griffin rider model - help please

[Ahwaric]

After a few days of trying to figure out how to make a griffin rider I finally decided to ask for help.

My goal is to put a well armored rider on the back of a griffin by Rabbit, White.
I have no problem moving weapons etc. between units using nifviewer. I tried to move griffin head and wings to a nyxkin (leopard rider from FfH), but the effect is bad and I still can't change the rider.
SO, the ideal is to move a knight templar to the back of the linked griffin.
Unfortunatelly, I can't figure out how this can be done. In Rabbit, White tutorial thread I have read that it is impossible to do it in Nif Viewer. So, what program is required to do it?
What should I do to get the unit animated? I can't make my own animations, so I seek a way to make already existing ones work.

Certainly, I do not mind if any of the experienced unit creators would make me such unit
But I still would like to know how to edit mounted units.

 

[Kael]

Get Nifskope and replace a horse/mount in another nif with the griffon. Trying to add a rider to the griffon model would be really hard, but the other way around isnt to bad.

With Nifskope you can copy an entire branch (the trishape and all the nodes that it uses) from one to the other. After that its as easy as changing the pointer to the horse trishape (or whatever) and changing them to pointers to the griffon trishape.

 

[Ahwaric]

Thanks for advice.
I did some more reskinning and adjusting to nyxkin and it turned out quite well.
I tried then to replece current rider with knight templar in nifskope. I could not get it to work with copied trishape branch only (got "failed to map parent link "NiNode|BIP Spine"" error), but after coping entire NiNode I have got the templar model to nyxkin nif. Unfortuanatell, it is not animated, just standing on the ground inside the mount body.

After that its as easy as changing the pointer to the horse trishape (or whatever) and changing them to pointers to the griffon trishape.

I do not know how to do it and this is probably the reason for my animation problem. Any hints/tutorial link that can help me with this part?
So far I had no luck to find anything.

Here is the current version:

Edit: I have decided to post the knight screenshot too. Also, nif files , if anyone is interested

 

[Kael]

The problem is that this nif contains the nodes for both the mounted rider and the templar. We dont need the templar nodes (the BIP01 R Foot and such), only the mounted rider ones.

I typically copy and paste the trishape I want to add (with children) into the model I want. If it cant find the NiNode's (say they are called BIP R FOOT instead of BIP01 R FOOT) you get an error in the copy you have to resolve that first. I typically rename the NiNodes in where Im copying the model from so that they match and the copy goes.

Hopefully that makes some sense.

 

[Ahwaric]

Hopefully that makes some sense.

Sure it does
Works like a charm. Some editing to the rider and the unit will be more or less ready

Thanks a lot, you have just taught a man how to fish.

Edit:
Just to finish the topic, here is the finished (?) unit

 

[Kael]

Looks great, good job!