Simple editing question: How to force a model to use a preexisting animation?

[EmperorJello]

I've a simple request. I play with the Darth Nihilus character model because of the exquisite lightsaber animations. However, there is a certain problem with using him.

 

When facing droids or critters with melee attacks that cannot be parried with the sword animation, the character freezes its animation because there's no "dodge/block" animation for beasts or droids like the main PC models use.

 

This has the unfortunate result of freezing his awesome combat moves against the droids. The combat moves he uses are the same moves that he uses against doors/non-saber wielding humanoids. So those work out.

 

Is there any way I could force the model to either use a normal parrying animation or still attack the critters/droids with his saber and not stand still in combat?

[stoffe]

Originally posted by EmperorJello

I've a simple request. I play with the Darth Nihilus character model because of the exquisite lightsaber animations.

(snip)

Is there any way I could force the model to either use a normal parrying animation or still attack the critters/droids with his saber and not stand still in combat?

 

Nihilus uses Darth Malak's animation supermodel rather than the normal male humanoid one that pretty much every other human-sized creature in the game uses.

 

While it gives him Malak's flashier animations, it has the side-effect of missing animations against anything and with anything that Darth Malak wouldn't fight in the first KotOR. Adding the missing animations would require you to edit the Malak supermodel's animations, which I believe would be very hard to do.

 

I am not sure if it is hardcoded in the game what animation to call for certain actions. If it isn't, a guess would be that the combatanimations.2da file has something to do with it. Don't know how that all connects though, but might be worth looking into if no one else has any better suggestions to offer.

[EmperorJello]

Well, thanks for the information. I'll try poking around, but these .2da files are mostly gibberish to me.

 

Hopefully there are others who have ideas about how to resolve this problem.