I managed to make custom handmade animations working in the game using 3ds max and the Civilization IV exporter.
The created kf files are not on pair with the default Oblivion animations because you can't start them with the PickIdle script function. I noticed one important thing though: When an actor is knocked down or killed its body will be controlled by Havok (ragdoll). Just at the moment when it regains control over its body the custom made animation can play correctly. There is a trick to easily force an NPC or even the player into this state. (See the tutorial.)

I’ve made a small mod which adds two spells to the player. You can use them to force any NPC or yourself into the new animated state.
You can download this mod from here: http://web.t-online.hu/laga/zennorious/obl...ionTutorial.zip (8.02 KB)
Or you can watch a funny video I made. It shows the new animation and the mod in action: http://web.t-online.hu/laga/zennorious/obl...mations/gym.wmv (3.72 MB)

And here is the complete tutorial:

What you need:
-3ds max 7 or 8 (I use version 8)
-The Civilization IV exporter - http://www.silgrad.com/wbb2/jgs_db.php?act...tid=12&sid= - you will need to create an account to download
-The Elder Scrolls Construction Set for Oblivion - http://elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_utilities.htm

1, Extract the Civilization IV plugin's archive, and copy the folders and files into the 3ds max folder.
2, Launch max. You will need to enable the Civ4 toolbar for animations.
___a, Select "Customize->Customize User Interface" from the menu.
___b, Select the Toolbars tab.
___c, Press the New button. Type a name like "Civilization IV Toolbar" or something like that. Press OK. The new toolbar should appear on the screen.
___d, From the category combo box select "Civilization IV Tools" and drag&drop "CivilizationIV Animation Manager from the list below onto the new toolbar. (This is the only button we need.)
___e, Close the Customize User Interface dialog.
3, Now we need to setup a biped.
___a, In max's Command Panel (on the right by default), under the Create tab press the Systems button (two little gears).
___b, Press the Biped button.
___c, The default biped settings are not good for Oblivion so we'll need to edit these things:
______-set Neck links to 2
______-Spine links to 3
______-Tail links to 9 or maybe to 0
______-Fingers to 5
______-Finger links to 3
______-Toe links to 1
______d, Draw the biped on the perspective window and after it appears without deselecting it set its height to 128 and its X and Y coordinates to 0. And rotate it so its Z rotation coordinate will be 90 instead of -90. (The Biped should have 63 objects. I know it's not all that Oblivion supports but enough to make animations to work.)
______e, Rename "Bip01 Tail" to "Bip01 TailRoot". Unfortunately animating the tail seems to be trickier than the rest of the body parts.
4, Press the Time Configuration button on the bottom right side of the max window and set the frame rate to Custom 15 FPS. (I don't know if this step is important or not.) You can also set the animation's length here.
5, Animate the biped. I'm not an animator so I can't tell you much about this step, but I usually do this with the Auto Key button.
6, Press the “CivilizationIV Animation Manager” button on the toolbar created in step 2.
___a, Press Add in the Known Actor Roots section and then select "Bip 01". (The easiest way is through the select by name button on the toolbar.)
___b, In the Active Sequence section you must specify a name. The name must follow this syntax: SpecialIdle_AnyName where AnyName can be any name. But the SpecialIdle is important!
___c, In the Active Sequence section you can enable Loop Sequence if you wish to loop the animation infinite times in the game.
7, Export the file.
___a, Select File->Export.
___b, Select CivilizationIV as file type. Choose a name, select the Oblivion\Data\Meshes\characters\_male\Idleanims folder and press Save.
___c, In the export dialog set the File Export Script to "Single KF Export without NIF". Press OK.
8, Start the Construction Set and load Oblivion.esm.
___a, In the Gameplay menu select Idle Animations.
___b, Right click on Characters\_male\IdleAnims, select Insert Child.
___c, Give the child an ID and append your animation file to this ID.
___d, You can also specify conditions for this animation.
___e, Save your mod.
9, In the game open the console, click on an NPC, or yourself and write "ForceAV Fatigue -1". This should knock out the NPC for a fraction of a moment, but this is good because it is required to start the animation.

Good thing: When the animation is used on the player he/she will automatically go into third person view and when the animation is over back to the original view.
Bad thing: Since ForceAV and ModAV works differently from scripts it is trickier to start the animation from a script. I don’t suggest using quest scripts because those don’t run in each frame, but you can use object and magic effect scripts. In my mod I used a magic effect script. It is called GymnasticsMagicEffect, check it out, it’s well commented.

respect hombre...Crossbows/Guns/Spears and the rest are finally here...

Not really. These are idle animations. They only work on NPCs and the player when in third person mode (which is auto whith this method).
But you can create NPCs using such weapons, but you'll have to script them.

good job, very good job. i'll definitely give the tutorial a shot, but i'm sure i wont be too good at it.

question. why do their feet go into the ground like that? it seems like they're slowly going deeper, and deeper.

They don't go deeper. It's just my lack of animating skills. Basicaly I've just made that animation to demonstrate the whole thing.

and you did a good job.

Oh, I've just noticed the other thread. It looks like I am a little late with this. But maybe there is something in this thread too that can be of any use.

Can Blender be used? THIS new edition has custom animations possibility.

Darn, I only have 3dsmax 5, am I lost?

WAHAHHAHA, that video is fantastic!!!

*bump* This thread needs to be put in the Oblivion Mods forum also

im gonna aquire 3dsmax right now! and start learning to animate mayby i can do something for a mod or something.... dude youre my hero!

Can I do any of this with 3ds Max 5, I cant afford to lash out more money on max 8

I'll just say real quick that biped animation created from a stock biped may look a little funny because the bone preportions are not the same a bethesdas.

I've already worked at a biped preportions months ago that is pretty damn close to the BS biped which is what madmole is using. The secondary breakthrough is that madmole figured out that you have to import the biped as a .FIG to workaround some bugs in the biped code that had been stumping me forever.

I'll post the fig file if madmole does not do so first. Unfortunately, its only for max 8 though max 7 should be possible if we remove some of the arm twists. Not sure about max 6 or earlier unless you have the CS for max.

That sounds good theo, sounds like possibly you will be able to figure out how to import a BIP rather than bones?

Proconsul, is there a reason you are ignoring me? did I somehow offend you?

OK, I have a question though: I have only seen tutorials for custom idle animations; how would I go about adding a new marksman fire and reload animation? Same process? I am doing the rifle mod and I need to know these things.

if you just figure out what the syntax for the other animations are (ie. special idle) then you can probably change/add in animations for other stuff such as combat and stuff like that

Corwyn. Eh? I dont know what youre on about. let me check my messages and see if Ive missed something.

wow, i love how nobody actually cares that we can do this now

Biggest breathrough yet as far as I can see. I wish I had the time to do something with it, annoying as I have the tools and plenty of models. If only I had a 48hour day I would be a happier man.

I would like to add that I've tried Theo's fantastic converter on my kf file, too, and it works! It makes the fatigue trick needless, except it is still usefull on the player to make him/her out of first person mode. The link to the thread where the link is to the converter is in my previous post. (What a sentence. )

Right in max I can get the biped into the right place, right size, right number of blah blahs, and I can make an animation for him to play a violin. Would some kind modeller type give me an idea of how I get a violin into the game and how I set it up for the guy to play it. Step by step, phew takes a while but my modelling skills came back like riding a bike, easy after the first half an hour.

By the way if anyone wants the set up biped then just say so and I will post a link to it in max format with the animation.
biped violin anim

Got an error when running the civ tool. Type error, call needs function or class, got undefined.

Anything specific that you can post? Try doing Ctrl+C while the dialog is open to put it on the clipboard (maybe).

I seem to recall that I needed a special DirectX dll to get things working at one point but this was many months ago and dont recall the details. I got it by googling the name and it was the first or second link or something to download it.

I've got some question


I've made an animation via autokey, as you told in the tutorial. But in the Animationmanager there is no Animation, when i press the Start now button. And in the Game, there's no Animation,too.The Actors, who play the Animation just became a little thin.

Plz help me.

Sweet, now the assassin's Creed mod can finally have an animated Switchblade!

Is it possible to create new animation using blender?
This is what I want to do.
Centaur: I'm trying to combine the human and horse skeletons and create new attacks.
Medusa: Trying to get the snake tail to slither across the floor and add extra attacks.
Werewolf: I want o give him a howl, power attacks and maybe a transformation.
Would this be possible?

How define grip points for a biped held item in max7? Anybody any idea, seems to be a civIV specific thing so beyond my anim knowledge.

In all likelyhood you would need to create an entirely new creature that has these new animations, in addition to any animations that you can use from other creatures.

If you can get the medusa to work, let me know - I want it!

EDIT: Saw your thread on the medusa, ignore the above since someone already said this.

I dont see why this is limited to the stand up animation though. The thing that is definitively wrong is that the unset StringPalette offsets are 0x0000ffff whereas they should be 0xffffffff.

Also,



this is apparently a lot of unneccessary work. You can stitch the skeletons together, which is a lot easier than redoing all the anims.

I'd love to do this, but when I download the civ4 exporter, it says that the .dlu can't initialize. Any ideas how I could fixed that? (I've downloaded multiple source files from the internet from different locations.) Thanks.

--the NEENJA

Video isn't working Dead link.

Hmm, what exactly happened with this?

Yes. What did happen with this? Is it possible to make custom animations? Is there a link?

yep. new creature rigs and animations. http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...reatures_Ingame

saiden storm

Huzzah! This is fantastic. So many mods will benefit from this.

Uuuuh... Nice..

Following this tutorial I can slow down by 1/4 a moving animation?

OK i JUST FOLLOWED ALL OF YOUR TUTORIAL TO JUST EDIT A FOWARD ANIMATION FOR A CUSTOM CREATURE OF WICH i COPIED ALL STUFF , Sorry caps , anyway I slowed the animation but it keeps looping and the animal doesnt progress in the movement at the end of the animation he reverts back to previous position , also the mounted player has a weird position now on the back of the creature.... something can be done to fix this?
Or is just usefull to make some idles?