gryphonaerie

I got the idea when watching 'Creation Kit Tutorial Series - Episode 9: Lighting', and they mention at around the 3:30 mark 'shadow casters' effecting fog markers.

Well, to explain, I have made a worldspace that is going to be a large cave, using the lighting template 'EastEmpireCaveFar' with climate of 'BlackreachClimate'. I don't plan to use any shadow-casting lightsources if I can get away with it for performance's sake. What I am trying to do is have the ceiling cave pieces with the sunshafts in them, and place a shadow source at the top so that they fade into darkness, to make it look like cave chimneys heading off into the black reaches of the earth.

I'm working on building a cave, and I was wondering if anyone could hell me where to find shadow casters in the creation kit so that I can have strategic areas of darkness?

Awesome, that looks like it might work! Thanks!

Anyone?

Is there a way to make a script on an x-marker so that it is aware of what ai package an npc is running to disable-enable the x-marker, or just set up to a schedule based on the in-game time?

Yep, it's on the stage to find the coffee guidebook, showing objective in the journal. I already have placed books linked to an x-marker that queue the next stage of the quest, which fire off fine, and then disable themselves. The main issue is that I don't have any quest marker pointing to where to look. I have placed a thin table with a coffee pot in every inn within Skyrim, and a book on the corner of each one, so that the player can go to the nearest inn and find one. I guess that might have to do, as the letter the courier delivers that starts the quest tells you that the quest giver has heard that incomplete copies have found their way into the local inns. I guess I'm just over-engineering it a bit, trying to add in the compass markers.

Is there a way to make a script on an x-marker so that it is aware of what ai package an npc is running to disable-enable the x-marker?

Okay, I have made a custom marker, that works on player activation, and placed it in the world. I have set up an alias in the quest, set to specific reference of that one marker. I have set the quest stage to show objective 'find an incomplete guidebook'. I have told that stage to use Target Ref to that alias. No compass marker.

Quest is already running, got quest objective showing and everything.

I would like to use it as an alias reference, so that I am not editing the vanilla objects, in case someone has a mod that already adds a script, like the Highland Milk Farm mod. Will work more on that idea later... What I am struggling with right now is figuring out how to make a custom activator. I have created one, using the model for 'JournalLowPoly03.nif' but it does not have the ability to be clicked on, when though it brings up the 'press e to activate' option. Is there a script specifically for enabling activators? This is the script I am trying to use right now: It compiles fine, but again no activation in game.

I have already gone through the steps of exporting the facetint, using CTRL+F4, but in-game it is still showing greyface (ultra-creepy). Is there some secret step I need to take to get the game to recognize the facetints? EDIT: Nevermind, apparently it was a system issue.

Well crud, it won't even show a marker when I set up an alias forceref to that item, and tell the quest to use that as the Target Ref! Failing on step one is rather sad. I do thank you for the other advice, as I am constantly learning new things about how to mod. I just wish I knew why it refused to set up the link to an object like that.

trying something simpler, just set up a reference alias to each book, so the compass knows where it is. Thankfully I do not have to have it check for something like 'tundra cotton plant'. Only issue now is how to get it to filter then by how close the player is, instead of how to have it call the reference.

Question is will that look inside of the interiors of nearby buildings... Or, am I over-complicating things?

That much makes sense, after reading it over... unfortunately they don't go in how to have the game check for the nearest matching item for the compass marker.

I am setting up a quest that requires the player to find an incomplete copy of a book. I have placed several copies of it all around Skyrim, and have them set to enabled at that stage (thankfully with an x-marker), but I would like to set up a compass marker that guides the player to the nearest copy of this book. Is this possible? If so, how could this be done? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Gryphon Aerie

I hope to learn enough messing with the MCM to implement the ability to milk cows, and craft butter at butter churns, as a toggle option for my mod, so that if the player already has a mod that effects those features they do not need to worry about my mod messing with it.

Are there any good videos out there on how to set up an MCM Menu? I found the quickstart guide on GitHub, but I'm not sure I am doing things correctly. Do you need to set a state in the MCM quest, or just have the script added to the final (scripts) tab? Wait, I think I found an answer to that already from a post from IsharaMeradin back in May of this year... I want to allow the players to toggle on and off individual coffee merchants in the cities, and that seems to be the easiest (snerk) way to go.

As far as the LItemInnRuralDrink LItem list, is there any way to increase the chance of coffee dropping?

Amazing! Okay, that makes sense. I can set a property for cgr2, attached to a global variable of cgr2_available that is defaulted to 100 (for 0% change to drop), have a script fragment on stage 30 to set cgr2 to 95 (5% change to drop). Then I do the same for recipes 3-5 on each of their quest stages, and have each leveled item list be set upon the global variable for chance-none, and the item in each LItem list have a minimum level requirement appropriate to each. Then I add LItemCGR2 through LItemCGR5 to a separate LItemCGR, set to calculate for each item in count. Then add that to the bandit loot drop list. With all that done it should give a 5% chance for the right recipe to drop during its quest stage, but only if you're at least the minimum level for each sub-item. From there I just use a quest like I had on the initial book marker, set to remove the recipe when you put it in your inventory and trigger the next stage in the quest, rinse-repeat. And like you said, tell people to use Wrye Bash to merge LItem Lists.

So basically just go in and change the actual drinks litem list to include my own drinks, and in the mod description advise to use Wrye Bash to merge LItem lists? That seems simple enough. I might still need to do the OnPlayerLoadGame() for the recipes to drop randomly though, right? Reason I am asking is that the coffees are leveled like potions are, and I am going to have it so that you cannot make the higher level coffees unless you have the recipe written in the Guidebook. I only want the recipe to have a chance to drop when (A) You're at the stage in the quest to look for the next recipe, and (B) you're high enough level. Is it possible to add an Event OnPlayerLoadGame() as a fragment script on a quest level?

Both of you are awesome! I already have a leveled items list of the coffee I want the merchants (innkeepers) to sell, how would I add that separate litem list to the merchant chests and have it be compatible with Wrye Bash? Can you use the AddForm function to add a LItem list to a LItem list? EDIT: Idea I have is to add my LItem coffee list using the AddForm function to the VendorGoldInn LItem list, as it is set to calculate all. As I am planning on having just the drinkable coffee available with the innkeepers, and I already have a quest in place, I can add that on to stage 0. This would not be directly editing the LItem list in the CK, but instead adding the form to it, which should negate compatibility issues as far as that goes. As I already planned on having all innkeepers have some coffee to sell, based upon player level, this should work right? And I can then have at the appropriate quest stages have it AddForm the CoffeeRecipe LItem lists to the bandit random drops, then Revert when the next stage kicks off (upon receiving the recipe in question).

Question: If I make my own leveled item lists, is there a way to have them scripted with an alias (so it doesn't cause compatibility issues, hopefully) to existing merchants chests, and re-spawn like normal? Been hunting around and haven't quite found the answer. The real question is can I use a script to add and remove a custom litem list from the drop lists of enemies, or the sell lists of merchants?

I plan to add the recipes to leveled item lists so that they will have a chance to drop when you meet the right criteria. IE you're at the right stage of the quest, and at least a minimal level. Will have to find out how to add if-statements onto litem list items next, I guess...