Drag and drop NPC into render window

[Lord Valarian]

I am trying to make a copy of an existing NPC to modify. I create that copy. Drag and drop it into the render window. Use 'f' to make it fall. When the game runs, that NPC doesn't appear(not disabled). I tried other NPCs nothing appears. Finally, I drop 8 npcs into the render window, only 3 showed up. There is nothing more I can try. Need help before I continue.

[Striker879]

Is the area you drop the NPC into pathgridded (they may be transported to the nearest pathgrid node, which may not be nearby)?

[Lord Valarian]

Is the area you drop the NPC into pathgridded (they may be transported to the nearest pathgrid node, which may not be nearby)?

 

I'm new to doing NPC's. I'm reading up on pathgrids. I don't have any of them. I'll need to make them. Right?

 

 

 

I'm using the archmage quarters. So, it has pathgrids already. The character is right on the center of the carpet, drag and drop. The character is jumping to the consul chambers, one level down. How do get them to appear where they should? Add path grids? Moveto.

 

 

Edited July 11, 2012 by Lord Valarian

[Striker879]

What happens if you 'F-drop' them and then raise them back up a bit (so that when they're rendered in-game they drop a bit to the floor)?

 

The only similar situation that comes to mind is a problem that Emma had with a dead NPC in her Maple Cottage mod. In that case her dead NPC was dropping well below the cavern floor (I find floors in caves kind of unreliable for collision in-game ... dropped items will sometimes find a crack in the collision and disappear). I tried a few things in the CS while troubleshooting, finally the solution turned out to give the NPC a tiny bit of health and let the bandits kill him.

 

The only similarity to your case is possible 'leaks' in the collision. I'm theorizing that if you have the NPCs a bit 'below grade' in your intended quarters maybe they're falling through to the room below (though that shouldn't be possible as I understand it ... those two rooms are different cells I believe). You don't have modded versions of those two rooms do you (maybe making the two of them a single cell)?

 

- Edit - The vanilla pathgrid in the cell should be sufficient.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Striker879

[Lord Valarian]

What happens if you 'F-drop' them and then raise them back up a bit (so that when they're rendered in-game they drop a bit to the floor)?

 

I tried that, no effect. I'm just about dump the NPC idea, just have a found note. :P It was working earlier. I completed the quest and then quest was broken.

 

 

The only similar situation that comes to mind is a problem that Emma had with a dead NPC in her Maple Cottage mod. In that case her dead NPC was dropping well below the cavern floor (I find floors in caves kind of unreliable for collision in-game ... dropped items will sometimes find a crack in the collision and disappear). I tried a few things in the CS while troubleshooting, finally the solution turned out to give the NPC a tiny bit of health and let the bandits kill him.

 

The only similarity to your case is possible 'leaks' in the collision. I'm theorizing that if you have the NPCs a bit 'below grade' in your intended quarters maybe they're falling through to the room below (though that shouldn't be possible as I understand it ... those two rooms are different cells I believe). You don't have modded versions of those two rooms do you (maybe making the two of them a single cell)?

 

Nope, different cells. If turn off disabled in the NPC, they appear in the consul chambers. I have the CS WIKI "creating dead NPCs." as another way. I even tried zero health, they disappeared from the game. The final room is finished, along with all the goodies. If can't get the quest working soon, i'm going to drop NPC part of the quest. Too bad, it really adds to the story. :(

 

I'v tried to move the NPC around the room. Maybe moving to another cell. A better location in the cell.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Lord Valarian

[Striker879]

What about placing them initially in another cell and then giving them a travel package to a marker you place in the cell that's giving you trouble. Make sure you give them a 'wander current location' as a default 'whenever another package isn't processing' so they don't decide to wander off after reaching the marker. If you look at how Bethesda set up most of their NPCs with a default package you'll get the idea (but note the difference between a 'wander current location' and a 'wander editor location' package).

[Lord Valarian]

What about placing them initially in another cell and then giving them a travel package to a marker you place in the cell that's giving you trouble. Make sure you give them a 'wander current location' as a default 'whenever another package isn't processing' so they don't decide to wander off after reaching the marker. If you look at how Bethesda set up most of their NPCs with a default package you'll get the idea (but note the difference between a 'wander current location' and a 'wander editor location' package).

 

I tried removing all the ai packages. It worked somewhat. Maybe I need to put one back. It worked for a while, then same problem.

 

Here's the problem outlined.

 

 

 

Following CS WIKI tutorial

 

Note: all ai packages deleted.

 

#1: edit an NPC -> change name "NPCnameAQ" -> uncheck essential -> uncheck autocalc. Set health zero.

-> Yes create new form. -> REFERENCE window "NPCnameAQRef. unchecked "disabled on startup"

#2: render->center view on red X Target(carpet center)

#3: drag and drop -> manually move NPCnameAQ to redx. Move up past floor -> 'f" -> Move up z units(10-20).

#4: load clean save for mod quest.

#5. move to AMQ, nothing there.

 

Tried moving bounding boxes away and deleting redx, no effect. Moving to other places in cell has no effect. Bottom of bounding box disappears when moved around. Why I moved it up slightly.

 

 

 

 

So, start them where they end up. Then make an AI package to go up to where I want them. Might work, I have to take into account what I already said. Can you try to do this yourself(anyone else)? Do this series of steps. See if you get the same problem.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Lord Valarian

[Striker879]

Your set health to zero makes your situation more like the one I mentioned about Emma's Maple Cottage. What about if you place them in your desired location with normal health and then kill them via a script that triggers when the player gets to that lower chamber?

 

In Emma's case there were bandits nearby to do the dirty work (although that solution has proved to be less than 100% reliable in a very small number of cases). I think you need the reliability of a scripted death. If you give them any AI packages just make it a default wander editor location with a small radius.

[Lord Valarian]

Your set health to zero makes your situation more like the one I mentioned about Emma's Maple Cottage. What about if you place them in your desired location with normal health and then kill them via a script that triggers when the player gets to that lower chamber?

 

In Emma's case there were bandits nearby to do the dirty work (although that solution has proved to be less than 100% reliable in a very small number of cases). I think you need the reliability of a scripted death. If you give them any AI packages just make it a default wander editor location with a small radius.

 

I set them at 1 health. Then I attempted to cast a spell from objects in the room. You can't cast only from object to object. Cast object to NPC doesn't work. So, I casted from object to object with damage health 1/area 100. It only works if I enter the room. So, objects won't cast anything unless the player is in the room.

 

Tried again, starting them again at 1 health. Before the player enters the room, I used a scripted "NPCnameRef.Kill". When I enter the room they are gone. Any attempt at killing the NPC off camera makes them disappear from the game. Starting them at zero health makes them disappear(with or without 'low level processing' flag) from the game. ??

 

 

http://cs.elderscrol...ing_Dead_Actors

 

Someone needs to delete this article. It DOESN'T work. :P

 

 

One step closer to dropping using an NPC, just use a simple note.

Edited July 14, 2012 by Lord Valarian

[Striker879]

Like I said, in Emma's situation the 1 health solution wasn't 100% effective. The only further 'complication' I can think to add would be to put the NPC's 'killer' in the room. You could either leave the killer (burglar perhaps) for the player to take care of or script the killer to be disabled once the NPC is dead.

 

I know it's an awfully complicated solution to what seems a simple problem. When I was poking around the problem in Emma's mod I thought it was because her dead NPC was in a dungeon. Now it seems more likely that it's a system wide situation, either with that tutorial or dead NPCs in general (although the vanilla game uses several of them). If I was at my gaming computer I might be able to offer more help, but that won't happen until summer's end.