erxv;n10842231 said:that is literally how it works by default in vanilla... the animation only plays when in water with a sword out.
You're right, I tested that around Skellige river and many rivers in W3 are not considered bodies of water, I keep forgetting that. Does this animation have a specific name in any of the w2anims files? If that is so, then have you tried to copy/paste Animation, LineExtraction, and Buffer chunk data from that animation onto normal sword-holding exploration animation? I would be happy to try myself, but it is quite unproductive and overly time-consuming to try to compare modded w2beh files with vanilla ones to figure out what was modded when someone can just tell you to speed up the process. I can't promise success, but I will definitely try, given that my assumption of that water-walking animation has a specific name linked to a w2anims file.