New form inventory appears in CK but not in game.

[Guest deleted1497950]

I hope someone can give me a quick fix to this... When I edit one of the elements of an existing form of an outfit (outfit, armor, armorAA, or texture file) be simply directing the existing mesh/texture within the form to a different mesh or texture, then the changes appear fine in the creation kit and in the game....

 

...But, when I try to create a new form for a new outfit so that I don't just overwrite old forms and so that I can customize which NPC's wear the outfit, I do the following:

 

1. (Optional) Create a new texture file form by simply editing the closest one.

 

2. (a) Create a new ArmorAA form by simply editing the closest one and selecting a custom mesh. (b) (Optional) Selecting the texture file I just created in step one for the skin texture.

 

3. Create a new a new Armor form by simply editing the closest one and deleting the old model (ArmorAA) and adding the new model (ArmorAA) form I just created in step two.

 

4. Create a new outfit form by simply editing the closest one and deleting the Armor in it and adding the Armor I just created in step three.

 

5. Open an actor (NPC; Lydia, for example) and click on the inventory tab. Select the new outfit form I just created in step four from the "default outfit" list in the first box of inventory, and hit "OK". Each of the above steps all have an asterisk next to their count notifying that they have been modified.

 

So... after making this small mod, I can then click on the preview button on the bottom of the actor and their image will appear wearing the new outfit, so I save the mod. Then I check the mod box in the loader to make sure it is loaded to run in the game. I then launch the game and the NPC (Lydia) is wearing the original outfit, rather than the modified outfit, as if there was no change made at all.

 

Any thoughts or helpful hints?

[IsharaMeradin]

Test the mod on a new game. Some changes do not take effect on existing games. This may be one of them.

[Guest deleted1497950]

Test the mod on a new game. Some changes do not take effect on existing games. This may be one of them.

 

Thanks for the fast response. That was indeed the problem. It was a hassle since the character I edited was in Rorikstead, but when I started a new game and eventually got to Rorikstead, it worked, somewhat. As is the case with modding skyrim (from my experience), each solution tends to lead to several other problems. Now that the outfits were right, the faces were wrong, which I am sure is a conflict with another mod(.esp), but I can probably figure it out. I may just edit the original .esp rather than trying to make a new one to overwrite it. I'm sure that won't work, since nothing I ever do in Skyrim works on the first try, but I'll try it.

 

Anyway, not being able to edit armor's of NPC's without beginning a new game seems like it would prove very cumbersome if I were wanting to edit an NPC that is deeper within the game/storyline, but I suppose that is what I will have to deal with, or else I may have to temper some of my ideas for modding.

 

Thanks again.

Edited December 18, 2014 by 2chi2

[Guest deleted1497950]

For future reference I would just like to add that I was able to get it to work with an existing gamesave, without having to start up a new game. The problem seems to have been that I was not creating a .bsa file to work with the .esp file, but was just adding regular compressed folders (meshes and textures) to the data folder for the mod to access. When I used the creation kit to archive the meshes and textures, the mod worked on a gamesave without having to start all over at Helgen. The only problem is that the creation kit seems to have archived the files, but I can't seem to find the physical .bsa anywhere in the data folder. For this reason, I think it would probably be better to use the archive.exe in the skyrim folder rather than the archiver in the creation kit, although I haven't done that yet.

[smashly]

If using the archiver in CK then after it's created your bsa check 1 directory up for the bsa.

eg: You told the CK archiver to create the new bsa in \Skyrim\Data\your.bsa

Then check: \Skyrim\your.bsa.

It's like the archiver is using the working directory instead of the save directory you chose.

 

The whole CK, it's archiver and that pos memory leaking Papyrus compiler all suck and are so damn quirky it's hard to believe an actual company made the whole crapware package and released it.

I've seen more predictable and stable tools released for game modding by back yard hacks.

 

/rant over, sorry about that, just one of those CK days.