I need modding help!

[GingahNinja47]

Hey, if there are any experienced modders out there, I need some help. I'm pretty well off with my mod, but there is one thing I can't get to work. For one of the many quests I'm adding, A section of the dragon bridge (dragon bridge the bridge, not Dragon Bridge the town) lowers, revealing a new dungeon hidden underneath the town of Dragon Bridge. Problem is, I can't figure out how to get part of the bridge to lower. Help?

[GingahNinja47]

*bump*

[Veltoss]

Are you looking to just lower the entire bridge object down to a certain level? This could be done the same way other objects are changed ingame (like with Civil War changes). One object will be disabled while another is enabled at the same time. This is done with a trigger which is activated by a certain quest stage. I've never done this myself, my only activating objects stuff has been with a papyrus script that relies on gametime. But I'm pretty sure I figured out everything involved, you just need to figure out how to do the same thing with your own quest and object.

 

This is the "chain of events" as far as how the civil war clutter is handled. The quest that activates the clutter is CWAttackCity, and it uses an alias called ClutterEnableToggle. The alias activates a Location Ref Type, which is used to link it with markers set within Whiterun through the Location Ref Type tab of the markers. These markers are linked to the clutter objects under the Enable Parent tab. From what I understand, whenever the quest starts (right when you're about to attack the city), the alias causes any markers that use the CWCityAttackClutterToggle Location Ref Type to enable, which causes any objects with the marker linked under the Enable Parent tab to activate.

 

You should be able to do the same thing to deactive the original bridge. You should be able to do this with the same marker. From what I understand it should disable any objects that are already enabled by default. If not, take a closer look at how the civil war quest disables certain objects, like Severio Palagia's house.

 

So basically what you need to do is have two Dragon Bridge objects. The original, and one in the lowered position. The quest that activates the bridge lowering needs to enable the lowered position object and disable the original object at the same time. This way, when the player goes to the bridge, it will appear to have lowered and now shows the dungeon entrance.

 

I do have one question though. Have you considered how lowering the bridge could affect players getting into the Dragon Ridge town? If the dungeon is permanent and not for a temporary part of a quest, the bridge would have to be lowered all the time for people to enter, and this would stop people from being able to traverse it to get into the town.

[GingahNinja47]

I actually ment lowering a section of the bridge. In other words, if someone walked down the center of the bridge, it would bring them to the dungeon, whereas walking toward the left or right, they would cross the ravine into Dragon Bridge as per usual. Therefore, I'd need to be able to alter the bridge's model, which I can't find ANYWHERE.

[Veltoss]

I actually ment lowering a section of the bridge. In other words, if someone walked down the center of the bridge, it would bring them to the dungeon, whereas walking toward the left or right, they would cross the ravine into Dragon Bridge as per usual. Therefore, I'd need to be able to alter the bridge's model, which I can't find ANYWHERE.

Oooohhh. Yeah, I have nothing for you on modifying models, not my area.

 

As far as finding the model though, that part is easy. Go into the CK, find the dragonbridge object, right click, edit. Look at the name of the model in the edit window. Now use BSAopt to open Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, use the red X button to de-select everything, filter for the model's name, select it, extract.