npc dialogue start through trigger

[Tasheni]

Hi comunity,

I have created a scout companion and my goal is, to let him comment and explain paths in the wilderness, environment comments about caves, towers, etc. - like a real scout he should know the ways. Dialog is set up right, I can talk to him. Now I wanted to create activators in the wilderness, and if he walks through, then he should say a comment about environment.

My first try with an activator doesn't work and I don't know why. I created the quest, set up a trigger, that the scout own with an attached script, that starts the quest. Quest dialogue is placed under dialogue view, condition his id and queststage. But he says nothing. What am I doing wrong? Is it possible to do without extra packages?

I am a modding beginner and some things are very difficult for me to understand.

Thanks for your help.

 

Greetings from germany, Tasheni

[skinnytecboy]

What you really want to do is to either move all your comments into scenes or change them into force greets with stage conditions and greet packages (also conditioned).

 

Scene method. (Recommended)

 

Create a scene that just holds the dialogue and then add scene properties to your quest stages and script (ie myscene.start() )

 

Force greet method:

 

Set the first branch of your topic to Blocking and any other link dialogue to Normal. Add stage conditions.

 

Add greet packages to your npc, stacked in order with the same stage conditions as your quest.

 

Note: you can also initiate the greet with a scene for guaranteed success. In the scene you just add a greet template and point it to the starting topic. I use this method all the time).

 

Big fat side note:

 

Don't forget to generate a SEQ file every time you edit dialogue.

 

Don't forget to test from a clean save.

 

Have fun :)

[Tasheni]

Thanks, skinnytecboy, for your quick reply. For my further understanding: I could use scenes for dialogue, if only one person is commenting something? Nobody should reply to this comments. With this method, I don't need the triggers? I want him to speak at exact points, and I don't know, how to do this with conditions, because they don't cover unhabitated places in the wilderness, for example. Or do you mean, that I can set a condition, that has a reference to the trigger? You see, I'm thinking :blush:

Don't want to use packages, the stack grows to heavy :) The starting script should be no problem, I have done this before.

And seq and the stuff alike - of course. I have learned this lesson at the beginning - the hard way.

Yes, I have fun to see, how it grows, from really hard beginning to now with real progress - and voice acting is fun!!! Unfortunately I can't use my voice for the scout, but there are enough girls in the mod :laugh:

Thank you so far.

[skinnytecboy]

I am going to answer this fully when I get back to my laptop, but in the meantime, a couple of quick questions:

 

Just how are you settling stages? With trigger boxes placed in certain locationsĺ?

 

Btw, you don't need triggers necessarily, but you do need someway to start () the scene via script.

[Tasheni]

I have a start quest for each companion, where the standard orders are in, such like wait, follow and the like. Quest stages increase through setStage()

For the comments of the scout I made a new quest with a start script. The script is attached to the trigger, that I positioned in the valley near Hunter's Rest. The script points to the quest and sets the stage. It is only one trigger for now, till I get it to work - Skyrim is a big country, so I expect perhaps a hundret triggers? Don't know, if this is possible, but I want to try out.

[skinnytecboy]

Seeing as this is about the third scene related question in the past couple of weeks, I've gone ahead and made a little "How To" video which I will upload asap.

 

However, let me summarise for the time being.

 

Trigger boxes are only a good idea if you are placing them in your own custom cells. If you go around scattering them across skyrim, no doubt Mr HD turnip will come along and REDUX areas where your trigger should be, so it isn't worth it if you want to be compatible with other mods.

 

But anyway, here's the method I use, which you can checkout if you take a look at Benjamin Doon in CK, as I included the source files as an optional download)

 

 

Create an Idle Dialogue, something that can precede the scene you're going to launch. Something like "Ah" Or "How interesting" Note: The dialogue shouldn't be random (Unless of course you want there to be less chance of your npc saying it).

 

Okay...

 

Lets imagine that you want your NPC to launch a scene near Jon Battleborn's post in whiterun!

 

Add a GetDistance condition to the idle dialogue and select the post in question as the target (WhiterunJonLeanwallMarker01).

Set the distance to 500 and run on Player.

 

 

Now generate a script in the dialogue window and add a property that points to your scene. (MyScene for example)

 

In the script window add the lines:

 

MyScene.Start()

 

 

Simple right?

 

There are other conditions you can use instead of GetDistance... GetInCurrentLoc for example or GetInSameCell

but you should always run on The Player.

 

 

have fun :)

[skinnytecboy]

Okay if you can get past my meandering waffle, theres a little bit of useful information here:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AJCYsSXy3CI

[Tasheni]

Ah, okay, very importent info with the triggers, I will remember, if I use some one day. And thank you so much for taking the time to make a video! :cool: I think, I have understood all, no more questions for now, I have to try it out but it should work without problems.

Have a nice day.

[Tasheni]

So I've done it now, your video was not exactly what I wanted to do but helps a lot and so I know now, that there's a way to trigger scenes through dialogue, what will be very welcome in future. I use this method to start another quest, because my scout-comments are not scenes. Thank you for that. One question triggers another and so here comes another one:

Because I have used the idle dialogue section, I have not enough letters for my dialogue. I made three idle comments now, that my scout should speak after another. I tried to realize this through distance values, but only the first dialogue was fireing, no matter, what order I gave them. I only got this to work with scripts to increase the queststage. It works fine, but this way many, many scripts are necessary. Perhaps there is another way to do this?

Kind regards and greetings.