How to simulate window view of a make-pretend moving vehicle ( E.G Carriage ) by moving the player?

[VanyarElf]

Technically I'm actually trying to do this in New Vegas but there's almost nobody on the forums there so I figured I might as well ask here. Basically, I'm trying to do something very simple which is proving to be very challenging. Let us say in the context of Skyrim, I want to fake a cinematic sequence of the player riding in a carriage, but maybe it's supposed to be some special fancy vehicle that can also fly and I'm not going through the hassle of actually making any moving vehicle.

Instead, I just need to disable the player's controls, then push the player in a certain direction at a certain speed, let's say along some road, as the world goes by, and make sure their screen displays some kind of peeping-hole window with say, the illusion of an empty carriage seat and the roof corners in the edges of the screen, with only the middle hole/window being transparent.

Alternatively, although this will be more complicated, I could try allowing the player looking around inside the carriage in first-person including the windows.

2 problems:

A. I might be stupid but I have no idea how to accomplish the '2D view', which should theoretically involve just taking a picture of a carriage seat POV with a window in the middle, making the window alpha channel, and then 'pasting it' on the player's screen for the duration of the sequence like an Imagespace Modifier, but I have no idea how to do that. Imagespace Modifier and Imagespaces only allow for effects, not for pasting a JPG/DDS on the player's screen.

B. No idea how to do the latter 3D view either. Presumably I'd place the player in a chair and put static carriage walls and a roof around it, but I can't find a way to move static objects together with the player in real-time. Does it need to be a moveable object, and if so how to make it unaffected by gravity or anything else while moving in sychnronity with the player? Another idea I had was creating a static vehicle with interior textures and making the player wear it as an armor so when they look around ( Because it's much bigger and encompasses them ) they just see the interior, and then moving the player will move it too - would that even work?

Appreciate any advice.

Edited February 14 by VanyarElf

[melvinius]

Not a modder, more of a tinkerer.  But here are some thoughts.

Several really excellent carriage mods for Skyrim have been released. If you want your vehicles to be non-player-controlled, I would recommend looking at these mods to see how the modders did it.

If you want your vehicle to be player controlled, for small land vehicles I would consider making a custom "horse" that isn't actually a horse (a mount in other words).  I've seen mods where you can control small boats as well, you could see what those modders have done.

Finally, if you need a large flying vessel that can be parked/entered, in Skyrim there is the excellent Dev Aveza airship mod.

Your best bet is to see what others have done and adapt it, maybe even reach out to those modders for advice.

[greyday01]

Just an idea. The carriage is an activator. On activation it is disabled and a custom chair is put in its place and the player is ccaused to sit in it and player controls deactivated. The custom chair has attached what looks like the interior of the carriage including a side with a window opening. The entire contraption along with the player moves along a set path. When at the destination the chair is disabled, a carriage is enabled and the player is placed beside it and control is returned to the player. You might look at the beginning carriage ride to see how they do that.

[anjenthedog]

Not capable of authoring mods myself, but I think you could pull it of if you  create an armor item that's just a backdrop (ex: the inside view of the wall of the carriage with a window, and you (or npc) sitting beside it in camera frame, or even a large box (if you wanted to be able to pan around inside the carriage too),  while you use the "mechanism" of a flying mod for translating the player (and its box), while suppressing any mod-provided pose (eg. superman pose, sprite pose, etc). Since the "carriage" is actually a worn item, it will travel with you, so the "outdoor" scene will move as intended. erm...if that sort of "armor" can even be created of course... Maybe start small, like a piece of plank or something. 

Both seem "doable". (as for the elbow grease, well, I leave that exercise to you)

1) figure out how to make a wearable item that's a bit "out of the box"

2) figure out how to suppress any flying mod associated poses (while still being able to fly).

 

[melvinius]

I believe it's the beginning of the mod "Wyrmstooth" that has a cinematic sequence where the player is on a ship approaching the island.  You cannot move during this sequence but are being moved with the ship.  You could check out what that mod author did and replicate it.

It might be hard -- or even impossible -- to get your end result to work with alternative camera mods though.