LE Helmet removal/hood lowering (animation?)

[KaptenN]

Disclaimer:

There is a mod that unequips or equips your helmet when you sheath or draw your weapon (Auto Unequip Helmet mod), but that's not what I'm looking for.

I originally proposed this in this thread: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/907117-first-person-helmet-sights/ I was adding suggestions to the author's request, but they recommended that I start a new thread instead.

 

Background:

Many mods that adds or modifies robes adds hooded and hoodless versions, but I think it would be better if you could switch between them at the press of a button.

Walking around with a helmet on all the time is weird, and going into the inventory to equip and unequip your helmet all the time is a chore and immersion breaking. However, you would probably wear the helmet in dangerous areas even without your weapon drawn, unlike with the Auto Unequip Helmet mod. It would be much better if you could equip and uneqip your helmet with a special hotkey.

 

I can think of diffrent stages of this mod and estimated the difficulty and skills required to make them. I would be happy if only the easiest part was created. I divided this request up in these difficulty levels for this reason. Make what you think you can manage. Note that you can also start with making the higher stages first without already having functional lower stages if those stages are better suited for your skills. You could for example make stage 2 and 3 for helmets and hope that someone else does stage 1 for you later.

 

Stage 1 for hoods and helmets, Easiest (script):

A script that runs when a hotkey is pressed. It will equip/unequip your helmet/hood (or if possible just hide it so that it remains equiped and the script don't have to remember your choosen headwear, though any armour value a helmet may add should still be negated as there should be a reason to want to wear a helmet). For hooded robes it will switch to the hoodless version, or vice versa.

 

Stage 2 for helmets, Intermediate (skeleton):

When the hotkey is pressed to remove the helmet, move it instead to a place on your belt. (Where would you store your helmet? It's not like you can fold it and put it in a pocket.)

 

Stage 3 for helmets, Intermediate (animation):

When the hotkey is pressed, play an animation that removes the helmet from the head and places it on the belt or the other way around.

 

Stage 2 for hoods, Intermediate (mesh):

When the hotkey is pressed, switch between a lowered and a raised hood mesh.

 

Stage 3 for hoods, Intermediate (animation):

When the hotkey is pressed, play an animation that lowers/raises the hood. Just an animation of the hands in a hood-lowering/-raising fashion when the hood is switched between the raised and lowered meshes.

 

Stage 4 for hoods, Advanced (animation, mesh, skeleton(?))

Animate the hoods so that they actually follow the hands that lower them. This would be totally super cool.

 

Extra:

I would absolutely love it if this mod request was fullfilled too: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/907117-first-person-helmet-sights/ (similar to this Oblivion mod: http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/8991/?) as that would not only be awesome and immersive but would also create another reason for why you would want to remove your helmet when you don't need it.

It might also be a good idea to increase the sneak skill a little when a hood is raised which would give a reason for theives and assassins to raise their hoods. Perhaps decrease their speech skill a bit also to give an incentive to lower their hoods sometimes (it's only reasonable that people are suspicious towards people who hide under hoods). A raised hood could also work to protect vampires from the sun and/or give extra environmental protection for people using Frostfall.

 

Compatibility:

Preferably the mod should be built in such a way that other mods that add helmets, hoods or hooded robes could easily be made compatible with this one.

 

 

 

EDIT:

It appears that the mod Helmet Toggle - Show Hide does almost what I intended with stage 1. However, it doesn't negate the helmet's armour rating when it is hidden, which goes against what I want to achieve. There should be an incentive to having your helmet on your head and that is its armour rating. The mod also appearantly turn the headwear into invisible circlets, which I think will be incompatible with mods that allow you to wear circlets and hoods at the same time (Like Hoods and Circlets). Testing is required. I'll check that out later. Either way though, it would be useful to look at the Helmet Toggle scripts and see how they work.

UPDATE: After some testing I've found that I was correct. Having both Hoods and Circlets and Helmet Toggle active at the same time causes some unwanted effects. While Helmet Toggle doesn't hide circlets on its own, when circlets and hoods are worn together both will be hidden. They will also occupy the same slot so if the circlet is unequiped and equiped again that will unequip the hidden hood. Perhaps the author of Helmet Toggle can be convinced to make so that hidden hoods don't occupy the circlet slot?

Edited July 8, 2013 by KaptenN

[ethernalhero]

That would be brilliant, good idea. Hope it gets made ;]

[Coastalaxe]

Great description. Having it's own thread allows for it, so good job!

 

Looking at your idea here, it made me think of a few mods that seem relevant.

 

XP32 Maximum Skeleton - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/26800//?

 

This mod is just one of many custom skeleton replacers. It's the one I use. But contacting the mod authors about your "helmet on belt/body" idea could be potentially productive.

 

Also, I thought of SkyUI's latest feature, the equipment slots - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3863//?

 

I haven't tried out the feature yet, but depending on how it looks, using this feature to switch between an armor set with and without a helmet would achieve exactly what you wanted. It just depends on how the switch looks.

 

As for animations, it would seem that creating custom animations in Skyrim is rather difficult/a rare capability to find in modders. I know that there are tons of mods that would benefit greatly from custom animations, but even after many years those animations have not come.

 

However, out of the mods I'm currently tracking this one seems most likely to be able to handle your request - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/34950/?

 

It's called Immersive animations.

 

Good luck to your mod request!

[yoemeuunito]

 

 

As for animations, it would seem that creating custom animations in Skyrim is rather difficult/a rare capability to find in modders.

 

I would've thought that this is something a lot of modders would've been interested in doing. It certainly seems like something that is wanted greatly, and not just by myself evidently.