Lo-Fi Games

Hi,

New to modding Kenshi, I'm looking at the possibility of making certain animals, Pack Bull in this case, mountable.

To prove the concept though, I wondered that if I was to make the Pack Bull playable by changing the relevant entry and editing the required files and adding it to a current race.

Would I be able to use the Pack Bull to pick up another NPC? Obviously there wont be a viable animation for it, but is it possible?

Jimmyavr

How is your progress?

Their progress is probably nothing at all because they aren't the first one to attempt this and it's well known in the modding community that this isn't really something that can be done with our current tools.

I played with this and it is indeed possible to make a bull as a character that can pick up other character.

However for it to work nicely the following problems need to be solved:

1: Kenshi thinks all characters are human, so the game tries to play human animation names. So for the bull to be animated, you would need to rename animations to exactly same as in human skeleton. I tried this replacing walking, running, jogging, idle, breathing but it did not work. The bull is still standing its legs stiff. I probably made some mistake somewhere, OR Kenshi is still trying to play the basic (human) animations even though I assigned the new skeleton for the bull.

2: The picked up character is attached to the shoulder bone, so the character that has been picked up is hanging from the front leg

3: Even if you got the attachment bone changed to the back, the carried character would not be riding, as the carried characters are turned into flappy physics attachment, that is just hanging. If you can edit physics files, you might be able to make a rigid physics file in a riding pose, but you would have to make a new rider race with that as a carry physics file. And that would mean every time they are carried, by a man or beast, they would be always riding XD

EDIT: Investigating this matter more it seems having physics is not needed. So you can remove the physics for the rider race and only alter the pose/animation of being carried in the rider skeleton.

I figured out why the animations did not work, lol, I had the end frame set to 2, not 200 XD

Bull Rider Proof of Concept

Made a video about how I figured out how to do riding.

Loving the work and promise so far Excited to see what else comes from the project

Thanks.

I just managed to 'solve' the issue with parts of the bull blocking the other squad-member's portraits. It has been the most annoying deal-breaker 'feature' the rideable bull had. Could not imagine anyone ever wanting to use the mod, when half of your squad member's faces are always covered with parts of the bull.

I ad-hocced it, all it needs is the idle poses to be low enough so the hump does not cover the place where the human character's head would be in Blender.

I am not sure I can solve the actual bull's portrait missing. Maybe. But not covering the other members was the main issue.

The second issue solved somewhat is the riding pose vs. carrying on shoulder pose. I made a compromise and made the riding pose a side-saddle pose. So riding the bull looks a bit lady-like, but hey at least the pose works for both. I am going to make couple of variations to the riding pose/ carry on shoulder pose, eventually, so people can pick whether they want to ride cowboy-style but carry people in piggy back, or do they settle with this side-saddle-riding and tolerable shoulder-carry pose.

I have also added some bull related items to the mod, so you can set up a stable.

There are still couple of issues I fail to solve. The first most is the fact the ragdoll keeps on affecting the hands of the rider. Yet, if I remove the ragdoll entirely, the characters do not fall down when they are KOed. I would like to edit the ragdoll file, but Skythe does not allow saving.

The other issue is the portraits. I managed to fix the issue with the Sage Bulls protruding to the squadmate's portrait window, but now the same issue is with the pack animal portraits...resulting a kerberos-like double head on the animal.

Also the portraits of the actual Sage Bulls is empty. And probably will always be.

Have managed to somewhat finish all the dialog and story-parts of the scripts. Now I am filling the mod with bull-related accessories.

https://ibb.co/LJs26YZ

Cattrina wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 07, 2020 2:49 pm

There are still couple of issues I fail to solve. The first most is the fact the ragdoll keeps on affecting the hands of the rider. Yet, if I remove the ragdoll entirely, the characters do not fall down when they are KOed. I would like to edit the ragdoll file, but Skythe does not allow saving.

The other issue is the portraits. I managed to fix the issue with the Sage Bulls protruding to the squadmate's portrait window, but now the same issue is with the pack animal portraits...resulting a kerberos-like double head on the animal.

Also the portraits of the actual Sage Bulls is empty. And probably will always be.

Have managed to somewhat finish all the dialog and story-parts of the scripts. Now I am filling the mod with bull-related accessories.

https://ibb.co/LJs26YZ

Please continue your great work, i have been looking forward to it for months.

Most of the work has been in the making of the animations. And as I have a day job, I can only work on weekends on the mod.
It is not going to be 'real' riding as there are some great obstacles the game provides. Mainly the ragdoll and the fact the same pose needs to suit for carrying on the shoulder too. I happen to be very resilient and tend to finish things I started. XD

While this is pretty amazing as a PoC and seems to be a feature people want, personally I'd be happy with being able to sling an unconscious / incapacitated character over the back of a pack animal to have them carried that way when EVAC from an area lol, rather than have one of my fighters encumbered by the comatose. Of course if you get too many people downed, unless you're the Nomads you're still going to be carrying some people the hard way, but it would be a nifty thing to be able to sling one or two KOed squad members over the back of my bull or Garru and carry them to safety that way.

I am planning on making couple of different versions of the mod, so people get options. But I am not sure if it will be plausible to carry a person across the animal torso, that would require a pose with larger circumference (because the animal is so wide), and that pose would look like the person was planking if another person did the carrying. We are still dealing with the basic dilemma only to have one single pose, that would have to suit both occasions.

May I present to you; the fruit of my toils, the half-ripe project:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2319337000


"Several hundred years ago someone started an ambitious breeding program to make bulls rideable. They succeeded. Now the Sage Bulls are priced luxury chattel only the good-fortuned can afford."

This mod adds riding to Kenshi. You can buy mounts from four brand new towns, each containing things you have not seen before in Kenshi. New buildings, new riding-related items, new interior and exterior objects. Experience Kenshi like never before, with the wind in your hair!


BETA BETA BETA BETA BETA did I already mention this is BETA?

KNOWN ISSUES
- The rider's hands flap uncontrollably while riding (custom ragdoll needed, may be impossible to do)
- Riding pose is the exact same pose as the shoulder carry (unfixable, this is a Kenshi limitation)
- An unconscious character is carried by a bull sitting up (see above)
- The Sage bulls do not have a portrait (skeleton/mesh/kenshi -unknown if fixable)
- The Sage bull's husk appear in the background or on top of some of the squad members,
especially small animals like dogs, and in auto-generated building menu icons (skeleton/mesh/kenshi -unknown if fixable)
- Some of the bull's animations are rough (I will be fixing this by adding frames where needed)
- Short characters ride too high
- The ox cart's wheels do not rotate (missing animation, pending)

CONFLICTS
Yet to be explored. Let me know. I do not expect many. May be some issues with mods altering vanilla crafting.

CUSTOM RACES
This mod adds several new animations. Mostly fluff, like brushing the bull. The main animation/pose is the riding pose you will need to assign to the custom race yourself. Without it you still can 'ride', the vanilla pose just is crookedineverwhichway.

REQUIRES A NEW GAME OR IMPORT

THE MOST REALEST RIDING IN KENSHI
What? You don't hit yourself in the head when you ride? Pfft amateur XD

It is a game changer, you can travel a lot faster, carry heavier loads and your loyal mount can even do first aid!
DO NOTE: the riding speed depends on the strength of the bull. They DO need to train that so you can ride faster.

HOW TO
1) Acquire a mount (or use a start with a mount)
2) Select the bull
3) Right click the rider-to-be and pick up

You do not need a saddle to ride, but it looks better with one.

I will probably work on this mod until the world ends, so expect several updates in the future.