LE Hand to hand weapon/skills

[Woverdude]

Hey guys, this is the creator of the Unarmed Warfare mod.

 

I'll be the first to admit that my mod is only really a patch job. Mainly because of all of the restrictions that the CK places on users. Previous versions of their modding tools didn't have nearly as much of these restrictions, but since they used some third-party licensed software in Skyrim, Bethesda has to block some of them for legal reasons.

 

Skills in the Bethesda games are a category of variables called "Actor Values". While you can edit the perk trees for skills, you cannot actually create new skills with the CK. Even if you could, there would have to be some way to add your skill to the image (the one you see when leveling up). Now, the skills themselves are contained in sets of files called 'reports' that are in the .bsa archives of the Skyrim.esm file. The only way that I know to create new ones would be to crack open the archive, edit the reports, and then repack them into a new .esm archive. Even then, the CK might not recognize them, and some image editing might have to be done.

 

Here is a post that I wrote in the Skyrim Forums that explains the issue and my plans to get around it: http://skyrimforums.org/threads/unarmed-warfare-cracking-the-actor-values.6801/#post-62755

 

I would absolutely love to team up with some fellow modders to try and create a true unarmed mod. In fact, I'd need other modders if I were going to try to make one with original animations and weapons. I have little to no skill with art, modeling, and animation, but I'm really good at figuring out a system and modifying it. Luckily, I worked a bit with the developer tools for Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 (though I didn't publish any mods until now), so I had a bit of experience with their tools. That was how I managed to piece together the first version of an unarmed mod within a few hours of downloading the Creation Kit. But creating a whole new skill tree will be different. It will almost certainly require creating a .esm file, which the CK doesn't support. Luckily, there are a number of 3-d party tools created for modders that can do what I need.

 

The main thing that all of the unarmed players want is an entirely new skill tree. Also, some unique unarmed weapons (like in Fallout 3), along with new animations would be really cool. If I work on finding a way to get the code and skills working, would ya'll (and any others willing to participate) be willing to work on the modeling, art, animation, etc. side of things? I am planning on creating a real Unarmed mod, but will need all the help I can get if I am going to even find a way to make it possible. Even if I do manage to create a new skill, it wouldn't be a true Unarmed mod without unique animations, items, and possible even quests or levels.

[acidcrew]

Anyone knows how to make unarmed increase the one-handed skill?

I'm kinda stuck on that one^^

 

Atm i made my own mod, one handed perks will affect unarmed combat and done 2 perks "special" for unarmed attacks.

 

(only on steam workshop atm, name of mod = Acidcrew perk update(v1.12)).

[Woverdude]

Some people have written their own scripts for unarmed damage scaling, but I don't know of anyone who's written one to directly increase the onehanded skill. I'm sure that someone's working on it, though. The easiest way is to make a duplicate of the default "Unarmed" weapon, change its name, and then classify it as a One-Handed weapon.

[acidcrew]

Some people have written their own scripts for unarmed damage scaling, but I don't know of anyone who's written one to directly increase the onehanded skill. I'm sure that someone's working on it, though. The easiest way is to make a duplicate of the default "Unarmed" weapon, change its name, and then classify it as a One-Handed weapon.

 

 

It seems that that isn't working (sadly!) Already thought of that one, but thanx for the tip anyway!

[MoonSweets]

I feared indeed that it wasn't possible to add new skills and perk trees this easily, after all what we have is the Creation Kit, what the developpers had was the Creation Engine. It makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth to get rid of the Pickpocket skill to merge it with the Sneak skill (in previous TES they were the same) and change the Pickpocket skill into Unarmed/Unarmored skill? (That would be the "naked fighter" skill XD)

 

I don't know if it's possible to associate the Pickpocket actions to the Sneak skill easily but do you think this trick would be worth it? =)

 

Also regarding helping, as I said I'm not a programmer, I only have ideas but I'm not a doer... However if you want quests associated to the mod I can design good ones for sure. Imagining story was the first thing I ever learnt to do and I'm a good writer, capable of creating deep and alive characters and plots of all kinds (more serious, more fun) and matching the lore perfectly as I have good knowledge of it. Just tell if you'd rather be for a quest involving monks that would teach unarmed combat or else, if you're okay for a quest to learn drunken fight (we're in Skyrim, damn it!), well anything you'd like.

 

I can also make concepts, I'm rather good at speed painting. I usually can come up with something within 2h, that's the time I spend on most of my works. To give exemples here are a first and second redesign of the Necromancer's Amulet, done in 2h each =)

Here on dA you can also see other TES works I did, including CG art and various TES books (and a Falmer ear made of marzipan)

[Woverdude]

Others have suggested replacing pickpocketing with an Unarmed Skill. The issue there is finding a way to link it the advancement to unarmed attacks. Preferably, I wouldn't make players use the "Unarmed Weapon" in my mod, and just let them use their normal fists. But to do that, they need to advance a skill. We'd also have the issue of renaming Pickpocketing and the various activators, quests, and actions that are linked to that skill. All of this would be viable if I could just find a way to access the reports within the Skyrim.esm archive. But I can't find a way. Supposedly, there's a program to do it (TESSnip) but it was designed for Oblivion and isn't working for my Skyrim files. :-(

 

Moving the Pickpocketing over to Sneak might work, though. I haven't had any time to work on modding the past couple days, but I'll dedicate tonight and part of tomorrow to the task of finding a way. I am convinced that there is some way to get this done, if I can edit the actual files for the Actor Values. Also, I sent a message to the designer of SkyUI. We'll probably need some UI work done, especially if we create a totally new skill.

 

Great art! I'd definitely be glad if you could come up with some sort of fist weapon. A bladed-fist, spiked gauntlet, brass knuckles, something like that. I won't force the player to use that as the model for the main "Unarmed Weapon" but it'd be nice to add to the mod as a unique weapon. I'll definitely let you do the quest making once we get to that point. I've done level building and item/stats modding, but no quests before. :-)

[MoonSweets]

I understand the problem, these Actor Values are definitely a tricky point... I hope you'll manage to find a solution someway, if it was already possible to move the Pickpocket skill I assume it would already be awesome. Changing the name of the skill would be something nice to be able to do but at the same time, changing the parameters of the leveling conditions of the skills and the effects of the perks are probably the most important part.

 

I'll try to do some concepts in the following days. I'll just finish to implement my TES books ingame and try to see if I'm capable of adding a merchant to sell them. This point shouldn't be too complicated to approach quest design, slowly...

[Woverdude]

I'll mess around with it tonight, and see if I can put together something.

 

You mentioned making some books for Skyrim. Something I'm planning is to create an e-zine that's published in Skyrim. I'm a writer (when I have time), have worked in publishing and editing, and have been a member/founder of a number of writing critique groups. So, I'm going to do something that I'm not sure anyone's done before. I'm going to publish an online magazine IN A GAME as books that can be picked up and read, bought, and found in dungeons. If you'd like to contribute some writing, I'd be happy to add it. :-)

 

I'm also going to add a bookshop specifically for the magazine. The owner of the shop will be a ghost and his skeleton. The ghost handles the trading and talking, and his skeleton handles the tedious stuff that requires a physical presence. The story is that the ghost was resurrected from the afterlife by a necromancer who was testing out a spell. It brought him back to life with his ghost and skeleton separate, but with the ghost in control of the skeleton's movements. While in the afterlife, he met a whole bunch of adventurers, wizards, rulers, bards, etc., and now that he's (sort of) alive again, he figured that he'd write them down. After all, running a business is a whole lot more fun than haunting a graveyard and getting zapped by the next Dovahkin to walk by. :-D

 

I'm actually about to go into the mountains (real life mountains) now, sit on a cliff above the valley, and write a story about the bard of Bard's Leap.

[MoonSweets]

How cool is that!? I'm so in, dude! That would be so damn cool! We could get feedback from the players on what they'd like to get next time or so time to time... I don't know... but it sounds very interesting and new indeed.

Btw, do you have any idea of where to place png images to be able to link them in a book to add pictures? Adding illuminated letters was easily done since they are already contained in the bsa, but to add pictures of my own it gets much more tricky and I have the impression it would be required to add them to the bsa archive. Which I don't know how to do.

 

On another point I hoped the Black Horse Courrier would be replaced by bards singing songs according to what the player may have done (I mean, there are just 3 songs! THREE!) It depresses me so much that the songs from Pokémon seem epic to me atm... So far I've written some prayers to Azura and and Dagoth Ur in my "Sakin the Smith" series, a song about a giant mudcrab and one about the fall of Summerset.

 

But back to the mod! I've done a first concept of clawed gloves. It's very simple for two reasons, first is that I wanted to do something quickly without too much research to be sure I could make such a concept, second, I'm quite against uber stuff feeling out of Tamriel. Already I'm not totally certain for the shape of border of the gloves on the forearm and the metal knuckles... This could be a steel weapon, the iron version would maybe be a bit more rough and including fur more like the iron gauntlets.

What do you think?

 

Also I try to think of the modeling part. I had to model a hand recently, that wasn't much hard, the base model was done within 2h, tweaking it to get a good result and good polycount took few more hours... My only worry is rigging and skining. I cannot skin, I really really suck at this! Does anyone has any idea of the requirements to add new hand weapons? Beside the 3D mesh and texture maps, what's needed?

[Woverdude]

Some series would especially be awesome. People could even dedicate a bookshelf in their home to their favorite series.

 

(this if from analyzing the vanilla books, and from my knowledge of their files system) To add an image to a book, go to the Data file. Within the Textures folder, create a folder to hold the textures and images for your mod. Within that folder, create a Books folder. Put the image you want to use into that folder. Then, inside the CK, go to the book that you want to edit. I would suggest creating a separate page for the image, unless it's small enough to have text on the same page. To add them image use the code:

 

<img src='img://Textures/MoonSweets/books/coolpicture.png'>

 

while changing the different directory/file-names to be accurate to your situation. You'll also need to add the files to the archive when uploading or exporting the mod. When you upload to Steam Workshop, it should find the files you added automatically, and will ask you if you want to pack them. You can also manually add files to the archive at any time by clicking "Add files to archive" in the File menu.

 

Exactly! I wanted a newspaper. In fact, I was talking to my father about my mods, and he suggested making a newspaper. It would require a bit of scripting, but I totally it's possible. For all the major (and some minor) quests, you get a news article written about the deed.

 

Awesome concept art! :ohmy: I wish I had your art skills! I might even commission you sometime to do some art for my own worldbuilding... I agree with you about the type. I'd think this would be best as either a steel or leather item. Probably steel. And I agree about what the iron version should look like.

 

As far as the modeling goes, I have no idea. I have no 3d skills. :-/ I'm sure that there's a tutorial somewhere, though. Try Googling "modeling tutorial skyrim".

 

I've created a thread for the Skyrim magazine idea, btw. Take a look at it here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/570668-wip-skyrim-publishing-inc/page__gopid__4625885#entry4625885

 

Also, I added one of my own works to the game, and uploaded the book as a mod. Check it out if you want. :-)

 

Nexus: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=10257

 

Steam Workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=12384

Edited February 18, 2012 by Woverdude