raney

I've done a number of searches, but haven't seen this topic addressed. Here goes: I'm looking to play primarily in third person view. I'm aware of the ways one can alter skyrim.ini to adjust the camera position when weapons are drawn and sheathed. What I am looking for is a way to actually zoom while the bow is drawn and ready to fire, rather than just when the weapon is out. I looked at this mod, which shows that it's possible to toggle the camera view between first and third person when the bow string is pulled back. It makes me wonder if it would also be possible to manipulate the camera's position during this event. Something like AddX and AddY, to give aiming a very distinctive feel while in third-person. The Eagle Eye perk shows that yes, it is possible to have some form of zooming while in third-person view. Is it possible to mimic its effects via scripting?

I'm new to the mod-developing scene, so there are a lot of things that I haven't yet learned about. I've done stuff with scripting in other game-development engines, so I'm not coming at this entirely in the dark. It's more like, I want to know if certain things are possible within the framework Bethesda's offered. I've been trying to come up with an idea for a good "starter mod"; one that could get me into the swing of things while also offering something that hasn't been done yet. I'm going to pitch one of my ideas, just to see if it's even possible. The gist of it is, I want to make takeable items of a certain type "glow" when you are near and ready to take them. I'm not talking about replacing a texture with a brighter one, or using a glowmap to make items stand out. Rather, an effect that makes the item slowly fades in and out between its normal color and a slightly brighter one. The idea is simple, but I don't know if the execution is possible. If I were to do this in pseudo-code, it would look something like: ITEM SCRIPT if ((PLAYER.DISTANCE < N) & (PLAYER.HAS ME IN HIS OR HER SIGHTS :O)) { while((t % 1/w) != 0){ // for one full period object.brightness = 100 +A - A*cos(w*t); // Assuming 100 is like the default brightness or something // Also, t is some magic global time variable that always increases so I don't have to worry about anymore loops // I guess I could've done a for loop and declared t outside. d'oh. } object.brightness = 100; // just in case. } So the item will start glowing as soon as you look at it while close. It will then (hopefully) smoothly fade back to its default brightness either when the player looks somewhere else, or moves away a sufficient distance. I'm sure there are means to determine if the player is close to an actor, and if the actor falls within the crosshair. Items already do these things and display "Take $ITEM_ID." What I do not know, is if it's possible to edit or amend the script that all items rely upon, and also if it's possible to set the brightness of an item. The effect wouldn't be very useful, but it'd be one of those aesthetic enhancements that I think would feel pretty cool. So, is it possible? I'd like to get some feedback from someone who has experience scripting in...whatever it is Skyrim uses (I'll dig in deeper after I finish my grad school apps, promise!)

I could use some help from someone who understands the entire process of sculpting large terrain, breaking it down into manageable pieces, and having it all connect later on. I thought the Nexus boards might be a good place to look because games like Skyrim deal with very large worlds built from heightmaps. I have a shoddy understanding of what to do after I finish a heightmap, when it comes to loading it into Max and then editing it without totally bogging down my system. I'm somewhat new to 3d modeling, so bear with me if I misuse terminology or am just going at the process entirely wrong. I made a 2D map of what I want the world layout to be like in Paint. The map is 2048x2048 pixels, and I was originally thinking the world would cover around the same amount in meters -- so actually, a much smaller world than in any of the Bethesda games. I kind of wanted to avoid using heightmaps and terrain in favor of hand-crafting from a flat plane with extrusions, mostly because I don't like that terrain doesn't deal with vertical right angles very well, and I want the art direction to be somewhat less than realistic. Nevertheless, I did create a basic heightmap of the world just to see what it would look like, and ran into some obvious problems due to my inexperience: Currently the heightmap dimensions are the same as the number of units in the plane I start wth, meaning I have 1 square meter for every pixel in the map. As a result, every curved edge appears as an ugly 1x1m stairstepping pattern. And it just isn't a high enough resolution to create anything pretty, considering the surface area of one polygon occupies a little over four times the area of the player. Here are a few reference images (I'm using dummy materials right now, so it in no way represents what I'm going for artistically): http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/1293/boxworldtop.png http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/6744/heightworld1.png http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/8240/arrghh.png I know that in the end, I'm going to have to have a larger heightmap if I want more fine detail in the world. The problem is that 2048x2048 pixels already translates into over 4 million polygons, which is starting to get above the more-than-max-can-handle range. How is it then, that Bethesda can make a world that covers 9 square miles, with much more detail than what I can pull off with my measly 1 million polygon budget? I've done a lot of searching, but haven't really found a good tutorial that explains, "This is how you use a high density of polygons over a small area, and then break it up into cells." So here are my questions: - What are the dimensions of the heightmaps Bethesda uses in a game like Skyrim? - Do they create the heightmap of the entire world or several smaller ones that connect together? - Around how many polygons does the entire landscape occupy? - How do they actually go about going in and fine-tuning the world (Like in a 3d modeling program) in a way that doesn't bog down their systems? - What would be a preferable program to use when making heightmaps? - If I'm going for just 2 square km world, what are good dimensions for the heightmap? Or should I just keep 2048x2048, and use smoothing to add to the resolution in Max? (I fear that would lead to Max coming to a complete halt) I know it's a lot, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Been looking around but haven't found anything like this (Or just don't know what to type into my searches). Basically, what I'd like is a mod that removes the Pipboy animation and simply plops a transparent window over the screen when tab is pressed. It'd retain all the functionality of the inventory system, but without all the flash and the cut to first person view. I started playing the game in third person after finding a suitable camera mod, but now I find things like the Pipboy animation, the VATS and even the conversation camera sweep to break the mood quite a bit. But one thing at a time... So, this is my part request, part "is it possible to do this." A status screen that either overlays what's currently on the screen when tab is pressed, or perhaps a separate screen that the game cuts to (Think like the Resident Evil 4 inventory). The latter might be posisible with an image that covers the entire screen, while the UI portion of the pipboy could be moved to wherever appropriate--but I don't know too much about scripting for this engine. It would more than likely require FOSE. director raney

I was afraid of that. Looks like I'll have to work on something less ambitious until the time comes. director raney

I'm new to modding for the Oblivion/FO3/NV engine. I've worked with scripting languages in the past, so I have a decent understanding of how to throw code together. I had an idea for a mod that significantly changes the way the game is controlled, and thus how it is played. I've been looking through GECK and the various wiki's, but so far I haven't seen anything that allows me to do what I have in mind. Is it possible to force the player to face in a specific direction? What I'm looking to do is have the player face whatever direction is input from the keyboard or controller. (This would make a first person view unplayable, but if it's possible to do what I want, it won't even be necessary). So what I need to do is basically... - check for player directional input (keyboard or joystick) - set player direction to match the input (Must be relevant to camera angle, where 0 is facing default direction and 180 is facing toward screen). - the camera angle must not change to repositiont to behind the player when the direction changes. This is but the first big challenge in something that's much larger in scope. But if this lone step isn't feasible, then I shouldn't even bother. I don't think I can do this in GECK alone, or at least I haven't found anything about it yet--so if anyone could point me in the right direction, that would be greatly appreciated. director raney

Alright, that's what I was looking for! Oh, I did find that Veronica is actually 000e32a9. Ran that in and saved her from whatever void she got sucked into.

Thanks for the help guys. I'm sort of avoiding going into GECK until after I beat the game, just to avoid spoilers. Now when I try ID.moveto player, it just tells me "000E32AA is not a command." I'm probably missing whatever command comes right before that that tells it to run that particular object's code.

Oh wow. So here I signed up to these forums for the sole purpose of posting a message called "I lost Veronica," and it looks like somebody already beat me to the punch, verbatim. I'll admit that I'm using one of the multi-companion mods, and that probably has something to do with it. I made both my characters wait outside during the interrogation quest at Camp McGarran. Then quite awhile later, I remembered that I made my party wait around on me, and when I returned, only Boone was there. I've been looking around for a list of console commands (Obviously not hard enough since I've come out empty-handed). Is there I way I can "summon" her to appear before me?

Let's see, where to start? I'm a huge fan of game mods and development. The thing is, I haven't actually played a PC game in over the past six years or so (Busy with college). But then I graduated, and suddenly I have all this free time. Haven't been able to find a job, so I decided to do the rational thing and started sinking all my time into Fallout New Vegas. :\ I do enjoy working with development tools, and I'm eager to see what GECK has to offer. For now though, I'm mostly focused on finishing the game before I go in there and start screwing around.