SSE Several questions I wish I knew the answers to...

[dafydd99]

Hi all. I've had a few questions about SE modding for a while that I've been unable to find the answers to and hoped someone here could help. I've put them together because there's a few of them, but some will probably just be a one word answer 'no it's not possible'.

1. is there a tool to convert a .nif file into xml (or json or some text equivalent) and back. This would be so bulk changes could be made, eg, change all #00ff00 colours to #ff0000.
2. is there a way from papyrus to get the difficulty level the user has set eg 'legendary' (or some int reflect these values)? I'd like to be able to, say, add a few more seconds to a timer in puzzles if the difficulty has been set to 'easy'.
3. Is there a way to know what 'directional material' have been placed on local rocks, roads etc? Ie snow and ash. I'd like to be able to add an object to any area and know which to use through scripts. I can partially answer my question here by saying I can check if there is a 'snow' weather for the area - if so it's snow covered, and in Solstheim there's ash in snow areas too, as the ash storms count as snow, so that could be worked out by which snow, and possibly through altitude.
4. is there a way to add a given 'directional material' to an objectreference through papyrus?
5. Is there a way to apply 'directional materials' to animastatics?
6. Is there a way to apply LOD to animastatics, or make them never fade, or 'is full LOD' on them (which can be selected on an object reference in the creation kit, but is lost when editing menu is reopened)?
7. Some time ago bethesda added a lot of creation kit basics to the main SE files. Eg 'ccBGS_ThinMushroomTreeCluster02'. As mod developers can we assume an SE platform has them? I release to PC and XBoxOne, though AE will have them obviously. I'd like to be able to use the 'root hall ways' - or should I bundle those resources within my mod (under different names).
8. I'd like to make a 'dwemer thinking cap' helmet - basically a standard dwemer helmet, with a couple of animated cogs rotating on the top, maybe even making the cog noise. Is this possible in a nif for an armoraddon? If I add the parts in nifskope they don't appear in game, with just the standard 'skin' of the armour visible.

Phew - well, thanks in advance for any help!

 

Cheers, dafydd99

[Sphered]

Since you dont seem to be getting responses I'll stab one or two

 

Batch nif edit methods are kinda elusive. There is a XEdit script out there (possibly already included dont recall) that can update Tangent Space on multiple nifs so you might pop that open and see how feasibly you could make that update Vertex Colors or what not instead. Otherwise yeah I hoped we could open multiples in Notepad++ or something to find and replace data for multiple nifs but far as I have seen it corrupts the nifs

 

Animated parts is doable in armor addons. Shapes need not necessarily use bones either, and can be part of the nif too. Best results when you dont flatten branch and keep the skel tree intact though. Short version is yes doable or aside, you could instead give the armor an enchant which plays animated art. Probably easier to go that route

[dylbill]

Looks like difficulty is an ini setting, so you can use Utility.GetIniInt("iDifficulty:GamePlay") to get the current difficulty. Requires skse.

[dafydd99]

Looks like difficulty is an ini setting, so you can use Utility.GetIniInt("iDifficulty:GamePlay") to get the current difficulty. Requires skse.

Thanks dlybill. At the moment I'm hoping to avoid using any non vanilla assets, so if I can avoid SKSE I will. It seems there's no direct other method to retrieve it, which is a pain.

 

Am wondering if there might be a way to intercept the damage done on an actor after faking an attack from the player on it, and using this as a way to discern what the difficulty setting is. Although looking further even this seems impossible, as there doesn't seem to be a way to 'fake' an attack from the player. Hmmm!

[dafydd99]

Since you dont seem to be getting responses I'll stab one or two

 

Batch nif edit methods are kinda elusive. There is a XEdit script out there (possibly already included dont recall) that can update Tangent Space on multiple nifs so you might pop that open and see how feasibly you could make that update Vertex Colors or what not instead. Otherwise yeah I hoped we could open multiples in Notepad++ or something to find and replace data for multiple nifs but far as I have seen it corrupts the nifs

 

Animated parts is doable in armor addons. Shapes need not necessarily use bones either, and can be part of the nif too. Best results when you dont flatten branch and keep the skel tree intact though. Short version is yes doable or aside, you could instead give the armor an enchant which plays animated art. Probably easier to go that route

 

Thanks, Sphered. Yeah, frustrating about the nif->text->nif conversions. It would be so helpful for people to make their own tools. Usually, anything editing a nif would need to make its own 'in memory' model of the nif anyhow, and going from that to a text version and back should be relatively straightforward. I'm pretty good with eg search/replace tools in unix, so once in a text format I'd hope to be able to a variety of modifications quickly and easily. Issues such as corrupting the nif could clearly happen if invalid data is given, but for things like eg a string being recorded in byte form starting within a byte declaring the number of characters used, this should be covered by the tool when converting back.

 

Possibly the only realistic route is, as you say, making an xedit script - though I'd hoped to avoid having to learn a whole new scripting system.

 

Okay, so good to know armor addons can do animation. Do you know of any examples of this working, especially one that might exist in the vanilla assets? I'd prefer to do it at the nif level if possible, as enchantment effects are currently beyond my knowledge.

 

 

 

[dylbill]

Ah in that case, I think the simplest solution would be to ask the user when they install the mod, which difficulty they want to play the mod at, and store their preference in a global variable or something.

[Sphered]

ShaderPropertyControllers are pretty basic to setup. They can modulate UV, brightness, and other things. Could technically do equippable overlays using those which could animate. No bones are involved in making that flavor work

 

Tails would be an animated addon I suppose, though its bones are also on the skeleton. HDT mods pull off their approach by having not-flattened branches and point to XML data. To get something completely new on the nif that uses bones, and the bones are not on the wearer's skeleton, yeah I'd say go with Enchants that play art. That visual can be skinned and use behavior graphs. Cant think of an example in-game off the top of my head but it definitely is a good route

[dafydd99]

Ah in that case, I think the simplest solution would be to ask the user when they install the mod, which difficulty they want to play the mod at, and store their preference in a global variable or something.

Yeah that could work. Or alternatively could try to make a call to SKSE, and if it not available go for a default. Or maybe both!

[dafydd99]

ShaderPropertyControllers are pretty basic to setup. They can modulate UV, brightness, and other things. Could technically do equippable overlays using those which could animate. No bones are involved in making that flavor work

 

Tails would be an animated addon I suppose, though its bones are also on the skeleton. HDT mods pull off their approach by having not-flattened branches and point to XML data. To get something completely new on the nif that uses bones, and the bones are not on the wearer's skeleton, yeah I'd say go with Enchants that play art. That visual can be skinned and use behavior graphs. Cant think of an example in-game off the top of my head but it definitely is a good route

Thanks Sphered - these ideas are beyond my current knowledge, but you've given me some good directions to investigate. Will try to discover more!

[dafydd99]

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