...but I wonder very much about rigging and animation. I work with Softimage, but as far as I know Max must be used for rigging and animation? I have access to Max, but not at my convenience (plus I hate it).

I need a clear goal before beginning. Can I go for the whole thing and also do new animations? Or should I aim for a mesh replacer only? Anteres's Frost Giant and the MacAsmod werewolves and Reign of Fire make me think quite a bit is possible.

I can definitely model and animate, but it's no joke to animate for Morrowind's engine and I am quite lost.

It looks like there's a Max exporter and a Blender exporter that will do animation:
http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/3ds_Max

You'll probably hate Blender even more than 3ds Max, though.

Well I did hate Blender even more, but the new UI seems to make it bearable. And it certainly helped me before, hacking things together for my own game.

Hmmm, let's research Blender exporter's animation capabilities....

OK that looks nice! Exactly what I hoped! http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Blender

"full bone and skinning support", "animation support for Morrowind and Oblivion".

That's plenty to chew on right off the bat. Hopefully I can nail down the pipeline and come back with a WIP.

Thanks BungaDunga :thumbsup:

Huh, I hadn't had a look at the new UI, I'm still at the old version. Just perusing the website, it looks loads better. I don't do much in 3D, much less animation, but when I need a model for a mod Blender's where I go. So that's good to know about!

make sure the blender you are using has its exporter. Maybe the latest version of Blender has not yet the exporter.

There is this tutorial by Muspila that can be useful.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29223

As far as I know there isn't a nifscript for the new blender version. One may be made later, but right now I think you gotta use the last version if you want to mod for Morrowind with it.

I also want to voice that I fully back improving the meshes and/or animations of Morrowind's creatures. Go for it Bramm!!!!!!!

Right you are, Melchior and Anteres. I really did NOT want to animate with Blender but oh well.

I've got the arsenal, lessons, links, and art tools to get crackin'. Thanks very much for the info hopefully I start a real thread soon.

It may not look apealling, but once you get used to it it's super easy.