Welcome, today we will be making this cute little fish come alive. Put the UltimaFish.bmp texture into your Morrowind/Data Files/Textures directory. First make sure that your model has a separate mesh for each body part. Also make sure that none of the body parts have the same name as this will cause major problems. The names are unimportant at the moment so feel free to call them what you like.

1. Position the creature properly. It is to be standing up, and should lie on top of the plane. Select All, and then rotate everything 90 degrees, and then move everything so it sits nicely at the origin. It doesn’t really matter of bits of the creature go underneath the plane. The plane is there to just remind you where the ground in Morrowind will be.

2. The next step is to merge the Root Bone from the file I have provided into your scene. This will give you the necessary Root Bone needed. So go up to File>Merge

Select my file Object.max. A merge box will pop up, and highlight Root Bone and click OK. You should now see a yellow diamond at the origin and this is your Root Bone.
2. All good? Great. Now, we are going to use the Bind button and bind parts of the mesh together. Now, remember, one, and only one part of the fish’s body can be bound to the Root Bone. Binding is to make a body part move forward too when another part moves forward. The body part we are going to bind to the Root Bone is the Body. So with the Bind tool on, click on the fish’s Body, and hold on the mouse button. Drag it over to the Root Bone, and then let go. If you have done it successfully, you would have seen the Root Bone turn white for a moment, and then returned to its yellow color.
Every other part of the Fish must now be bound to the Body. Basically, you must bind every other body part to the one body part which you bound to the Root Bone. Of course you don’t have to do this directly. For example, you can bind a hand to the forearm, and then forearm to the upperarm, and then have the upperarm bound to the body. This will also work.
Now, letz just whether you have done the binding correctly. Try moving the Root Bone. If the rest of the fish moves with it, then you will have done it correctly. If not, try it again.

Download pdf The Morrowind Animation Tutorial