Hello,
here's a complete newbie question: how do I change the runtime of animations? I have to mess around with the keyframes somehow? Do I need this nifskope I hear mentioned everywhere to do this?
Essentially, I wanted to give myself the option to change the speed at which a power can be used repetitively, and I understand that this is tied to the animation the power plays.
Thank you!
I just spent a couple of minutes dinkin around with some keyframes in Nifscope, and It looks it CAN be done.
But its gonna be ugly and tedious.
As was mentioned elsewhere, it would be much easier if you had 3D Studio Max and the original 3d model to just re-time and re-export the animations.
If you were gonna attempt it in Nifskope I think you would need to change the end time in EVERY one of the NiKeyFrameController nodes for the animation you are tweaking (one for each bone i think).
Then change all the individual keyframe time values by hand.
So for basically every keyframe, you would need to manually set the new time.
If you were just trying say to double or half the whole thing, this would be incredibly tedious, but fairly easy (mathematically speaking -- just double or half the existing values for each one). If you wanted to do anything more complicated... :banghead:
Well, if I had the file in any easily parsable/writeable format I could whip up a quick python script that does those mathematical replacements for me. But it looks like this is all lots of trouble still, so I'm probably better off looking around existing meshes/keyframe files to find something with a timing I like.
Thanks for the answers!
Back in the old days of Freedom Force hex editing (before your fancy NifSkopes and iPods and pants that stay up without belts and such), DrMike2000 sussed out the string that determines the run-time of animations in the keyframe files. His post (as well as a wealth of other hex editing information, including some stuff contributed by yours truly) was stickified in the old hex editing forums, so you can try asking the mods or maybe even RandyRipoff himself if they still have that information available.
The problem is (I think) is that even by changing that value, it doesn't actually scale the keyframes or the animation to the new time. It just tells the game that the animation is XX seconds long, which I presume it uses for computing the prestige cost. You can use Nifskope to the change the node that defines the total time but it doesn't actually change the animation speed, you still have to be able to tweak the time of each keyframe.
And when did they come up with pants that stay up without belts??
I could use those!
I'm always the last to know....