There is Maigret's Raven Companion. The same person also made a bunch of other companion mods as well.

SubRosa's mention of that mod reminds me. I used that one - and several other of Maigrets delightful companions. TocToc is recommended by me!

Wow! wow! Woiw! Wow! Thanks! Perfect!

:hugs:

That was in serious consideration for inclusion in Evergloam. I ended up just using Mr Siika's ravens circling over the gatehouse, as that was a free-to-use resource.

I loved a lot of Mr Siika's resources; he had some amazing stuff in Oblivion!

Does anybody know why invisibility spells in Skyrim trigger people's hearing? And is there a way to turn this off.

Let me explain. My ice witch has 91 in Sneak, and can cast Muffle without anybody knowing. But if she casts Invisibility, enemies always notice, and immediately begin searching around, and they generally won't stop searching for a good, long while. By the time they do stop, it's usually almost time to cast another Invisibility spell. What's the point of being invisible then?

I wonder if there's a way to make casting Invisibility not so noticeable? I searched at Nexus, but the only mods I've seen so far overkill the game... they make the pc permanently invisible for instance, even if we activate something.

It is because of a setting in the Magic Effect. Open the Ck and go to InvisibillityFFSelf. You will see a Casting Sound Level drop down box on the right of the window. It is normally set to Loud. That is what attracts attention when you cast it. Change it to Silent and NPCs should not notice it.

Ninja'd! Yes, thank you SubRosa, I figured this out and was coming here to edit my earlier post. That's an easy fix.

Hi. I really want to make the Dawnstar Sanctuary darker. I tried going into the CK, going into the Cell window and into Dawnstar's sanctuary cell and deleting all the lightbulbs I could find. You know, I would highlight the yellow lightbulb symbol, right-click > delete it. Doesn't seem to have made any difference though, any ideas why?

I sure hope someone who knows more than I comes along to help. That said. . .

King Coin made Buffy a custom apartment in the Mystic Archives long ago and I recall it being too bright. King Coin coached me through dimming it down. As I recall, the answer was not individual light sources but adjusting the overall lighting in the space. I'm really sorry that I just don't remember any more detail though. The only thing I can offer is to look for an overall setting for the cell.

You need to change the ambient light level in the cell. It is not something you see when simply selecting the cell in the Cell View Window. Instead go up to the Toolbar -> World -> Cells. It will pop up a window set on all the Interior Cells in the game. Find the Sanctuary and select it. Then click on the Lighting tab to the right. You can change it to use a different template there, or manually change the color values for the ambient light. The lower the numbers, the darker it will be.

OH okay sweet, thanks you two!

I have a question about the CS for Oblivion.

So..I downloaded the CS from Bethesdas site...so the question I have is:
Do I have to use stuff in my mods thats already in the esm files or is there a CS CD like there is for Morrowind?

Im used to Modding in Morrowind using the CS CD so thats why Im asking. I dont know if that exists for Oblivion or not.

.


[Moved by moderator from Black Bows to this thread]

The Oblivion CS is just like the one that came on CD for Morrowind, with a few enhancements. The game content was all delivered on the game CD or download, and the CS just gives you the tools to manipulate them. You'll need a few external tools, too, if you want to create some types of new content, but you probably already have things like Blender, and the GIMP, if you worked with Morrowind. The file formats, .nif, .kf, .dds etc. are the same, but Oblivion uses later versions than Morowind did, so the same file may need a pass through the tool to convert it up before you can use it in the newer game.

Oblivion starts off with single-mesh bodies, so something like Better Bodies isn't needed, but of course there are several mesh replacements available. OBSE takes extension of the script language a lot further than was done for Morrowind, and the vanilla scripting language had a lot more in the first place. It adds a lot of AI - especially scheduled wandering of NPC's, so there's a lot of new stuff associated with that.

Consider downloading CSE (Construction Set Extender) which enhances the CS in several ways, the most useful of which (in my opinion) is to use assets directly from the .bsa files, without having to extract them first.

There's a huge amount of modders' resources - new meshes, textures, etc. - available alongside the mods at the Nexus, so you're not restricted to game content at all.

With Fallout 3, I am wanting to find the GECK so I can edit a few things, but where is it? I got this game from Steam I think, does Steam automatically throw these files in some weird location? Urgh....

I see there is a link to download GECK stuff on this page. If Steam doesn't automatically give us this program, does anybody know if what's on this page is okay to use? Stupid question, I know, but I'm at work now and I can't test any of this on my work laptop.

I don't have FO3 from Steam, so I am not sure. I got the GECK from that very page. Try and see if it works.

This is peripherally about modding.

On my new rig I'm auditioning ENBoost. One downside is that Construction Set Extender will not load if one of ENBoost's files is in the Oblivion directory/folder. I can of course simply move the file in question when I want to use CSE, then move it back when done. I got to thinking that I'd like a batch file to automate this for me. Knowing next to nothing about such things I came up with several scenarios, the best of them likely not possible. What I will settle for is one batch file that, when its desktop icon is clicked, will do the following:

1) if the file in question is in "E:\Games\Oblivion" it will be moved to the already existent directory "E:\<file name> Temp Storage".

2) if the file in question is in "E:\<file name> Temp Storage" it will be moved back to "E:\Games\Oblivion".

This way I can make do with only one batch icon on the desktop. Hit it once before launching CSE. Hit it again after closing CSE. Thus the file should always be where I need it to be, except when I forget to click the icon, which is likely to occur as often as not.

(My probably not possible idea was to somehow modify the CSE launcher batch to move the file out of the Oblivion directory before launching itself, then after the program closes to automatically move it back. Problem is, I don't see phase two as doable.)

I've done a bit of research on the web on how to implement the hopefully "doable" batch. Problem is, I'm too ignorant to know what to look for. I hope some of you more knowledgeable folks can offer assistance.

Thanks

I installed an animation mod into RG3's game which was supposed to give her a more "feminine" walk and idle poses. I manually installed it. Tried to start my game, all psyched up, and it was instant CTD.

No prob. Obviously we're not using that one. Went back into my Modded Oblivion folder, only to find THE ENTIRE DATA FOLDER WAS MISSING. I mean, completely gone. I triple-checked this. Maybe my eyes are going bad. Nope. It's just not there. And it wasn't in the trash either. Yeah, I checked the trash.

It's a long story, but fortunately I keep a backup of my entire Oblivion folder, that really helped. And it just got backed up five days ago. Phew. But it wasn't a case of simply copy/pasting the entire folder over; no, my game kept crashing on-startup. So from that point, I started from scratch. Erased my entire game, and started all over, installing from discs. Then I made sure all the files which are in my backup folder (not the Data folder, but the Oblivion folder itself) were all there. Then I copy/pasted the Data folder from backup. Still CTD on-startup.

I was about to bang my head into a wall by this point, and was thinking of building my entire mod-list all over, installing them all from archives (which I also save). I actually DID start doing this. Then I was like "DUH".... all I have to do is toggle my entire mod list off, except Oblivion.esm, Knights.esm, and Shivering Isles. Load a save taken just after the sewer was exited. And this worked. Phew.

Good thing I remembered this trick (which one of you taught me years ago). It would take probably two days to install everything I've got from their archives. Which is ridiculous. Which moves into the "why bother?" territory.

From that point on, I began to suspect the problem is probably caused by something small. I began installing anywhere from 5 to 10 mods, BOSSed them, started my game up, until I finally found the culprit. It was an old MMM plug-in that I don't even use anymore, but was still in my backup folder. When I copy/pasted this folder over, it was now being installed, when really, I don't use this plug-in anymore. Getting my game working again took probably about an hour from that point. And see? I knew it was something small.

I still don't know what the [censored] happened to my original Data folder though. How can an ENTIRE folder just disappear like that???? My mod list is finally over 200, I think it is nearly 230, which is still nowhere near the 255 limit. *shrugs*

That is indeed a mystery but I'm glad you got it fixed, Renee! Good thing you have become such a computer wizard

I couldn't have said it better than Mirocu did; really good detective work you did to find the problem!

Backups are beautiful thing.

Which reminds me I bought a copy of ToDo Backup for my primary PC a few weeks ago. (I've long used it on what is now my secondary PC, but the license is for that one PC only. Cheap as ToDo is when on sale I don't mind having a copy on both rigs.) Made a system backup right away, but haven't yet got around to backing up anything else. (I blame Mashinky.) Definitely need to back up my Oblivion partition, though on this machine my Oblivion installation likely isn't finalized and might see drastic change. Or not. (BTW, I've read good things about the latest version of Oblivion Reloaded as far as increased game stability goes. I still run v6.2 so can't verify those claims.)

So, hello everyone. :wave: I'm going to be modding Morrowind pretty soon. So what are some good...

1). mods which change the way menus look? I want the fonts to be more gothic.

2). Something which adds some different appearance options for the chargen ... you know... something which makes the selections more pliable.

3). Something which adds different hairstyles too. My first MW PC character will be based on Marquis de Sade, and they wore all kinds of silly hairstyles back then.

4). I'm wanting to find something which adds more clothing, too. ghastley will have plenty of clothing options I'm sure. My Marquis is going to go for upper-class stuff, like de Sade wore.

And just in general, what are the starting mods people usually get? Such as, an unofficial patch and any script extenders? .... and (sorry) also what sort of manager options are there? I'm not going to install too many mods for this game. How is Wrye Mash? Or can I use something simpler than WM?

Hmm... maybe I should just go with Mash actually. Since I'm starting this game from scratch. But what other options are there, just so I'll know.

I used a mod to make my character pretty; (or wouldn't have been able to stand playing it, lol); and I used one mod that gave her only one hair style; but it was AWESOME. Also, the animations were so bad = used a mod that gave my character a much better walk/run animation and a mod that gave the player a much better and more realistic combat. Then I found two nice house mods; one in Seyda Neen and the other in Balmora.

If I could get my laptop running; I could tell you exactly what mods I used on her and even post some screenshots of her (she was gorgeous!) = but they were all posted on Photobucket; which hijacked all my screenshots and won't let me get them back. The originals are on a laptop I can't get onto since the keyboard broke, urk.

But if I am not mistaken, I got the mod advice from SubRosa. She knows any and every way to make a gorgeous character!

The main ones I use for looks are:
Better Bodies & High Resolution Female Body Textures for Better Bodies
Freedom of Aesthetics
Corean_Hair_for_all_TESIII_Races
Rens_Oblivion_Hair_For_Morrowind_10
Aurore's Hairstyle
+ every Emma's head pack you can find.

I use Wrye Mash. I recall having some issues installing it, because of old installers not running properly on a new OS. The more manula the install, the more likely it will work.

Then 1. - haven't tried that, but I believe they exist.

2. The Morrowind game does not include head morphs, so chargen is a question of selecting between pre-shaped heads. There are mods that provide new head meshes and textures to add to the choice.

3. Most of the head mods also come with new hair meshes to fit them, and there are a few more hair choices. One major thing to note, though, is that ears may be part of the head, or part of the hair. You don't want to combine mods that work in opposite ways, or you'll have either no ears or four of them. Also some hair is rigid helmet style, and some is rigged to more than just the head bone. The latter kind is harder to find, as it's a lot more work. They all include ears, IIRC.

4. The clothing mod you pick will have to be compatible with the body mod, as they slice up the mesh in different ways. Clothing replaces body parts, so if you want to see skin past the clothing (or through it), the clothing has to replace an invisible part. Better Bodies and Roberts both do that, but they're not the same selection.

Each one has body parts like "left knee" that are unused, while the body mesh has "right knee" including both sides. Everything exists in left/right pairs so that pauldrons and gloves can be mis-matched, but there are no half-pants, asymmetric boots etc. so a lot of left halves were "unused". The original bodies had each part separate.

Most clothing mods use a small number of meshes, with a much larger number of partly-transparent textures. Once you've extracted the meshes, you can paint a new clothing item on whichever mesh fits the bill. So all fitted pants/ undies etc. use one mesh, but with more or less transparent. Same for dresses, shirts, and so on. The choice of mesh really depends on which body parts it replaces.

---

I have a number of unpublished hair styles that I made for specific characters, that exist in only one shade of blonde, or whatever, or for only one race (especially styles that include ears that must match the skin). For example, Diablita's hair includes red ears, and won't work for anyone else.

Also, You can't wear a large dress over a small body if the texture uses transparency. Not all clothing will fit each body. I use about six different sizes. Some body mods try to replace all the NPC bodies as well as the player character's, but that's not a requirement. You can have a race-specific body, and you can also create a new race if you want a unique one - again Diablita is an example.

Angeline and Diablita are available as a companion mod, if you want to try it.

mALX: Photobucket is horrible, right? It used to be so easy to use, but now it's just annoying. Even their plan to get rid of ads ... they don't give yearly plans apparently, only monthly, which is annoying because for me, this would mean linking some sort of recurring monthly fee to my bank account. So if somebody hacks into PB...

SubRosa & ghastman: Thanks! Morrowind indeed sounds way different from later games, with all the "left knee" and "ear" differences, etc. Good lord. Anyways, thanks, I appreciate it!

Agreed on PB.

Yes, Morrowind is VERY different to mod. There is some system of naming files you HAVE to do or your changes don't take effect and it is like you never did them. And yes, for my character's face I'm sure I used one of Emma's heads. I don't remember the name of the body pack, but I think it actually could have been a Roberts! She had an awesome body.

I couldn't have played without the walk/run fixes; it was painful to watch the Khajiit walking without that mod; and the player character's run was ridiculous. And you will def need a combat fix; because without it the combat is turn-based and so irritating it is unbelievable.

Also, characters don't sit in Morrowind; you have to have a pair of legs in a chair that they stand close to for sitting. I downloaded a mod for that; because I sure couldn't do it.

Some of the very best mods for Morrowind are not on Nexus; they are on some other site. There is a Moderator over at the Official Bethesda forums that made some spectacular Morrowind Mods = Princess Stomper. Her mods were wonderful roleplay mods like yours are in Oblivion. (in other words, she didn't make the cosmetic/walk-run/or combat fix mods) - but she knows the name of that site. I think if you Google Morrowind Mods you will find it. It had like over 200 good mods for Morrowind; while Nexus had dwindled down to like 30. (But I think you can get Emma's Heads at Nexus).

I was just beginning to get the hang of modding Morrowind and how to name the files, etc. = when Subrosa gave me a list of mods to make my Skyrim character look playable. I went back to Skyrim and started learning its modding quirks instead; never went back to Morrowind modding. It was too much work; but I will say this = when you did mod your game in Morrowind, it made such a huge difference that it was most def rewarding.

I will probably get an animation mod, just because it'd be cool to see improvements there (I play on Xbox currently). The combat doesn't really bother me though. I'm already used to it.




Wait, are you saying there are mods to make NPCs sit down? Or for our character to sit down? I thought sitting was impossible in this game.



Yes, I remember Princess Stomper. I don't think she's at the new Beth forums though.

I don't need to change too much in Morrowind, in fact, the list of stuff I'm looking for above is only half my list. I've already found some other stuff. I found a mod which allows us to apply poison to weapons, for instance, and one which causes merchants to lock their doors at night. About 4 or 5 others.

I'll try googling Morrowind Mods though, maybe the site you're thinking of will come up.



Yikes. The file-naming thing sounds odd! Hope I don't get stuck on that for hours and hours.

File naming rules are really fun. Especially when you want to add a new race - like Diablita = Red Elf. Even as NPC-only, she had to have her own body parts, etc, and entries in all sorts of places in the CS that you wouldn't think mattered.

I don't recall if there were any "required order" issues in clothing/bodies, but sometimes in TES games the entries in one list have to match one-for-one with those in another list, or you get errors. House-building in Skyrim is like that. The list of building pieces (a formlist) has to match a property list of the quest.

---

Morrowind mods existed before the Nexus, which really got built as the repository for Oblivion mods, and diversified from there. Great House Fliggerty, and Morrowind Mod History are the sites with most mods. Emma's are available from her own site.

---

Something I forget to draw attention to earlier. The file naming thing means that each race can have a different body, which is obvious for the Argonians, and Khajiit, but not so much for the others. But if you want Nords to be bulky, and Wood Elves slender, it's much easier in Morrowind than Oblivion. The down side is clothing then has to be race-specific to fit the various bodies in use.

Mixing and matching is possible, but mind-destroying.

Nice. I like that you think this is "fun!" I don't understand most of this naming thing, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. I always do. Any tutorials you can point me toward?

thanks for linking to Morrowind Mods and other info. I'll probably be getting into modding Morrowind around Halloween + my birthday.

ghastley, or anybody who might know. I am trying to write a timer script for Skyrim, one which will count days passed (or if there's only hourly versions, I'll go with that). I've got timer scripts down pat for Oblivion and Fallout. I think I hijacked some Bethesda script to learn how to do this.

Skyrim though, it's boggling. I'm going to copy/paste the script which goes along bed rentals, found in the GenericDailog quest > Player Dalogue tab. "Sure thing, it's yours for a day." There must be some sort of timer for this, but I'm just not seeing it.

----------------------------------------------------
;BEGIN FRAGMENT CODE - Do not edit anything between this and the end comment
;NEXT FRAGMENT INDEX 1

Scriptname TIF__00079B1A Extends TopicInfo Hidden

;BEGIN FRAGMENT Fragment_0
Function Fragment_0(ObjectReference akSpeakerRef)
Actor akSpeaker = akSpeakerRef as Actor
;BEGIN CODE
(akspeaker as RentRoomScript).RentRoom(GetOwningQuest() as DialogueGenericScript)
;END CODE
EndFunction
;END FRAGMENT

;END FRAGMENT CODE - Do not edit anything between this and the begin comment

-------------------

In the "Scripts End" box I'm seeing this:

(akspeaker as RentRoomScript).RentRoom(GetOwningQuest() as DialogueGenericScript)

No timer though? Ugh. Skyrim is so tough to figure out.

---------------

One more. Hulda has a Rent Room Script which looks like this...

Scriptname RentRoomScript extends Actor Conditional
{script for anyone who rents a room}

ObjectReference Property Bed Auto
{bed to rent}

WIFunctionsScript Property WI Auto
{Pointer to WIFunctionsScript attached to WI quest}

; rent room or clear rental

function RentRoom(DialogueGenericScript pQuestScript)
Bed.SetActorOwner(Game.GetPlayer().GetActorBase())
RegisterForSingleUpdateGameTime (pQuestScript.RentHours)
Game.GetPlayer().RemoveItem(pQuestScript.Gold, pQuestScript.RoomRentalCost.GetValueInt())
; used to conditionalize innkeeper dialogue
SetActorValue("Variable09", 1.0)

WI.ShowPlayerRoom(self, Bed)
endFunction

function ClearRoom()
; debug.trace(self + " ClearRoom called on RentRoomScript - room rental expired")
; clear ownership - either rental expired or I died

Bed.SetActorOwner((self as Actor).GetActorBase())
UnregisterForUpdateGameTime()

; used to conditionalize innkeeper dialogue

SetActorValue("Variable09", 0.0)
endFunction

; when this is called, reset the ownership on the bed

event OnUpdateGameTime()
ClearRoom()
endEvent

; if I die, clear the room rental as well, to stop the timer

Event OnDeath(Actor akKiller)
ClearRoom()
endEvent


-------------------------
"event OnUpdateGameTimer" seems to be where the answer lies, but how do I modify this timer to work for .. let's say 8 days?

Dangit I just remembered something.... properties! I need to look into those. Frickin' Skyrim.

The line
RegisterForSingleUpdateGameTime (pQuestScript.RentHours)
is the one that starts the timer, and the operand is the duration. RentHours is a property of the script which was passed in on the call to this function as pQuestScript. And that's probably Hulda (who has a script associated with her.)

You'd have to track down where that script was placed on her, which could be her Actor form, or as an Alias of a quest, and look at the instance properties to see where RentHours was set. In most cases, you go all the way back to a global variable, because there was no override made at any of the opportunities to do so. In this case, you already found that she got the script as the speaker of the dialog topic to rent the room. The script was DialogGeneric, and the property could be overridden via the Scripts tab of the quest. You know the name is RentHours, and you can set a new value by changing the Global variable, to affect all rentals, or overriding it in an individual quest.

DialogGeneric gets used by all the rentals, but any quest that involves one can use it directly, or replace it with one that extends it to do something extra. Just like RentRoomScript extends Actor, because only some characters need the extra dialogue. For example, you could create a RentHorseScript that extends Actor, and has provision for returning the horse to any stable. Every time you override, you get the chance to establish a new default value for the script properties, and scripts get used in a LOT of places. You need to look on the Actor forms to see if the actor gets one ab initio, then on the Alias tab in a quest to see if they get a temporary one while they're involved in the quest, and the quest, topic, and other fragments can add one for a single dialog line or action. Story Manager can also invoke scripts when events take place in the world, like the player levelling up, moving to a different location etc., and these can all communicate by firing events another script is listening for. E.g. if the room owner dies, this script gets the OnDeath notification, as that ends the contract.

Awesome, hey thanks! I'll get back to you, let you know if I figured my idea as workable or not.

Why are very specific off-numbers used for distances in Beth games? 256 instead of 250 or 260 for instance. 512 instead of 500 or 510. 1024 instead of 1000, etc?

Not the NPC's, but for the Player to "sit."



Aw, that is too bad! I really liked Princess Stomper!




Yes, it is very irritating. I think you have to name the files the full path or something = can't remember how it went, but it was really weird because if you didn't do it then the game wouldn't be able to find those files. And retexturing in Morrowind was the worst for that file naming bug; meaning my most fun thing to do in modding was kaput.









I'm pretty sure the room rental "day" is global; you have to point to the global time. Search for it in ALL the scripts for another Inn and you should find it. (or search for the global time of one day and then see whether that is the one the other Inns pointed to).










That's what I'm talking about, but when Ghastley says it = much clearer and more informative!










Metric size of each standard item in the game. (example: when building a house floor = each square floor piece measures 256 x 256; so you just add 256 to the axis that first floor piece is sitting in any direction and you can lay a perfect floor for your house. (you don't have to try to set the piece; just type in the new axis in the piece's edit to move the piece to the right spot).

And 256 + 256 = 512; hence the 512,

Powers of 2. 256 is 2^8, 512 is 2^9, and 1024 is 2^10. You can count to 1023 on your fingers if you do it in binary.

I still don't get it, but that's okay. This seems to be a computer thing as well, I don't know. I mean, I get that 256 is half of 512 which is half of 1024 and so on. But why even start with an "off' number like 12 (512). True metric always is based on 10. 10 millimeters = a centimeter for instance.

But it seems to be a computer thing too. Like, with memory. The Playstation 3 has 256 MB of RAM, not 250. Xbox 360 has 512, not 510. I see these numbers associated with personal computers too.

That symbol you just used ghastley the caret. ^ that's new for me. I didn't grow up with computers, so the answer lies there I guess. I just did a google search too, which began talking about more computer stuff. I didn't grow up learning computer stuff.



Cool thanks mALX. That's another thing which confuses me, what does "global" mean? I've been going back through the Creation Kit tutorials though. Hopefully I learn all this stuff. So much easier in earlier games, where usually what I'd do was find a script associated with a quest I wanted to emulate, and then just literally copy/paste that script and mess around in-game until I figured how to make it work the way I wanted to

When I started with computers, I actually worked with machines that operated in decimal, but it was inefficient that way. (One of them could compute directly in pounds, shillings and pence, using bases of 12 and 20!). These days it's binary all the way up, but we typically group the bits four at a time and use hexadecimal (base 16) for notation. So x'A = 10, x'B = 11, x'C = 12, x'D = 13, x'E = 14, and x'F = 15, and x'10 = 16. (More notation there: -x' meaning the rest of this string is hexadecimal digits).

256 = 2^8 = 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2 (8 two's multiplied together, different from multiplying 2 eights, so order is important) which is the number of different values in a byte of memory (the values run from 0-255, not 1-256). Most computers address memory at the byte level. An address represents a byte of memory, not a larger chunk.

Some of the old machines had word addressing and memory was in up to 36-bit chunks. And since 36 doesn't divide by 8, they typically displayed things in octal (three biits at a time) rather than the hex used now. Notation for octal varied. There was o' like x', but also a convention that a leading zero meant octal. so 123 = 0173.

Transferring data between machines wasn't easy if one was a byte machine, and another a word machine.

Bold: That is exactly how I was doing it too. I would deconstruct a quest from dialogue, to quest stages, to scripts, to every single NPC associated and their scripts. I had to teach myself that C++ in Oblivion to make scripts do what I wanted them to do; but every one of mine had a basis in some script I found in Oblivion's game files.

I was struggling with an Innkeeper and collecting rent /that day thing too; but when I checked the global "day" I found where all the Innkeepers were pointing to it in their scripts = FINALLY got it working right; but still couldn't get her to say the dialogue = I sent it to Ghastley and he sent it back like within a minute = corrected. I had put a space in the voice files folder name; and didn't have a space in the quest name,

Ghastley and SubRosa know things I could never even begin to learn about computers; and never will be able to learn = thank goodness they are kind and patient enough to keep helping!



** Edit:

In the Oblivion Construction set, Global is in one of the drop down lists at the top of the Construction Set upper Left side = I don't think it is under Data, but it is in one close to Data. Look at all the drop down lists for the word "Global."


*** Edit again = I am pretty sure global time is like GMT time in the real world. It is the time the entire world of Tamriel was using so there would be uniformity.

That is my best guess; but I'd say there is a real answer from someone who does know what it is. I just know I found it on the Innkeeper for renting rooms; and that is the first time I noticed it. Then I dug through the globals to see who else used it = which knowing you, I would bet you will too, I didn't know much going in or coming out; but had a lot of fun and my Oblivion mods were a blast and worked great for me, lol.

Holy Crap!!!!! You never cease to amaze me, I can't even begin to fathom even a smidgeon of what you probably learned before you were ten!!!!!! You are amazing, Ghastley !!!! Where the hell is that bowing down emoticon?

Okay, now I get it. It's two multiplied over and over. Phew. The 255 thing also makes sense now too. That's the top number mods we can run without bashing them, right?

When was this by the way, that you first started working with computers?



See I've been able to make timers work in Oblivion and Fallout 3. I forget where I got the script that I use, it could be the one which is used when Martin spends several days deciphering that book during the Main Quest. I don't think I looked at innkeepers specifically. But this is the timer I use all the time...



That script shows up again and again in my mods, I can practically write it in my sleep, ha ha. Skyrim though, eludes me. More on Skyrim in a minute.



Mm hmm, this is how I feel sometimes (about modding, not so much computers), except that I get afraid I'll annoy the community if I ask too many questions. So everything I learned was mostly on my own. Usually when I ask questions, I walk away more confused than before I asked!

Instead, I started off with tutorials on YouTube and text-based lessons from Bethesda and TES Alliance, which are written mostly in plain English. But after awhile, those tutorials don't help anymore because now I've got ideas that nobody has ever written up before. That is why all the instructions in my modding thread are so ... I dunno... basic, I guess. Any modding dummy should be able to come along and figure stuff out, I hope.




Awesome, this helps a lot. I think you're talking about the main toolbar (the one that's always underneath the Object, Cell, and Render windows).

So "global time" is similar to what we call military time here in the U.S.? 18 instead of 6 PM, for instance.



Closest thing Chorrol has is the "good job" emoticon.

Well, I ran into trouble with my Skyrim rentable flat idea. I'm at work now so I don't entirely know what I did wrong. Pretty sure I attached the RentRoom Script to an NPC I made (this NPC will be the one in Markarth who will rent a flat to the PC), and I'm pretty sure that's all I did. I did not modify the script itself.

But now, whenever a standard Bethesda innkeeper rents me a room, everything works: the innkeeper takes money, says all the right things, might even show the character where the room is, but the bed remains "owned." So obviously it's something I messed up, but I'm not sure what. I removed the script from my custom NPC and even got rid of the entire quest (I think...) which was not even halfway written. Problem persists.

In a way, I'm glad this happened. I'm looking forward to figuring it out. But GOOD LORD.

I got my first programming job with IBM at the start of 1969. Almost 50 years!!! (and I haven't retired yet). But I'd had access to some before that, while at "high school" (UK equivalent). My father was a programmer - not with IBM, but a customer.

I am pretty sure that "GameDaysPassed" in that script is pointing to the Global. Find the drop down list with Global on it; and search for "GameDaysPassed" which would probably have a value of 1.00 by default.

** Yes, the main toolbar with all the clickable buttons on it, lol. The drop down lists are at the top of the page; start at the LEFT side of the screen (I said "on the Right side" before; but I meant Left = sorry about that; urk!)



In Oblivion; you had to rename the script so it didn't effect/affect any other Innkeepers; and as a backup protection = point to your NPC as the ONLY one to use that script/dialogue/etc. = and the re-naming/ownership of the bed was typed in the quest form as a "Result" of the script (if I remember correctly).

(In Skyrim, you did have to add your NPC's name to some list I think; but I'm not positive that you want to for this because it may end up making a "dirty edit" with your mod = which it sounds like is what you have right now).

Skyrim keeps a lot of script stuff in the save game that Oblivion didn't. When I was developing Orc Hearthfires, I had to start a completely new game every time I changed anything, right back at the cart ride. It got tiresome very quickly, and I added an alternate start mod just to speed it up. That was because Hearthfires quests are "Start Game Enabled" meaning they start running when you start a game, or add the mod to an existing one, and all the quest properties are now baked into the save, and can't be changed.

You can change the value of a property later, but not the type (or existence) of the property. I.e. you can't add/remove them, or change a static item to an activator, etc.

Some of the script logic may also be copied into the save, to make things even harder to diagnose.

Wow, 1969. That's when I was born. No wonder you're so knowledgeable, you've seen computers from almost their very inception. Like, did you work with systems that were the size of tool sheds?

I have good news to report. I wrote a Skyrim quest last year with a very peculiar idea: when the player speaks to Lucan (Riverwood trader guy) I made it so that every once in a while, he will give us a quest, to rid a bandit boss from Embershard Mine. The way this quest works, Lucan will greet the player saying "Well, they've come back..." but the difference between this quest and a lot of others is he won't always say this. My greeting is random, and gets mixed in with all the other standard Beth greetings ("The Riverwood Trader has everything you need in a general store..." etc.) I made it this way so the guy won't always say my greeting, and when he does, it feels sort of natural, because maybe the bandits have been bothering him for awhile, so he finally brings up the issue.

Last year when I was playtesting, I noted that my greeting does indeed show up rarely, a little too rarely matter of fact. I was not able to fix this. And then this year, I did more playtesting and found that my greeting was not showing up at all.

But, this past weekend, Sir Vyvoor went to RT to do some buying + selling, and lo, there it was. "Well, they've come back...." And then from there on, the entire quest just worked as it's supposed to. PC goes to Embershard, kills the boss I added, Lucan gives PC a note, PC takes note to Whiterun, where a steward I added then takes the note, and gives a reward.



Okay. Cool, just learned something new.

Hey, you were making an inn too, right? Did that ever go up on Nexus or anywhere else?


Naw, it's not a dirty edit I don't think. I've LOOTed my game a couple times this weekend, and did clean up a few mods that were dirty. LOOT did not point to any of mine.



Weird. Good lord that sounds annoying.


Yeah, I'm sure I've screwed things up, lol. Maybe I should go back to an earlier save and see if the inn stuff still works. Then I'll know it's baked into the save. Either that, or there's something I changed on-the-fly without really thinking about it. If I can't fix it, there's always console commands to SetOwnership to various beds in inns.

Awesome!!! Congrats on it working so well, that is fantastic!!!



If it changed all the vanilla Inn rental beds so you can no longer sleep in them after renting the room; that is considered a "dirty" edit. It won't matter for your own personal game; of course (but you won't be able to upload that mod for others to use unless you fix that).

I made one for my own game that was supposed to add flirtatious and seductive dialogue to my Inn mod's version of Eyja toward two male NPC's (that I added to the game) after 10 p.m. nightly in the Inn's tavern. (she would drink heavily for several hours, then start hitting on the male NPC's I added to the game). = this was just added to my game, not the version I uploaded to Nexus.

Well, something about my timing didn't work; and even though I had the dialogue named as just hers = I heard a different Nord girl using it early in the morning in one of the Mages Guilds = to me, when the dialogue was supposed to be pointed toward males only.

That was a "dirty" edit, but because it only affected my own personal game = didn't matter; as long as I didn't mind. If I was going to upload it to Nexus; I'd have had to fix that before offering it to anyone else.

Yeah it felt pretty amazing when that greeting showed up. It was at a moment when I was not even thinking about it, whereas last year, of course I'm thinking about that greeting showing up quite a lot, because I'm wanting to see if everything works. That entire quest repeats itself, which is something I've done in Oblivion and FO3 numerous times, but to get it to happen in Skyrim had me nearly pulling my hair out.

Oh I won't be uploading my stuff to Nexus or anywhere else. My modding thread will eventually teach how to make it happen for others' games out there (once I figure it out), but I don't wanna be responsible for screwing up anyone else's world.



Ha, awesome! Was all this voiced? That would be fun to see, even if not.



Okay so it was voiced, nice. That's weird that some other person would be using that dialog. I wonder what happened. Probably something small. Always some small little mistake, I've been there dozens of times. At least earlier programs aren't as daunting as the Creation Kit.

I'll let y'all know if I manage to figure my game, or not. I feel like it'll take a lot of learning though, whatever it is.

Voiced = yes. I pulled out every single Nord/Orc female dialogue I could get (anything voiced by Wonder Woman!) = went through them all and pulled out every bit of dialogue that was either suggestive, sexy (or could be cut/pasted/edited in Audacity to make into a suggestive comment) = made up a dialogue for her to use only in her faction; that was the Inn's faction - and toward males. The dialogue was supposed to be on a timer; so was the drinking; and she was the only one named to say it. I added five NPC's = the three gorgeous triplets that ran the Inn; and two male NPC's who couldn't stay away from the Inn.

Every night four of the NPC's drank and danced; (two of the triplets and the two males; the other triplet ran the bar and rented out rooms) = and then Ghastley made an add-in mod where Eyja's shirt would come off after 10 p.m. (he also added a poster that anyone (even the Player) could pick up the charcoal and use = it drew a busty naked lady, lol. = and he also made the sign for the Inn and fixed anything that wasn't working right in it! - not to mention lowering to the ground anything floating that I missed, lol).

Anyway, it spurred me into trying out playing with dialogue; I had this vision of Eyja hitting on those men when she took her shirt off, lol.

So anyway, the dialogue didn't work right; but it turned out to be a blast when Maxical would be going through town and have all the Nord and Orc women hitting on her, lol.