LE New Race Advice

[Fantafaust]

I want to have a disease that changes the player into an undead being. I'd like that represented visually by giving their skin a noticable pallor. I am also considering making their eyes solid black, but usually less is more so I've yet to commit to that.

I plan on giving them powers and various effects too of course, but those are simple, and will only take time.
For this I just want to take the best route for the pallor.

So my questions are simple and threefold:

1. Should I make a bunch of new races for the player to be scripted to change to(each race, of course)? I could then use the original mesh but supply my own textures.
   
2. Should I use a textureset script with maintenance, since I plan to change no physical features, only the texture color? But then it involves a script, which people are hesitant to install nowadays, and it seems like it could have some issues.
   
3. Is there instead some other way to achieve this, like a greyscale shader, or some such thing? A shader like that would be optimal, since then I could guarantee compatibility with all body/texture mods.

[Elias555]

Do it how player only body texture mods do it. If you change races you'll come up with lots of incompatibilities, but a texture swap is safer and personal. The rest can be handled with abilities/perks

[Fantafaust]

But are those able to do so in-game? My intention is to have the player become undead, not start out undead. Thanks for the response though.

Edited June 16, 2016 by Fantafaust

[blennus]

Check the source code for the following mods: For dynamic texture changes to the player, check the source code provided by DVA Dynamic Vampire Appearance (source is in the BSA)

 

Key functions it uses to dynamically set head texture is PlayerActorbase.SetFaceTextureSet(TextureSet textures), and it also changes the eyes as well using PlayerRef.ChangeHeadPart(HeadPart hPart)

 

Another function you can play with is PlayerActorbase.SetSkin(Armor skin)

 

Also to set the player to have the undead flag you'll have to add the undead keyword to a player alias and add the player to that so that the player will properly register as undead, if you don't change their race.

Edited June 16, 2016 by blennus

[Fantafaust]

Check the source code for the following mods: For dynamic texture changes to the player, check the source code provided by DVA Dynamic Vampire Appearance (source is in the BSA)

Key functions it uses to dynamically set head texture is PlayerActorbase.SetFaceTextureSet(TextureSet textures), and it also changes the eyes as well using PlayerRef.ChangeHeadPart(HeadPart hPart)

Another function you can play with is PlayerActorbase.SetSkin(Armor skin)

This is what I was going for with my second question. So is this the best method? Will I have to perform maintenance for these?

Also to set the player to have the undead flag you'll have to add the undead keyword to a player alias and add the player to that so that the player will properly register as undead, if you don't change their race.

I figured this was going to have to be done, yes. I have the basic outline, I just haven't tried to make this sort of disease before.

 

Thanks for the info and response blennus.

[blennus]

If you only change the texture on getting the disease and then revert it back when you get better you'll only have to use the onEffectStart and onEffectEnd events, if you apply the disease via magic effect. No polling should be necessary, unless you want the disease to dynamically change skin texture, depending on how much the disease has progressed.

 

Even in that case the polling should be minimal. You could get away with OnUpdateGameTime(24.0) or however many hours you want, if you want it progress every day or so in game. Since it's a disease I assume it's not going to progress every second.

 

Such slow polling events will have minimal impact on performance, so there should be no need to worry.

 

Oh, and before I forget, SKSE is a requirement to use the functions I mentioned in my previous post, just FYI.

Edited June 16, 2016 by blennus

[Fantafaust]

If you only change the texture on getting the disease and then revert it back when you get better you'll only have to use the onEffectStart and onEffectEnd events, if you apply the disease via magic effect. No polling should be necessary, unless you want the disease to dynamically change skin texture, depending on how much the disease has progressed.

Nah, there'll be no progression in the constant disease itself. I might consider it for the transition disease(a la Sanguinare Vampiris style). But yeah, that's good to know, I hate maintenance scripts lol

Oh, and before I forget, SKSE is a requirement to use the functions I mentioned in my previous post, just FYI.

I figured, I remember the SetNthTextureSet command is SKSE and if it had to be made, these likely would too. I was already gonna require it for other things like the powers anyway.

Thanks again blennus! :)

[blennus]

No problem. I hope that it works out. Your mods seem to have very interesting ideas. I'm looking forward to you publishing it.

Edited June 16, 2016 by blennus

[Elias555]

But are those able to do so in-game? My intention is to have the player become undead, not start out undead. Thanks for the response though.

Never tried the mods out. There's an skse function that allows texture set swapping. Might need a quick enable/disable but that's not a big deal, can be hidden with an image space modifier.

[Fantafaust]

So I have the disease working as intended, I've named it Morbus Immortui to fit in with the other mangled latin diseases. It progresses to Revenancy, which is an ability which runs a short script to give the other abilities and such. It also acts as a hook for my Alias to give the player the ActorTypeUndead keyword.
So far that's working beautifully, even the "swimming damages you" thing which was a headache if there ever was one, constant "I'm being hurt messages" even when the conditions weren't fulfilled... tch. Anyways:


I'm still having issues changing the body and face texture. If only we could push ColorForms to skin >.>
I'm setting that aside for now until I can get all my other stuff working.

EDIT: I've made a shader to add a pallor to the player. I figure even if it gets overwritten at times, because it's constant, it should reassert itself quickly enough that no one is likely to notice.
I think this is a sufficient solution. I won't have to make any compatibility patches for other bodies or anything. :)

Edited June 27, 2016 by Fantafaust