Custom NPC's

[FerretMugger]

Hey i really hope someone can help me here.

 

I recently started work on a new mod which includes a shop and a house on an island. i have created a custom NPC to run the shop but i cant get the pathing to work in the exterior (i.e.: on the island - walking from the shop to the house).

 

Also, i cant figure out how to get the NPC to say anything, i've looked at the wiki site, but all it says you can do is create custom dialogue, text no speech. I was wondering if there is a way to use existing in-game dialogue with a custom NPC (including speech)?

 

Any input here would be greatly appreciated. :)

[Vagrant0]

You need to make a pathgrid for the exterior. http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...gory:Path_Grids

Use the manual creation method, it tends to work a bit better.

 

As for dialogues, the way they're setup is that the dialogue has conditions which determine who and when those dialogues are used. For instance, anyone in the thieves guild will have the topic to pay off fines, Unfortunately, how these are controlled changes alot depending on the dialogues, some of them have more generic conditions like factions, class, others have specific IDs or quest stages associated with them. Since you really shouldn't edit existing dialogues, you can either try to make those conditions point toward the new NPC, or remake the dialogue (believe duplicating is still bugged, so it would have to be from scratch), extracting the voices from the BSA.

[FerretMugger]

Hey thanks for replying :)

 

I know a little about the path grids used by the AI, but clearly not enough. I have manually created a new grid on the island i have made (there were no paths there to begin with) and have also created blue points to mark where i want my actor to go and made sure that the paths are valid with nothing blocking them, but when my NPC goes outside, it doesn't walk straight where i want it to go, it stands doing nothing for a few seconds and then moves towards the house, completely ignoring the path grid i created, but the interior ones i have made work fine.

 

As for the dialogue, i don't want to edit existing parts, or create new entries. So far i just have the one NPC which is merchant, i was just wondering how i could get some of the existing dialogue (preferably including the voices) to be used by this NPC. I am pretty sure it can be done, i know there are a load of mods with custom NPC's, i have at least two, both of which make use of existing dialogue.

[Vagrant0]

The blue points are just for preferred routes through an area, like the main street of a city, it tells the pathing AI that there is a more direct route in those cases so that the NPC doesn't spend time weaving between buildings. Normally you should keep the usage to only those main streets as having alot of them throughout an area may lead to some difficulties. As to why your NPC seems to ignore the pathgrid, I would imagine it to be something related to either the packaging, or how you have it setup... You remembered to connect the points to define routes between those points and around anything that might be in the way right? The NPC will always try to take the most direct route between where they are, and where their destination is. If you're telling them to go to a house, they will only go to that house, they won't take a more scenic route. If this is part of a quest or something, what you really have to do is setup a series of direction markers and have a script and several packages setup to move the NPC between them (take a look at the chargen cells, or somewhere else there are specific positions designated within that quest).

 

I tried to explain the dialogue thing the best I could. Dialogues have conditions which determine who can say it. Anyone who meets those conditions has those dialogues. Depending on what you want them to say, you'll either need to make an adjustment to your NPC to make those conditions true, or make a new dialogue with conditions that point to that NPC. You really have to just look at the dialogues you want to use, and figure out how to make your NPC fit the conditions.

[FerretMugger]

Yeah, I know what the blue points are for, the link you gave in your last post explained them all, which was a big help by the way. I do have the grid setup ok, I think so anyway. Though there are no direction markers or any scripting involved that I am aware of. I got the construction set to automatically generate the pathgrid on the island I made and then made some adjustments to it, i.e.: defining a preffered path with blue markers and removing some redundant connections.

 

I don't think I mentioned before that the NPC I am working with is essentially a custom race, so I appologize. It's a copy of the Khajiit with a new tail, that's about it really. But I am certain now that this is the main reason for my problems, because I wont be able to link existing voice files to a custom race, will I? Again, thanks for the help.

 

EDIT: I think the problem i was having with pathing was related to the world space i was editing, i seem to have fixed that now. If anyone can give me any help with using existing game dialogue with a custom race NPC i would really appreciate it, anyone?

[FerretMugger]

Many thanks for your help Vangrant0, i seem to have solved these little problems now though, the pathing problem has to have been because of the world space and as for the dialogue, i created my npc's, including their faction and AI data to generate the dialogue they would use as standard and then changed them to my custom race. This seems to have worked. :)