jimhsu

Yay Morrowind? I suppose this can be done though by removing the summon flag or keyword from the appropriate creature. Try it.

I've been rolling with the following config so far: Opethfeldt6 ENB (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/18941) SweetFX Bokeh DoF and Tilt Shift for ENBSeries (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24024) Plus the texture mods, etc. The fidelity is amazing, and performance impact is surprisingly moderate ("only" a 6950 here, no monster SLI rig).

nDo2, and the (incredibly awesome yet unreleased) dDo (see their site). nDo2 has improved my normals more than any other utility out there. Check it out at their site: http://quixel.se/

About ndo 2: google it. They do "something" to their normals that allows the output to be manipulatable with standard photoshop tools. You'll have to look at their site to see what it exactly does.

Yes you "can". Whether or not you "should" is a different story. More detail than you possibly want; http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/blending-in-detail/ Easy way: overlay mode Technically correct way: convert to height map, perform addition, and convert back to normal. I personally use ndo 2 to convert normals to ndo's format and overlay blend from there, which works with their particular type of normal.

Probably you want a rougelike? Nethack, ADOM, Elona, Dwarf fortress ... whatnot? Resist any temptation to open up a FAQ/wiki page and see how far you get. (that's not my idea of fun though. But go figure)

Let's see what has not been discussed here: (my openness scores come from TVTropes's definition of sandboxes. The authoritative source as always.) Sandbox RPGs: The Saints Row series (which has been getting better than GTA in the "fun" category) Modability score: 5/10 (no official editor, but uses a XML language. New meshes are at the moment not possible though.) Openness: 6/6 Prototype. Yea. Haven't played the second one. Modability score: 3/10 (texture replacements?) Openness: 5/6 Space games: Freelancer (nothing out there is quite like it. Evochron maybe?) Modability score: 7/10. Google "discovery freelancer" Openness: 5/6 The X series games. Modability up the wazoo. EVERYTHING in the game (including basic attack/trade commands) is script based. 300-page scripting handbook, straight from the devs. Editors out there (provided links are still working) for everything imaginable. Modability score: 9/10. Just as moddable if not more than TES. Openness: 6/6 (unfortunately I could never get into Evochron. Whether it's the ultra-realism or 90s interface, I don't know. Great game though). Action RPGs: Torchlight (need I say more?) Modability score: 7/10. TorchED. Openness: 4/6 Titan Quest (current playing this after being disappointed with Diablo 3) Modability score: 6/10. Many official tools, and most everything is figured out by now. Applying multiple mods can be a pain though. Openness: 4/6 Simulation: Simcity 4. Don't bother with Cities XL (anything). Modability: 8/10. Most comprehensive transportation system of any computer game (short of real life) courtesy of Network Addon Mod. Also, CAM. Openness: 6/6. The very definition of sandbox (you start with freaking sand everywhere). The Sims. (really? you serious?) Modability: 8/10. Let's just say that it's very difficult to learn HOW to mod for this (prepare to be quite familiar with visual c++), but google "Awesomemod", "Nraas" or visit modthesims.info to see just what people have come up with. Openness: 6/6. --- Oh yea, all these games (except for Prototype) I have tried to mod in (however trivially), and my modding experience started back with Morrowind. So yea, that goes a long way.

My concept of modding hierarchy (your mileage may vary, and no offense to any of these groups): Mod users: "typical average internet user/troll/etc" Game setting changers: Mod users with an ounce of intelligence. Texture artists: Mod users that actually follow instructions. New "XYZ" makers: Slight masochists Papyrus scripters: Masochists 3D meshers: Serious masochists Total conversion guys: Big team, or freaking insane. NifSkope/SKSE/SkyBoost/SD guys: You are crazy. Thank you. Period. --- I'm somewhere in that middle group depending on how I feel on any particular day.

I'm no expert on this, but I would start modeling the silhouette and using splines to model the holes and extrude through. For the other curved surfaces (e.g. trigger), use splines.

Oh, I neglected to read the final line from the Creation Kit wiki: "ActiveMagicEffects will also receive events from the Actor they are attached to. " Interesting. Will try this out.

Could this work if I wrapped the entire thing up as an ActiveMagicEffect? I still need to get OnDeath somehow though.

Trying something non serious, but wacky fun. But here's the setup: 1. A single actor in the world is initialized with, say, a disease (with a ReferenceAlias script). 2. SetAV aggression 3 and hilarity ensues. 3. OnDeath of that actor, infect the killer of that actor with the disease (with say some probability). 4. SetAV aggression 3 and hilarity ensues, again. 5. OnDeath of the second actor .. so on and so forth. Eventually the whole of skyrim goes insane (probably) unless I intervene. The problem I am having with the script in the Reference Alias panel is that while I get the alias handoffs just fine (with ForceRefTo), I can't get the alias script to run on the 2nd actor (so OnDeath doesn't work on step 5). Is this at all possible or should I use a different approach? Bear in mind that the killer can be ANY actor, so obviously having OnDeath scripts for every actor in the game is not practical.

Yours is a skinning problem. As theru suggested, again skin wrap is great and probably will get you 80-95% of the way to a decent rig (depending on how well you've adapted the armor in the first place). Check problem areas - for my models, it's typically the finger joints, shoulder, knee, foot, and the head/neck region (see the pattern - joints are tough to rig correctly - but skin wrap can do a surprisingly decent job if your armor isn't too weird). Check any red/orange where it is not supposed to be (just hold down down arrow on the bone list and see if anything looks wrong).

This video, or more specifically the Max macro in there. I know this is a blender forum, but a similar script probably exists.

Try increasing the magnitude (not the area) of the cloak spell.

Found this guy's youtube channel. After just watching 2 (parts 3 and 4) and learning a ton about selections, mesh optimization, retriangulation, etc by trial and error, I highly recommend this for someone who knows Max, but keeps running into stupid roadblocks all the time (again, like me). Also useful for experienced modelers in other programs (Maya, Blender, etc) that keep running into stupid stuff on Max. Parts 3 and 4 are about selections and the Edit Poly modifier specifically. Redoing all the meshes that I simply hit MeshSmooth with. Part 2 also covers what XForm is which seems to be relevant to modding here specifically.

A way (though not necessarily the easiest) is to pose the model onto the skyrim skeleton w/ the existing skeleton, and use SkinUtilities to export the skin data, dump the skin modifier (make sure to collapse instead of deleting the modifier) and add the skyrim bones, and import it back in with manual matching of the bones. Gets tedious if you have to do it more than once though.

Could imagine a variant of this in Midas Magic (not that it's being updated any more, but still).

Solution: Seems I fixed the problem. I didn't copy the BGED block correctly. Make sure to copy the BGED block correctly from an existing tail mesh, and make sure it is at the top of the NIF (just below scene root). The block I am referring to is this one: http://imgur.com/p7GqH You also need to replace the normal skeleton with the beast skeleton, of course.

Been working on a custom tail mesh as part of an armor mod. Will not post the mod here. Anyways, there is confusing HKX stuff that is impeding my progress. Current set of experiments: Race: Breton Armor mesh already equipped - no tail animation Unequip, and reequip armor mesh - no tail animation Use tails from Mystic tails mod (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13995) - animation Race: Argonian (did a simple setrace) Armor mesh already equipped - no tail animation Unequip, and reequip armor mesh - animation, works correctly Use tails from Mystic tails mod (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13995) - animation My armor NIF contains the mesh, all tailbones properly skinned, and the BGED block (BSBehaviorGraphExtraData) from FemaleTailArgonian.nif. I set up the Armor object correctly in Creation Kit, including the respective slots in ArmorAddon and Armors, and changed the race to ArgonianRace. My hypothesis is that there is HKX stuff custom implemented for supporting only khajiit and argonian tails, for w/e reason. The only lead I have to go on is this file: AuxBones\Tail\TailProject.hkx Any suggestions/ideas?

In Fallout 3, there was the "Armor list" functionality which allowed certain models (in a formlist) to override the currently used armor when a certain weapon was equipped (examples included the powerfist, deathclaw gauntlet, etc). I did a side by side comparison of the GECK with the Creation Kit, and that functionality seems to be missing. Has it been moved somewhere else? I'd imagine this would be possible w/ scripting, but I don't want to go there if there's a trivial way to do this.

not 100% sure but I do not think papyrus can alter anything related to interface. Go spend a month learning Flash and ActionScript. Then browse this thread: http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1290652-modding-the-gui/page__hl__interface Sorry, stuff like this is really, really hard. That is not to say it can't be done with brute force effort however.

Papyrus is really quite limited as far as stepping outside the boundaries of what it was designed for, mostly because it only exposes top level functions. You'll have better luck using script dragon or waiting for SKSE (sigh) to try to accomplish anything that's even slightly outside the boundaries of the scripting engine. Even simple things like changing game settings with setgs? Nope, can't do, impossible (unless you use script dragon).

The UV that you get when exporting as an .obj should work fine. It's just the skinning part that is more problematic.

True. It seems that when you equip only a piece of awesome armor it clips terribly with almost any other thing you have equipped. If you let the players mix'n'match, you end up with dozens of requests for compatibility patches and clipping 'fixes'. No i mean like where the boot for the armor arn't anything. There just armor points, and the actual appearance of the boots is part of the body armor. I quoted the wrong person. That was ment for Raestloz The main point of that IMO is that having a boot that a) doesn't show up is less visually jarring than b) having a hole where your feet are supposed to be. I've taken to simply making custom armors as one piece affairs -- e.g. equipping a cuirass would automatically unequip any feet or hand armor that you might have. Saves complaints that way, except for the ones about "stealing 4 of my enchantment slots" in which cases there are mods to fix that and more. Moral of the story: whatever you do, people will complain (and they're getting it for free! psh.) You can a) ignore them, or b) make it so that you get the least complaints.