I'm working on a very simple horse system that avoids all overhead from the available horse system by only changing the phenotype and tail appearance when you call your mount via the stable master outside towns or a widget.
No issues until I call a horse as a halfling or gnome and when my phenotype changes I'm inside of a giant horse haha.
How can I scale the appearance down (or up) of the tail to match the rider in this instance?
Thanks in advance for any advice!
The appearance scaling is defined in appearance.2da. Assuming you haven't changed that you shouldn't be having "horse-hat" as they call it. Just a side note - have you looked at theKrit's Alternate Horse Scripts and Proleric's Horse Guide (in the Lexicon now) - between the two, especially the scripts, you can just about eliminate issues involving the overhead.
I'm not getting "horse-hat" as they say, but rather a human sized horse on a halfline/gnome/dwarf.
Looking at the appearance.2da and the only scaling option i'm seeing is the SIZECATEGORY which I believe is just for attack and armor modifiers. Maybe my answer lies in the horse include. It's definitely using the same tail for all the races its just scaling it somehow when you go to mount it.
Tail scaling is controled by the WING_TAIL_SCALE column in appearance.2da. The size of the horse is derived from the scale factor in that column for the rider. When the PC "mounts" his horse, the phenotype of the PC is changed to one of the mounted phenotypes - the pheno chosen is dependent upon whether the mount is a normal horse or a jousting horse. A "tail," which corresponds to the mount, is then attached to the rider and scaled based upon the factor from the WING_TAIL_SCALE column in appearance.2da
So I figured out the scaling issue!
to scale the tail (mount) properly you need to set the [mounted] appearance for that race FIRST, then apply your normal/large phenotype, THEN set the tailtype to the mount you want.
By setting the PC to the mounted appearance of their race it then scales the tale mount to match.
Didn't have to mess with the wing tail scale 
Thanks for the replies Pstemarie!
Personally I'd much prefer full size horses, assuming the animations were tweaked to allow it.
I agree, it looks a little strange to see a dwarf on a tiny version of a horse.
Highly considering limiting horses to full sized races and using goats and the like for small races. Thoughts?
You could implement that by setting the X3_HORSE_RESTRICT_race flag on the mounts (see Lexicon).
The goat would still shrink (and horses would still get larger for half-orcs).
You can work around that shrinking to some extent by playing around with the mount model and mounted appearance scalings, so that's there's a closer match for the mounts each race is allowed to use. For example, you could make a goat which is the right size for a halfling (just by adding a scale directive to the decompiled model), then set the halfling mounted scaling to 100%, with a slightly different figure for gnome. You can also by-pass the mount and dismount animations, which will otherwise look odd.
However, a full set of mounting animations with no shrinking would be a huge amount of work, requiring skills that few of us possess, which is no doubt why the scaling system works like it does.
Yeah, because I'm using differently scaled mounts, goats, deer, etc. I'm bypassing all animations of mounting/dismount altogether.
Player blows their mount horn, screen fades black quickly, horn sounds, then fades back in and your mounted. Same for dismount. I realize this is on the PC only but I feel its much better than wonky mount/dismount animations.
The goats and deer are absolutely beautiful models but they look really bad when they are running while you're mounted. Is there any way to adopt the horse animations onto them? Their front legs are completely stiff like chopsticks haha. They look so good I'm willing to live with it but compared to the horse running animations they don't hold a candle. It's strange because the non-mount versions of those animals have just fine movement animations. Anyway to convert that over to mount version?
The "rigid legs" problem occurs when the tail's model type doesn't match the rider, preventing it from inheriting animations.
For part-based riders (model type P), the tail model needs to be type F, like horses. Typically, simple animals like deer or goats are model type S.
The solution is to make a type F version of the deer / goat model. I'm not sure exactly how that's done, though.
Hmmm. All my mounts I plan on using that aren't horses are the Q mounts. I looked in the appearance 2da and they are either set to S or FW.
I tried changing them to F just as a shot in the dark but it's the same animation with the stiff legs.
Think I'll throw a thread up in custom content and see if I get any bites on this issue. These Q mounts are so beautiful it's a shame they aren't animating correctly.
I'll drop Draygoth, their creator, a PM and see if he has any ideas as to what's up. I've never played around with the non-horse mounts.
I've been through several of the models and the internal node naming is incorrect for several of the objects within the scene and do not correlate to naming used in the h_ba animation supers. If the naming convention is wrong, the nodes will not animate correctly - they'll be locked at the origin throughout the animation frames.
The naming needs to be corrected. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to do it. I'm far too busy with work, school, and the restaurant my wife and I have purchased.
That gives me hope that there might be a chance these beautiful mounts will animate correctly someday! I have no idea how to go about doing this. Hopefully Draygoth will come through.
Grats on the restaurant!
<Perhaps..... 
.>
In order to save some time,
Which specific models are affected?
... ... ...
If you are really desperate you could fix selected ones using notepad....... 
Its deeper than just a notepad fix. For example, on the griffin, the front forearms/shins are part of the feet. To fix it correctly, the foot and forearm/shin would need to be separated. Furthermore, the griffins head isn't animating either.
In any event, I've laid out the hierarchy of the horse animation super - for the parts related to the mount:
rootdummy_h
As you can see the hierarchy is pretty simple. I'm going to redo the griffon and see what happens.
<Chants..>
Pstemarie! Pstemarie! Pstemarie!
I believe in you...
@ Pstemarie,
<I just opened the c_Gryphon_mt
It is immediately obvious where the internal naming convention deviates from the h_ba hierarchy>
What I meant to imply was that if you don't have the time, I do (perhaps).
Which models (beyond the gryphon) need some TLC?
The Q project is of such import to the whole community,
that if you or Draygoth are occupied, I feel it is important to step up.
In max, the renaming process is quite straight forward (if a bit tedious).
If there are more complex problems, I can address them too.
I shall look for word of your success with the gryphon....
I'll mount up and see which ones are in need. Should have a report back soon
Yiikes !
Thank you for checking all those.
I did not realize that they may all be bugged....
Ok...
Do you have a preference as to which you might need/ want first, Giantsword?
As Santa's expected ambush recedes, I will attempt to dig into this list.
Hopefully, they are all a name/hierarchy issue.
I forsee some potential for skinmesh / animation problems too...
If that is true, then the final output may take a while longer than anticipated.
Everything will have to be run past Pstemarie too.
[Hopefully Draygoth will surface with his source models at/in hand]
Joyeux Noel !!
Hey Killmonger!
I was just being thorough with which models were in need of TLC 
Didn't mean to make that sound like a giant to-do list haha!
Here is my list of mounts I plan on using for sure, in order of priority if you can only do one or two, start at the top of the list
"Q_Goat_Black" GoatB_mt - if doing only one goat, do black
"Q_Deer_mount2" c_deer2_mt if doing only one deer, do grey
"Q_Wolf_grey_mount" c_Wolf_mt
"Q_Fox_Red_mount" c_fox_mt
Griffon, unarmored, not sure if its "Q_Gryph_mount" or "Q_Gryph3_mount"
"(Mount) Lizard: Subterranean" c_SubLiz_mt (too cool, BUT looks very difficult to animate properly since its on its hind legs.. do a black or brown bear instead of this one if it's causing a lot of problems)
I'm good with these, a Black bear being runner up but like I said if you can only do a few, start with a goat and a deer.
I'm starting a Norse themed module so the above would fit really well in my setting. Imagine small races riding those beautiful goats and druids on deerback! 
Thanks in advance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<No worries>
Draygoth has re-surfaced (see Q mount animation thread)
<But patience may be required....>
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