miketheratguy Posted May 9, 2012 Author Share Posted May 9, 2012 Definitely; it's a pain to run across conflicting information in tutorials and browsing other peoples' past conversations, but it's different when you're actually getting first-hand information that can be explained in a way that makes sense. I appreciate the help, and feel a bit more confident about working with the CK now. And thanks for the PM offer tetradite; I'm sure I'll have a question or two but I'll try to work on my own as much as I can. If these idle markers are good for making an NPC do realistic little animations and activities, is it good to just have a few or should I put them in a bunch of spots? Or does just one have an invisible radius that lets characters do multiple things anywhere in the room? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tetradite Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Definitely; it's a pain to run across conflicting information in tutorials and browsing other peoples' past conversations, but it's different when you're actually getting first-hand information that can be explained in a way that makes sense. I appreciate the help, and feel a bit more confident about working with the CK now. And thanks for the PM offer tetradite; I'm sure I'll have a question or two but I'll try to work on my own as much as I can. If these idle markers are good for making an NPC do realistic little animations and activities, is it good to just have a few or should I put them in a bunch of spots? Or does just one have an invisible radius that lets characters do multiple things anywhere in the room? No probs, I'm mostly thinking when you hit one of those mental blocks, and think "this is just way too stupid a question to post" or "how do I even phrase this question"... those times will probably come ;) Most of the markers are pretty specific (e.g searchchest will just make the NPC do the search chest animation at that point he won't roam the room looking for chests to search. With AI packages you can make NPC's do several things at the marker (e.g also play an "eat bread" animation, or not, after they search the chest) but don't worry about that yet. For now, just find markers that sound like things you want your guys to do and stick them in "appropriate" spots. You won't really know if they actually look or "feel" right until you've tested them anyway, so might as well stick MORE than you want in for now, test it a bit in game and see which ones you prefer (I used the search chest one lots then saw the anim for it in game and HATED it). Some of the positioning is not very intuitive when you look at the marker object in the CK either, you'll proably have to tweak their exact locations a bit. Jet is bang on with the furniture markers too. e.g:SitLedgeMarkerSitCrossLeggedMarkerCounterLeanMarkerWallLeanMarker I LOVE SitLedgeMarker and have to forceably restrain myself from putting it everywhere. In my Fleetford mod I really think the one thing that made the most difference in differentating my two Argonian bartenders is that the younger one sits on the bar with that marker, the older one stands behind it. The younger one has a different feel to him just because of that (IMO). If you create your own NPC's (I think you'll end up doing this when you've made your home!) you can add a lot of character by giving them specific markers to use in an AI package. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet4571 Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 LOL yes the sit ledge marker is pretty cool. tetradite is correct with play around with them until you find ones you like. i put them all over the place. one room might have 4 sweep floor markers a repair wall one and 2 wall lean markers. If its a public place like an inn or something then i liberally apply the 3 bard ones. and every firepit or fireplace has atleast 1 warm hands marker even if there is a cooking pot there! i am amazed they didnt put the kneel and stand ones in every inn, Skyrim is a cold place and warming your hands at a fire is probably something you will do allot. Plus another one I think allot of modders should use if they place a map on a table is the lean table one, this way an NPC will lean on the table and study the map. for the idle marker ones, they are a blue square with a triangle on one edge. the triangle points the direction the NPC will face when using it. so if you put several sweep floors in shut off the rotate to grid and point them in a random direction. for warm hands and praying point it towards what the NPC should be looking at when doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miketheratguy Posted May 10, 2012 Author Share Posted May 10, 2012 This is interesting; I had no idea that the markers were so specific to each different action. I guess that would make sense; I guess I just didn't think that they were advanced. I thought that you just put down a generic idle marker and the NPC would stand on it and do their own random thing, be it sweep or grab some bread or whatever. I've been talking to Expired about the possibility of fleshing out the last detail of his awesome follower mod- getting followers to sandbox all over a cell- and I guess I'm going to wait now and see if anything comes of it. If something does, it will open a lot of possibilities for the type of place I wanted to build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet4571 Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 I have been following that discussion. You are giving him allot to think about so maybe he will figure out hos to get the NPC's to sandbox on more than one level. When i make an NPC or a building with NPC's i always duplicate a MarriageSpouse*** sandbox package and change the cell to the new house if the house is multiple floors. Also i already made a mod swapping all my housecarls to the vanilla package that goes to the house they stay at. those packages work allot better then the default ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miketheratguy Posted May 10, 2012 Author Share Posted May 10, 2012 Indeed; I saw you there earlier. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that you've already cleared that sandboxing hurdle in your own works? You have NPCs roaming the entirety of your home and not being restricted by distance or floors? If that's the case then surely your input would really help that mod. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet4571 Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 (edited) Yes i cleared that hurdle but only for NPC's that live in the house by default. relax mode and the change home function in EFF and moving the spouse with Emma and Amgepo's spouse mod still has the issue of staying on a single level. As you saw on the discussion it looks like it is the "In cell" location and radius isn't used rather than the ones used by the defaults allows them to use the whole cell. the defaults are the only packages that I know of that can be used anywhere but they use the radius system which starts locating items to interact with at the center of the radius to the outside edge until something is found. when the NPC is placed between a chair, a grind wheel, and a forge in one room they wont go elsewhere in the radius to find something to use. As you said they will ping pong with the closest items. DefaultSandboxCurrentLocation1024 uses near self, radius 1024. Radius starts at the NPC and it could be possible for them to slowly ping pong across the cell with idle markers and furniture. but you would need a path of furniture and idle markers evenly placed for it to work I think. If there was an eat and sleep package that used near self then you could use those but sadly those are editor location only and would be useless for the EFF mod(they would go home to eat and sleep lol). DefaultSandboxEditorLocation1024 uses the NPC's spawn point as the center of the radius. whatever is closest to that will be whats used, as we all see with the housecarls and the 512 radius version that they use, its the worst sandbox package. I dont suggest using them. MarriageSpouse******SandboxPlayerHouse Uses In Cell and no radius. the NPC has no center to look for something to use therefore everything is just as close to the AI. I suggest using this one for custom homes and NPC's. To use it you need to right click on it and select duplicate, rename the duplicate to something easy to remember. now to edit the duplicate version, in the first tab(package) select the Location line in the Public Package Data box. to the right in Selected Package Data click the button that has In cell "****". That brings up the Location window. Change the location here to the new one you want. Last step is give that package to the NPC that you will have in the house. tetradite did make a suggestion for you and that was move the NPC's to the new house in the mod to populate it or just make all new NPC's that live in the house by default. The only limit you would have is how much time you want to spend on creating new NPC's and how many you can add before the house starts lagging. Edited May 10, 2012 by jet4571 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flobalob Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 1) Already covered. 2) Be aware that you CANNOT change the location of ANY pre-existing stuff with an .esm . So if, for example, you moved a table in Dragonsreach from the left hand side to the right in an .esp. it woutld be fine (subject to a clean save of course), but if you then convert the .esp. to a .esm then the table would NOT MOVE (or move back). 3) With regards to sandbox behavior, I suspect the the start point for the NPC is used to determine what idles/furnature markers can be used based on a spherical radius, however I also suspect the AI is checking for a valid path to the markers within the radius. The upshot is that if the staircase to another floor is outside the radius then nothing on any other floor will be used, EVER. Note 1024 is equivalent to 4 standard room sections. 4) Yes. 5) I believe that the navmesh must pass underneath the pale blue people marker that is attached to the furniture (toggle with "M"). 6) Duplicating a cell will duplicate everything contained within it, except named references. 7) Yes it retains it's Navmesh. and all sorts of other stuff that you may or may not be aware of. Which is why I would suggest for creating an new cell , select World/Cells/Right Click/New. That way you KNOW that you haven't duplicated anything unintentionaly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jet4571 Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Day late and a dollar short. that was already covered in far more detail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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