help with Black Knight

[bearded]

He shows up fine in Character Tool, but in game the hovercraft is always on. Is there a way to fix this?

[WyldFyre]

Is this a Gren or Ink mesh? Or an altered Tommy mesh? I'm wondering if the KF might have been modified and the game isn't handling it correctly. Or maybe it's Gren's KF on Tommy or Ink's mesh? Sometimes I have seen anomalies when mixing Kf files. I couldn't get a close-up of the pic to see which mesh you are having problems with.

[MarvelHero]

Wasn't there a tutorial made by windblown?

It was about disappearing and re-appearing mesh pieces using Nifskope. But it was very tedious because you have to edit important anims like fly, hover, idle, walk, melee idle etc...

But first you have to convert it using the nifconverter so Nifskope detects all the parts that you added.

[oktokels]

Seems like a keyframe error, the hoverboard should dissapear when certains animation are triggered. This is a kf problem. 3 options: 1) change the scale value of the hoverboard in the idle and melee_idle animation. 2) simply change melee_idle and idle animation for another animation in his kit. (one that doesn't show the hoverboard). All of this can be done by opening the KF file in nifskope.

The third option is to transfer a idle or melee_idle animation from a similar character or another black-knight mesh using the keyframe trnasfer tool

Another possible option, if there's no more left, is to hide or delete the hoverboard from the nif mesh.

[bearded]

I'm pretty sure it was a hex by Jhonny. I hid the hoverboard for now. It's interesting that the character tool is correct.

[SickAlice]

I never seen that hex. If you make no other headway link the nif, keys and textures somewhere I can download them, send a message over on the Discord and I am sure I will figure it out and be able to fix it. There are only a few easy problems it could be as others pointed out. Sounds like it's in the animation imo.

[bearded]

I never seen that hex. If you make no other headway link the nif, keys and textures somewhere I can download them, send a message over on the Discord and I am sure I will figure it out and be able to fix it. There are only a few easy problems it could be as others pointed out. Sounds like it's in the animation imo.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KaGtIh7L4EpZP1dnHokaQYzkP7UXzVfj/view?usp=sharing

Here's what Johnny sent me. I can't remember the rest of his nick. He's the guy that made the Timm meshes. And was big into microheroes.
Anyway, this is everything. The hovercraft looks great. I'm going to alpha out the windshield if you can fix it.
...Since I have your attention, I wanted to ask if your Zombies are available anywhere? You made some marvel zombies?

[bearded]

I don't use discord much. Can someone send the message please?

[SickAlice]

Mom's been sick so I've been busy and am just making the rounds, sorry. I only made Zombie Captain America (Avengers page). It's to form so I don't think the parts are that useful. There's better stuff imo Gren/JP meshes with mouths. In a lot of my stuff I used those and made simple teeth. Then you can just recycle the head of course. Mr. Sinister for example. On my Workbench page there is also a nif called Hollow Man that includes easy to skope anatomy down to the bones. Funny you mentioned this because I was think of a zombie basic/Marvel zombies for a Halloween release. Maybe I will push that up for you.

Download BK. Will look it later today and upload the results by tonight (early morning yet here).

[SickAlice]

Making notes here for myself:

- This is  . I only can alter keyframes for  .
- This is just a copy of the original mesh/kf set by Gren/JP
- It already has an alpha windshield.
- The original keyframes where always broken. There are 2 strings called on for the hovercraft, Cycle and Windshield
- There are multiple instances of certain keyframes like "idle_2", "melee_die", area_a" and so on. In the keyframes often those strings are not scaled down, one or the other. In some the strings aren't present at all. All those keyframes where either copied from Hawkeye or they weren't hence why they do not have strings for the Cycle.

What I can do?
- I can work with a version converted to  if you have a way to convert the keyframes back to  since I don't
- Or? I can rename the keyframes of the  work. We will have to ditch some animations since there is nothing to substitute. Noted in game we do not use things like idle_2 anyways. Those are just placeholders so they won't be missed.

[SickAlice]

Further investigating: Testing out both in game ( converted the  ) and there is actually nothing wrong with this (I mean there is in the keyframes sort of). You see the animations do not go hover/fly > choice animation as they can in CTool.

So for example in CTool you can choose Hover and then select Idle_2. But in game it goes Hover/Fly > Land from Flight (at which point the glider vanishes > Idle (where it is hidden anyways) not Idle_2. If you were to rename Idle_2 to Idle and use it in game it would still go Hover/Fly > Land from Flight (at which point the glider vanishes > Idle. So the glider still would stay on screen. Likewise Hover/Fly > Land from Flight never goes to a Melee move and so on.

So yeah there is nothing wrong with it and this is just a CTool thing.

[bearded]

Huh. Interesting. The glider is visible in all keyframes ingame for me, 
Thanks for testing.

[SickAlice]

CTool and the Character Viewer are the same thing but in game is rendered differently. It shouldn't be for all since many of the animations do contain scaled down animations (visibility). Tell you what though since it isn't a task I will go ahead and make both modified keyframe sets for you and link them here. Then if you have a way to convert the  ones to  (some here say they do but I'm unaware of the process nor do I own or work with  ) and see what you can do with them.

Generally I don't even go this route btw. First I will add proper keys to every animation regardless. More in this case for ride ones, like with TMNT currently, I just remake a much simpler animation based on the surfer board. It's one string that zeros out to center mass so it never has any conflicts.

[SickAlice]

Before doing all that I would like to check something. I noticed some different data in your file. Here is a clean copy of the original files from Gren. Force Of Paradox is blocked due to virus detected for me so I just uploaded for now.

http:/thelitterbox.freedomforce4ever.com/temp/Black Knight FF1 & FF2.zip

Here are screens of me testing it from the clean copy. I am playing in  but converted the included  keyframes instead of the  . I started with a screenshot of the character viewer in game where the glider is visible at all times as you say. But in game we can see the animations play out properly. Likewise the shading and such is rendered differently. CTool thus in the ingame viewer should only ever be for preview purposes but never considered how things will look when they are actually played. CTool otherwise has a lot of bugs that were never fixed.

(more stuff about these keyframes below images)



About the keyframes.
1. Everything up to hover_area are keyframes for Hawkeye. These have 38 controlled blocks. They contain data for the Cycle, the Windshield as well various for a bow and arrow that this nif does not have.
2. Everything after hover_area is for Black Knight. They have 37 controlled blocks. They have no data for the cycle nor arrows. Only data for the cape and sword.
3. I also noticed a lot of flaws aside this. Hover_attacks 1-3 use a bow and arrow. 4-5 use a sword but are not sitting and the sword goes through the hovercycle window and legs through the wings. Area and hover area are also bow and arrow attacks. Also while he has a sword and scabbard the sword never vanishes when it should.

To fix it in CTool/CViewer data for Cycle and Windshield need to be added to every keyframe after hover_area in order to hide it. Again in game there is no reason that cycle nor it's windshield should ever show up however during those animations. If that's what you want. I can do this but only a FF2 set.

Else much else needs to be redone including a built from scratch hover_attack, getting rid of the rest of the bow and arrow stuff, making the sword vanish when it should (and adding a hilt to the scabbard). Logically the bow and arrow nodes should be removed all together from the nif and keyframe set. Basically every keyframe up to a point is not even for the Black Knight nif, it's for the Hawkeye one is what's happening.

[bearded]

Whew. Might be easier to import it all into max and set the keyframes to law or minute man. Custom scale the sled.

[SickAlice]

If you have Max of course then. I probably will rebuild a  just because that sort of thing bugs me. And also model Black Knights actual atomic steed instead of what looks like Hawkeye's sled.

[BentonGrey]

J.P. might have the original Max files from Gren; if so, that might offer a solution.

[bearded]

If you have Max of course then. I probably will rebuild a  just because that sort of thing bugs me. And also model Black Knights actual atomic steed instead of what looks like Hawkeye's sled.

That sounds awesome!I could custom up some keyframes, think Law as a base would do?

[SickAlice]

Well I'm getting into the home stretch on TMNT and I rebuilt those Hawkeye sled keys so it is partly done already. Really hiding the Cycle and Windshield in the Viewers is not a big task. You just add blocks for each (Windshield is a separate node to establish built in transparency due to  inability to render texture based alpha stencils). So after hover_area it's like twenty or so animations? That's like twenty minutes of copying, pasting and changing time values at best.

I just can't output  stuff, but you can. I will do this for  though and if you want to convert the keyframe later feel free. I don't do  stuff anymore. Partly since I don't own it but more because most of my stuff depends on those alpha channels to make them convenient for skinners.

The rest is secondary which I see as a larger issue in character representation (Classic Avengers Black Knight?). The wrong hover vehicle model. Endless bow and arrow animations? So on. I also noticed the Photon Sword color is wrong where it is supposed to be yellow. He has a sword holster despite using a light saber (that comic did not have a sheath even for aesthetics) So I am thinking of doing all that as well since it isn't a chore either. Making a 3d model of the proper vehicle and mapping it will take more time than anything (luckily Handbooks provided orthos back in the day). On a side Gren improved this whole thing with his Balder nif and keyframe and I am thinking maybe of using that and just moving the hover animations and 3d models over to it?

Anyway I'll link it when I am done. As far as Law and such you would know better. You've worked with this and with Max/ so you know the ins and outs. I'm not even familiar with that era's Avengers comics nor Dane shy of searching because of this post. I didn't even know he had a laser sword or mechanical bull looking steed tbh.

Personally observation is Dane is an odd character and inconsistent. He seems to show up in random books, more if they have anything to do with swords, and every creative team seems to redesign him at their own whims. Like INK's version was the Heroes For Hire version which was the only case he seems to have a shield. Gren's was a very short lived version in Avengers which eventually changed to have that brown jacket and lost the atomic steed. More often he doesn't have a steed at all either and just seems to be a Super Leaper (noticing the two hover melee in Gren's version and considering the keyframes need an alternate hover then?).

[BentonGrey]

Glad to see you around the forums, SA!  I can't wait to see what you have in store for TMNT!

[SickAlice]

I lurk in and out depending on how busy I am. During the winter season I become locked in and spend more time on it. With TMNT I am at the dreaded point where I have to remap things (IDW belts, I knew I was messing them up). Well? Carve a jack-o-lantern for my mother today then deal with more leaf piles. Then over to Black Knight.

[SickAlice]

@bearded

So here is what I have for you. These are converted to  keyframes for Gren's Black Knight where I added values that will hide the cycle during the keyframes where it is not supposed to be visible in the viewers thus in game if there was any error. You will either need to convert them from  to  with MAX or however this is done, or, I listed what was changed so you can open the keyframes and make changes to a clean  set as need be.

http:/thelitterbox.freedomforce4ever.com/temp/BKGren_display_keyframes_4FFVTTR.rar

- What Has Changed notes:

This keyframe set will cause the hovercycle to hide in CTool/Character Viewer when it should.

change the number of Controlled Blocks for animations run_a through power from 37 to 39.
added keyframe sets for Cycle and Windshield to animations run_a through power.
adjusted all end times for the new keyframes to match their animation as well as the flags (cycle or clamp).
-

Anyway that is what you need to do to pull of what you are trying to do. Not that hard actually. It only took me about fifteen minutes. Else I do not think the new keyframes need to be assigned to the model since the objects we are working with are static and already otherwise have this assignment which was just copied from the idle animation and then tweaked.

Note: If your browser has problems downloading it by left click the try right click > save as.

[bearded]

Thank you muchly.