Paatru Race - Progress Thread

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Neat! This is significant progress.

[Deeza]

Wow! I haven't checked in on this for a while! That's quite possibly the best new race for OB I've yet seen.

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Deeza
Wow! I haven't checked in on this for a while! That's quite possibly the best new race for OB I've yet seen.

Heh, thanks Deeza. I'm hoping it comes out like I want it to, in the end.

Koniption

[Koniption]

I have a Paatru update, and it might be an exciting one for you forum lurkers out there:

Paatru Idle animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frBhp3jsuwE


Paatru Walk Forward animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1nk2G5_Fag


Paatru Swim Idle animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-IjW7F-1Q


Paatru Swim Forward animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfLoB1t1Y0M

All animations were done by hand, by me. As it stands, there are enough animations for the Paatru, for them to walk and swim around. I want to finish some more basic necessity animations, though, before I send the files to Ibsen.

These basics, include:

sitting (requires multiple animations)
sleeping (requires multiple animations)
getupfacedown
getupfaceup
hand-to-hand combat-related animations (multiple animations)
and others I'm probably forgetting at the moment...

I just want to get the basics done first, so that the rest of the Blackmarsh team can at least place them in the CS and be able to test sleeping, sitting, and wander/travel packages. That way, those Paatru settlements can be fleshed out, whereas right now they're on hold.

Head morphs will have to wait.

I'm halfway through the first animation for the first sitting style I'm doing. Sitting and sleeping animations require at least three animations, per bed/chair entry location [and for beds, per bed style (bed vs bedroll)].

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Holy shit! Those are awesome!

I love the swim forward animation especially. It's got the level of, uh, 'froggyness' spot on. Good wide hips...perfect for the model.

[Deeza]

:goodjob: Awesome, indeed. You weren't planning this to be some kind of pinnacle of your modeling career, were you???

[Koniption]

Thanks all!

@ Deeza - I can't really call it a "pinnacle" of my modeling career. After all, there is still more for me to learn...

But for an "up til now" view at things, yeah, it's like a pinnacle.

I really like the swim forward animation, too. It's one of my faves.

(Btw, I got the "bedleft_enter" animation done for the Paatru, today, that I was working on. It was a more complicated animation than usual.)

Koniption

[Koniption]

Hello to all you interested folks out there,

Here's the latest info -

I am stuck on getting the bedleft_exit animation to export properly. I have been talking to Amorilia at Niftools forum, for a way to fix this issue. He said he previously also ran into this same issue, with exporting such a bed animation, a while back, for another project.

It might be a while until this is fixed.

So, I have started the process, of getting the Paatru setup in the game, with models and the currently working set of animations: idle, walkforward, swimidle, and swimforward.

This means they can travel, at least. They currently can't use beds or chairs - yet. So testing such sleeping and sitting AI packages won't be possible, though one can set such packages up in advance anyway.

I came across an issue with the Paatru not using their own body models, in their own folder path. The game always wants to default to the Paatru using the vanilla Oblivion body models. I am not surprised by this. So the vanilla body models being used with the paatru skeleton.nif = lots of weirdness.

I tried to script the game to detect if a race is Paatru, then alter the folder path to point to where the body models are. My script did not work (like said elsewhere, I'm not the cream-de-le-cream of scripters). I have contacted someone at OBSE team, to see what I'm doing wrong. I know the Oblivion game settings ini has settings for changing body mesh folder paths, because I saw them on the wiki. So either I'm using a bad script, or those ini settings are able to be accessed yet with OBSE (???).

I do plan to do more animations for the Paatru, and hopefully the head morphs at some point, too. But for now, I need to get the "basics" out of the way, including initial ingame testing that actually works out ok.

Koniption

[Koniption]

I decided to finally upload the "SpecialIdle_BedLeft_Enter.kf" animation I made for the Paatru, on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5yLfCcd3W4

I also have the "sleeping idle" done, where the Paatru is basically laying in bed sleeping, but it's such a minor animation, I did not record and upload it.

The issue with the "SpecialIdle_BedLeft_Exit.kf" animation is still a problem.

Also, I'm still waiting on word from someone on OBSE team, for a way to get the game to change the folder path it seeks out, when a race is "Paatru" (so it can find the proper body meshes and whatnot). No sense doing more animations, unless my initial issue can be overcome.

Basically, I found the following game settings in the wiki for Oblivion:

SRaceFemaleFootModel,
SRaceMaleFootModel,
etc (for all the body parts)

I've been trying to use SetStringGameSettingEX to direct the game to seek out the above settings, and then change them to my directed folder path, but it's not working and I don't know whether I'm using an obsolete OBSE function , or what.

If any of you out there know what I'm doing wrong, please reply here or PM me. Thanks for any consideration.

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I can't help with your issues, of course but I do feel obliged to comment on the animation for the 'bedleftenter'....looks so smooth! :goodjob:

I'm getting butterflies at the thought of loads of Paatru walking around. =)