Custom Content Challenge - February 2024 : Upgraded animations

Neverwinter Nights 1 Custom Content
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Upgraded animations

Given the introduction of the possibility of having up to 70 custom animations for each phenotype thanks to EE, it would be interesting to have more variety to create adventure modules or special actions for pw. Create new animations for creatures, characters, fighting styles, emoticons. Special animations: farmers hoeing, people at the table throwing dice, people carrying things, crates, small barrels, wheelbarrow. Craftsmen hammering nails, push-ups. Special actions: people descending into an open manhole, moving sideways on a ledge, tightrope walker.

This theme was suggested by quevy.

Guidelines:

  • It must be fully working in game.
  • Use of vanilla NWN or publicly available texture is fine. Just remember that NWN textures must have dimensions in powers of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.).
  • Teamwork is welcome.
  • Beginners most welcome. Don’t be afraid, just try, you’ll be surprised!
  • “Custom Content” includes many sorts of things: models, scripts, prefabs (areas, items, creatures, conversations, quests, etc.), sounds, portraits, or anything else new for the game.
  • All submissions must be finished, working, and emailed to nwvaultccchallenge@gmail.com (or a non-Vault link provided) by the first of the following month. Sooner than that is perfectly fine too. :wink:

Some things you could include in the download/email that would make packaging everything up easier and faster:

  • Any 2da lines needed.
  • Screenshot from in game for use on the Vault page. Formats: .bmp, .jpg, .png, or .tga
  • Portraits (if needed) of your new goody. Placeables and monsters should include a portrait.
  • Inventory icons (if needed) of your new goody.
  • Any credits you would like listed.
  • If this is your first entry, please tell me what name you would like your work listed under and provide a link to your other NWN content if you want that displayed as well (the link bit is totally optional).
  • Remember, the Challenge is all about fun, sharing, creativity, and surprise!

This thread is for all sorts of discussion about this month’s theme: ideas for things to make, questions/concerns, announcement of what you intend to make, screen-shots of work in progress and/or finished projects.

If you want to discuss the Monthly Custom Content Challenge idea as a whole or wish to submit ideas/themes for future monthly Challenges, please post in its thread here - Custom Content Challenge - Theme Suggestions.

When submitting a new theme, please provide a title and short summary of the theme.

If you have a technical question about some custom content creation, please create a separate thread so that the answers can be found later by anyone, not just people interested in this Challenge.

We’ll try to help!

Have no fear and join the fun!

And finally, you can:

Custom Content Challenge - Theme Suggestions.
Vote 4 for March’s Theme
Email content to: nwvaultccchallenge@gmail.com

TR

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I am just now learning Blender, but I’m kind of scared to try something this out there/advanced. I do want to push myself, though…

Any wise and benevolent content creators willing to share pointers? A favorite resource? An as of yet hidden wiki on how to render Aurora animations in Blender?

Even the foolish or malevolent content creators are welcome to comment; I’m not picky. :yum:

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@whippodee Sorry, that is way beyond what little skill I have with blender. Anyone else?

In fact, anyone else going to give this a go? A quarter of the month gone (OK, so it’s a leap year which means that technically that’s not quite true…)

TR

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Well, animations on creatures are imo “the high art”. I can name only a few people who probably can do it. So it’s for sure nothing for beginners (like me).

But you never know who eventually shows up … :slight_smile:

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I’ve been taking some notes on my process so far. Ripped open some animation mods in Blender, too. I think I get the basic gist on what’s happening, but there’s no (or little) documentation to support my theories.

Maybe I could make some if I’m successful? Like my eventual wake, “remains to be seen.”

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Basically a supermodel is a reference to go fetch animations from.
Creature animation questions - #4 by Jasperre

The super models in question (for player character/parts models) are found in data\xp2patch.bif → models. They are labeled a_ba_non_combat.mdl and a_fa.mdl for masculine and feminine models, respectively.

https://nwn.wiki/display/NWN1/Animations

and add a little…spice. I specifically downloaded Vaéi’s additional animations pack for reference. I see a lot of keyframes on the same model, just not certain how they’re being referenced.

Sorry if this is already known information! Just taking down notes for potentially timid observers. :wink:

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Hello @whippodee, welcome to the Vault,

As Nwn is an old system, everything model/animation was done with GMax / 3DSMax in the past. The Blender transition is relatively recent, and i don’t know many from the community that have the skills to do animations with Blender… maybe Black Rider or Symmetric.

Perhaps you can find some useful info in these rigging tutorials.

https://neverwintervault.org/article/tutorial/rigging-blender-279-tutorial-nwn1-models
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/model/animmesh-experiments

In the GMax/3DSMax realm, Shemsu-Heru is a great creature creator, and maybe you can find some tidbits in his import creature tutorial (Spanish).

https://neverwintervault.org/article/tutorial/skin-mesh-tutorial-and-how-import-3d-creature-models-nwn

There are, of course many other great model/animation creators (PHOD, Mecheon, Stonehammer, etc.) but i suspect they don’t use Blender.

PS.: Don’t be scared. Trying to do things, is the best way to learn… :wink:

CG

Edit: Of course, you are right Mmat, Quevy made various phenotypes/animations. For ex.:
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwnee/hakpak/combined/alfa-sos-consolidated-phenotype-overridepatch

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Mixamo conversion framework perhaps? I know it’s been attempted for NWN2.

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I feel like this one’s going to be a dud. It’s something we’d all like, but the number of people whom can do this for NWN these days I can count on my hands.

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Don’t forget @Quevy who suggested this theme. :slight_smile:

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Yeah, can’t do animations myself unfortunately so I’m out

Now, if someone who -can- do animations wants to get in contact with me, I could probably get a few kangaroos or ankylosaur/stegosaurs going, but I can’t animate 'em

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Yeah, and I have a hurdy gurdy which needs an animated musican. :smiley:

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I would kill for this.

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Although I didn’t vote for this, I would as much as everybody else LOVE to have some new animations.

But since this seems at risk of becoming a no-show or at best a one-(wo)man-show, couldn’t we just change this CCC to “all things animation” and hope for a decent influx of general animation-related contributions? I would definitely try to step up in that case.

And I am pretty sure, I am not the first or only one having thought about this.

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Whoa ! Just recently returned (from RL) to find this challenge… :astonished:

Could ya’ll have picked a shorter month to assemble the requisite files ? :wink:

First I must agree with TheStoryteller01.
Those seeking to animate should seriously consider reviewing existing models and adding some simple motions (ie open/close, destruction on/off, orreries, banners, flags that can move etc)
All of the base knowledge to do this is in the Custom Content Guide v3.0 by Eligio Sacateca
Such simple things can add greatly to the ambience of a module.
Blender, though powerful, is very intimidating…take it all in slowly. Simpler constructs are the best way to learn the “high art” of animation.
:face_with_monocle:
I have many unfinished single animation files and projects within my hard-drives.
The problem comes down to the time and resolve to correctly and adequately finish them.
For me, it takes some time to screw my head into the “flow” of the software architecture, as I do what I do as a hobby.
So, to my regret, I won’t be contributing to this challenge this time around. :sleepy:

The process (beyond perfectionist OCD) involves many, many buttons, dials and switches.
Not to mention the endless patience and refining precision required.
Furthermore, depending on the type of animation desired, they sometimes require “a rig” which is a special arrangement of controllers (3dmax) to manipulate the skeleton. Tutorials can be found on Youtube. I encourage those that are willing to really study these tutorials. Our beloved old game uses a style of animating that minimizes the key frames and thereby the file size, completely unlike most modern game engines.

All of that said, I suggest initially collecting some (public) lists of the individual animations desired. So as to focus the workflow of those willing to fulfill the necessary inclusions to Nwn.
Full animation phenotypes could be assessed and assembled from groups of individual examples. I have some ideas concerning this which could be discussed at another time…

While there remain many available slots for animation I see no reason to pollute those files (and file size) with repeats of the works done before. The use of super model hierarchies and nomenclature becomes a requisite conversation. The correct naming of files externally and internally is also very important. This should be considered in advance of releasing files “willy nilly”

Mixamo is great resource, however the resultant key frames are monolithic. Our game can do the same things but with much less resource intensive files. The problem turns up when trying to stitch different motions into playing nice with other motions. Btw, mocap files also have this problem, amongst many other qwerks.

:kissing_heart:
For those who are dabbling at an intermediate level:
When animating characters/ animals it is important to perceive how the engine executes the file.
Without going into excessive detail, (After a gap of nine frames) your new animation start position must align exactly with the pause/rest animation (See abanoncombat, between “walk” and “pause1” frame 41 to 49) BUT your changes should begin after setting keyframes of all the appendages in frame 50. This will avoid stuttering as the engine mixes the motions from one to the next.

Good luck to those willing… :cookiemonster:

I hope this very brief screed might help those interested.

Long Life to Nwn !!
:nwnee:

As an aside, it could be very helpful if someone were to author an organized appendium to the CCG v3 especially as it relates to animation and the functional use of modern software (aka Blender). Much has been learned over the years and searching for the relevant data is often a enormous problem. There are those in the community who have amassed fine insight and short cuts to many of the common learning curve problems.
NwnEE has added bones above Nwn1 and backwards compatibility remains important to many who are operating with older computer systems.
In order to have gaming excellence we all need to work from the same page.

imho.

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Unfortunately Quevy is unable to be active in the community during this period. My stay at the PC is as long as it takes to pay the various monthly fees for my children’s school. I don’t have much free time and I’m sorry about that, also because I had some things started and this theme was a good incentive to finish them.

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No need to worry about the CCC, RL always takes first.

I hope you and your kids are fine and you’ll be able to return to toolset tinkerin’ some time.

Cheers, quevy!

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Things can always be included as addendums at a later date if the deadline is missed (and that has a possible 7 days overrun included anyway).

TR

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Good to hear from you!

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Greetings all. Sorry for my silence, but RL keeps me too busy for “greater” NWN-projects.
Anyways, as it has been written above: Animations are some thing. Meanwhile I understood basics, but when I do animations from scratch, they really look terrible or are VERY simple (but still far away from a game standard).
But to clear up some questions:
You can implement external animations eg. from Mixamo. I did a test back then, when EE got more bones: NWN EE 80.8193.9 - more than 17 bones creature test | The Neverwinter Vault
Fact is, that NWN1 doesn’t use too many bones, so when you try to port an external animation, you’d need to a) reduce the bone-count (eg. spine, shoulder, fingers) eg. by merging them / the weights / the Vertex Groups (= Blender) and you have to rename the bones to the NWN1-naming (head_g, torso_g, …).
I got scripts, which do the merging and renaming (some made by @Symmetric) here: Porting creatures to NWN in Blender, which already have a foreign rig | The Neverwinter Vault

So there would be a start. BUT I never tried to actually add an external/new animation and make it look good, when NWN1 switches between animations, eg. from IDLE (=“pause”) to “new anim”. That would need some deeper investigations…

Edit: These remarks are for the case, if you’d try to add a new animation eg. to humans. If you just want one animation, eg. a NPC-dancer, it’d be easier, since you don’t have blend one animation into another (= match up start- and end pose).

3 Likes