Short story: I made a little test about adding bones to skeletons, and it works real nice.
I'm sharing it, so that any other modder can reproduce it.
No python source code is needed: this mod only modifies BRF files of Native (plus skeleton_bodies.xml).
So, introducing...
MiniTailMod
What it is:
MiniTailMod is a tiny, demonstrative toy-mod which just adds a long squirrel-like animated tail to every character (basically just a test).
So basically MiniTailMod is a an experiment in moddability.
Download and install:
Download from M&B Repository: [link] (35MB) [UPDATED to 4.0, now tail animation are far better]
It's for warband!
Just unzip into WarBand module folder.
Details on how it was done:
1- added a two-boned tail to the human skeleton (emanating from the abdomen bone).
2- added the metadata for these two bones in skeleton_bodies.xml
3- completed every single human animations in native to make it move the two new tail-bones too (*)
4- edited all (or most) native boot models, to make it include a tail rigged to the two bones (**)
5- added and edited hitboxes for the tail, in OpenBRF
(*) Editing animations
All human animations from vanilla were moved into a single BRF file, for convenience. They were then augmented to include the "fixed" tail bones with the [reskeletonize animation] tool of OpenbRF. Then, I needed to make the two bone move in whichever way, during all animations. I did this with ad-hoc tools I coded in for the purpose.
As a 1st test, the tail was set to replicate the movements of one arm (before ver 3.0).
In ver 4.0, I constructed tail movements in a smarter way: basically they empathize whatever the spine is doing in the same animation. They look almost decent, to be constructed automatically. An skilled animator, manually editing tail movements in each animation, could sure do a far better job.
(**) Editing and adding rigged tail
The idea is to give every character a tail by embedding it in the boots (not the armor): this way any character will have one no matter the armor used. Note that in M&B (and WB) boot models can include parts rigged to any bone, not just feet and calfs (a trick which I used in TLD as well). In another test (not shared), I tried adding the tail to body armors instead, or to naked bodies, and that works too.
I made an unrefined tail model (it's basically a reshaped tube, also lacking textures, fur, etc); remember this Mod is just a proof of concept.
However the tail is nicely rigged (entirely on the two tail bones). The rigging is very smooth: vertices go smoothly from being linked to the first to being linked to the second. That way the tail will bend smoothly without any sudden angle. This was achieved using the [smooth rigging] tool of OpenBRF, several times in succession. The tail was then Lodded (using the OpenBRF autoLodder) and pasted into all native boots models using the [edit]=>[Paste into mesh] tool of openBRF (to quickly add the tail lods to the corresponding boot lods).
Previews (OpenBRF), and in-game
You can preview the animated tails in OpenBRF. Just open the BRF files inside [resuorces] module folder. Make sure you use the latest version of OpenBRF (at least 0.0.74).
Details: in the Mini-Tail-Mod folder, there's a "reference.brf" file for OpenBRF, which includes a "skin" model complete with tail, and animations+skeleton also complete with tails: newest versions of OpenBRF know to automatically use the content of that file (instead of the default one in OpenBRF folder), in order to preview any item inside that module.
To see the animated tail in-game, just run the mod. Anyone with a pair of boot (barring a few ones) will have the tail.
Version history:
V 1.0: First version out: tails weren't animated. My mistake: I accidentally added tails with no rigging. Thanks to [cmpxch8b] for noticing where the problem was.
V 2.0: Fixed that: first version which did work.
V 3.0 Added hitboxes... at first sight, it seems that the game engine is considering tails (i.e. the hitboxes tied to the extra bones) as having damage-multiplier and an armor-rating just like any other normal part of the body. Blood works normally on tail too.
Rag-dolling too (but ragdolling parameters for tail-bones could be added for improved effect).
V 4.0 Update: much better, more natural tail animations (ad ad-hoc blend, extrapolation, exaggeration of the way various spine bones move).
I'm sharing it, so that any other modder can reproduce it.
No python source code is needed: this mod only modifies BRF files of Native (plus skeleton_bodies.xml).
So, introducing...
MiniTailMod
What it is:
MiniTailMod is a tiny, demonstrative toy-mod which just adds a long squirrel-like animated tail to every character (basically just a test).
So basically MiniTailMod is a an experiment in moddability.
Download and install:
Download from M&B Repository: [link] (35MB) [UPDATED to 4.0, now tail animation are far better]
It's for warband!
Just unzip into WarBand module folder.
Details on how it was done:
1- added a two-boned tail to the human skeleton (emanating from the abdomen bone).
2- added the metadata for these two bones in skeleton_bodies.xml
3- completed every single human animations in native to make it move the two new tail-bones too (*)
4- edited all (or most) native boot models, to make it include a tail rigged to the two bones (**)
5- added and edited hitboxes for the tail, in OpenBRF
(*) Editing animations
All human animations from vanilla were moved into a single BRF file, for convenience. They were then augmented to include the "fixed" tail bones with the [reskeletonize animation] tool of OpenbRF. Then, I needed to make the two bone move in whichever way, during all animations. I did this with ad-hoc tools I coded in for the purpose.
As a 1st test, the tail was set to replicate the movements of one arm (before ver 3.0).
In ver 4.0, I constructed tail movements in a smarter way: basically they empathize whatever the spine is doing in the same animation. They look almost decent, to be constructed automatically. An skilled animator, manually editing tail movements in each animation, could sure do a far better job.
(**) Editing and adding rigged tail
The idea is to give every character a tail by embedding it in the boots (not the armor): this way any character will have one no matter the armor used. Note that in M&B (and WB) boot models can include parts rigged to any bone, not just feet and calfs (a trick which I used in TLD as well). In another test (not shared), I tried adding the tail to body armors instead, or to naked bodies, and that works too.
I made an unrefined tail model (it's basically a reshaped tube, also lacking textures, fur, etc); remember this Mod is just a proof of concept.
However the tail is nicely rigged (entirely on the two tail bones). The rigging is very smooth: vertices go smoothly from being linked to the first to being linked to the second. That way the tail will bend smoothly without any sudden angle. This was achieved using the [smooth rigging] tool of OpenBRF, several times in succession. The tail was then Lodded (using the OpenBRF autoLodder) and pasted into all native boots models using the [edit]=>[Paste into mesh] tool of openBRF (to quickly add the tail lods to the corresponding boot lods).
Previews (OpenBRF), and in-game
You can preview the animated tails in OpenBRF. Just open the BRF files inside [resuorces] module folder. Make sure you use the latest version of OpenBRF (at least 0.0.74).
Details: in the Mini-Tail-Mod folder, there's a "reference.brf" file for OpenBRF, which includes a "skin" model complete with tail, and animations+skeleton also complete with tails: newest versions of OpenBRF know to automatically use the content of that file (instead of the default one in OpenBRF folder), in order to preview any item inside that module.
To see the animated tail in-game, just run the mod. Anyone with a pair of boot (barring a few ones) will have the tail.
Version history:
V 1.0: First version out: tails weren't animated. My mistake: I accidentally added tails with no rigging. Thanks to [cmpxch8b] for noticing where the problem was.
V 2.0: Fixed that: first version which did work.
V 3.0 Added hitboxes... at first sight, it seems that the game engine is considering tails (i.e. the hitboxes tied to the extra bones) as having damage-multiplier and an armor-rating just like any other normal part of the body. Blood works normally on tail too.
Rag-dolling too (but ragdolling parameters for tail-bones could be added for improved effect).
V 4.0 Update: much better, more natural tail animations (ad ad-hoc blend, extrapolation, exaggeration of the way various spine bones move).
A knife stuck into a tail -- ouch!