Narmix

I would love this feature. We had it in Morrowind and then in Oblivion... but they did not include it in Skyrim. Yet they let you name your enchanted weapons/armors! I assume carrying the feature of naming objects over from the enchanting system shouldn't be too hard, since the potion crafting menu is almost identical to the item enchanting menu. Maybe there's even a hidden option somewhere to enable naming potions. I don't know the logistics, but I miss this feature so much. I loved becoming a good alchemist, writing down awesome ingredient combinations to make my special poisons, and naming them as such. Please someone, endeavor to do this! <3s forever. -Narmix

Thanks, Mr. Dave. You continue being a help :) Well, guys, I understand the feelings everyone has. To be short, I will re-release them tomorrow in the exact same form they were in before I took them down (purely because I haven't had a chance to remake them from scratch). Regarding tomorrow's re-release: They'll be the same. I will be making new ones that I had intended to get out before Christmas. Regarding the donations I made (and gave back): It wasn't more than $100. Let alone in the thousands. Regardless, it was all given back because I was uneasy I made *any* money at all in textures that were only ~90% mine. The other 10% involved stock photographs I modified to include in my textures. I put the donations link up in desperation for the loans I had looming overhead and thought it could help out. The more I thought about it, the more I hated receiving money for anything that was only 90% my own. Regarding pulling them down: I removed them because I panicked. I agree with everyone's feelings; it was selfish. I received a bunch of small donations, really quickly, and it wasn't until I got them that I realized I couldn't accept them if the work wasn't 100% my own (90% doesn't count, for me and my conscience). I also did pull them down because I thought I wouldn't be able to support them; I recently had a lot going on due to being jobless, having recently graduated from college and especially having to find a way to make these school loan payments. Life's rough right now. I selfishly brought them down for both reasons listed: I needed an "out" button. I didn't like the fact that every single piece wasn't entirely my own, but thought I didn't have the time to rework them currently. So I wanted to hit the emergency stop button and find time later to rework and repost them. Regarding "getting in trouble": I didn't. In fact, if I would have said nothing, no one would ever have done anything. It was entirely myself. 100% entirely me and how I felt. There were no copyright issues (there couldn't be; any "stock" I use in anything is free license -- I make sure of that ahead of time). There was absolutely no copyright issues. I would prefer not to borrow anything in the future though, because I want to take 100% of the credit for things I release. I understand many modders borrow stock images (that's why stock images are made -- to save creators time) but it doesn't sit well with me. It was fine at first, because I didn't think more than 10 people would download it and I was only making them as practice since texturing is new to me. I had absolutely no idea their popularity would balloon and I would get so much praise. It started to make me feel sick (In college research, the idea of plagiarism and it's consequences can make one feel sick). While I realize that borrowing stock to use in some of my textures, completely legally, isn't plagiarism, it still personally feels gross. No matter if I credit what little I borrow, it doesn't feel right (as most people don't even bother reading the credits and direct all of the praise to me). If I'm going to receive all the praise, everything better be completely my own. So, again, I'll release the same mods tomorrow (I'm away for the holidays, but I'll make the small trip to repost them). People are sharing them anyway, and there's no reason not to just repost them and get over my uneasiness about borrowing stock photos long enough to remake them. I'm sorry for leaving a bad taste in anyone's mouth by removing them so abruptly. I really had *no* idea something as small as potion textures would be such a hit and be so missed. I realize I made these mistakes and I understand if anyone thinks badly of me now. I hope my future mods will rectify my misgivings and I want to start over. I'm going to start by remaking the textures from scratch (however, this means some textures like "Ornate" will be practically impossible to recreate due to it being a photograph of some strange glass I personally don't have on hand and I'm unsure how such a texture can be remade in photoshop). The wine mod IS my own, minus the wicker I borrowed from Mr. Dave above. I made those textures from scratch. Those will remain unchanged. I'm really happy with mine and Mr. Dave's relationship, and am comfortable using resources made by him. Maybe I'll just have to compromise with myself and my stupidly high level of conscientiousness. Maybe I'll just recreate what I can myself (which includes ceramic), and leave, as is, what I can't while just crediting the other textures to those who provided the stock I used in their creation. Regardless, starting tomorrow, everyone will have the potion and poison textures and wine textures made available to them again, and I'll try my hardest to recreate what I can myself. From there, I plan to continue what I have currently been working on: modeling. I didn't plan on disappearing forever. I planned to come back with a vengeance as a modeler for the community since the community has far less modelers but plenty of texturers. I like modeling more, anyway. I'm far better at that than texturing, I think, and I can't be tempted to borrow anything for models since resources for models don't really exist; everything made is completely my own. I can't stress enough that I brought them down because of a weird and extreme sense of conscience I have. Most (normal) people wouldn't have thought twice about using resources in their mods. That's what resources are for. For some weird reason, I just don't like getting any praise (especially the amount I got) if what I made wasn't completely made by me. Best, Narmix

You sir are too humble. Although I myself am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to modeling, your meshes aren't too bad for someone who is 'not a great modeler'. In fact with about a month of practice I bet you would be better than me and my meshes and I don't sculpt - I grow the model with extrude and bend the polygons using Maya 2010. You have a talent for sculpting and I tip my hat to you for it. Aw, thanks :) Your axe has a pretty cool silhouette. With a bit more sharpening of the edges, I think that'll look really cool.

Both are good ideas :) I'm not a great modeler; everything I make is just practice but it's nice to get something usable here and there.

Thanks for the comment. Regarding the onimusha weapons, like I said, I was looking for suggestions for things that would belong in Skyrim (like if there was a style of weapon missing from a category, such as "oh Bethesda didn't make an Elven staff" or something like that). The falmer, though, have very organic looking weapons, so it may not be far off to make some new falmer weapons. Thanks for the suggestion.

I'm also taking requests for weapons and such; Only things that belong in Skyrim, though. Just got a new staff mostly in order: http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4290/snakestaff2.th.png Updated original post with this as well.

Thanks :) It has a lot of work to be done, but I want to make at least a weapon a day. Or some bottles, etc. I want to build a decent pack fairly quickly. I'm looking forward to a day a big project starts in which we can import 100+ weapons (not all made by me) into the game's lootlists. ::edit:: http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/3573/outofcontrol.png http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7338/sweetaxe.png (Lower poly used on axe; Went crazy with sculptris on the left) This. Program. Is. Out. Of. Control. This is the most fun modeling I've ever had. It's like ceramics class all over again.

Absolutely no problem. I can understand why things might have been a bit muddled. Don't worry about it. Just started playing with Sculptris; Don't think I'm ever going to leave the house. http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/9189/lolhwo.png Whatever this goblin head thing is, it literally took me 30 seconds to make it. I love this program. You should have seen my face the first time I just grabbed those ears and dragged them out to make them what they are... I was like a little kid on christmas. I think I made some weird sounds too. This thing looks like Dobby from Harry Potter, haha. Don't take the picture seriously, I just opened Sculptris for the first time lol. I'm purely trying to demonstrate how much faster it is to make organic things in this than in, say, Blender.

Unfortunately I don't have access to Zbrush (because I can't afford to pay for anything) but I had no idea a free Zbrush called Sculptris even existed. You just made my day.

If my models aren't deemed terrible, I'm considering making a model resource for the Nexus. It seems the modding community needs modelers far more than texturers right now. Anyone who knows me knows I prefer inanimate objects over living things... so I can't really help with races or animals, but mugs, plates, tables, weapons, etc. are fair game. When criticizing, be brutal. Telling me something is great when it's not doesn't do anyone any good :P Revenge of Frank the Goat ( )http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/3784/axe2.th.png If such an axe were in the game, would anyone use it (textured and normalmapped of course)? Generic Snake Staff (intended to be entirely wood with the exception of the gem in snake's mouth) Staff is carved from a branch with large knothole in it. http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/4290/snakestaff2.th.png

AHHH! That might be the magnetismmultiplier part of the settings. I imagine, there's a percentage an arrow will be biased toward hitting a target based on your skill, and the higher you raise the multiplier in the ini, the more of an effect your skill will have in biasing the arrows to hit. I'm talking about arrows aiming themselves right at the target (not the getting "sucked in" thing). Hmmm... In that case it would seem that your skill is hardcoded to make arrows biased to hit targets and a couple of the lines in the ini are only there to increase how much it does. But even set to zero, your skills still apparently have a base amount that it increases the bias by. As for the arrows being sucked in when they're close, that seems to be completely eliminated by the ini tweak in the first few lines. Note if you google "skyrim magnetism" you get a lot of results (mostly gaming news sites talking about pre-release information) -- apparently the magnetism isn't just something we think we're seeing; it's real. It's supposed to be a feature. I think we're on the right track. The feature is supposed to increase your chance to hit an enemy and decrease your chance to hit an ally. It would also seem to be a multiplier for how much your skill effects the auto aim. For instance, if your bow skill is 40 and increases the bias of arrows by, guessing, 40%, then this multiplier might multiply that (if set). Like 40% *magnetismmult=.4 = 40% of 40 = 16%. Or you could cheat and increase it to like 3.0. 3 x 30% = 120% bias. Just guessing. I want to play with the settings more. I'm going to make the multiplier 10x and see if that drastically increases the magnetivity/bias of the arrows. ::edit:: Bah. Tried it with just the magnetism set to 10; nothing. Tried it then with everything set to high values, no different. Maybe it's all in my head and these really don't do anything. OR maybe they shouldn't be under actor. I don't know but this is frustrating.

New promising results. Ok, so after the changes I made to the ini, arrows that would have been sucked in to their arms now brush past their arms safely. Same with legs and head. The reason I cast doubts on my results is because of moogie's conflicting results, but I figured it out. Aiming to the left or right of their head causes the arrow to get sucked in because they have hitboxes there in case they're wearing armor with pauldrons. In otherwords, the hitboxes for their shoulders are quite large. Take a look at this image: http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/8281/newbitmapimageqlx.jpg Before the changes I made, arrows falling within the orange outline were definitely getting sucked in to the target. Now, after the changes, they seem to only collide with the proper hitboxes (green). There seems to be very large shoulder hitboxes, presumably as a catch all in case the target wears heavy plate armor with pauldrons. However, shooting anywhere that is not green causes the arrow to wizz safely past. The shoulder hitbox thing would explain why when I shot in the angles I did above (sides and over head) the arrows went by fine, but when Moogie tried it (shooting to the left and right of the head) the arrows got "sucked in". This seems pretty consistent. Taking this into consideration, the values set to zero DO seem to help. Absolutely no idea about that.

Alright. Like I mentioned before, auto aim definitely seems to be amplified by aggro status. Arrows tend to wizz by much more easily when the target is not aggressive. When aggressive, they seem to home in much more.

I'm not sure. Let me test it again under some different conditions. ::edit:: Damn it. It seems really picky. When I aim at some areas, the arrow wizzes by, but aiming in other areas (like you did -- to the right of someone's head) the arrow definitely homes right it. What can we do?? At least we've brought this auto-aim to people's attention. I'm going to get some sleep. I hope we can figure this out.

Really really strange. After I edited them, I took these screenshots: http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/3120/nomoreautoaim.th.jpg I'm now firing far closer to them than I have before and they're not arching to hit the target or teleporting into them as they had been before. Did you add the lines to the [actor] bit? Not somewhere else? Also, I don't know if it matters, but is your actor section at the END of the ini? Also, make sure it's the skyrim.ini and not the skyrimprefs.ini. It seems to be working great for me now. ::EDIT:: No, apparently not. When I try shooting from your angles, I get your exact same results. Gah.

::Edit:: My changes apparently didn't work. Or they at least improved it (maybe only a few of those settings should be set to zero?). I don't know. I wish we could figure this out.

Odd. It definitely seems to function in two ways. 1) When target is not aggroed. This is the less obvious auto-aim. When an arrow that would otherwise miss by a foot or less reaches an enemy, it will be sucked (teleported) into the target's center of mass. I.e. if it's about to go past his right arm, just as it reaches him, it'll teleport to either the center of his arm or even his chest (sometimes his head!). 2) When the target IS aggroed, the auto-aim is even more extreme. In this case, if the crosshair is in the general vicinity of the enemy, the arrow will actually fly straight for him -- not teleport to him at the last second, but actually try to lead or otherwise aim itself right at him. This is *extreme* auto-aim in my opinion. It feels like in this situation, the game is giving you assistance that the AI actually uses when fighting YOU with bows. The changes posted at the beginning of my OP explains how to turn it off.

::edit:: False alarm. No fix.

Agreed. I do the same. I love getting a good headshot insta-kill from a couple hundred meters away even if it doesn't matter (only possible to hit that far away with fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=14000.0000 in the ini otherwise the arrow passes right through the enemy/bear/living thing) To chime in on the thread, I'll post what I said in another place: The arc they put in the game is ON PURPOSE. Not to counteract gravity to make it easier to aim, definitely not to make some kind of auto-aim (though I realize there may be some kind of auto-aim arrow magnetism thing going on when the arrow just would otherwise barely miss). It's because arrows fly in an arc regardless of how straight you aim them. It comes down to technique. Archers "nock" their arrows on the string a little lower than the tip of the arrow being held in place by the hand/grip. Thus the back of the arrow is a little lower than the front. This is to help hit targets in real life. It gives the arrow a natural arc. Also, some arching comes from the way the bow is aimed in relation to the arrow. When one aims, he pulls the arrow back so that his hand's thumb (that is holding the string) meets his lip. He then aims down the shaft, nut not directly (since the back end of the arrow is around his lip, not his eye. Thus, if you're looking down range in a straight line (represented by the crosshair in game) and the back of the arrow is beneath your eye, then the tip of the arrow is pointed up, creating an arc. I've practiced archery with all manner of bows since I was quite young [about 8]. Bonus fact: For a very long time, gun's "iron sights" have been crafted in a way that causes you to aim slightly higher than your target when aiming down sight even when you think you're actually aiming perfectly straight. This is to emulate the same built-in mechanics of a bow arching an arrow. All are created to counter-act gravity. Personally, I leave my arc default. I do not change the ini settings, because I can honestly say as a bit of a real life archer, that Bethesda's arc is pretty natural. As it stands in the game, the default arc is great. Just like in real life, within so many feet, aiming at a bullseye directly WILL cause you to hit slightly higher than the bullseye. Then at longer distances, you must still manually tilt your bow to aim higher. Bethesda got it right on the money. Except with arrow speed. Way too slow for me :P A mod fixes that. So, counter-intuitively, if you want the game to be more realistic, you will NOT change it in the INI. Bethesda actually did a good job. Interesting post. Makes me want to change the arc back to default. But(!) i feel like the arc is auto changing. If i aim close than the game gives me shallow arc. If i aim far than the arrow foes in a higher arc. So basically i never had to compensate for distance. Am i right? Also, has anyone tried the magnetism thing? Does it help arrows go where u aim? Image I made in photoshop, taking 1000 hours to complete: ::MONSTROUS EDIT:: Oh me, oh my -- I did some testing against live enemies instead of dummies. Everything above I said is 100% true. However, only against dummies, buckets, inanimate objects. When it comes to hit detection against live things, arrows definitely "snap" to the enemy when the arrow comes close to him. In otherwords, if it would fly just foot over his head, it'll snap down to hit the center of his head. You can watch the arrow fly... going for his head... closer... closer... just about to go over, and then WHAM teleported about 4 inches down so that it goes through the center of his head. Oddly, this doesn't happen when you're close to the living target. If you're close, the arrow will go exactly where it should (according to the rules stated up above). But when you get 15+ feet away, the game starts auto-aiming for you. Eek. The further away you are, the more egregious the auto aiming. 30 feet away? Then expect an arrow that would otherwise brush past someone's arm to instead fly straight for their head head instead. I tested this by going into the console and typing "TAI" and "TCAI". This disables all AI, globally. In otherwords, everyone just stands around and won't react to anything. You're free to use them as pincushions for tests. Go ahead and test it. It's more obvious if you're using the eagle-eye perk, so you can watch the arrow deliberately fly to the enemy, even if you're aiming off to a side/above. I REALLY hope there's a way to turn this off. All those headshots I had are now worth nothing to me :( http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5485/skyrimautoaim.jpg

Assuredly not. I couldn't show it with screenshots, but many, MANY times the arrow would change path right from the get go. The bit where I say "when you're further away, the auto-targeting is even worse" means this: When you're further away than I was in the screenshots, the arrow will actually home in on the target. Even if I aim a foot to his left or right, as soon as I release the arrow, it'll make a B-Line right for him. This seems to only happen, though, when the target is "Aggroed". When the target is not aggroed, then it fuctions exactly as in the screenshots -- Arrows that would narrowly miss are instead sucked toward the center of the target's body. It's really blatent. You can test it for yourself. Try turning off all AI (console -> "TCAI" and then "TAI") and firing arrows at someone. You'll see them get sucked toward them. Especially helpful in checking this is having the eagle-eye perk so you can more easily watch your arrow. THEN, turn all the AI back on. Reload the save, and aggro a guard. Then immediately go into the console and turn all AI off. This way it's just like above, except the guard is already mad at you. Now that he's mad at you, the auto-aim is even more extreme -- you have homing arrows. They'll fly right toward the target as soon as they're launched. It's awful :( Note: The purpose of turning off the AI is so that you simply don't have to have the town fight you. Everyone just stands there, oblivious. It really helps in testing this. Also, rebuttal: I understand what you're saying about hitboxes. I agree that the game snaps them to the center of an area so that they don't wind up on the sides of arms/heads/etc... however, when you get further away from a target, the arrows that would miss by a foot (or more) will teleport to the enemy. If those are hitboxes, those are HUGE hitboxes. When you're up close to someone (within 3 feet) you can fire an arrow through someone's hair (i.e. a centimeter over their head) and it won't detect it. In otherwords, when you're close, you can fire arrows very close to the person, but miss. However, the further away you get, the more bias it puts on your arrows to hit their mark. From 100 feet away, you only have to fire within a few feet and it'll get sucked to them. It's like the hitboxes grow if you're further away. ::edit:: UPDATE: The following variables have been found in the engine: I wonder if these can be tweaked in the ini? I'm going to do some testing. ::EDIT:: UPDATE #2 False alarm, no fix found.

Assuredly not. I couldn't show it with screenshots, but many, MANY times the arrow would change path right from the get go. The bit where I say "when you're further away, the auto-targeting is even worse" means this: When you're further away than I was in the screenshots, the arrow will actually home in on the target. Even if I aim a foot to his left or right, as soon as I release the arrow, it'll make a B-Line right for him. This seems to only happen, though, when the target is "Aggroed". When the target is not aggroed, then it fuctions exactly as in the screenshots -- Arrows that would narrowly miss are instead sucked toward the center of the target's body. It's really blatent. You can test it for yourself. Try turning off all AI (console -> "TCAI" and then "TAI") and firing arrows at someone. You'll see them get sucked toward them. Especially helpful in checking this is having the eagle-eye perk so you can more easily watch your arrow. THEN, turn all the AI back on. Reload the save, and aggro a guard. Then immediately go into the console and turn all AI off. This way it's just like above, except the guard is already mad at you. Now that he's mad at you, the auto-aim is even more extreme -- you have homing arrows. They'll fly right toward the target as soon as they're launched. It's awful :( Note: The purpose of turning off the AI is so that you simply don't have to have the town fight you. Everyone just stands there, oblivious. It really helps in testing this. Also, rebuttal: I understand what you're saying about hitboxes. I agree that the game snaps them to the center of an area so that they don't wind up on the sides of arms/heads/etc... however, when you get further away from a target, the arrows that would miss by a foot (or more) will teleport to the enemy. If those are hitboxes, those are HUGE hitboxes. When you're up close to someone (within 3 feet) you can fire an arrow through someone's hair (i.e. a centimeter over their head) and it won't detect it (slight exaggeration). In otherwords, when you're close, you can fire arrows very close to the person, but miss. However, the further away you get, the more bias it puts on your arrows to hit their mark. From 100 feet away, you only have to fire within a few feet and it'll get sucked to them. It's like the hitboxes grow if you're further away. ::edit:: UPDATE: The following variables have been found in the engine: I wonder if these can be tweaked in the ini? I'm going to do some testing.

Oh me, oh my -- I did some testing against live enemies instead of dummies. When it comes to hit detection against live things, arrows definitely "snap" to the enemy when the arrow comes close to him. In otherwords, if it would fly just a foot over his head, it'll snap down to hit the center of his head. You can watch the arrow fly... going for his head... closer... closer... just about to go over, and then WHAM teleported about 4 inches down so that it goes through the center of his head. Oddly, this doesn't happen when you're close to the living target. If you're close, the arrow will go exactly where it should (according to the rules stated up above). But when you get 15+ feet away, the game starts auto-aiming for you. Eek. The further away you are, the more egregious the auto aiming. 30 feet away? Then expect an arrow that would otherwise brush past someone's arm to instead fly straight for their head instead. I tested this by going into the console and typing "TAI" and "TCAI". This disables all AI, globally. In otherwords, everyone just stands around and won't react to anything. You're free to use them as pincushions for tests. Go ahead and test it. It's more obvious if you're using the eagle-eye perk, so you can watch the arrow deliberately fly to the enemy, even if you're aiming off to a side/above. I REALLY hope there's a way to turn this off or someone can make a mod. All those headshots I had are now worth nothing to me. Before someone says anything about the bow's arc, I know all of that. I've tested it a lot and I understand how it works. The following is how it works. http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/1859/bowskyrim.jpg I did not modify the ini in order to remove the natural arc Bethesda added. I prefer it, due to the above. It's actually realistic and it's my supposition that they did it on purpose for realism's sake. Yes, even if you're looking perfectly straight, the arrow arcs just like in the picture. The arc here, is NOT the issue, so please don't discuss it. In my opinion this fact is already established. You can test it yourself against target dummies while aiming for the bullseye. What I want to discuss is this blatant auto-aim or aim-assist when firing arrows at living things -- not dummies. Even though the arrow follows the trajectory described above, it WILL teleport off course in order to HIT the enemy when it would have otherwise MISSED. Does anyone know how to turn this awful auto-aim off? This is a totally separate issue from the arrow arching. The game, even if you're aim is off, will direct your arrow to hit the target and I hate it. The further you are from the target, the more aiming assistance it gives. No, you're NOT all pro archers getting headshots from 100 yards away like robin hood. The game has this almost "magnetism" that sucks arrows into heads from a distance. It biases the arrow's flight. Arrows work perfectly against dummies or other non-living targets, but if the target is alive, the game tries to make the arrow hit. Bleh. Picture Demonstrating: http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5485/skyrimautoaim.jpg Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Agreed. I do the same. I love getting a good headshot insta-kill from a couple hundred meters away even if it doesn't matter (only possible to hit that far away with fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=14000.0000 in the ini otherwise the arrow passes right through the enemy/bear/living thing) To chime in on the thread, I'll post what I said in another place: The arc they put in the game is ON PURPOSE. Not to counteract gravity to make it easier to aim, definitely not to make some kind of auto-aim (though I realize there may be some kind of auto-aim arrow magnetism thing going on when the arrow just would otherwise barely miss). It's because arrows fly in an arc regardless of how straight you aim them. It comes down to technique. Archers "nock" their arrows on the string a little lower than the tip of the arrow being held in place by the hand/grip. Thus the back of the arrow is a little lower than the front. This is to help hit targets in real life. It gives the arrow a natural arc. Also, some arching comes from the way the bow is aimed in relation to the arrow. When one aims, he pulls the arrow back so that his hand's thumb (that is holding the string) meets his lip. He then aims down the shaft, nut not directly (since the back end of the arrow is around his lip, not his eye. Thus, if you're looking down range in a straight line (represented by the crosshair in game) and the back of the arrow is beneath your eye, then the tip of the arrow is pointed up, creating an arc. I've practiced archery with all manner of bows since I was quite young [about 8]. Bonus fact: For a very long time, gun's "iron sights" have been crafted in a way that causes you to aim slightly higher than your target when aiming down sight even when you think you're actually aiming perfectly straight. This is to emulate the same built-in mechanics of a bow arching an arrow. All are created to counter-act gravity. Personally, I leave my arc default. I do not change the ini settings, because I can honestly say as a bit of a real life archer, that Bethesda's arc is pretty natural. As it stands in the game, the default arc is great. Just like in real life, within so many feet, aiming at a bullseye directly WILL cause you to hit slightly higher than the bullseye. Then at longer distances, you must still manually tilt your bow to aim higher. Bethesda got it right on the money. Except with arrow speed. Way too slow for me :P A mod fixes that. So, counter-intuitively, if you want the game to be more realistic, you will NOT change it in the INI. Bethesda actually did a good job. Interesting post. Makes me want to change the arc back to default. But(!) i feel like the arc is auto changing. If i aim close than the game gives me shallow arc. If i aim far than the arrow foes in a higher arc. So basically i never had to compensate for distance. Am i right? Also, has anyone tried the magnetism thing? Does it help arrows go where u aim? Image I made in photoshop, taking 1000 hours to complete: http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/1859/bowskyrim.jpg To dispell some rumors, the game does not auto aim or auto adjust the arc so that the arrow always hits where your cursor is looking. The arc is the same every time. The arrow rises up past your crosshair at ~10 feet or so in front of you and then drops down below the crosshair at, guessing, ~25 feet, before continuing to the ground. The reason some people think the game is auto-aiming or auto-adjusting the arc is because you can practically hit anything within 25 feet of you buy putting your crosshair on it. But you'll notice that if you aim for someone's head, you MUST master this natural curve. Anything past ~25 feet requires your to start aiming your crosshair quite a bit higher than the target. Look at the diagram again and remember that the red line indicates where your crosshair on the screen is pointing. Also note that the arc in the diagram has been exaggerated to make it obvious. In the game, the arrow won't fly THAT much higher than your line of sight, but it will still behave similarly -- start right beneath your line of sight, travel up over it, then back down past it, then continue down into the ground. The game by default doesn't let you fire arrows very far. If you shoot a target from a couple hundred feet away, the arrow will actually pass through them (even if you "hit them") and not register. This is because the game has been programmed not to calculate "Hit boxes" (invisible boxes all over living creature's bodies which detect if something hits or not) from too far away. By changing the skyrim.ini like this: the game will calculate hitboxes for up to 14,000 units away (this is very far, further away than the game will even load creatures) so that your arrows WILL register hits on the target regardless of how far away he/she/it is. When trying to hit targets from a great distance, you WILL have to start aiming up considerably. I stand by my assertion that the game does not modify the arc to "assist" your aim. You can test this on the target dummies. It's actually pretty awesome that Bethesda put this much detail into bows. There really should be something in the game explaining it though. I guess they hope people just catch on. Anyway, I'm not sure about the magnetism auto-target stuff people have mentioned. I would guess that if such a thing is in the game, what it does is this: If your arrow just narrowly misses someone by an inch or two, it sucks the arrow into them anyway. Thus increasing your chance to hit. I, however, have not noticed such a thing. ::MONSTROUS EDIT:: Oh me, oh my -- I did some testing against live enemies instead of dummies. Everything above I said is 100% true. However, only against dummies, buckets, inanimate objects. When it comes to hit detection against live things, arrows definitely "snap" to the enemy when the arrow comes close to him. In otherwords, if it would fly just foot over his head, it'll snap down to hit the center of his head. You can watch the arrow fly... going for his head... closer... closer... just about to go over, and then WHAM teleported about 4 inches down so that it goes through the center of his head. Oddly, this doesn't happen when you're close to the living target. If you're close, the arrow will go exactly where it should (according to the rules stated up above). But when you get 15+ feet away, the game starts auto-aiming for you. Eek. The further away you are, the more egregious the auto aiming. 30 feet away? Then expect an arrow that would otherwise brush past someone's arm to instead fly straight for their head head instead. I tested this by going into the console and typing "TAI" and "TCAI". This disables all AI, globally. In otherwords, everyone just stands around and won't react to anything. You're free to use them as pincushions for tests. Go ahead and test it. It's more obvious if you're using the eagle-eye perk, so you can watch the arrow deliberately fly to the enemy, even if you're aiming off to a side/above. I REALLY hope there's a way to turn this off. All those headshots I had are now worth nothing to me :( http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5485/skyrimautoaim.jpg

Agreed. I do the same. I love getting a good headshot insta-kill from a couple hundred meters away even if it doesn't matter (only possible to hit that far away with fVisibleNavmeshMoveDist=14000.0000 in the ini otherwise the arrow passes right through the enemy/bear/living thing) To chime in on the thread, I'll post what I said in another place: The arc they put in the game is ON PURPOSE. Not to counteract gravity to make it easier to aim, definitely not to make some kind of auto-aim (though I realize there may be some kind of auto-aim arrow magnetism thing going on when the arrow just would otherwise barely miss). It's because arrows fly in an arc regardless of how straight you aim them. It comes down to technique. Archers "nock" their arrows on the string a little lower than the tip of the arrow being held in place by the hand/grip. Thus the back of the arrow is a little lower than the front. This is to help hit targets in real life. It gives the arrow a natural arc. Also, some arching comes from the way the bow is aimed in relation to the arrow. When one aims, he pulls the arrow back so that his hand's thumb (that is holding the string) meets his lip. He then aims down his sight, but not directly down the shaft (since the back end of the arrow is around his lip, not his eye. Thus, if you're looking down range in a straight line (represented by the crosshair in game) and the back of the arrow is beneath your eye (near your mouth), then the tip of the arrow is pointed up, creating an arc. I've practiced archery with all manner of bows since I was quite young [about 8]. Bonus fact: For a very long time, gun's "iron sights" have been crafted in a way that causes you to aim slightly higher than your target when aiming down sight even when you think you're actually aiming perfectly straight. This is to emulate the same built-in mechanics of a bow arching an arrow. All are created to counter-act gravity. Personally, I leave my arc default. I do not change the ini settings, because I can honestly say as a bit of a real life archer, that Bethesda's arc is pretty natural. As it stands in the game, the default arc is great. Just like in real life, within so many feet, aiming at a bullseye directly WILL cause you to hit slightly higher than the bullseye. Then at longer distances, you must still manually tilt your bow to aim higher. Bethesda got it right on the money. Except with arrow speed. Way too slow for me :P A mod fixes that. So, counter-intuitively, if you want the game to be more realistic, you will NOT change it in the INI. Bethesda actually did a good job.

I have a question related to this. While you say that the normal's transparency determine's specularity, it seems some objects in the game have their own separate specularity map. For instance, bodies. They have a diffuse map dds, a normal map dds, AND a specularity map dds. Is this true? I mean, it seems that way. For objects that have this separate map, will increasing transparency on the normal map have *any* effect?