together, I was still learning the oblivion animation system, but soon had help. I asked a lot of questions in the CS forums, and slowly learnt animations, however it wasn't until two other modders, PacificMorrowind and Koniption, joined me that I was able to make a start. On 1st October 2009, PacificMorrowind started writing some very useful PYFFI scripts for mass editing animations, scripts that I still use to this day, these eventually allowed me to join animations very quickly (human and horse) and saved the mod from ending due to the tedious work at that point. A few weeks later on the 18th, Koniption joined with me after answering a few of my animation questions in the CS forum, she has been very important to actually getting my buggy animations and skeleton to a functioning state. The mod stalled at times, but progress was made, I had found there were a heap of limitations but couldn't find a way around them, so excepted it and moved on.

On the 19th February 2010, after a break from them mod for a while, I took a look at some information Koniption had run across that I had previously ignored. There were two bits that stuck out that were pretty mind blowing, the fact that by changing the skeleton path of an NPC you could change their animation set, and that there were gamesettings that allowed you to change the player's skeleton. Soon after this TheTalkieToaster updated his information on adding scaler and transformation dummy bones to skeletons, and version 4 was born.

This mod really has been a community effort, as I blundered my way through it learning from people that actually knew about what I was trying to do.

The Alpha Release
Requires OBSE 20+
So now we have this first release alpha version of the Centaur project. This is not a complete version, it may be clunky to play with, and the install instructions to use it as playable are rather annoying. Now to what this version is about:

Features:

Alpha Player Race. It is not perfect and you might find it rather clunky to use, but it does work.
Majority of important animations have been completed
Sneak mode isnt finished.
First Person view uses Third Person animations, therefore it isnt perfect yet.
Short guide on how to use as a resource.
Only one colour centaur (chestnut)
Centaurs can equip Boots/Greaves. They simply arent displayed, but you still get the effects.
Centaurs have a "Humaniod Form" spell that allows them to take human form for 60 seconds.

What I don't want to hear about (they are on my to-fix list):

The arms shouldn't moves when walking/running
The strafe looks silly

Bugs & Glitches:

Animations are still a bit clunky.
Sneak mode isnt finished.
Centaurs may fall apart on death. IF this happens, contact me! I need more info on this bug.
First Person view uses Third Person animations
There may be seams if used by a body replacer mod

This version is also intended to be used as a modders resource, however you must follow some rules when using it. You cannot merge the esm your mod, and you cannot include the centaur files within your mod's download. This has been done because this is far from the finaly version, and I dont want outdated versions floating around in other mods.

Pictures:
http://tesalliance.org/forums/uploads/1297995413/gallery_108_44_2288925.jpg

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vahCHMYrf5E

Downloads:
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/775-the-oblivion-centaur-project/- This is the only place I am uploading to, while this is unfinished I don't want to upload to multiple places as it makes it harder for me to update it then.

Add-Ons
Hopefully as this becomes more popular, other modders will work on add-ons for features I dont have to the time or skill to do. If I know about these other mods, I will list them here.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1170632-relz-the-oblivion-centaur-project-enemy-centaurs/
Author:
Johnn123
Details:
Adds Centaurs to the leveled lists for you to fight. There are four variations, chest nut, black, white and bay. They are leveled according to vanilla bandits and spawn alongside them.
Download:
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/781-the-oblivion-centaur-project-centaur-enemies
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37357

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:04 am

Congratulations

I've been following this for a while.

Are there any plans to make NPC centaurs??

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:43 am

Congratulations

I've been following this for a while.

Are there any plans to make NPC centaurs??

I dont have plans for that, no. Simply put, I want to devote my time to creating the actual race (animations are heaps of work), rather then placing centaurs into the gameworld. I am fully behind anyone who wants to make a mod that uses centaurs though, I added a short tutorial on the how to use centaurs in a mod with this download.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:33 am

Centaur - Nomadic, semi-intelligent race that possesses the head and torso of a powerfully-built man and the lower body of a horse. Commonly found in Valenwood.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Centaur#Centaur

Might be good for Onra's Tamriel Heightmaps

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:38 pm

Was really hoping to gather more attention for feedback about this.

Any ideas people have, features you want included, etc

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:22 am

Just downloaded and installed Mage, looking forward to playing with em! I think it would be cool to have a plugin adding enemy centaurs to the creature leveled lists

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:29 am

[*] Centaurs may fall apart on death. IF this happens, contact me! I need more info on this bug.

Awesome I like this bug in particular will have to load it up just to see if I can make them fall apart on death..

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:02 pm

Awesome I like this bug in particular will have to load it up just to see if I can make them fall apart on death..

funnily enough.....out of all my testers this bug only happens to me. Even on a clean install. hence why Im trying to get more info on it. :rofl:

I forgot to note that part of the mod uses OBSE commands (the Humaniod Form spell)......the mod runs without OBSE, just that spell wont work.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:46 am

funnily enough.....out of all my testers this bug only happens to me. Even on a clean install. hence why Im trying to get more info on it. :rofl:

I forgot to note that part of the mod uses OBSE commands (the Humaniod Form spell)......the mod runs without OBSE, just that spell wont work.

I will see if I can't get it blow up

has I am intrested more toward using has a Npc More than anything else

I noticed the female.nif is she in a testing condition..aka make a character _female folder and duplicate the male folder nif etc in that folder and rename the nif?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:44 am

I will see if I can't get it blow up

has I am intrested more toward using has a Npc More than anything else

I noticed the female.nif is she in a testing condition..aka make a character _female folder and duplicate the male folder nif etc in that folder and rename the nif?

the _male folder is just the naming convention that bethesda used, the female version works fine, both genders source from the same animations, that part of the engine. Im not sure what mesh you are talking about...there are a few misc meshes floating aorund in the folders (like the lion folder...its a good laugh).

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:59 am

UMG, this is sooooo cool congrats on getting it this far!

*downloads and runs off to take pics*

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:16 pm

Good work. Thanks :smile:

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:18 am

This is outstanding. I watched the video, and I don't think strafe looks silly, and maybe the arms should move when you run, atleast a little bit. It seems like if your arms were still while running, the upper body would look too static.

How does the movement work (turning, etc.)? As an unmounted Player? Or as a mounted one?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:49 am

Speaking of 'mounted' players... you can't actually -ride- a horse as a Centaur, can you?

That would just be... erm... well, awkward. And possibly sixual harassment.

I'd love to see someone make the centaur automatically equip the horse armors to their horsely-parts instead of things like Greaves and Boots. I wonder if that could be done somehow...

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:33 am

Speaking of 'mounted' players... you can't actually -ride- a horse as a Centaur, can you?

That would just be... erm... well, awkward. And possibly sixual harassment.

I'd love to see someone make the centaur automatically equip the horse armors to their horsely-parts instead of things like Greaves and Boots. I wonder if that could be done somehow...

Mounts arent locked out......but it will cause issues at the moment.

In the next update there will be some horse armor thanks to mr siika, who has sent me his steel, elven and leather horse armors.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:33 pm

Hahaha! That's excellent!

Honestly... this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen! I've missed Centaurs since the way, way back days of Elder Scrolls...

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:53 am

John (known as Johnn123 here) has added centaurs into the game's levelled lists, his add-on can be found at:
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/781-the-oblivion-centaur-project-centaur-enemies
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37357

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:58 am

Its been a little bit, so Ill give an update on the next patch.

- A long time bug I've had has finally been solved, Amorilia figured out it was a nif incompatibility with Blender, and I came up with a workaround so i can now get my skeleton into blender for some proper animation. I've already fixed up the running animation (arms look natural and hoof sound effects).
- I talked to mr siika and he sent me his leather, steel and elven horse armors to use for my armor add-on. For those armor, its already done: http://tesalliance.org/forums/uploads/1298695550/gallery_108_44_631579.jpg - http://tesalliance.org/forums/uploads/1298695550/gallery_108_44_1188912.jpg
- I also got in contact with Alienslof and she has given me presmission to use her horse meshes and textures, I had already put the vannilla horses in as choices, but these will now replace them.
- I've written up a few more OBSE scripts that will control how the centaurs work, so in the next update even the non-playable version will have an OBSE requirement.

So yeah, Ive been hard at it....Im back at university in first week of my second year.....but as least for a couple of weeks it shouldnt impact to much.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:30 pm

Thanks for the work on this Mage. I have one quick suggestion, though I know this project still has a ways to go!
In my humble opinion, the human body part needs to be lowered relative to the horse part. Right now it looks like the human section is too "tall", almost tacked on to the horse body. But switching to Slof's meshes may help, and besides that's what alpha releases are for

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:54 pm

John (known as Johnn123 here) has added centaurs into the game's levelled lists, his add-on can be found at:
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/781-the-oblivion-centaur-project-centaur-enemies
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37357

Oh you added it to the original post!

Great to see it there, thx Mage-o! Looking forward to the update!

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:13 pm

Thanks for the work on this Mage. I have one quick suggestion, though I know this project still has a ways to go!
In my humble opinion, the human body part needs to be lowered relative to the horse part. Right now it looks like the human section is too "tall", almost tacked on to the horse body. But switching to Slof's meshes may help, and besides that's what alpha releases are for

That is one aspect that has come up since the begining of this project, that the human part sits too tall on the horse. I know most would prefer the human half to come down and sit much lower on (say join at the stomahc area rather then waist), but right now I just dont think its some that can be done without making it a clipping nightmare when using shirts/cuirasses/anything on the torso.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:31 am

Played with this and Centaur Enemies a couple of times, never really ran into game ending bugs or anything unusual. ~~I found one little graphical glitch where the horse body disappears when partially submerged in water~~, then again I have loads of mods installed so I dunno if that has anything to do with it. Great job on the mod, I've been following the progress for awhile on your YouTube channel. Can't wait until the next update!

-edit I just loaded an older stock savegame of mine and the water glitch was there so please disregard that part. kthnx!

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:51 am

That is one aspect that has come up since the begining of this project, that the human part sits too tall on the horse. I know most would prefer the human half to come down and sit much lower on (say join at the stomahc area rather then waist), but right now I just dont think its some that can be done without making it a clipping nightmare when using shirts/cuirasses/anything on the torso.

Hmm, that's a good point. In that case, my proposed solution would be simple: don't let the centaurs wear any clothing or armor on the torso (assuming that can be done). The one example of a Centaur in previous Elder Scrolls games (Daggerfall) did not have clothing or armor. And frankly, it looks kind of strange having the human part clothed/armored and not the horse part. (I wouldn't think most centaurs would go into combat only having 20-30% of their bodies covered in armor).

That said, I think the centaurs should still be able to use weapons and shields, and perhaps helmets. You may also consider allowing them to wield two handed weapons with one hand - shorter (one handed) weapons just don't seem to reach very far when a centaur is using them.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:58 am

Hmm, that's a good point. In that case, my proposed solution would be simple: don't let the centaurs wear any clothing or armor on the torso (assuming that can be done). The one example of a Centaur in previous Elder Scrolls games (Daggerfall) did not have clothing or armor. And frankly, it looks kind of strange having the human part clothed/armored and not the horse part. (I wouldn't think most centaurs would go into combat only having 20-30% of their bodies covered in armor).

That said, I think the centaurs should still be able to use weapons and shields, and perhaps helmets. You may also consider allowing them to wield two handed weapons with one hand - shorter (one handed) weapons just don't seem to reach very far when a centaur is using them.

Clothing can't be justified by what I'm about to say, but I'm pretty sure the plan was link regular armor with horse armor to have both show up on the centaur by means of scripting. In fact, you can see pictures from da mage earlier in this thread. I'm assuming this will be extended onto the rest of the basic armor sets.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:36 am

On some online games, I've seen most of the centaurs that are in it, aren't covered mostly on top (except the women of course), some wear hair adornments and the males wear helmets if in combat, but one thing I will say, their gait usually has their arms at 90 degrees and back and forth, like you would have your arms during a good jog, the females seem to have their arms out farther and do a more of a delicate swing than a jog run. But I've not seen any with dead arms (down at their sides), as if they're carrying a weapon, they'd need to hold it up anyways, so perhaps trying the animation that way. This way shields and such would just be "there" along with weapons. Also, a good suggestion for those who don't want to play the centaur but possibly tame one for a horse, horse variations could be a good thing to have.

GuruSR.

Edit: Typo and the spell check didn't see it (because it was a proper word).