[LE] Renovate your House with console

[Sunnie]

Has anyone yet had any problems with spawned containers respawning their "original" contents? What I've been doing when I spawn a container is this:

Nope, no need to do anything other than place a container in your player homes and use them. Player homes are not set to respawn so any container found inside them also do not respawn. I have 6 various safes and chests that I placed weeks ago that have never respawned.

[joealtare]

Updated with video in next post. Edited January 14, 2012 by joealtare

[joealtare]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RozLahJDdmk&feature=youtu.be Edited January 14, 2012 by joealtare

[pmg123]

Amazingness

 

Thanks SO much for that. I had a rough idea about positioning but it's great to actually see a guide for it - it would be great to have individual guides linked on the first page, imo. :D Just for clarification with regards to poorly-fitted items and the void of doom - when an element isn't properly placed next to another and has, say, a pixel's worth of space that makes it possible for objects and people to fall through, can you always see the void using TCL and the like? How would you be able to tell it's off? Sorry if it's a vague question, I haven't actually tried placing yet cause I want to make sure I'm clear on everything first to avoid mishaps ^^;

 

Nope, not vague at all. I completely understand what you're asking. Or at least, I think I do. So just to reiterate what you're saying, how do you tell if an item is one or two pixels off? If you have a floor and a wall, how can you be sure they are properly sealed? OK, get ready for another in-depth explanation:

 

- Using the instructions on positioning I mentioned in my last post, find and place a floor of some kind (doesnt matter what kind... I'll just throw 612F3 out there since I use that one a lot and know it from memory). Move that floor out into the middle of nowhere so you can see the blue emptiness around it. Now place another of the same kind of floor on top of it.

 

- Move the floors (setpos x and setpos y) so they are right next to each other. You'll notice that most of the floors have contiguous patterns, meaning the end of one is the beginning of the other. They are supposed to match up so that they look natural. Also, just as an FYI, most standard floor squares are 254x254 so if you add or subtract 254 to the position of x or y, it should set it one full floor square away. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not 100% sure it's 254, but I'm going to keep using that number. I'm pretty sure it is but don't quote me.)

 

- If you play around with the positioning, you will notice that if you place it one pixel too far away (add or subtract 255 instead of 254), there will be a one pixel gap. Obviously we don't want any gaps in our floor so we want to close that gap. If the floor is placed too close (add or subtract 253 instead of 254) then you will see clipping start to occur, meaning that the floors will overlap and when you move the camera around, it will start to flash. I'm sure you have seen this before... it's what happens when two textures are placed at the same x,y, or z position. (If you want an example of what I'm talking about, check out Proudspire Manor behind the second mannequin in the basement. Notice the clipping in the wall? That's because something was placed that has the same x or y coordinates of the wall. The two textures are overlapping.)

 

- So what you want to do is to place objects so that they neither clip nor leave a gap, which can be VERY tricky. It's easy with floors because the gap or overlap is obvious. But the game tries to help you out in this respect in ways you might not expect. This might get a little confusing but bear with me: Remember how I talked before about how every object has a "center" or "focal point"? For floors, this is the exact center. So if you were to click on a floor and place a wall (let's go with 73C52 since that's a wall that is only 1 pixel thick), it will place that wall right on the edge of the floor. No gaps or overlapping... the game knows that you are trying to place the wall so that it is on the edge of the floor. This also applies to arches as well. If you click the floor and place an arch (such as 73C49) you will notice that it places the arch directly in the center of the floor, where it is supposed to be. It is also exactly flush with the wall you just placed so everything seals up nicely. Floor, ceiling, walls all come together.

 

- Now you may be thinking: "that's fine for that one wall, but what about the rest of the room?" Well, the answer is surprisingly simple. Click on the wall and do getangle z. The wall you placed will be at the same Z angle as the floor, so if the floor is placed at angle 180, the wall will be at 180 as well. But remember how the center of the floor is the "focal point" for rotations? That is extremely important because all you have to do is type setangle z 90 and then use a setpos command to get the angle change to show (as I mentioned earlier) and viola!!! The wall will rotate around the edges of the floor, based on what angle you put it at. You don't have to reposition anything, just change the Z angle and the wall will move around the center of the floor. Using this method, it is easy to make rooms very quickly.

 

- Test it out by doing what I mentioned, place a floor, place an arch, and then while you have the floor selected, place FOUR (yes, four) walls all at once. (placeatme 73C52, press enter, then press up to repeat the last command and enter again, later, rinse, repeat.) You will now have a floor, an arch, and four walls in the same x,y,z position. Now click on the wall (there are four occupying the same space but it doesnt matter which one you click) and find the angle. Let's say it's 0. Then type setangle z 90 and press enter (and then use setpos or whatever to make it update) and you will notice that the wall has moved to the side perfectly in line with everything else. Now go back to the 3x walls and click another one. Type setangle z 180 and it will move to the opposite side of the floor. Now go back to the 2x wall and type setangle z 270 and it will go into the remaining side of the floor. You have now constructed a room with a floor, ceiling, and four walls in no time.

 

- Now let's say you want one of those walls to be a window (because who want's to live in a small room with no windows???). This trick will USUALLY work but not always. Click on one of the walls and type placeatme 73C53 and hit enter. But wait before you exit the console!! With that wall still selected, you can use markfordelete and it will delete that wall, then when you close the console it will produce the window where the wall used to be. This is a helpful trick but just FYI, you must place the new object FIRST then delete the old object SECOND. If you delete the old object then use the placeatme command, nothing will happen. Now when you close the console, you will have a room with three walls and one window. If you want to practice on the other walls, feel free to replace them with windows too. You don't have to reposition anything because placing one object on top of another will keep the original object's position and angles (but NOT scale).

 

- But you can't get into this room without a door, so select one of the walls or windows and type placeatme 77084, which will place an arched doorway (no door... remember what I said about doors usually being separate entities from walls and arches?) and delete the wall or window that you just placed it on. Using this method, it is extremely easy to create seamless rooms that are perfectly aligned.

 

OK, now that we've covered that mess, there's another part to discuss. It's easy to build like this when everything matches, but how do you make sure that non-matching or non-grouped items are flush with each other when placing them? If you want to have a room that goes from brick and stone to Dwemer style ruins or Riften style housing, how do you line stuff up correctly so there isn't a gap or a huge overlap? There is not an easy answer for this other than to say that it will take practice learning how to position stuff. As you mentioned, using TCL is extremely helpful because you can clip through walls and see exactly how close something is. You will frequently have to position yourself within the wall, looking directly down the plane of the wall to see how close the other object is to it. The spaces can be very deceptive so get in the habit of walking through the floor and aligning your point of view so your eyes are level with the floor. Then you can see whether that wall you just placed is a pixel above the floor or not. Same thing with walls... clip through the walls and imagine you're smushing your face right up against the wall. You will probably need to adjust yourself a little because most walls vanish when you're on the non-solid side of them. Be sure you can still see the surface of one object that you are trying to connect the other object to. Then you can see how near or far the connecting wall/object is to it. This is one of the major reasons TCL is so helpful, because you can go INSIDE the object to get a much closer view of where two objects meet so you can align them better.

 

One minor thing to mention is that occasionally you may want to place an object that doesn't QUITE fit with another. Let's say you have two doorways with two different styles, and one of the doorways overlaps the other just a tad, but you want them to be even. You can setscale one of them to increase or decrease the size so that they eventually match, but this may also change the x,y,z position based on where the "center" of the object is. If you do this, however, you will need to then setscale all additional walls so that they match the one you changed. So if you put a dwemer door in and do setscale .8 to make it look like it naturally fits with another non-dwemer door, you will then need to setscale .8 ALL other dwemer parts that you connect to it so that they look like they fit and have the same proportions.

 

Now, there's one other point to your question I wanted to clarify. The problems of things "falling through" is usually not caused by one or two pixels worth of space. Most objects are theoretically solid so an item would have to be one or two pixels large to fit into it. There are, of course, clipping issues where stuff can hit a small pocket of emptiness and work themselves through it after bouncing around for a while, but this is pretty rare. The really tricky thing is that, as I mentioned before, much of what you place has no real "substance" until the CK comes out. NPCs will not stand on it, and you may notice items falling through it. Most of the time stuff will stay, but I would recommend that you do not decorate with non-static objects too much since these issues are still present. It is entirely possible that you can decorate your entire house top to bottom and all of it will stay. It is also possible that you may start placing stuff around and it will start falling through walls and floors. It's pretty random how it happens. I'm not trying to scare you off of doing this, just want to be sure you're aware of the potential glitching that may occur.

 

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask and I'll answer as best I can. It really is a LOT of fun when you get the hang of it. I've deleted Breezehome and recreated it from scratch using everything from Dwemer to Whiterun to Azura's crystals, so I have had a LOT of experience trying to line up dissimilar walls/floors/arches.

Edited January 12, 2012 by pmg123

[GisleAune]

I asked before, but right before a page break and I didn't get an answer. How can I move (setpos) the enchanter in the OP's list without the interactive part (the one I must look at to use it ingame) staying behind?

[joealtare]

I asked before, but right before a page break and I didn't get an answer. How can I move (setpos) the enchanter in the OP's list without the interactive part (the one I must look at to use it ingame) staying behind?

 

disable then enable ?

[GisleAune]

I asked before, but right before a page break and I didn't get an answer. How can I move (setpos) the enchanter in the OP's list without the interactive part (the one I must look at to use it ingame) staying behind?

 

disable then enable ?

Thanks, that worked actually.

[rpger30]

Has anyone yet had any problems with spawned containers respawning their "original" contents? What I've been doing when I spawn a container is this:

Nope, no need to do anything other than place a container in your player homes and use them. Player homes are not set to respawn so any container found inside them also do not respawn. I have 6 various safes and chests that I placed weeks ago that have never respawned.

 

Thank you! I thought it might be handled on a cell basis and not by the container. Awesome to hear. Breezehome is finally the cozy and well furnished house I wanted - now for my fourth character too!

[SkjoldBjorn]

A little off-topic, but could people use

<content>

when posting multiple pictures in full size? Just easier to read through the forum that way :)

I wish there was a way to extract cell records from savegames, that way we could make mods out of the console changes we make, i've tried several savegame readers, but those can only modify character stats etc.

[Sunnie]

A little off-topic, but could people use

<content>

when posting multiple pictures in full size? Just easier to read through the forum that way :)

I wish there was a way to extract cell records from savegames, that way we could make mods out of the console changes we make, i've tried several savegame readers, but those can only modify character stats etc.

 

It should be a lot easier rebulding home mods in the toolset, you can drag and drop building materials and have them snap together properly. Of course, I am assuming that it will be similar to the tool in the GECK.