HOW TO: manage NIF file to adapt animations to LH

On request, I wrote a mini-tutorial about nif management

Editing nif node properties with nifskope, althought was a tedious and time-consuming activity, I gave Montezuma and Capac animations to Augustus, Mehmed and Hannibal to Brennus, Washington to Cyrus, Ghenghis to Hannibal and so on (see TAM LHs).

Civ4 animation engine works in a very different manner from nifskope, so making changes in nifskope and testing them in Civ4pedia leader animation, you may realize ugly nifskope LHs that move fine in Civ4 instead.

Example:

HOW TO: SVIATOSLAV (with hannibal animations) BECOMES ARMINIUS (with genghis khan animations)

Part 1 - Preparing file environment

I extracted original Sviatoslav in a folder, then I switched the original background with a german forest for Arminius.
Starting file setup:


I prepared a subfolder with every LH animation:


To avoid manual file copy-rename, I wrote useful batch ms-dos files:



After executing batch, genghis khan animation replaces the hannibal one


To play LH in Civ4 you need to modify CIV4ArtDefines_Leaderhead.xml file:


File environment is ready!


Part 2 - Civ4 / Nifskope management

It's time to start Civ4, go to Pedia and choose leader Arminius for a quick display:

Arminius moves as Genghis Khan now, but he doesn't have eyes!
Note:
Dinamically you may switch other animation set to see Arminius act as another leader. After copying the .kf files you must select another leader, then re-select Arminuis to see the changes. Using ms-dos batches, you may try all civ4-existing animations on hannibal in a easy and quick way.

Well, go back to give eyes to Arminius.
Execute nifskope and open hannibal.nif under Arminius folder. You see a normal inanimated Sviatoslav:


Expand the NiNode tree on the left till NiNode #132 and edit the translation values giving them the following values:


Then choose NiNode #169 and edit the translation values giving them the following values:


SAVE your hannibal.nif
As result you have a sleeping Sviatoslav in nifskope render (on the right in picture above), but if you switch to Civ4 Pedia you'll see an Eyed-Arminius acting as Genghis Khan



Example of other ugly nifskope LHs that work fine in TAM instead:

Julius Caesar with Augustus animation


Augustus (Decbalus) with Huayna Capac animation



Conclusion

As said before, it is an empiric, unorthodox, tedious and time-wasting method.
You must find the right NiNode to modify and test property values (rotation, translation, ecc...), switching beetwen nifskope and Civ4 pedia viewer, in order to reach a working combination.

I hope this will help someone to do better job!

Ambrox

wow, i sort of get it, but seems really time-consuming, in any case, thanks

I don't quite understand this tutorial, is it for attaching the animations of any leader to any leader?

Theoretically yes, but practically it is not always advisable. When the starting situation is good it can be done (see the examples above), otherwise it requires a long and tedious work.

It will be very useful still, if someone absolutely has to have other animations.