Deleted2039153User

Awesome, nice to see you're making progress. Glad I could help in my own small way. :)

So they fixed it to where we can use LAA on the game again even though it runs it through Steam? If so, I'll actually let it update.

Agreed. I told the Blades to go to hell because there was no freaking way I was doing what they asked me to in that Paarthurnax quest, especially since they puffed their chests out and tried to deliver an ultimatum to the goddamn Dovahkiin who just killed Alduin. It would be nice if there was an option to go, "I run this show, I say the dragon stays, deal with it" and make them recognize the wisdom in your decision.

I don't know if we can open up Skyrim's .nif files in 3ds max/Maya just yet, but I can definitely tell you how to extract them. At the moment we don't have a Skyrim-specific Mod Manager than can extract .BSA files, so you'll want to download the Fallout Mod Manager because it can. You can get it here: http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36901 Once you download that, you want to open it up and under Tools go to BSA Browser. Navigate to the Skyrim Data folder (usually Program Files/steam/steamapps/common/skyrim/Data) and open up the Meshes .BSA file. This is where all the meshes are located. For the skeleton specifically, in Meshes you want to open up "Actors" then "Character", the skeleton is located there. Highlight it and hit "Extract", then choose where you want it and you're done. Good luck, hopefully you can make up some nice animations.

This is correct. In practice you should be making your maps (any map, not just normals) as large as you can without it becoming difficult to work with, and then scale down if necessary. It's one of the unwritten rules of texture design in game art: Start big, scale down. You can scale something down easily, but you can't scale up easily if you need it to be bigger.

So I've been trying to figure out what makes the fingers go to a much darker shade than the character's actual skin when wearing the Nightingale Gloves (at least the male version, I don't think the female one does this), and so far I've had no luck. I checked the diffuse and normal maps, and I don't see anything in either than would cause it. I also checked the .nif and it uses the same maps that the character's hand does when he's wearing no gloves. So, I thought I'd ask the advice of the folks more talented than myself at modding. I'd really like to figure it out as a lot of people have been calling for a fix and I'd like to provide an answer.

Not to mention the one of the only dai-katanas in the game (the Ebony Blade Daedric Artifact) is a lame weapon that makes you kill your friends to make it powerful. At least for now dai-katana users have the Ebony Greatsword, that thing looks nice.

Just wanted to say that you're doing awesome work cracking these new changes to the files, throttlekitty. Both myself and I'm sure a bunch of other folks really appreciate the effort.

I looked into this via Nifskope, and unfortunately it'll be a while before anything like it is possible. The armor and cape are all one mesh, which requires importing into 3ds max, removing the cape there, re-skinning the model onto the texture, then exporting it back out to Nifskope correctly, rather than just deleting the cape in Nifskope, saving the file and calling it a day. And since we don't have any current way of importing the Skyrim meshes into 3ds max, that is the main problem.

...I'm annoyed that my attempts to change hair models using Nifskope with throttlekitty's updated .xml have ended in failure. Every single which way I've tried it results in the hair not showing up. XD

It's seriously lame that they give you the Forbidden Legends quest outside of the College of Winterhold but you HAVE to become a mage to do it. My character's nowhere near a mage, and now I'm gonna have to do stuff I didn't really want to do on him to complete this quest. Was saving the College quests for my female mage.

I'd love to see a version of this that replaces the cloak with more of a wrap/scarf like thing, so the lack of physics doesn't hurt the look of it but it still makes sense when you have the hood on. Speaking of the hood, it'd be awesome if there was a version with the hood down, as in still equipped but hanging down behind the character, without the mask on it.

Hm, that's no good. SFSG (show full scene graph) was the other command listed, maybe that works? @pussyranger: I can't run the game, otherwise I would be. :) I can give it a shot too. I'm at work ATM but when I get off I'll try it and let you know what happens.

Something that majorly bugs me is the male version Dark Brotherhood armor in this game. When you look at it it looks unfinished, the upper back has no detail to speak of, just plain black leather with some small red pieces on the corners. But then, in one of the load screens you see a model of a Dark Elf in the Dark Brotherhood armor, and it looks finished and awesome. There's a belt going across the outfit (which you also see in the ground model of the current one we have but is not present on the armor when worn), as well as a neck wrap/scarf-like thing with a hood pulled down, making the back side of the armor look much more interesting. Why don't male characters have that version of the armor, and can we get it into the game? Obviously this will have to wait until the Creation Kit comes out, but I thought it should be brought up.

The hairstyles do indeed suck really bad. I miss my Advent Children-era Cloud hair from Fallout: New Vegas so damn much.

I'd love to see this as well. I was excited when I saw that I could use a sword in my left hand, only to find out the game treats it like you are dual-wielding your fist and a sword, rather than just using a single sword (therefore giving you proper power attacks, combos, and the ability to block). If someone could make a mod where the game recognizes that you're wielding a one-handed sword by itself when you use it in the left hand and give you the ability to do everything you can when its in the right hand, it would be amazing.

I don't like shields :P Then don't complain about blocking. Actually, he has every right to complain. Bethesda seems to think that unless you use a shield you can't block anything when that's far from the case. A LOT of older fighting systems had no shield and surprise, they could block things just fine. It's this concept called "clashing swords" that Bethesda still doesn't seem to get even though everyone and their dog has seen swordfighting in TV, movies and more realistically in documentaries or reports. Anyway, blocking is better in this game with a sword than it is in Oblivion, but it still could be better. There should be a way for blocking with a sword to be just as effective as a shield when taking a weapon hit. Obviously you can't block arrows and really heavy weapons with it, but there's no reason a sword blocking another sword (or dagger, or one-handed axe, or mace) should still cause you to take damage.

I've already taken a look into this, myself. It seems like one of the main issues is that some of the old man creases are actually modeled into the head, not just texture/normal mapped. I customized a diffuse/normal for myself and my character still looked ancient as an Imperial. But surprise, surprise...when I changed to a Nord he looked over a decade younger. It seems that specifically the Imperial and Breton male heads are modeled to look all old. So we'll need to get access to the .nif files and make completely custom heads to make good, fully young looking characters. Until then, removing the wrinkles and such from the normal/diffuse maps and then rolling a Nord seems to be the only way.

Just so you folks know, the .nif files are currently unable to be opened in 3ds max or Nifskope. Looks like we need a new plugin in order to get at them.

Thanks for the updated nif.xml file. I wanted to get in there and check out the heads of the characters because the ugly looking 40 year old male face is driving me crazy and I want to do something about it. Already did a younger looking face texture and normal map, but it seems like they physically modeled in several of the deep facial creases making the male head look so damn aged. I'm gonna confirm that now then go from there.

I need this like I need air. Call me an otaku or whatever, but I want my current character looking more like a young, Final Fantasy-esque badass, not a 40-year old man with wrinkles everywhere. If I wanted an older character I would have made one.

I second this. Having played Fallout: New Vegas exclusively in third person, I HATE the centered, zoomed out camera when fighting in third-person in Skyrim. I hope somebody can make it so it stays where it is when you're running around with the weapon sheathed at all times.

My suggestions are more for the melee/unarmed weapons, as those are what I mostly use: - The ability to do "special attacks" like Unarmed (i.e. Paralyzing Palm, Ranger Takedown) with Melee Weapons. I've asked about this before and it got few responses, but it seems to be difficult to implement. It would be great though if possible. - Better blocking/guarding with Melee Weapons/Unarmed. I made a thread about this on mod requests, actually. It would be nice if there was a way to make blocking actually useful, like a much larger increase in defense and greatly reduced limb damage when your guard is up. Ideally, it would be even better if it did this but the benefits gradually lowered the longer you held down the block button so that you couldn't sit there and hold it all day fishing for a blocked attack. - Tie some sort of fatigue to Melee Weapons/Unarmed. That way you can't just hit the button a bunch of times rapidly or you'll tire yourself out and get say, reduced attack speed or lowered attack strength. It would make melee fighting much more tactical. It would also be awesome if you could target body parts in V.A.T.S. with Melee Weapons/Unarmed, but I know that one's pretty much impossible due to the game's engine.

As the title says, I'm wondering if it would be possible to make blocking with a melee weapon or unarmed not suck. Currently, it causes the enemy to stagger but takes a ton of your HP like you didn't even block at all, and still messes up your limbs really badly. I think if you're defending yourself against an attack that damage should be reduced by a lot. What would be nice: - Blocking actually raises your defense substantially, so that there is a point to using it. What would be ideal: - Blocking raises your defense substantially, but the increase in defense quickly lowers the longer you hold the guard button (like the awesome "Deadly Reflex" Oblivion mod by skycaptain). This would make blocking have a point AND make it something you couldn't abuse, you would have to actually intelligently defend yourself. If anyone has seen a mod that already does something similar to this or has any ideas on it, I'd like to hear about it. Thanks for reading.

Yeah, I forgot to run BOSS on that load order, sorry. I copied it from an old file. But I found out what was causing it: Apparently, it was my quest mod (The Legends of the Mojave.esp) that I'm making. And I'm not sure how, as I have zero scripted events in it yet, it's just one area and a note on a table in Mojave Outpost as of now. Yet it is what it is, I went through one at a time and when that one got turned back on lo and behold, the weirdness happened. Thanks for taking a look. Now I get to figure out why my quest mod causes a cutscene with zombie noises. Yay. XD