I'm sure some of you have ideas for walking animation mods for TES 4? I'm trying to find something which is not too "sexy" though, for my wood elf archer. Sexy walk stuff is primarily what i find if I do a search over at Nexus. Some day if I make a harlot in this game, the sexy stuff will fit her. I'm trying something more subtle though.

Thanks.

Why wouldn't you use just an idle mod for that? Example = "Personality Idles" runs animations whenever your character is standing idle; (and there is also two separate voice mods that have your character say something if you idle a certain number of seconds).

I set my Personality Idles up where my character would put her hand on her hip and looked bored; then she'd start humming. If she was still left idling a full 3 seconds after the humming stopped she would change to her other hand on her hip and say, "Well I ain't waitin' here forever!"

What you described was exactly what "Personality Idles" does; and it lets you choose the idle you want your character to do. I have the "Personality Idles 4" version, which also adds some very cool animations to NPC's where they wave at you, head-track, etc. It really makes the game come to life.

** OOPS! I see I committed Necromancy. I came here to answer a post from today, but it took me to this post, lol. Anyway, I hope you found this out back in 2015 when you asked this question, lol. I obviously didn't see it then, or would have told you about Personality Idles back then. I used Personality Idles and those voice mods since 2009 when I first got the game on PC; they changed the whole game for me.

Ha ha uh oh! Call the mods!!!

You told me about Idles a while back. Still haven't installed that yet, but I eventually will. Right now I'm trying to find a subtler walking animation.

Yeah, I'm really stunned it automatically brought me back to that point when I went to "last post" because = I actually DID mention Personality Idles back then and have made numerous comments on this thread since then!

I actually like the vanilla walking animation in Oblivion. The vanilla walks in Skyrim and Morrowind are both obnoxious; but Oblivion's was really nice in both speed and appearance. (Not sexual, but not manly on my female characters either)

If you want a more feminine walk but not slow, you can alter the speed of the walks in mods like "Sexy Walk" and it makes it a bit more feminine but keeps the speed up so it doesn't look too obvious.

Okay i will try this.

I found a mask mod and the mask works in the game, it appears on the head, but eyes/faces below the mask aren't visible. Apparently this issue can be solved in NifSkope, I downloaded the program, but I don't find instructions how to edit the item to make a face underneath "appear". Any ideas / advices?

Thanks.

I never got that far with modeling.

Yeah; I've used NifSkope for a lot of misc and static items; but never characters. That is beyond my ability.

There are two possible answers. If the mask is a full-face item where only the eyes are supposed to show, it may be replacing the head, instead of covering it. That is fixed by changing the item slot in the CS, not in NifSkope.

If NifSkope is able to fix it, then it's more likely to be that the eye-holes are supposed to be transparent, and aren't. The Alpha Format on the NiSourceTexture may be set to ALPHA_NONE and changing it to ALPHA-DEFAULT could fix it. If the texture doesn't have an alpha channel, that will do nothing, and it will need work in GIMP or Photoshop to add the missing channel.

What is the mod? I can take a look at the mesh if I can download a copy.

ghastley, what you're describing in the first paragraph, seems to be the issue. How can I change the item slot in the CS, so that only eyes will show? Because the mask actually replaces the head.

Open the Armor or Clo9thing object depending on how it's defined. The dialogs are pretty much the same. The Biped Object will be set to Head or Hair, depending on which it replaces. You want Hair, of course.

Skyrim is different, as it combines Armor and Clothing, but separates the mesh details in ArmorAddon from the gameplay details in Armor. In that game the slots are more confusing, too, as one form indicates what it occupies, and the other what it replaces.

After I change it to Hair, it crashes to desktop.

Here's the link to the data, maybe you can make it work, the mod's not from the Nexus AFAIK.

It's just the standard male head mesh with a texture applied to it. No expression, or chargen morphs, so it won't behave like a face any more, and of course the eyes disappear.

The texture is unrelated to the location of the features, too. There's probably a better way to do this, by just swapping the character's head texture, but that's a bit more complex than a "helmet".

How were you intending to use it?

As a mask that covers the face / head but with working eyes.

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong. I'm trying to add some custom dialogue to NPC Saliith - the Argonian brawler from the Arena. I follow the tutorial to the letter but the dialogue doesn't show up in the game. So I'm either missing something our or I'm doing something wrong.

1 - I create a custom quest, I call it ZZTalk. I set priority to 15, tick Start Game Enabled, and under quest conditions insert GetIsPlayableRace, so it looks like GetIsPlayableRace [NONE] == 1. I don't know why this must but be done, but in tutorial it says that it's a must.

2 - I set one quest stage, 10.

3 - Then I go under Topics and insert my custom dialogue ZZDialogueArgonian in the Text Editor column. I assume I don't need GREETING, because I'll be adding ZZDialogueArgonian to Saiilith and he already has the GREETING by default.

4 - I type Topic Text (TEST) and the Response Text (TEST 2).

5 - I insert two conditions, the first one is GetIsId [Saiilith's ID] == 1 and another condition GetStage ZZTalk <= 10.

6 - I switch to Saiilith and untick Goodbye, because he's one of those NPCs that finish the conversation after saying one line.

7 - I check it in game. Saiilith doesn't cut off the conversation, but the only topic he has, is Rumors.

8 - I once again read the tutorial and make sure that I did everything to the letter. But the dialogue TEST doesn't appear. What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: Yes, the .esp is checked.

Everything you did is right, but there's a step missing. At some point AddTopic must be used to turn the topic on. Normally this is done by the quest that requires the conversation. It adds the Topic to the list the player can use, and I think it's possible for the same topic to be in multiple quests, with different dialog from different NPC's, so a topic of "Crisis" could be different things at various times. The other conditions on the dialog prevent the ambiguity.

I see...thanks. Can AddTopic be "activated" for this NPC by default, without any special trigger?

Or maybe I can add it to his list by raising his disposition, thus making the disposition a trigger for the topic to appear?

Step 1 is accurate. Try bumping Priority to 60, that is the usual standard.

What do you mean when you say you set one Stage? I assume you're adding a stage into the Stages page, and giving it the number 10.

Who is Saiilith? Seems mod-added.

Step 3 there could be a problem. Does Saiilith have a custom GREETING, or does he use random Beth greetings like "How goes it?" or "Greetings, Breton!" It's best if he has a custom greeting. If he's got a custom greeting, this is good. This is easy.

Let's say he does have a custom greeting. "Welcome to the Arena," and the GetIsID is for Saiilith. Now what you want to do is right-click into the Add Topic box, and add ZZDialogueArgonian into this box. Add a Condition for this Greeting GetStage ZZTalk < 10

If Saiilith does not have a custom greeting, the best way to get this to work is to make your own custom greeting. Right-click into the Editor ID area (the tall, vertical box) and find GREETING. Give Saiilith a GREETING in the Topic Text area (whatever it's called). Now, in the Conditions area, you'll want to right-click and make these two conditions.

GetIsID Saiilith == 1
GetStage ZZTalk < 10

This way, he'll only say this Greeting if the quest is below Stage 10.

In the Result Script box, you'll want to type Player.SetStage ZZTalk 10

For the custom topic ZZDialogueArgonian, make sure the same GetIsID is used (you can just Copy/Paste this), and GetStage ZZTalk == 10.

So far, your slimy Argonian will say a GREETING, and then there should now be the follow-up topic.


Ninja'd ghastley. But I made things more comprehensive. I'm saying you'll need a custom GREETING. I have had problems not using a custom GREETING. You can try it with or without this GREETING though. Maybe it'll work without one.

And if there is only one stage to this quest, let's say there's only a Stage 10, and you want the quest to come to an end. So this way, it'll move into the Completed Quests section of the quest journal.

When you click on TEST ( or whatever you called your custom topic), the quest moves to Stage 10. If you want the quest to end at Stage 10, go into the Quest Stages section again (where you added Stage 10). In the Result Script box, type StopQuest ZZTalk , click OK in the lower-right corner, and save the mod. *Bam gasp* now the quest should wind up in your Quest Completed area, and any scripts associated with that quest won't run forever and ever.

Let us know if this helps.

Thank you both!

It works!

To quote mALX - WOOHOO!

No longer I'll need to imagine all the dialogue between PC and NPCs.

EDIT: Saiilith is vanilla, he's the guy who brawls with another chick in the Arena district 24/7.

Sweet! Love when we figure stuff out.

All of that should also suffice for Fallout 3 and maybe New Vegas, too. Except I think Fallout doesn't use GetIsPlayableRace. And also, Windows 8 or 10 is tricky to use with the GECK, mostly because some menus won't be visible unless you drag them onscreen.

For Skyrim, what ghastley and I just taught would be like 3x as complicated. Yet for Oblivion, we can type all of that from memory because it's such an easy game to mod dialog / quests for.

And we're moving on...what's the condition to check if some NPC is dead? I want to trigger the next quest stage, when a certain NPC dies. I thought that GetDead will do the trick, but it doesn't seem to be working.

EDIT: Figured it out that it's done via scripts. I checked in the CS how Rufio's death is handled.

GetDead works in Fallout 3 and Skyrim, but you're right, I don't remember using it for Oblivion.

So I’m currently in the middle of modding hell; you know, that period of time where you aren’t playing the game but rather just checking to see if mods are working and then discover things that aren’t cooperating? Well I’ve got several graphical mods and something somewhere just isn’t playing nice. I’m running alternate start by ship (which itself is janky as all hell, but it works) and the test character starts in Anvil. She walks into the city from the gate to the docks, and the cobblestone streets are covered in grass texture!
Now I get to uninstall the game, reinstall it, and one by one add back the graphics mod to see which one is causing the issue. Joy.

*Edit: Update*
Turns out it was the ENB preset I was using. I was really surprised this was the case as the files for the preset didn’t appear to replace any of the texture files.

Anyone here use Oblivion Reloaded? I know Decrepit posted in another thread that he does but I was curious if anybody else here uses it too. Would love to discuss opinions on it.

I am using Oblivion Reloaded Version: 6.2.0.0. My opinion of it is mixed. The game is looking really good with. It has a lot options that can be toggled on or off, which is nice. I found that the options dealing with combat and other third person animations did not perform well. So I shut them off or at least tried to. I found the documentation to be either confusing or lacking in detail to do what I wanted. I was trying to get rid of the third person combat somersaults and barrel-rolls. Didn't quite succeed. Don't use 3rd-person much for my character but it is funny to see my companions spinning in the air while fighting.

Yeah I haven’t tried any of the gameplay stuff, well besides messing around with the acrobatics stuff because it starts with that on by default. I am fairly sure I managed to turn that off from the OR.ini, though I’m not entirely sure about that. The flippy dodgey stuff might be good for a heavily acrobatics based character but certainly not for every character.

Graphics. Oh boy, that has been frustrating. It does make the game look better... in some ways. Now, as far as understanding all the intricacies of graphics settings and whatnot, I will never claim to be even marginally knowledgeable about the subject. Maybe I didn’t set something just right, but I have some serious issues with the way the mod makes the game look. First off, it does seem to make the resolutions better and more detailed, but it’s made the game world ludicrously vibrant. One of my test characters started off in Anvil, and let me tell you, with this mod active the region really lives up to the “Gold Coast” epithet. Everything is bathed in a very very vibrant gold color. That I could live with. The next problem not so much, as water just disappears when you approach it. I found that you can turn off ripples in the video settings and it stops the water disappearing, but that’s part of the base game; taking it away isn’t an improvement. So for this I found that you can turn water shaders from the mod off and it works fine with Enhanced Water. Lastly I get a lot of weird flickering and effects sometimes. Shadows from torches dance in weird ways and one time in the intro sewers I had a “smoke screen” wall pop up where the zombie comes down the corridor. Oh, and my frame rates drop really bad. So, like I said, maybe I’ve got some settings in the mod I need to look at, but honestly I’ve got the game looking pretty good with just Qarl’s and other texture improvements and an ENB setting I found that I like (Candid Reborn), so I may not bother reinstalling OR.

Sorry for wall o’text.

How does one add new clothing items to the game using the base models but recolored textures? Like, for instance, turning “black pants” into an obtainable and wearable “white pants” item.

First you need to find both the models and textures used by the item, and rename both. Recolor your texture with the graphics editor of your prefrence.

Then open the model with Nifskope. Drill down through every node that starts with the name NiTriShape. Typically there will be subfolders in some or all called something like NiTexturingProperty and a subfolder in that called NiSourceTexture. You will find a line in there that gives the directory and name of the texture file associated with that node of the mesh file. Change it to match your texture.

It is not enough to do this once. You have to go through all the nodes in the mesh to find every instance. There might be half a dozen or more.

Edit: I forgot to add you also need to create a new record for the item in the Geck. Just copy the original and give it a different name. Also change it to point to your new .nif file.

Damn. I just deleted NifScope because I wasn’t using it, lol.

Ok new question related to this. Say I got the hypothetical “whitepants.nif” and the “whitepants_gnd.nif” targeted to the custom texture. However, in the normal game files the texture is always accompanied by a “xitemnamex_n.dds” file. What is that file and how do I make one for my new texture?

There can be up to four texture files associated with a mesh.

Diffuse Maps [*.dds] are your base texture, how it looks without applying any lighting or other things to it.

Normal Maps [*_msn.dds or *_n.dds] are a form of bump mapping. It is a way that you can make a 2 dimensional picture appear to have 3 dimensional qualities, or "bumps". It's done by applying the effects that lighting would have on bumps or other 3-D artifacts, even though the mesh itself might be flat.

Specular Maps [*_s.dds] determine how shiny a texture is. Those are the _s files. The blacker they are, the less shiny those regions are.

Sub Surface Texture Mapping (or Subsurface Scattering) [*_sk.dds] is a way to determine how much light penetrates a translucent surface, scatters underneath, and reemerges somewhere else. It gives a much more realistic look to textures.

More deets are here.

When it comes to the normal maps, you can use the original ones in your new mod so long as all you are doing is recoloring it. If you really want to go the extra distance you can make copies of the original _n.dds files, rename them, and manually add them to your .nif as well.

So how do I associate a map to the nif?

Also, what if my new “white pants” are making the test character’s lower body invisible?

*edit: update*
There’s something about the texture the game isn’t liking. I can apply the texture to the original item and it works just fine, but when I apply it to the new item, it turns that part of the body invisible. Also when the item is dropped on the gameworld ground, the mesh looks right but it’s a uniform dark purple color.

Got it! I’m not sure what was wrong with the name of the _n.dds file but something was off with it which was keeping it from showing up in the game. In any case, there is now an obtainable recolored version of the female Quilted Doublet called Dark Doublet!

Excellent! The Dark Doublet sounds like a pair of Vaudville singers.

Lol

I guess now I should make a matching skirt and shoes...

This one is a toughie, for me. It's a script question.

So I have this mod idea I'm building in Fallout 3, but I suppose the answer to my upcoming question could be derived from Oblivion scripting too, since that is the earlier game. In my idea, I am enhancing Fallout 3's crime system. Fallout 3 has GetMinorCrimeCount and GetMajorCrimeCount, and these include stealing, pickpocketing, trespassing, assaults, and murder. Those crime counts are the two main ways the game recognizes crime, as long as an NPC witnesses us committing that crime.

So all of that works. We commit a crime, an NPC witnesses this, and this causes an officer to try arresting us. In my mod idea those CrimeCounts don't go away, not unless we leave the cell where the crime committed, and stay away for at least 72 in-game hours.

So here is where I am stuck. I've got it so that the officer arrests us, we pay caps, and then we walk away. Let's say I tried to steal something, and got witnessed by an NPC resident. GetMinorCrimeCount is at 4.00. Now, if I commit another crime, let's say I get witnessed again, and now GetMinorCrimeCount is 6.00. But the officer doesn't react. Because she already reacted to the original crime. She can't "see" any new crimes committed.

I know there is a script which has a +1 function or something similar. I am trying to write something like this....

If (GetMinorCrimeCount +1)
aaaMegatonOfficerRef.AddScriptPackage aaaResistArrestPackage
EndIF

... and I know the +1 part is incorrect. Any idea (*cough*... ghastley...or anybody) how to make this addition happen?

Arithmetic Operator, that is what + is called in GECK scripting. I just need to see an example of one in a script, before I spend hours wasting my time on writing it up wrongly.

I assume that FO3 is like Oblivion, with continuously-running scripts.

What you'd do is to save the CrimeCount when it changes, and check it at the start of the script.

If (GetMinorCrimeCount == SavedMinorCrimeCount)
return ;<= i.e get out and do nothing until it changes
endif
SavedMinorCrimeCount = GetMinorCrimeCount ;<= save the new value, which only happens if it changed
Do everything else needed when it increases

Sweet! I will let you know if this works. I've been basically going about this semi-blind, scripting and scripting until something works. But this is going about it semi-blind, and I'm trying to shave some time this weekend. If what you're saying works, I'll be DONE!!! Done, I say!

There is no SavedMinorCrimeCount in Fallout 3; matter of fact the crime system in FO3 is half-baked compared to Elder Scrolls games. There is no such thing as SetCrimeGold to 0, for instance (or anything equivalent). If there was something like this, even from the FOSE team, making this mod would be so much easier.

In the vanilla game, if we commit a crime and are witnessed, NPCs will either fight or flee us, and that is how Beth left it. So I am trying to enhance this.And I can try various things, especially with that Return statement.

SavedMinorCrimeCount would be a local variable, declared in your script. It would need to be the same type (Int, float) as the other one, so they can be compared properly.

I think you'd need to have this script run on each officer, as the crimes they consider are only the ones on their patch, so each officer is only aware of some of your crimes. And I'm getting all this from the GECK Wiki, not from personal experience, as I don't have any Fallout games.

I see. I'd declare this. So you're saying I would declare SavedCrimeCount like so?

Int SavedMinorCrimeCount
Int SavedMajorCrimeCount

???

Yes, that's right. The GECK Wiki uses Actor.GetMinorCrimeCount etc. as the variables are kept for a specific character and your script would potentially have a copy for each officer that could consider the crime. At times, they could be different values for different NPC's but since we're just checking for a change, it doesn't matter if that specific one missed a couple. It gets re-sync'ed when the script sees the change happened.

Yes, you get it! I'm just trying to check for a change, not the previous value(s) which already were generated.

And that is also true about different values getting generated for different NPCs. One time my character entered Megaton and the arrest process began, which shouldn't have been happening because GetMinorCrimeCount is not supposed to kick in until it's >= 3.00. I checked a nearby NPC and the count was 2.00. After some time, I tried checking the officer herself. Voila, it was 4.00. Everything was working, I just didn't know different people "see" different crime counts.

I could not get it to work, sorry. I think the problem is I don't know how to type what you were showing me, ghastly. I don't know where it should go in the script, and how it gets written. I'll just post the entire arrest part of the script.


scriptname aaaEnforcementOfficerScript

short Status

Begin GameMode

;------------------------------------------------------------

; This set of scripts handles the arrest process

If (Player.GetInWorldspace MegatonWorld == 1) && (Status == 0)
If (GetMinorCrimeCount >= 3) || (GetMajorCrimeCount >= 1)

Set Status to 1
aaaMegatonOfficerRef.AddScriptPackage aaaArrestPlayerPackage

EndIf
EndIf

End


.... So how do I write that Return script? Where would it go?

Never mind, I think I got a better solution.

I think I am ready for Wrye Bash. I've never used it before, except for clearing the A-bomb. I've had WB for years now, just have never used its modding side. The thing is, there's so many pieces missing from my Oblivion over the years, creatures which once showed up in dungeons have been missing a long time, birds in the air, and so on. I never see rainbows (yet have something installed which should display them). I hope that Bash can restore these things.

I know how it works, sort of. Been using Wrye Smash for Skyrim for years. For Oblivion, it seems to be the same. We start by copying archives into the Installers page, right? But is there some thing else I should do first? Does it matter that I've already had mods and OMODs installed for years?

Well let me answer your question, lost one. NO! No we don't need to prepare for Wrye Bash! Sorry it took so long to answer! Now begone!

Wrye Bash/Oblivion question: any idea where WB stores its Active Plugins List?

This is: with the Mods tab open, I should be able to right-click on where it says File, left-click on Active Plugins, and I used to be able to see a particular character's active plugins. I've been saving these plugins for at least a couple years now, but they're all gone. There should be a list for Lady Saga, Renee Gade III and so on, but now the only choices are "Activate All, Activate Non-Mergeable, Deactivate All" and so on.

Fallout Mod Manager stores different lists in the Documents folder, as actual text documents. Can't figure out if WB does the same, or are all of WB's lists stored somewhere within the program itself? And are therefore irretrievable?

The current plugin list is in Saves/plugins.txt because that's where the games get it from. If you use Profiles, then each subfolder has its own copy. All saves under the same profile use the same list. Bash shows a list of all the available esm/esp/esl files (Oblivion doesn't have the esl's, but Bash is generic) and indicates which ones are in plugins.txt with a tick mark.

Individual save files contain a copy of what was active at the time, so the game can prompt you about missing plugins, so Bash may have shown that info when a specific save was selected, but on the Mods tab, that wouldn't apply. It shows you that on the saves tab without having to use the menu.

Swapping profiles should load up the new file (in Bash) after the directory work, but I recall that being buggy in some older releases of Bash, and having to restart it to get in sync.

Okay, thanks ghastley.

I'm not seeing any plugins.txt file at all in my Oblivion saves folders but obviously they must exist somewhere. Just last week I was able to swap profiles. Can still do so in Skyrim, just not in OB. Let me just do a general search of the entire drive.

Working on it...

Ah, here we go. It's in C:\Users\xenac\AppData\Local\Oblivion. I'll see if creating a specific profile makes any difference.