Hi all, I'm working on my first walk cycle animation. It all looks fine in blender and exports fine but there's a couple of little bugs when it's in nifskop/the CS.

The first is this. Take a look at the left hand picture, that's my skeleton. The right is the bethesda dog. I'm really not sure what that is or if it's a problem. When I attach the .kf I get the following message...

"The following controlled nodes were not found in the nif:"
"Scene Root.00"

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q189/arkham666/problem.jpg

then when I bring the mesh into the skeleton.nif or load it into the CS there's this wierd twist/not around the pelvis (but only during animations). I'm not sure if the two problems are related or not but could use any help I can get. I'm so close to cracking this things it's killing me lol.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q189/arkham666/knot.jpg

Hi there,

If you want, I can take a look at the files for you. I'll fix the issues, but I'll also write up for you what was done wrong and how to go about fixing it.

I'll need the skeleton.nif, creature's mesh nif, and the animation(s).

Firstly, though:

"The following controlled nodes were not found in the nif:"
"Scene Root.00"

....you should only have a Scene Root node and not a "Scene Root.00" node in your skeleton nif and creature's mesh nif ( which should be NiNode 0 - at very top of Nifskope screen). You should have neither referenced in the kf.

As for the twisting around the Pelvis area - this sounds like an animation issue, in the kf itself. I'd attach the mesh to the skeleton nif, and then import the animation that causes the rotation issue. Then, I'd go into the NiControllerManager and to the NiControllerSequence for the animation data, and in Controlled Blocks under "Block Details" of the NiControllerSequence, expand it and see which "NiTransformInterpolator" goes to the Pelvis bone - make note of which interpolator this is. Then, expand NiControllerSequence until the NiTransformInterpolators and NiTransformDatas are seen. Go to the interpolator for the Pelvis, then go to the NiTransformData under it, and in the NiTranformData, expand the rotation data. Play around with the rotation values until the mesh is rotated to not be twisted, while the animation is at timeframe 0 of the animation (if twisting begins at that timeframe, else go to timeframe where twisting begins). Under XYZ rotation data, every 1.5780 value is roughly a 90 degree rotation. Double that number is a 180 degree rotation, etc. Then, when you've gotten the right values where the mesh is untwisted, enter the same values in the kf-only nif for same bone's NiTransformData.

Of course, you could fix the anim in Blender or whatever program you used, then export it again so that you don't have to do the Nifskopery. But I don't use Blender, so I offer the info above, in case it's needed.

Koniption

Well I made the animation and skeleton in blender. I would much rather no how to fix the problem myself than just have it done for me as this is only the first animation i've done and i've got a lot more to do for this creature alone and I may want to create others at some point so if you can tell me where I went wrong that I'd appreciate a lot. Also I'm very curious as to why this knot only shows up in nifskop/ the CS and not in blender. Anyway I've uploaded the .nifs so feel free to look them over.

http://rapidshare.com/files/401451002/Dragon.rar.html

also as far as I can see there is only a scene root in my .nif for both skeleton and mesh and there's nothing about it in the .blend either.

Blender tends to do that quite often. You import a mesh together with its armature (the armature will be called "Scene Root"). Then you import another mesh and forget to instruct it not to import the armature along with it this time, and you'll have a second armature called "Scene Root.00". Then you realize your mistake, clean one of the 2 armatures and just out of random you're left with "Scene Root.00" as your main armature (not to mention the parenting issues arising from this step). Happened quite a lot to me in earlier sessions.

If there's a "Scene Root.00" in your animation but not in the exported NIFs, then there must have been one in the .blend when you created the animation.

Also I found out it comes in handy quite much when you don't include bones (or particular information like position, rotation, size) in your keyframes which weren't even touched.
I've run into a lot of compatibility issues by simply selecting all bones with "A" and then issuing "insert keyframe" on a regular basis.

Well as I made the mesh and armatures myself it's not an importing issue and there's no sign of anything called scene root 00 or w/e in the blend file either. Also pretty much all the bones move, if only a little, in my key frames.

I've downloaded your file. Don't worry - although I don't use Blender, I can at least look at your files, and tell you what I had to do to fix it, specifically.

In regards to the "Scene Root.00" issue - it might be what I refer to as "phantom junk" in your .blend scene. I sometimes come across phantom junk/objects in Max, that do not show up in the list of objects that are in the render window. What I have to do to isolate the junk and delete it, is the following:

1) Manually select all objects, one by one (not by using a "Select All" button or by dragging a box across the scene), that you know are legitimate objects/meshes/bones.
2) Hide these selected objects.
3) Then use a "Select All" button combo on the screen to select everything else left in the render window. Phantom junk is then selected, whereby it couldn't be selected before. Delete the phantom junk.
4) Unhide the objects you had previously hidden. Save the scene.

I don't know if Blender has a "Hide" function for meshes in the screen, whereby you can hide them so that they aren't affected by edits until you unhide them again. Blender might have some sort of equivalent function, but I wouldn't know. Honestly, you may have some sort of phantom junk node in your .blend scene, and just can't see it or isolate it - yet.

Koniption

the_rotten_core,

I looked at your files, and have sent you a PM.

Koniption