Help on animating warships with nifskope

[Jarmrik]

Hi all,
I need some help to animate one of my WIP units. It's a kind indus/steampunk/dieselpunk (choose your preference) battleship with various turrets and effects.
The problem is that everything looks fine and animates correctly in Nifskope, but once in game, the turrets get back to the place they have in the original unit I use as a base.
If someone could help me in doing/explaining me how to do the thing well, it would be really nice. I've attached my model and the base model with its anims.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

One easy fix I use for that that doesn't require messing with the 3D application itself and can be done in Nifscope easily:

• You can't move the turret nodes themselves as their coordinates are directly set by the animation;
• BUT you can move nif nodes that aren't directly controlled by the animation;
• What you do after you exported is insert additional nif nodes as parents of the turret nodes (basically insert them "between" the body node and the turret node);
• Then you're free to adjust the position of the turrets to wherever you'd like.

 

[Jarmrik]

Thanks a lot Walter. I'll have a try with this method and post the results if successful

 

[Jarmrik]

One easy fix I use for that that doesn't require messing with the 3D application itself and can be done in Nifscope easily:

• You can't move the turret nodes themselves as their coordinates are directly set by the animation;
• BUT you can move nif nodes that aren't directly controlled by the animation;
• What you do after you exported is insert additional nif nodes as parents of the turret nodes (basically insert them "between" the body node and the turret node);
• Then you're free to adjust the position of the turrets to wherever you'd like.

Well, I come back to you quite disappointed. I fail in animating this one.
If it looks fine in Nifskope, it doesn't in game. The various turrets float next to the hull. There's no doubt I'm doing something wrong. The main problem I see is that turrets don't turn on themselves but in relation to the centre of the model. What do I miss? What am I supposed to adjust: the turrets models themselves? the new parent nodes?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

You're on the right track; you need to move both - moving turrets themselves ensures they are on the rotation axis and not flying around in arcs; then moving "support" nodes so that the rotation axis and the turret sit where you want them

 

[Jarmrik]

After long moments of loneliness, I finally managed to animate it the way I want.
Thanks a lot, Walter.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Glad to help! Once you got it right for the first time, it becomes fairly trivial.

 

[Jarmrik]

For sure! Now I already have new projects in mind