After posting in the "Morrowind retiree" thread I convinced myself to go back to my desert mod, which is giving me some trouble. I've asked this before, gotten confused, lost the answers and whatnot, so I'll bookmark this and ask one last time: How do I make creatures? And on a similar note, animated body parts? I'm aiming for modeling and animating two sets of armor, a mummy race and various creatures.

I use Blender to model. I also have nifskope (although I have NO idea how to use it). ANY help would be greatly appreciated. All I can do right now is model and texture these things (and I'm terrible at the latter). If there are any programs I need to download for this stuff, can somebody link me? I don't mean to be lazy about it, I just don't have any decent anti-virus programs.

I am not a modeler, but I do know things have changed since when you had to have a particular old version of 3DSMax to make animated creatures and such,

Here is some info from lidicus' readme for his amazing sload that might be a help.
I will PM you his email address, as it is never a good idea to post that on a message board. (He hasn't been on for about 2 months.)

I have no idea how to use Blender (ask TheDaywalker), but here are Max MW tutorials (including two about creating creatures):

http://www.4shared.com/file/ptY8Qf1z/MW_MAX_Anim.html

Here is a “Morrowind-Creatures in Blender” by Muspila:

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29223

Corresponding Oblivion Blender tutorials could be also helpful.

We have also Google, BTW.
http://www.niftools.org/wiki/index.php/NIF_File_Format_Library_and_Tools


Animated exchangeable body parts like armor or clothes is another story: only morph animations work for me. Synchronization with original full-body animations is not an easy task.

Hm...sounds like the Darhaljiin armor will have to wait. Oh well, I didn't have my heart set on it...though I did have a cool picture in my head of what the Royal Darhaljiin would look like. Maybe if I can figure out creatures...

Thanks for your posts. I'll see if I can make this work.

I thought the morrowind code patch now allowed for custom bones to be created, though? Granted, I don't understand everything the mcp changes in the morrowind animation system, and I will have to wait for a few models using the new possibilities to understand and replicate, but I thought animated clothes and armors were precisely one of the goals of the patch?

(btw this is a bit off topic but I was wondering, if thanks to the mcp new bones for long hair are added to the basic skeleton, does that mean that all the animations have to be remade, or that the ones that won't be remade just won't animate the hair but not crash the game? Also, I was wondering, I'm guessing hair bones would be linked to the vanilla head/hair bone, but if that is the case, what would happen when the character turns his/her head to look at something? I'm wondering what would happen to these new bones dependent on the head/hair bone. I guess in the end the real problem is that I just don't grasp the scope of the mcp animation patch :/)

About animated body parts, and more on topic I guess, is it possible to make some that are not attached to specific animations (ie jump, idle3, death1, etc) but rather have a general looping animation that would play no matter what the character is currently doing? I'm not sure I'm being extremely clear here

@Zatone13: hope you don't mind me asking these questions in your thread, if you do just let me know and I'll stop. I think my questions have a link to your original post, and Axel's post made me write all these questions, but I certainly don't want to disturb the course of this thread! :hehe:

I have no opportunity now to test the new MCP options. But in theory you are right: extra bones can be used. However it would be necessary to modify at least corresponding (human, female or beasts) original animation x.nifs that contain skeleton structure. It is not obligatory to change x.kfs and animate them but there could be problems with synchronization. Usually boned/skeleton animation requires note text keys. Hence, during other animations armor (body replacing meshes, I tried with clothes it is very difficult to avoid clipping of two close animated surfaces) will be not animated. I cannot recall now but there were other problems. I have looped animated these segmented horns and snakes but with simple nodes controllers (solution is obviously not suitable for armor):
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n45/AxelIP/ScreenShot520.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n45/AxelIP/AidaScreenShot559.jpg

The situation is complex and required more testing. I guess hair bones should be linked to “Bip01 Head” bone. There might be also a conflict with LizTails kit.

Nope, I don't mind. I have no idea what you're talking about, so I can't help, but you can go ahead and post here