Help with Pet Dog Mod

[sigil5]

Hello everyone, I'm pretty new to this. I love the oblivion game and I've used quite a few pet mods but I'm disatisfied with them because they don't have all the cute dog animations, (sitting, barking, scratching etc) that the dogs in game do.

 

So I've started creating two unique dogs from copying an in-game dog and giving it new ID's. I've placed the dogs in the render view, in my skingrad home in-game. I also changed some details so the dogs would follow me and not the orignal NPC.

 

I've tested in game and they work great, they follow me, bark and scratch and sit. But they are a bit full on - and it would be nice to make them slightly more interesting.

 

I don't think that dogs can eat or sleep in-game but I notice that some dogs do use 'wander' in the AI. So could I get the dogs to occasionally wander off when my PC is sleeping or sitting or talking and then continue following on if my PC gets too far away?

 

I don't really want to write scripts or control the dogs in any way. But I was wondering if any one could help me use the AI to make them seem as though they are well a bit more life like.

 

The main things are getting them to wander off occasionally and perhaps having them run home if they get too hurt. Any ideas? ANy help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Just a quick edit: I've found a great sleeping animation for the dogs - its in the wolf animation, not sure how to put in into the AI package though - or how to reference it.

[David Brasher]

A technically simple, but sort of long and time-consuming way to make your dog stop following and wander off would be to give him a wander package or packages with an elaborate schedule. Like the dog might follow on a Monday between 0 and 4, 5 and 9, 10 and 14, 15 and 19, 20 and 23. But this dog would wander between 4 and 5, 9 and 10, 14, and 15, 19 and 20, and 23 and 0. You could have different AI packages with different schedules for different days of the week so the gamer couldn't catch on to when the dog will follow and be obedient and it will wander away. It would seem random.

 

You could alternately place conditions on the follow packages according to GetDistance Player <=> XXXX. The dog could start following when he is far away, and start wandering when he is close.

 

You could make that more elaborate by having different follow distances so that the dog might be right at your heels sometimes, and far off in the bushes, but still following at other times.

 

All this could be done with custom AI packages and schedules.

 

I suspect you would have to use scripting to make a dog run home if hurt, or wander off when bored or wander off at completely random times. You might be able to find some AI package conditions to do things like this, but I am doubtful.

 

I can't be of much help concerning animations, but if you go to the Animation tab which comes after the Inventory and SpellList tabs, there are boxes that can be checked and unchecked with things like idle_wolf.kf and forward_wolf.kf. Different dogs, wolfs, and timber wolfs have different boxes checked. You might find some to check or uncheck for your pet.

[Maigrets]

You could check out my Simple Creature Companion Tutorial. If you don't want the menus that's what you'll get because I prefer the simplicity of it. And because I can't be bothered doing menu scripts.

 

It's at this forum and you don't need to login. It's also at TES Alliance.

http://savageartistry.darkbb.com/tes-iv-ob...torial-t129.htm

 

When I say simple,:biggrin: it is, but just long and detailed for new users of the CS.

 

I also have a dog companion mod there. You could check how it's done or use the mod if you like. You may wish to replace the meshes and textures with something better.

 

It does allow you to tell the creature to follow or stay though just by activating them. In wander mode they will wander and do all the animations etc and even in Follow mode as long as they are not in combat. The AI is good, you can create a summon spell if you want to and more. The scripts are provided as well as every detail you could possibly need, I think. I revised it last week.

 

Regarding the animations I've been trying to get them working on and off for some time. The basic Idles like the "Sniff" one work fine, but the others need packages and scripts. The sleep, eat, starteat and sleepLookAround Idles are all more than a single animation and need more treatment. I've been working on it again but and getting a bit further each time. I had a message from someone who wanted to give it a try but never heard any more.

 

This is some info about Idle animations if you're interested.

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...Idle_Animations

 

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...Idle_Animations

 

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Animation_Tab

[sigil5]

This is all fantastic information - thankyou. I'm slowly reading through while experimenting and I'm learning a lot so bare (or bear?!) with me lol.

 

I've managed to make the dogs wander off occasionally (using distance) but surprisingly they are too unpredictable and I never know what they are doing so I need to change a few things. I'm still reading through your tutorial Maigrets and there are some really nice things so I'm going to look into that further, do some more experimenting and get back to you.

 

About the animations - is it true that to use the animations I will have to extract the kf file using other programs? Its not just as simple as finding the kf file and pointing to it?

 

I haven't found the sleep, eat or starteat animations and therefore haven't seen them (not sure if I was looking in the right place). But I did find the sleeplookaround and sniff idles and thought they'd be suitable (for sleep and eat) - but do we have to extract them before using them? And you say they aren't just a single animation, so there is more to it?

 

I was thinking what would be quite good would be to have the dog randomly choose between sleeping and wandering while inside and near to the PC but while further away from the PC it would follow and outside it always follows or something like that. Not sure whether I could do this with AI packages and conditions - but again the sleep animation causes a problem.

 

What I can't understand -> do wolves/wild dogs in the game sleep? Because the sleeplookaround idle is in the wolf anim, and theres a certain condition for it to happen, although I can't recall what that was.

[Maigrets]

About the animations - is it true that to use the animations I will have to extract the kf file using other programs? Its not just as simple as finding the kf file and pointing to it?

 

No, you don't have to anything to these animations. They are ready to use (except for creating packages and scripts if necessary etc). They are all in the Oblivion - Meshes.BSA

 

I haven't found the sleep, eat or starteat animations and therefore haven't seen them (not sure if I was looking in the right place). But I did find the sleeplookaround and sniff idles and thought they'd be suitable (for sleep and eat) - but do we have to extract them before using them? And you say they aren't just a single animation, so there is more to it?

 

They are all in data\meshes\creatures\dog\Idleanims when you've unpacked the BSA. So they will work in game you just put them into your mods folder under the same paths. You won't find them at all in the CS until you add them.

 

The "standup" (the actual file is spelled incorrectly "sandup") anim is actually several animations where the dog will stand on it's hind legs, walk a bit and more. There are sounds associated with it as well.

 

The "sleepLookAround" anim starts the dog in sleeping position and then he will sit up and look around left and right.

 

If you check out this link at the CS Wiki called Forcing Idle Animations it tells you how to add them and view them in action in the CS. You need to create a scripted token which goes into the dog's inventory. In game you open the console, click on the dog and type "pickidle" to see it work.

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...Idle_Animations

 

What I can't understand -> do wolves/wild dogs in the game sleep? Because the sleeplookaround idle is in the wolf anim, and theres a certain condition for it to happen, although I can't recall what that was.

 

Dogs and wolves definitely don't sleep. The anims aren't even in the CS for dogs or wolves, except in the BSA unused. The anims are in the correct folders and paths, but were never made to work. In fact no creature sleeps or eats or does anything, but unrealistically want your a piece of your hide.

 

I did see a game pre-release video some time back where it showed these animations working and some other things that were abandoned for the released game, but I can't find it again. It's a pity, it would have added some realism. Not only to creatures, but other things that were left out and unfinished.

 

If you ever played any of the Gothic series of games that's where you'll see realism for creatures. They sleep, eat and interact between themselves with all of the relevant animations. They don't attack the player unless you get too close as would most wild creatures. Then they give a warning to move away which you ignore at your own peril. Monsters are different, they attack on sight.

 

Anyway, I'm hoping to do something with these sleep and eat anims, but I don't know when since I have other things on the go. They will need scripting and packages, but shouldn't be too hard.

[sigil5]

Thanks for your help with the unpacking BSA's, I've managed to get both sleep and eat working fine in game at seemingly random points. I've put a getdistance condition and the dog will either wander, sleep or eat and beyond that he will follow which is great.

 

However they are only the main animation, so they happen quite abuptly and don't have an animation that leads into it yet.

 

starteat links with eat which is pretty self explanitory - but I can't find anything for the beginning for sleep - there is a get up animation, could that be used backwards?

 

I don't know how to link these together and I've tried without any scripting, just from the idles with conditions to see if I could link them together I did manage it once but there was some problems with it and now I can't remember what I did, I change it so many times.

 

So I'm not sure how to use a script to get the before idles to play before the main idle - if that makes any sense. Will be looking into scripting now. :confused: not good with that part... any starting reference you could give me? I've looked at the scripting tutorials but I'm not sure what commands to use so... I'll keep looking anyway.

 

Just a quick edit: I've completed my mod for now, the dogs sleep, sniff and wander randomly and I have also used your very helpful tutorial to add a summon spell - so at the moment I'm happy with it but for it to be perfect it needs a script to complete the eat, sleep properly but I'm still working on it, let me know if you come up with anything in the mean time ;-)