Why does scaling down a dragon's size break them?

[ToppDog]

I've tried multiple things to get my dragonlings to work properly, & I've narrowed the problem to scaling them down in size. I have taken multiple other dragon mods that use various AI packages & can always reproduce this problem in any mod that has flying/hovering dragons - once the size is scaled down to 1/4 or smaller, the dragons float in slow motion instead of flying properly & will only on occasion perform any animations. They will not follow any AI packages such as orbiting or landing on a perch, etc. It doesn't matter if the size is reduced in the race or the actor, the result is always the same.

 

Did Bethesda break them so bad that I should just forget about this, or is there something else I should be doing to make them orbit an area around a nest & occasionally land on a perch, & then if they're followers, to hover & orbit around you while you move around outside? I know the last follower method will work with full sized dragons, as it is used in one of the mods I tested.

 

I've been stuck on this problem for weeks, so any help or knowledge about this issue is very much appreciated :)

 

[IsharaMeradin]

I don't know for sure, just tossing this out there. Have you considered the skeleton? I suspect that when you shrink or enlarge an actor in the CK the game has to shrink or enlarge the skeleton for the animations to work. Could be possible that there is a limit where this works. Any smaller or larger and the actor might need a reduced or enlarged skeleton to match.

[Di0nysys]

Bethesda didn't really "break" them. They were meant to be used at a specific scale. When u scale an actor up or down, depending on how they're setup, u risk deforming the skeleton, which can lead to some hilarious situations. I've scaled actors up multiple times, but mostly Humanoid NPC's, dragons, falmer, and Draugr skeletons break after u scale them to a point.

Most other rigs can be scaled up and down up to 4x without breaking their animations.

TLDR; since it's virtually impossible to add new skeletons and behaviours to the game, u won't be able to scale them down more than u have already. Also, when scaling, always scale the BASE of the actor and not the reference since scaling the reference doesn't properly scale their collision.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Di0nysys

[sLoPpYdOtBiGhOlE]

Looking at the dragon race you can see that the min height that can be set is .5 (anything less will revert back to .5)

Half size looks like the limit?

[ToppDog]

That would explain a lot. All the mods I tested with dragons about half size seemed to fly just fine, & all the ones with smaller dragons were only in stationary positions or walked around without ever flying, & even when they walked around, it just never looked quite right.

 

Looks like I'll have to have the smaller ones remain stationary then, & have mid sized ones be followers if I still want to go that route.

 

So, if I want to have the smaller ones just seem more lively, would it be possible to use the critter/eagles animations & swap the meshes with dragon ones? Pardon me sounding so newbish, but this is new territory for me.

[ToppDog]

And, based on the whole skeleton thing, does that also mean I will not be able to add beast tails & heads to the existing child bodies? Could this be the reason almost every child mod that does beast races uses adult female bodies instead?

[Feralkyn]

I have gotten tiny dragons to work, and I think I had to scale the -speed- down too. They will seem to fly slowly, but they'll work, fight and so on. I can say, though, that there is very little point, unless you make (as I did) a 'spectral' magical dragon summon, as the tiny dragon WILL fly off through cave walls and so forth. It just isn't built to be able to maneuver in small areas, and thus entirely ignores a lot of clipping. (This was the same regardless of whether I scaled base or reference--they'd always soar off through walls when in dungeons)

Edited November 20, 2015 by Feralkyn

[ToppDog]

Well, my main goal was to just have them flying in orbits & occasionally landing on different perches in an exterior location, just for aesthetics & immersion. Making them followers was a secondary goal. I found a mod that has three serpentine dragons that will hover above you & do low small orbits around you when outside, & some of their AI may be usable. But, you are right, the dragons will always clip through things that are in the way of their flight path, which wouldn't work for interiors, & can still happen in some exteriors as well.

 

Thanks for the tip on adjusting speed. I tried some of the other values without much difference, so I'll give this a try. It was always interesting that they wouldn't follow an orbit AI package, but if attacked would do the proper animations & would fly correctly.

[ToppDog]

Okay, some exciting progress - actually adjusting the speed up made a great difference. I tested it on dragons scaled to 1/4 size & bumped their speed from 100 to 3200. They flew much more like they should for their new size & seemed very bird-like, but this only effected their overall movement or position in the sky. By that I mean that they were physically moving around at much better speeds, etc. but their orientation & animations were still too slow, so even though they were moving around in a circle, their bodies were still pointing in only one direction, as if their turning speed was still way too slow. These settings are in the race window, so I'm going to duplicate the race & play around some more with these numbers.

[ToppDog]

Okay, I made a lot of progress getting them to fly correctly, but what seems to be missing is their turning. They don't seem to turn into their right/left turns. It's more like they make very subtle moves that slide them left or right as if they are flying into a strong headwind. All the wing flapping animations are correct, & they are even faster as you would expect from a much smaller dragon or bird. At this point it does not look like the skeleton is the issue. It has more to do with editing things like speed, flying radius, & the numbers in the default movement settings.