JamesHalliday

Well howdy there, Skyrim people, it's James again. Just got an idea that I'd like to throw out there. If you're in t he market for new lands, new quests, new dungeons, new factions, new wars, new enemies, new things to kill, well, you've got effectively infinite options to choose from. That's all well and great (and I have some of those mods, too), but the thing that I'm most interested in when it comes to Skyrim modding is actually the romantic family life roleplay. Perhaps I'm a bit of an odd duck, but I don't think I'm entirely alone. The number one thing I'm interested in doing is finding immersive ways to roleplay my romantic life with my spouse. Basically, I want to roleplay the things I wish I had in real life, but never will. :'( My game feels pretty complete in that regard, but there's one thing that I really wish I had that doesn't appear to exist, and that's an idyllic vacation resort of some kind. This would be a pretty robust and serious mod, but absolutely within the capabilities of the community. I.e. it's not some unprecedented thing that Skyrim can't do. In fact, everything that I'm asking for has been done in some way in other mods, but never packaged in one place in this way. Here's what I'm envisioning: a small-ish tropical island getaway. Big enough to explore a little, but not overwhelming. Like... maybe a third the size of Solstheim. No enemies. Completely non-hostile. No quests. No objectives. Lots of friendly wildlife. A town or two. Perhaps a small village and a large hold capital type city, but just one medium sized village would be fine. Lots of tropical themed custom assets. Shops, inns, etc. A restaurant would be awesome. Fire pits, tables on a patio, that kind of thing. NPCs with their own schedules. Custom stuff to buy. Pineapples, bananas, and coconuts. Lots of amenities and romantic spots to chill at and enjoy. Patios, courtyards, fireplaces, hammocks. An inn with rent-able tropical themed bungalows with decks overlooking the water. Lots of pools and spas. Beaches with white sand and crystal blue water. Lagoons with tropical fish. I could go on, but I think I've painted a good picture. The closest thing I've seen is this: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/37394 And that's quite good, but I'm hoping for something more robust with a functional resort town a bit more to explore. I just want the ultimate romantic getaway--a place free from enemies and quests, where the only goal is just to exist and enjoy being there. That's my ultimate dream for Skyrim. Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.

So, I'm in a pickle of a rhubarb of a jam. I just finished a mod I've been working on for many months. It's been a dream project of mine ever since I started modding, and it's the culmination of all I've learned. My magnum opus. I really wanted to port it to SE, and I kinda went out on a limb and promised the community that I would. I've already converted all assets to SE, but the plugins are a problem for me. I don't own SE--that's the thing. Since the SE CK is now free on Steam, I installed it, but it won't launch. Steam just says it's running for 2-3 seconds, then poof! It's gone. Nothing. No launch. I assumed that it was because I need the game assets for it to work. I suspected that that would be the case, but it couldn't hurt to try it anyway. So, I got some help from a good friend who owns SE on Steam. I figured this would be bulletproof. He has the game installed, then he installed the kit, and guess what? SAME PROBLEM! 2 seconds, then POOF! GONE. Won't launch. No errors. Just nothing. I tried it on Linux and Windows 7, he tried it on Windows 10. Zip. Zilch. What in the actual F**K?! Are you kidding me?!! He troubleshooted it for a couple hours and couldn't get anywhere. He's a busy man, so I didn't want to bother him any further. I'm sure I could get his CK working if I could fiddle with in person, but he lives far away, and regardless, I just don't want to ask any more of him. I've spent days digging around online and come up empty. I looked into using SSEEdit, (which I probably still need the SE assets for), but everything I've read says that using xEdit to change from form 43 to 44 is an unreliable band-aid solution, and not a proper substitute for re-saving with the SE CK. I'm totally sunk. I really don't want to bail and leave the SE crowd high and dry. So, I need your help. I'm hoping some kind, generous, wonderful, generous, loving, generous soul might be willing to convert these plugins for me. (The second is a merge with some other mods I've made.) All you'd have to do is open them in the SE kit, save them, then return them to me. This would be trivial to someone who's already a mod author with an established workflow. (That friend of mine is a mod user, but not an author. He's never used the CK.) If you're bored and feel like racking up some good karma, please pm me. I can give you the plugins via MediaFire. I'm not comfortable giving out my email, so if you want to help, please make sure you have something like MediaFire, DropBox, or Google Drive to give it back. I have nothing to offer in return except my eternal gratitude. (Though perhaps you'd enjoy using the mod on SE!) I realize that this is the longest of long shots, but it's my last, last ditch effort. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope. *Edit* Found someone to help, so this matter is closed. Moderators can delete this topic if they want.

I'm a Skyrim mod author, primarily an animator. Yesterday, I stumbled upon the strangest thing that I've ever seen in this game. I'm made some walk/run/sprint animation replacers for a new mod I'm working on. I'm implementing them with DAR keywords. While testing them, I noticed that the arm position during the walk was off as compared to how it looks in Blender. My first inclination was to go back to Blender, check and recheck my keyframes, rebake my animation, re-export it, re-convert it, and try the new one. Same problem. I know for 100% that there's nothing wrong with my animations. The game simply not putting the arms where I told it to. I began conducting tests to systematically eliminate variables. I tried different combinations of walk and run animations (some made by me, some by others) in DAR custom condition folders, the DAR player character specific folder, and the straight up vanilla animation folder. After some time and much hair being torn out, I discovered something truly bizarre that defies all explanation. Skyrim appears to blend the running animation into the walk somehow. What does that even mean? Well, what I mean is that Skyrim will take whatever running animation it is currently using, and blend that into your current walking animation by about 5% or so, and the resulting mix is the walking animation that will be played. For those who know Blender, it looks as if you took the walk and run animations, dropped both into the NLA as action strips, overlapped them, then put the cursor to where you're seeing a blend of about 95% walk and 5% run. That's what Skyrim plays. I know--sounds insane, right? It's for real. I tested this again and again with many animations. This occurs with vanilla replacement. This has nothing whatsoever to do with DAR/FNIS/Nemesis. Has anyone else ever noticed this? Am I the first? I've made many animations, but never a walk or run until now. Mostly idle replacers of various kinds. I certainly use walk and run replacers, but I never noticed anything being amiss. I looked again more closely at my preferred walk and run replacers, and it appears that they too blend together, but I never noticed it before because the movement of walking and running is similar enough that blending about 5% of the run into the walk doesn't change it by any noticeable amount. The reason I noticed with my new animations is because the arm positions are very different. My walk has the hands folded behind the back--y'know, like a casual stroll kind of position. I've never seen a position like that before. When blended with the run, the arms move out of their proper position and clip into the middle of the body. When using a walk and run that both have the arms swinging at the sides, the difference from blending in a tiny bit of the run is imperceptible. I don't know what to make of this, and I kinda feel like I'm losing my mind, but it's true. I can't fathom why Bethesda made it this way, and I reckon that there's absolutely no way to fix it. This must be a hard-coded behavior thing. The only solution for me is painstaking trial and error until I can move the arms into an acceptable position. I can make it work, but I'm just dying to know if I'm the first and only one to stumble unto this strange behavior.

A little belated, but if anyone happens to see this, here's the answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWPBq4x6DiU I was wondering this myself for a long time.

This is exactly what I'd like to know. I've been tearing my hair out for days trying to get a similar animated object to work in the player's hand. I have no trouble at all getting the object to appear in game. Animation list, behavior file? Check, check. Np. But the object is rotated wrong and all screwy. I can't for the life of me figure out how to orient the object so it appears correctly, other than painstaking trial and error, like you said, and that won't work in my case. I need PRECISION. I need to know exactly how the game orients it so I can export it precisely from Blender. I've been searching for awhile now. No answers.... :(

These mods don't cover everything in the game, but they'll get you started. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/108123 https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/108961

*EDIT* Nevermind. I'm an idiot. Figured it out. Mods, please delete this topic if you can. Sorry for the inconvenience. Everyone else, just ignore.

I just had a great idea for a mod that I wanted to pitch to the community. How about a mod for khajiits that automatically changes your eyes from the normal open pupils to closed slit pupils of the same iris color depending on whether you're indoors or outdoors? How awesome would it be to go outside and have your cat's eyes change to the slit pupils? I'm not sure how feasible it would be, but it would surely require scripting, which is the one thing I don't do. Just thought I'd throw the idea out there.

This post is intended to give aspiring Skyrim animators a few quick tips on how and where to start. This is by no means a comprehensive technical tutorial, but hopefully a way to get people pointed in the right direction. I've been tinkering with Skyrim modding for the past year and half, and earlier this year, I decided to try my hand at animating, mostly because there were several animations that I really wanted in my game that don't exist online. I had a very hard time getting started. Unlike editing meshes and textures, there is very little information to be found online about animating. Skyrim mod animators are few and far between, and those offering tutorials or assistance are even more sparse. Animating isn't that difficult, but the door to entry is. If one doesn't know how or where to start, it can seem almost impossible. Taking your first steps into animating can seem like looking at an impenetrable wall with no way in. That's why I wanted to offer a little help. It's my small way of giving back to the Skyrim mod community that gives so much. I don't have the time to make a robust, fancy tutorial with PDFs and videos and stuff, but I want to do what I can, so here I am. I am by no means an expert, but I think I know enough to be of a little assistance. My aim is to briefly describe what tools you'll need, and the basic order of operations you'll need to follow. I animate with Blender on Linux, which is about as far from Bethesda's method as one can get. I am given to understand that Bethesda used 3DS Max with Havok Content Tools, the former being a pay-for software, and the latter not being available at all to individuals anymore, as far as I'm aware. Luckily, it can all be done with free software, but it can be very hard to know where to start. First, you'll need Blender with the Niftools plugin. Niftools should be easy to find by googling. I'm going to assume that anyone reading this is reasonably comfortable using Blender. If not, tutorials for that are endless, so there's no need for me to go over it here. Next you'll need HKX CMD. I use the GUI version found here: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17109 This is the tool that converts animations between the format read by the game, and the format usable in Blender. The animation converter can be slightly tricky to use, and there's not much in the way of instructions included, but once set up correctly, I've found it to be 100% reliable and easy. Here's what to do: Extract the ConvertUI.exe into a new folder.In the same folder that the exe is in, create two new folders named "infolder", and "outfolder".Locate skeleton.hkx and skeleton_female.hkx within the Skyrim game assets. Copy them into infolder.Locate skeleton.nif and skeleton_female.nif and copy them into outfolder.Drop whatever animations you want to convert into the infolder. Run the exe and convert and it will spit out the new files into the outfolder.It's important to note that you'll need to type in the appropriate hkx skeleton in the skeleton fields. When converting from hkx to kf, the converter will automatically convert everything in the infolder. When converting from kf to hkx, you'll need to enter the input and output file names for each animation and convert one at a time. Those are the only tools you actually need, although you'll probably want to pick up Nifskope while you're at it. It's not needed for animating, but if you're tinkering with this stuff, you'll likely end up wanted to edit a nif at some point. If you're on Linux like me, then you'll need to run the Converter with Wine and PlayOnLinux. You'll need to create a 32-bit drive with PlayOnLinux for the Converter to work. Running the exe in a 64-bit drive will cause Wine to crash. Woulda saved me a lot of time and headache if someone had told me that. Blender of course has a Linux native because, well, it's Blender. Nifskope works under Wine, but I had crashing problems when using regular Wine with PlayOnLinux. I run Nifskope through Proton 6 on Steam and it works beautifully with no issues. Just add the exe as a non-Steam product and force use Proton. It's that easy. Once you have all that working, you're ready to rock and roll. Sometimes you might want to start from scratch, and other times you'll want a sample animation as a starting point. Pick the animation file you want to start with. This will be an hkx file. This is what Skyrim reads. Convert it to kf (keyframe file). Open Blender and import whatever mesh (nif) you're animating for. Now, I'm just going to assume that you're no stranger to Blender. Doing an in-depth Blender tutorial is not the purpose of this post. If you need help with Blender, check out tutorials for that and/or buy a book. (Andrew Price from Blenderguru is probably the best Blender teacher out there). Import all the nifs you'll need: hands, feet, head, body. Then import skeleton.nif. If you're reading this, then I'm assuming you're using some variety of XP32 Maximum Skeleton Extended, or something comparable. If not, then WTF ARE YOU DOING, YOU MANIAC??!! So, one thing that confused the heck out of me is the skeleton.nif vs the skeleton_female.nif. The female skeleton, when imported into Blender, is not useful at all. In fact, it's a bunch of empty objects that I can't make heads or tails of. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but there was no actual armature to be found in that file. The skeleton.nif, however, has an actual armature that can used in Blender. Use that one. There's no difference between the skeletons except for the amount of articulation in the tail, which doesn't matter if you're not touching that, and the fact that the game scales down the hand bones for the female skeleton. Amazingly, you can make an animation with the regular skeleton.nif, and it works perfectly fine for either sex in game. After importing skeleton.nif, select the actual armature, then invert selection and delete everything else. Trust me. You don't want all those wacky capsule collider things. You only want the armature. Set all your meshes to deform with that armature. If you made a kf file to import, then select the armature in object mode and import the kf. Now the animation from the game will be usable in Blender. Now you can begin to animate. This is the part I'm going to skip over. If you don't know how to animate in Blender, it should be ridiculously easy to find unlimited tutorials on that. One tidbit I do want to cover is the hand scale thing. I could have avoided a lot of headache if I've known this. So, Skyrim scales the hand bones for females down. I'm not exactly sure how the game does this, but I reckon it's in the behavior files somewhere. If you animate with the skeleton.nif armature as is for a female character, then the hands will be bigger in Blender than in-game. This won't be an issue for something like a walk animation, but it will be a big issue if the hands need to be touching anything. You'll end up with clipping and won't know why. Here's what you need to do: When you're ready to animate, scale each hand bone down by exactly 0.85186. This is the value Skyrim uses. Use the operator to do this precisely. Use the graph editor to remove the scale channels from the hand bones entirely, if present. Then, never key scale as you're animating. This ensures that the hands will stay at 0.85186 scale, and the scale won't be affected by any keyframes. Once you have your animation done, you'll need to bake it. Skyrim doesn't auto interpolate between keyframes, so every single frame needs a key on every single bone. This is what baking does. First, make sure to clear the scale from the hand bones (which will screw up the animation in Blender, but it will look right in-game when Skyrim scales them down again), then bake the action, choose pose, and make sure it's set to all bones. Select the armature in object mode and select export kf. Make sure that the scale correction in the export options is set to 1. This is crucial. Once you have your kf, pass it back through the converter to make it an hkx and then drop it where it should go in the game. Run FNIS/Nemesis if it's not a replacer, and if you did everything right, it should work in-game. It's worth noting that the niftools plugin for Blender 2.79b and earlier does not support exporting kf. Only importing. The current Blender does everything. This was an issue for me because I loathe and despise the new Blender UI with a fiery passion. My solution? I have two parallel installs of Blender. I edit everything in 2.79b, then I save it, open it in Blender 2.9 and export. If you're not stupid like me, then you can just use new Blender. Just thought I'd mention it because it caused me some grief. I guess that's about it. I'm sure I left a lot out, but hopefully that will get you started. I apologize for not being able to do a more professional tutorial, but this was all I could manage. It would have saved me a couple of months of headache if someone had told me this stuff when I started. If I could help just one person get pointed in the right direction, then it was worth it. Cheerio.