Custom skeletons

[Psiphoon]

This has probably been proposed before, but would it be possible to create a custom skeleton file that contained two or more skeletons? Or is there some arbitrary bone limit? If that were possible you could create multiple "races" with unique animations simply by choosing which skeleton to rig to your mesh. If the skeleton has to be a single connected entity of bones you can simply conjoin the two skeletons at the hip with a flexible "arm" that never gets rigged to anything. Do-able?

*update*

Looks like you can have as many bones as you like in the skeleton file so long as they're all attached to the central hierachy, and we can solve that with an unrigged arm or umbilical or whatever.

Bring on the elephants! ....maybe. Still have animation and rigging to sort out...

 

[GetAssista]

This has probably been proposed before, but would it be possible to create a custom skeleton file that contained two or more skeletons?

Yes, it is possible.

Or is there some arbitrary bone limit?

Just the bones that are already there.

If that were possible you could create multiple "races" with unique animations simply by choosing which skeleton to rig to your mesh.

No, not possible. You can't assign different standard animations to different races/skels/whatever. Except human/horse distinction.
Good luck in writing a script covering all the animations usage, if you want those to be specific for a race

 

[Psiphoon]

This has probably been proposed before, but would it be possible to create a custom skeleton file that contained two or more skeletons?

Yes, it is possible.

Or is there some arbitrary bone limit?

Just the bones that are already there.

If that were possible you could create multiple "races" with unique animations simply by choosing which skeleton to rig to your mesh.

No, not possible. You can't assign different standard animations to different races/skels/whatever. Except human/horse distinction.
Good luck in writing a script covering all the animations usage, if you want those to be specific for a race

You don't need any script, the animations stay where they are. For example, if you want a race of rat-men with unique animations, you replace the default human skeleton with a file containing both the human skeleton and the rat-man skeleton. Rat-men will only be rigged with the rat-bones and will display the movements of those bones, whereas humans will only be rigged with the human bones of the same file and will only show the movements of their own bones.

The only annoying bit would be tracing the human animations back onto the human skeleton, but that would be more tedious than dificult.

 

[GetAssista]

Ok, I get what you explain this time. I guess nobody tried double skeleton yet to know if it is possible, because you need to rewrite ALL the old animations and riggings to a new set of bones.
I doubt it's possible because game uses certain bones for certain things as hardcoded. Like weapon and shield bones for item positioning, head bone for helmet e.t.c.

 

[Psiphoon]

That still allows for a lot of possibilities. You can still cause damage with any "body part" can't you? Surely yes, otherwise the kick would be imposible -so that can only rule out shields and blocking. And it also leaves a perfect slate for custom mounts like wolves, boars, chariots etc. Well, when I get time I'll give it a go, see what happens. I mainly just animate though, so I don't know what problems I might roll into, so that's why I was asking.

 

[Psiphoon]

Bumping in case anybody has any further advice of knowledge of problems I may encounter, I'm just about to make a start at seeing if it works.