LE Exposing UI elements to INI files

[Astymma]

OK, here's the problem I see. The character creation UI is hardcoded to specific slider value counts that reference FormID Lists with specific list counts.

As an example, the HairColor slider has 16 "slots" and references a FormID list containing 16 values (Hair00 through Hair15). You CAN add a new hair

and call it Hair16 and place that in the FormID list but it cannot be chosen because the slider bar stops at slot 16 and slot 17 is "off the chart" so to speak.

 

So what I'm asking is, can someone with SWF skills let me know if it's possible to take the entire character creation SWF UI files and expose those settings

as an INI or CFG file so we can add new slider values with new meshes/textures/FormID list values?

 

Something like:

Hair.INI

#HairColorSlider from Vanilla

HairColorSliderSlots=16

HairColorFormIDList=FormID of Hair Color List

 

so you could change it to:

Hair.INI

#HairColorSlider new

HairColorSliderSlots=17

HairColorFormIDList=FormID of Hair Color List with your new addition in slot 17

 

or even better:

Hair.INI

#HairColorSlider open ended

HairColorSliderSlots=100

HairColorFormID_00=FormID of Hair00

HairColorFormID_01=FormID of Hair01

HairColorFormID_02=FormID of Hair02

...

HairColorFormID_97=FormID of Hair97

HairColorFormID_98=FormID of Hair98

HairColorFormID_99=FormID of Hair99

and substitute those values INSTEAD of the FormID list that populates the slider.

 

or even

Hair.INI

#HairColorSlider open ended with backfill

HairColorSliderSlots=100

HairColorFormIDList=FormID of Hair Color List with your new addition in slot 17 and then backfill all additional slots with say Hair00

 

Is this feasible at all?

[Astymma]

BTW, CK or not, this issue is going to come around and bite us ALL in the butt. All the character creation UI elements are fixed and named and members of FormID lists

So at some point we're going to have to implement some way to get creators to work together on things like new elements like hairstyles, haircolors, brows, noses, etc.

The FormID lists contain pointers to various element types which are named, for example the above Hair00 to Hair15 so when people add new hair colors we'll collide

with a bunch of new Hair16's. This will happen across the board with pretty much any new elements added. It will also require the cooperation of Flash modders to enable

the new choices in the UI.

 

We need to solve this now and soon because it can and will be an issue for as long as we mod Skyrim I'm thinking...

[Astymma]

In the case of Hair Color and other color sliders I was thinking about using a UI element with RGBA picker sliders but here's the killer...

 

With 16 red, blue, green and alpha slots for an RGBA slider we would need 65536 entries in the FormID list to accomodate it.

With 256 it would be 4294967296 entries in the FormID list.

 

So... um.... no.

[Fatalmasterpiece]

I was worried about something like this being the case with the all new and "improved" chargen :/ Creating additional races may prove necissary.

[Astymma]

I was worried about something like this being the case with the all new and "improved" chargen :/ Creating additional races may prove necissary.

Well I can think of a few solutions that work whether we solve this or not... if we fail to solve it they become replacers, if we succeed they can coexist with vanilla without replacing anything. It wouldn't be difficult to create a Hair Color design app that outputs an esp replacer for a hair number of your choosing that injected a replacer record for one of the existing hairs. It also could append new hair colors to the end of the FormID list if we solve the issue and have UI swf file modding support for it. TBH, if we do solve this with some INI or CFG files to add some modularity to the chargen UI, we'll need a frontend GUI to the INI/CFG files just to make this accessible to the average user. ESP output functionality could be added to this GUI app to produce custom colors as replacer/non-replacer esp's quite easily. I imagine with how the formid lists work, we're going to need an import/export functionality to make chargen mods work together anyway... i.e. import a hair color mod, then re-inject the new colors into a CharGen.esp at the end of the list, re-numbered or renamed to not conflict. Something like Wrye Bash's leveled list management esp except for chargen elements.

[Astymma]

Ugh... was just back in TESSnip and it looks like they created a complete Hair Streaking system to add colored streaking to hairstyles to include everything needed in the esm and in the bsa's... and then didn't add it to CharGen... oh boy, here we go again with hidden functionality they forgot to take out or neglected to put in....

[Fatalmasterpiece]

That's all way over my head but I get the jist of what you are saying. As another way to approach it though, what about instead developing an out of game char gen application which can then be imported via esp so the entire outport/import thing is avoided. Then compatibility issues don't arrise.

[Astymma]

That's all way over my head but I get the jist of what you are saying. As another way to approach it though, what about instead developing an out of game char gen application which can then be imported via esp so the entire outport/import thing is avoided. Then compatibility issues don't arrise.

 

That's pretty much what I said... create an application that outputs esp files and manages the UI INI files that allows you to load up mods and output an esp you can put at the end of your load order. That way even if modder a makes a Hair16 and modder b makes a Hair16 you could load them up and one would get a new FormID and/or just get renumbered to Hair17 in the output esp. Wrye Bash does the same thing with leveled lists of monsters and equipment/clothing/armor. It grabs everything from all the mods you have and outputs a combined, non-conflicting list as an esp you drop at the end of your load order.

[Astymma]

Hmm, I looked at SkyUI and it uses CFG files that are standard blocks of name-value pairs typical of a CFG/INI file so yes it appears to be feasible... but anyone out there willing and able hehe?