New Vegas Animation Overhaul (NVAO) - rockvisions Mod

NEW VEGAS ANIMATION OVERHAUL | rockvisions

DESCRIPTION

This mod contains 11 new(ish) animation sets based directly off the my sets in NVAO - Guns. As a result, all of these animations will cleanly overwrite any configuration of NVAO - Guns you have installed without issue. However, every set is also standalone, and does not require NVAO.

These guns were covered because, for one reason or another, I was dissatisfied with the existing animations. If you want to hear me talk more about why, see the below section.

Otherwise, these sets use the NVAO idles and animations as a base, and revise on top of that. All sets feature new reload animations, and most sets feature variants of said reloads. Most of the sets feature new attack animations. Most sets feature new sounds. Some of the sets feature new jam animations. Automatic weapon sets now have "additive" animations, which should make sustained automatic firing look more pleasing and aggressive. The Combat Shotgun set is made totally from scratch, but is also just a just a re-post of the same set from here. I thought it made sense to include it with a pack of revisions since, well, it is a revision.

All sets have had the "allowAttack" text key applied to any animations that would benefit from them (meaning you can shoot/reload before a reload, jam, equip, or attack animation properly ends, as in most modern shooters). All sets were made with gameplay friendliness in mind, although keep in mind this does not mean that they align with the horribly short vanilla times; it just means that the reload times aren't excessively long, are meant to not get in your way, look pleasing, and finish within a reasonable time for the gun's role in the game.

All iron sight animations now follow "hitman's method," meaning they will stay centered in the screen until the attack animation is finished. This was very necessary for the laser weapons, as my old method meant the muzzle flash offset was very visible with them. With automatic weapons, there is no downside to hitman's method, as they are too short to "quickscope" with anyways. As for the rest of the sets: if you don't like the new method of iron sight animations, you can safely paste in my old iron sight animations, and nothing will break. I will not be doing this myself.

The 10mm SMG and Grenade Rifle use edited vanilla meshes to make some parts move that otherwise wouldn't. If you have meshes that conflict with these, you can download "no mesh" versions of these sets that just contain animations. The 12.7mm Pistol also has edited meshes, but there is no option to not use those, as the animation is inherently reliant on the mesh edits. You might also wish to use awkwardgardener's' (who made the meshes included here) updated meshes for the weapon, as they're a bit more realistic than the ones included here.

It's worth addressing why this isn't just part of NVAO proper. For more details on that, please see the stickied comment in the Posts section.

Below is a list of individual showcases (just click on the orange weapon name) as well as some reasoning for why I changed the animations, for those of you who care.

You may download the pack as an all-in-one, or select the individual sets you want in the Files section.

Cheers.

SHOWCASE, ANIMATION LIST, & CHANGES

1. .45 Auto Pistol (UPDATE 1.3)
2. I made this set over two years ago, and first showed it off while showcasing the animation set I made for Hopper's Anti-Personnel Rifle . I always intended to release it, but got snagged on some weird IS issues. I won't bore y'all with the technical details but, well, that's all been fixed now, and this set can finally release.
3. A few things: I haven't changed anything from it in those two years. It mostly holds up, but this means that it doesn't come packaged with new sounds. It was also my first time really experiment with the then-new "allowAttack" textkey for kNVSE , and every animation in the set is more-or-less built around that textkey (for those of you who don't know, this key allows you to attack/reload before certain animations have fully finished, as in most modern FPS games). The catch: "allowAttack" is currently bugged, and doesn't work all the time, so these animations probably won't feel as good as they should until that bug within kNVSE is fixed.
4. I also think that hit 's set from NVAO suits this weapon better, frankly. Since you get this gun at a higher level, I envisioned you using it in a more "professional" and confident manner; hit's animations, by contrast, adhere more to the WW2-manual-of-arms-style that you gun freaks are so horny for. Still, this set does no one any good languishing on my hard-drive, and maybe some of you prefer it.
5. To get the best of both worlds, I've released an optional file that has my .45 Pistol animations play for the normal guns, but allows hitman 's animations (along with the unique equip) to play for A Light Shining in the Darkness. This is not part of the main file, as doing this would mean that NVAO - Guns as a hard requirement for this mod, and I don't want it to be. As such, the optional file obviously requires NVAO - Guns .

1. 10mm Pistol (UPDATE 1.2)
2. Of all of my 2022-era sets, I believe that my 10mm set aged pretty well (it's the same set that made it into NVAO ). At least, it was the animation set that ended up exactly how I envisioned it. In particular, I wanted the character to feel like they were cradling the gun and slightly afraid of it, as I was imagining it in the FO3 protagonist's hands (and it's an early game weapon, so it fits). I still like this set.
3. However, the execution--while still pretty good--was getting a bit long in the tooth. Moreover, I just felt the animation didn't fit in with FNV as well, or with characters who are good with guns. The attack animations--while blocky and heavy looking, which is what I wanted--also just didn't feel great.
4. As such, I set out to make a set that still retains some of those old qualities. I started from scratch this time, and I still animated with the model I have, not the model I wish I had, so this set still leans into the heavy, blocky-looking nature of the gun. You're still "cradling" the gun, but leaned more into the fact that the vanilla model presents it as kind of old and crusty. The attack animations are snappier and aggressive, though, like, y'know, a real firearm. There's an adjusted animation for the extended mag, finally. I also tried to make it merge better with the sets here, obviously. While simple, there's a lot of detail and smooth movements here, and I think it feels really, really good.
5. Oh, it also got some new sounds, because the vanilla ones are just pitiful.
6. Technically, this set has "reload variants," but in reality, it doesn't. It's just the same reload copied over, as this was the only way to have this mod cleanly overwrite NVAO without issue. To make up for the lack of variants, there's instead a couple of patches for popular replacers. If you plan on using the vanilla meshes/WMIM meshes, you can stop reading here; otherwise, click the spoiler below.
7. I created patches for popular replacers, namely 10mm Pistol and Friends and Classic 10mm Pistols (ESPLESS) . For and Friends , I gave Col. Autumn's 10mm Pistol unique attack animations, as xamie had the cool idea of changing it into a jury-rigged plasma gun. So, the attack animations look more like my Plasma Pistol attack animations. I also had to adjust basically the entire set to work better with the FO4-inspired "Combat Pistol," and add in some node animations for the little catch towards the barrel of the gun. Finally, I edited the .json file so that my patch will cleanly overwrite the one in and Friends : it should prefer my new animations now, but keep hitman 's where they fit better.
8. For Classic 10mm Pistols , this just involved adjusting the reload animations to make the mag-out/mag-in motions look better for that mesh (they clipped otherwise), and so that the left thumb actually hits the catch. I also ensured that you're not thumbing an invisible hammer when pulling out Col. Autumn's Pistol, as it has a very different mesh with Classic 10mm Pistols . While this set opts for a more realistic, streamlined approach to the pistols, I found that my animations looked really good with these meshes, despite being made for a blockier gun. As a bonus, this patch should also work with WAP , which otherwise would suffer from the same alignment issues described above.
9. Either patch requires you to install the mod your patching (duh), and then either one of the main files OR the standalone file. The patch should then overwrite the main file/standalone file.

1. 10mm SMG
2. My set in NVAO has some cool ideas, namely the way the bolt is slowly pushed back. However, after spending some time playing with it, I thought that the animations made the gun feel oddly heavy. The way the hand handles the magazine is cool, but kind of poorly done IMO, which was both a "skill issue" (as the kids say) and an issue of the mesh for this gun being absolutely god-fucking-awful.

1. The new reload for this gun has been remade to make the gun feel snappier and lighter, without losing a sense of weight and impact. I did redo the bolt "push" in favor of a bouncier pull. However, the old bolt push survives somewhat in the remade jam animation. The whole set receives some new sounds that better reflect how it looks; the original sounds were pretty limp IMO.

1. 12.7mm Pistol
2. Easily my least favorite of the sets included in NVAO and revised here. I respect what I was doing at the time, and it was an important push forward for my skills, but boy, has it aged poorly. This remakes the reloads, jams, and attack animations to be less harshy and shakey, and to be smooth and weighty instead. It does, of course, retain the spinning no combat equip. EDIT: I recommend you use the updated meshes created by the original mesh creator, awkardgardener , which can be found here .

1. Assault Rifle (TTW)
2. Honestly, probably the set that needed the least amount of changes, but that took me the longest regardless. The base animations changed the bolt punch to a pull (which took way more time than I care to admit), and that's based off a change in preference for me. However, I did take the time to give the drum mod and Wanda a proper set of heavy, weighty animations to match the increased clip size (the original set in NVAO does cover the drum mag, but they're very half-assed).

1. I also made some semi-unique animations for the Infiltrator for the hell of it.

1. All-in-all, the Assault Rifle family now has 8 full reloads between it's different variants (4 for the base, 2 for the drum/Wanda, and 2 for the Infiltrator). Each weapon variant also has it's own unique attack animation pattern, too.

1. Chinese Assault Rifle (TTW)
2. Another one that didn't really need it, except for the bolt pull, which was just awful. Now, it's not, and it communicates a pleasing set of weight. I also bumped the jam animations up from one to three.

1. Combat Shotgun (TTW)
2. Nothing new to say here--you can see the old description if you want my thoughts on this one.

1. Caravan Shotgun
2. Shamelessly inspired by this animation set for Halo: Infinite. Honestly, I still really like the set I made back in 2022 . It was, however, not very gameplay friendly. I tried to remedy this in NVAO by cutting down the closing of the stock, but it honestly just makes the whole animation look pretty bad IMO. So, I remade it from scratch, with an emphasis on making it feel a lot quicker and more aggressive. As a bonus, I've included the B42 inspect animation from the 2022 set, which is missing in NVAO.

1. Grenade Rifle
2. I remade this set in FNV Clean Animations - Redux , and I mentioned that I already hated what I did with it there. That was true. I started off good with the OG redux set, but got carried away, and it ended up an over-animated mess that also takes entirely too long. So, I opted for something smoother and quicker this time around. I also added in some new sounds, since the original sounds the game has kind of suck.

1. Laser Pistol
2. I hate the set I have in NVAO. That one is inspired by an animation I saw for the Fallout 4: New Vegas mod, which is in itself inspired by hitman's work on the weapon. Both of these are good animation sets; mine is a pale, shitty imitation, with way too much rest-time. It deserves to be sent to the ether.
3. I originally had a different idea for how this would look that would involve the more traditional left-hand-smacks-the-cell-open bit, but changed the whole set when I thought of an ammo inspect idea (that I didn't make) that could open the gun without smacking it. What I've ended up with is pretty unique, I feel, and also lead to me making a jam animation inspired by N64 cartridges (iykyk).
4. There's also now a proper full reload animation and a partial reload animation. Additionally, if you have the Vigilant Recycler Perk or the weapon mod that helps you recycle ammo for this weapon, a unique full reload animation will play.
5. Finally, I fixed a litany of iron sight attack issues present in NVAO.

1. Laser Rifle
2. Probably the best new set here. I don't really mind the idea behind the set in NVAO (and that I've more-or-less stuck to since I've started animating), but the execution was getting long in the tooth. In particular, the left hand covered too much of the gun when loading the cell, and it also clipped through the scope mod.
3. Well, that's all fixed now. The clipping is gone (after one million rebakes), and you can clearly see the cell being loaded. I also dropped the idea that the cell would fly out, requiring it instead to be manually removed or dumped out. This lead to there being a distinction between full reloads and partial reloads, with each of those getting a variant. The scope mod also receives it's own animations which adjust the angle so nothing is obscured by the scope during the reload. Most fun is the unique Vigilant Recyler perk animation, which sees you catching the cell that you dump out (and this also has a variant).
4. I think, all-in-all, this set now has 10 unique/semi-unique reload animations for it (edit: 12, as per the 1.1 update). It took forever and a lot of trial-and-error. The animations were originally pretty floaty and took a lot of revisions to get right. I'm most proud of this one, I think.
5. It also has a mostly new jam animation and, again, fixes some iron sights issues. It has a bunch of new sounds, too, that mix with vanilla.
6. The cell still spins and the attack animations still have recoil, and that is never going to change, so don't ask.
7. UPDATE 1.1: Non-scoped partial reloads are now (slightly) distinct from scoped partial reloads. If you have a good eye, you can see the new partial reloads here . This means that all scoped reload animations are now distinct from non-scoped reload animations, in addition to all of the other variants.

REQUIREMENTS

1. xNVSE
2. kNVSE
3. ISControl Enabler
4. HIPControl
5. JIP LN NVSE Plugin

COMPATIBILITY

1. Directly overwrites NVAO without issue.
2. If you're using my standalone sets, please disable the corresponding set first.
3. Out-of-the-box compatibility with any mod that does not specifically use kNVSE to edit the same animations.
4. Does not overwrite vanilla animations, allowing you to safely switch back.