Post
by TMILLER » Sun Dec 02, 2012 5:21 pm
While working on version 2 of my US_Southeast map I wanted to have bears in the Smoky Mountains. Bears are a popular tourist attraction in the National Park there. Even though the Bears.kfm file which comes with SMR references many kf animation files for the bears, I could not get the bears to move. After studying other maps with animated decorations I discovered that none of the maps have more than one animation active in the map, even though there may be several available. I studied the files presented here by Jancsika and Rodea and found a different way to structure the xml files so that multiple animations of the same figure are active during game play. For example, one of the most popular animated figures is the elephant, but the xml files given in this thread only activate the elephant walking in a circle while moving its trunk and ears. There are also kf files that make the elephant trumpet his trunk and paw the ground. Similarly the fish and whale can be made to swim and jump, not just jump. The panther, lion, and bear have kf files which allow them to fortify, strike, fall down and die, etc. To get more than one action activated in any decoration I found that the xml file structure can be modified as shown in the attached file for the bear, whale, fish, and elephant.
For multiple animations, following the “Animations” line, define a “State” for each kf event you want to include in the animation. Each State must have a unique ID number. For 5 events, you can simply define 5 States, with IDs 1-5. The “Sequence ID” must match the Event ID number for the event of the kf file you want to activate as seen in NifSkope. For example, Bear_MD_strikeA.kf has an Event ID number 1022. Next, fMinPlayTime must be entered in seconds. This can be determined by viewing the animation in NifSkope and note the duration of each animation you want to use. The Bear Strike is only 1 second, while the Elephant “normal” event (where it walks around in a circle) is 30 seconds. If you enter too short of a time the animation will stop before it is completed. Last, enter fMaxPlayTime. I used a few tenths of second longer than the fMinPlayTime so only one complete animation event is shown at a time. After all “States” are listed, then add “Transitions” as a sibling of “State” and “Transition” lines for each animation you want to activate as a child of “Transitions”. See my example to follow this. The only information you need for each “Transition” is the State ID number and the “Chance” that it occurs. If you use 0 for each “Chance” entry, every animation will have an equal probability of being selected at the end of the previous animation. If you want one animation to have priority over others you will need to enter a higher probability for your favored event vs the others. Probabilities should be between 0-1 for each event. I just left them all 0, and let them all have equal probability of being chosen. Since the animations are all only a few seconds long, they all will occur in a minute or less.
I discovered this file structure mostly by trial and error, but it works. I now have bears striking at jumping fish in a mountain stream. See attached pics. Compare the attached xml file structure with the xml file structure attached to each of the decorations in this thread. To activate multiple animations make sure each State has a different ID number; do not have “Transitions” as a child of “State”, but on the same line as “State” (i.e. as a sibling of “State” or as a child of “Animations”). Good Luck.
-
Attachments
-
-
-
- RRT_Decorations_US_Southeast.7z
- (853 Bytes) Downloaded 825 times
