Animations are coded into models (although a model may reference another model for the animations to be copied from).

NWN's engine supports animation which are not just movement, rotation or other object transforms; you can also 'animate' some Trimesh properties such as Alpha and self-illumination colour (used for e.g. fading in/out a night-time glow in the windows of buildings).

Animations are used in the engine to time actions (eg casting a spell) as well as even make situational bonuses apply (eg; Knockdown is "they're in the knock down animation state" - the effect just plays the animation for a set duration).

This page is currently written just to list "these are animation names and durations" not about creating custom ones - that will hopefully follow!

Tutorials

A reasonably old tutorial on creature animations that still mainly applies today is available here: http://www.neverwinternights.info/cc_creatureanimation.htm

Full (Humanoid) versus Simple (Creature)

Most humanoid sized creatures use a full animation set - ie they can sit down, or whatever else. The super model for this is "a_ba" (which can also be edited to affect all things referencing it).

Many monster creatures use a limited animation set. These are usually more model-specific, eg; wolves would be very different to ogres.

The types of animation allowed are set by the appearance.2da line:

There are modifiers for these MODELTYPE which can be added but don't affect the animations available as such:

• W - Wings allowed (P assumes this)
• T - Tail allowed (P assumes this)

Animation Types

Loop - The animation is built to be looped. The first and last frames are the same pose. Often called "duration".

FNF - "Fire and forget" animations play once and include the start and end portions in the single animation. Most commonly used for emotes and actions. Many however can be looped just fine (especially useful for the talking ones for instance).

Start - The animation includes only the starting portion of the animation, which can also be called "impact". Some game animations are the same for start and end, and just reverse the start one.

End - The animation includes only the ending portion of the animation, often called "cessation".

Animation Root

The animroot parameter in the animation header tells which bone is the highest level bone controlling the animation. Multiple animations can be mixed within a timeframe. The animation with the deeper animroot takes precedence. Full body animations have their animroot set to the rootdummy, while partial body animations, like walking with a shield, only animate from the torso down to the hands.

Animation Length

The animations have a length parameter (a floating point number, in seconds) - this is set in MDL as the "length" parameter. This is in real seconds and orientationkey fields determine the progression of the animation over that time period. Each node affected can have different amounts of changes to the animation done, and the game interpolates between the times - although it is best to keep them frequent throughout the time period.

Some animations can be quite long - like 7 seconds for "worship" - while some are super short - 0.0333333015 for "deadfnt".

Example Animation Length is in frames based on 30 FPS below, so a length of "1" second would be 30 frames of animation, and a length of "0.5" would be 15. 0.033333 seems to be the lowest - which is about 1FPS - and probably should be a guideline on how a "static" and quick animation is done (in this case, being dead you don't move much!). The frames total is useful since Blender uses frames for it's animation timeline (in fact Biowares original max files tended to, thus some odd rounding errors sometimes).

Some animation are hardcoded to run for a predefined amount of time. If you make it longer or shorter the game compresses or expands the time. For instance walk animations have a set time loop and going beyond that makes the animation look sped up.

The transtime parameter (a floating point number, in seconds) is used to specify a time that transitions can be made into this animation from others. This should of course be shorter then the total animation time.

It's not clear which ones are hardcoded fully like this. This information should be listed below if known.

Custom Animations

The default a_ba etc. MDL files tend not to include custom animation definitions. These are for adding yourself as a modder. You have options of just using the looping animation or adding a start and end animation too.

Animations are named:

• customXstart - the starting animation, fired once when the animation starts
• customXlp - the looping animation, this can be the only one present if required
• customXend - the ending animation, fired once when the animation ends

With NWN:EE you can use custom1 up to custom70 with relevant constants for PlayAnimation available to use them.

Choice of Combat and Pause Animations based on Weapon

The weapon or items you have equipped in your left and right hands affect many animations. The main baseitems.2da WeaponWield column controls a lot of this although some is hardcoded slightly. Some rough notes on additional things that occur that are not combat animation related:

• **** = standard one-handed weapon (although may be two handed if small creature is wielding it)
  • Torches have their animation coded to their baseitems.2da line
• 1 = not wieldable
• 4 = two-handed weapon (polearm)
  
  • Has a special idle animation (over the shoulder at rest)
• 5 = bow
  
  • Special walk animation overlay
• 6 = crossbow
  
  • Has a special idle animation
• 7 = shield
  
  • Special walk animation overlay
• 8 = double-sided weapon
  
  • Has a special idle animation (over the shoulder at rest)
• 9 = creature weapon
• 10 = sling
• 11 = throwing weapon (dart, shuriken or throwing axe)

Weapon Animations

When attacks occur the weapon model itself can have animations. This is most easily seen on Bioware weapons with the Longbow, Flail and Morningstar weapons.

For an example eee the animation in wbwln_t_011.mdl for a "bowshot" animation for longbows:

newanim bowshot WBwLn_t_011
  length 1
  transtime 0.25
  animroot WBwLn_t_011
  node dummy WBwLn_t_011
    parent NULL
  endnode
  node trimesh g_WBwLn_t_011a
    parent WBwLn_t_011
    ambient 1 1 1
    diffuse 1 1 1
    specular 0 0 0
    shininess 1
    orientationkey 8
         0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000
         0.3000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000
         0.5000000   -1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.4363400
         0.5666670    1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.1483500
         0.6333330   -1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.2836200
         0.6666670    1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.0239901
         0.7666670   -1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.1069100
         1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000
  endnode
  node trimesh g_WBwLn_t_011b
    parent WBwLn_t_011
    ambient 1 1 1
    diffuse 1 1 1
    specular 0 0 0
    shininess 1
    position 0 -0.100161 -0.0171604
    orientationkey 8
         0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000
         0.3000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000
         0.5000000    1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.4014200
         0.5666670   -1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.0610900
         0.6333330    1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.2007100
         0.6666670    1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.0043601
         0.7666670    1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000   -0.0698100
         1.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000    0.0000000
  endnode
doneanim bowshot WBwLn_t_011

Example of something that uses this, in wbwln_t_012.mdl where setsupermodel wbwln_t_012 wbwln_t_011 is used to inherit the animation an the parts are named g_wbwln_t_011a instead of referring to the parent model. This lets the animation inherit properly.

#MAXMODEL ASCII
# model: WBwLn_t_012
filedependancy WBwLn_t_012.max
newmodel WBwLn_t_012
setsupermodel WBwLn_t_012 WBwLn_t_011
classification CHARACTER
setanimationscale 1
#MAXGEOM  ASCII
beginmodelgeom WBwLn_t_012
node dummy WBwLn_t_012
  parent NULL
endnode
node trimesh g_WBwLn_t_011a
  parent WBwLn_t_012
  ambient 1 1 1
  diffuse 1 1 1
  specular 0 0 0
  shininess 1
  bitmap W_metal_tex
  verts 12
       0.0000000    0.6989120    0.2579920
       0.0000000    0.7310360    0.3044140
       0.0219111    0.6911440    0.2668750
       0.0000000    0.7127190    0.3035080
      -0.0219111    0.6911440    0.2668750
       0.0000000    0.6569380    0.2401160
       0.0000000    0.6943400    0.2378810
       0.0000000    0.7192810    0.2537490
       0.0219111    0.6943260    0.2496600
       0.0000000    0.6943130    0.2614390
      -0.0219111    0.6943260    0.2496600
       0.0000000    0.6817340    0.2494740
  tverts 8
       0.2836260    0.5971280  0
       0.2836260    0.6837830  0
       0.3269540    0.6274580  0
       0.3702810    0.6577870  0
       0.4569370    0.6837830  0
       0.4136090    0.6274580  0
       0.4569370    0.5971280  0
       0.3702810    0.5711320  0
  faces 16
     0  1  2  1  0 1 2   2
     2  1  3  1  2 1 3   2
     3  1  4  1  3 4 5   2
     4  1  0  1  5 4 6   2
     2  5  0  1  2 7 0   2
     3  5  2  1  3 7 2   2
     4  5  3  1  5 7 3   2
     0  5  4  1  6 7 5   2
     6  7  8  1  0 1 2   2
     8  7  9  1  2 1 3   2
     9  7 10  1  3 4 5   2
    10  7  6  1  5 4 6   2
     8 11  6  1  2 7 0   2
     9 11  8  1  3 7 2   2
    10 11  9  1  5 7 3   2
     6 11 10  1  6 7 5   2
  position 0 0.099502 -0.0170792
  orientation 0 0 0 0
  scale 1
  alpha 1
  selfillumcolor 0 0 0
endnode
node trimesh g_WBwLn_t_011b
  parent WBwLn_t_012
  ambient 1 1 1
  diffuse 1 1 1
  specular 0 0 0
  shininess 1
  bitmap W_metal_tex
  verts 12
       0.0000000   -0.7058650    0.2579960
       0.0000000   -0.7379890    0.3044200
      -0.0219111   -0.6980970    0.2668790
       0.0000000   -0.7196720    0.3035130
       0.0219111   -0.6980970    0.2668790
       0.0000000   -0.6638910    0.2401200
       0.0000000   -0.7012930    0.2378850
       0.0000000   -0.7262350    0.2537550
      -0.0219111   -0.7012800    0.2496640
       0.0000000   -0.7012670    0.2614430
       0.0219111   -0.7012800    0.2496640
       0.0000000   -0.6886870    0.2494780
  tverts 8
       0.2856000    0.5874670  0
       0.2856000    0.6741220  0
       0.3289280    0.6177960  0
       0.3722550    0.6481250  0
       0.4589100    0.6741220  0
       0.4155830    0.6177960  0
       0.4589100    0.5874670  0
       0.3722550    0.5614700  0
  faces 16
     0  1  2  1  0 1 2   2
     2  1  3  1  2 1 3   2
     3  1  4  1  3 4 5   2
     4  1  0  1  5 4 6   2
     2  5  0  1  2 7 0   2
     3  5  2  1  3 7 2   2
     4  5  3  1  5 7 3   2
     0  5  4  1  6 7 5   2
     6  7  8  1  0 1 2   2
     8  7  9  1  2 1 3   2
     9  7 10  1  3 4 5   2
    10  7  6  1  5 4 6   2
     8 11  6  1  2 7 0   2
     9 11  8  1  3 7 2   2
    10 11  9  1  5 7 3   2
     6 11 10  1  6 7 5   2
  position 0 -0.100161 -0.0171604
  orientation 0 0 0 0
  scale 1
  alpha 1
  selfillumcolor 0 0 0
endnode
endmodelgeom WBwLn_t_012

donemodel WBwLn_t_012

Other models with relevant animations you might want to be aware of (this might not be an exhaustive list):

• Flail, Heavy - wblfh_t_011.mdl
  • Contains numerous animations for all kinds of stances and attacks, since it involves a chain and ball for Flail, Heavy Flail and Morningstar which reference it
• Sling - wbwsl_011.mdl (and other sling models)
  • Animations for attacking, for some reason supermodels were not used for this
• Shortbow - wbwsh_t_011.mdl
  • Bowshot similar to longbow

Projectile Weapons

• Projectile animations from weapons originate from the "rhand" node of a creature.  If the "rhand" node is not available, the projectile will originate slightly higher than the root dummy.
  • Arrows
  • Bolts
  • Bullets
  • Throwing Axe

Animation Supermodels

The game can inherit animations - no need to have every MDL file have animations in it. A model may have a (super)model from which it inherits animations. The model may overwrite any animation from its supermodel. The structure of the two models must to match, i.e. the order of the objects in both files must be the same.

The most complex chain of supermodels is the ones used for player models. This section will be filled out with the hierarchy (and why you see slightly different animations for say, Half-Orcs compared to Humans) later.

As noted above supermodels can be used for weapons as well.

Animation Lists

These lists have been reordered from what is in the MDL files to be in a more sensible order where things related to each other are next to each other (eg sitdown and sit animations).

• Animation Name - the name used in the MDL file. Recommended to make it lowercase as the default files do.
• Title - What we're calling it here for clarity
• Length - The "length" field timing in seconds that the engine assumes. If the example FPS isn't matching up it'll just speed up or slow down the animation.
• Example Animation Length (30FPS) - since Blender and 3dsMax work in frames, not seconds, this is an example time frame for 30FPS
• Base/Overlay - Some animations are base animations, and some will overlay on top of an existing animation, for instance talking animations, over the pause or sit animation, or having a shield equipped when running.
• Type - See above for types.
• Animroot - The root node this animation is tied to, eg; torso_g - see notes about about animroot
• nwscript PlayAnimation constant - the constant to use in PlayAnimation to get this to play.
• Example picture - example picture if required

Full Animation List

Full models are "P" for parts-based player models and "F" for full animation set single-models.

Simple Animation List

Used when MODELTYPE is "S" and "L", although "L" has a few additions. These are generally used by the non-humanoid or simple models, generally with no weapons or one type of weapon. The "c" references "creature" - think dogs, trolls, beetles or the like who wield no weapons and are not humanoid enough to rely on the default animations.

Technically you can code up the animations to assume some form of weapons - for instance the Balor or Fire Giant who are L have a single large sword in their primary attacking hand. Driders have bows or one or two weapons, etc.

L additionally can have full animations for Bow and Crossbows - which appears useful for the "Drider" creatures who use a lot of bows. Most creatures which are not Driders will still be able to "weild" them but revert to default to the basic animations it seems. They could have them added though (eg a Fire Giant wielding a Crossbow would work with animations added). Note that slings are not available although they generally "look fine" and act as if the creature is just throwing a stone instead of using a sling if it generally swipes it's hands as it's attacking (ie Mephits are good, while Wolves may not be so good!).

You can have weapons (rhand/lhand) and shields (lforearm) with the appropraite nodes. However the base animations won't change.

One other note for "L" types: the WEAPONSCALE property in appearance.2da does scale the weapon visually but does not add any additional range to melee attacks - the game assumes you've sized the creatures combat distance accurately to the weapon they (usually) weild, eg a Balor with his Greatsword.

Actions that do not work:

• ActionSit will fail for S and L model types

Animations that do not play:

• Talking overlay animations won't ever play for S and L creatures
• Potion and Read Scroll animations when using items will just play creadyr - the "cast" part does work though (ie pointing outwards usually) utilising ccastout. Grenades do mostly work as intended though and use an attack animation ca1slashr and properly throw the projectile.
• Many emotes will default back to "cpause1" instead of playing
• There is only one knockdown/death animation
• You can only have 1 casting animation plus the creature special one
• And many many more limitations but with these limitations comes a lot faster animation set to make.

Things that need testing:

• Animation names that are in the "Full" set and may work on the S or L sets if present.
  • To test: more emotes, things like "whirlwind" and "drwright" (drawing weapons),
• Animations that automatically play, say, "cpause1" explicitly, even if the F animation is present
• Custom animations

Some notes from here: http://www.neverwinternights.info/cc_creatureanimation.htm

The "Equivalent Full Animation" may be a useful reference point if copying from a_ba and other supermodels. Every simple animation has a full equivalent.

Ambient and non-combat Animations

Used when PlayAnimation is played and for certain actions in the game.

Many are also used in Conversations - a hardcoded list according to the GFF documentation, although since the list there doesn't correspond to the nwscript there are other options - see below. Putting your own in via. a GFF editor may actually work fine it is likely not validated.

The default conversation editor only shows these options however as per above menus. There is nothing special that PlayAnimation cannot do, so you can also use the animations from that in a script.

The fact some say "overlay" probably means the head continues to bob as if talking when the animation is played but this needs testing. Not sure if PlayAnimation also does this or if you put in other values into this field in the GFF.

• 0 = default, talk normal
• 28 = taunt
• 29 = greeting
• 30 = listen
• 33 = worship
• 34 = overlay salute
• 35 = bow
• 37 = steal
• 38 = talk normal
• 39 = talk pleading
• 40 = talk forceful
• 41 = talk laugh
• 44 = victory fighter (note: interestingly not named 1/2/3...)
• 45 = victory mage
• 46 = victory thief
• 48 = look far
• 70 = overlay drink
• 71 = overlay read
• 88 = play no animation - A special one presumably stops talking (the 0 option or option 38)

For the Engine ID a list of these is available on the NWNX pages. Why Bioware didn't just link the constants to the engine ID values who knows. Maybe to protect the poor animation programmers from the toolset script editors...

There are also animations that might be usable in the conversations which are not available with PlayAnimation as per this NWNX page.

Note: If an Animation Name field is blank then it simply won't play an animation.

Item Conjuration and Casting Animations

Note that spells cast from items come with their own pre-set animations. These appear to be hardcoded to different baseitems.2da lines.

Tile Animations

Notes:

• For at least the Day/Night/Nigh2Day/Day2Night animations, these animations will only run on objects that have an animation dummy; a dummy nested within the main dummy of the MDL, and with the exact same name as that main dummy but with 'a' appended to the end, e.g. if you have a tile called tno01_s01_02, the animation dummy must be called tno01_s01_02a. This is because by default all tile Trimesh geometry is static, but the engine checks for geometry that's linked to the animation dummy and checks for animations on that geometry only.
• The Day/Night animations are triggered on Dawn/Dusk. If a Script or DM changes the module time and skips Dawn/Dusk event, the tile will kepp playing the last animation until the players reload the map or the next Dawn/Dusk event.

Example frames (taken from a night/day glowing window that works):

VFX Animations

Placeable Animations

Animations just for placeables. Animation times are examples there is no set limits.

Note if there are inventories some of the animations are disabled; on, off,  on2off, off2on, default  (used when set to static). 

Note: Setting a placeable containing a skinmesh or animmesh to static will lead to a crash. There is a flag in the placeables.2da which prevents the user from setting it to static. Example: Ballista model from patch 1.69 (its bowstring uses a skinmesh).