ArenaSpectatorM & F as crowded cities mod

[kallekukhuve]

I was thinking about this before, and I asked a mod author who has made lots of good scripting mods but she said it's not possible because there are no sprites to use.

Today, after 11 years of using this game as a distraction for not getting anything done in my life, for the first time I realized that the crowds in the Arena actuall are just that, just sprites. And in the nifskope I see that they are also separate, so they are actually individual "NPCs".

It would save alot of FPS and it would work way better than adding real NPCs (of course you would want that as well, but there already are mods that give the vanilla NPCs packages that make them wander the streets much more.)

The illusion is everything, like in real life. So it would work like this: in the IC Market District, when you look from the merchants plaza towards the gate at the other side of the districts at the oposite side of the long street, you would see lots of people moving about, but its too far to make out that they are all fake. When you get closer they get disabled and replaced by a few real npcs walking about so the illusion doesn't break. And when you turn around and look towards the other side, they get enabled over there instead. It would give an impression of lots of people in the background. And if you also use Sounds of Cyrodiil (I think it is) you already have the sound of all the people babbling in the street.

 

So, the question:

Has anybody done this? Used modified arena spectators as fake NPCs to make it seem like the cities are crowded?

 

[Oblivionaddicted]

I don't think it's feasible, but if you want to replace the fake spectators in the arena pit with NPC's, this should be feasible.

[kallekukhuve]

But I am not talking about the arena. :huh:

[Oblivionaddicted]

Alright but what I offered you would be easier to do anyway.

[Moktah]

I've seen a mod with a similar concept.

 

Making sure we are on same page first.

NPC's up close are their normal 3d self, but afar, they are 2d sprites.

This, hopefully, will reduce loads in cities gaining better performance overall.

 

The mod I remember used the regular 3d models up close, but as the npc got farther away, their face blurs and there

was a reduced poly count overall.

ITs still using the 3d model though, just using a super low quality the further the npc got.

In the video for the mod, it looked like it was a reasonable effect.

I just never got around to testing it out myself.

 

Unfortunately, I can't remember what its called or any keywords to do a search by.

I've searched for face and poly but no luck there.

 

EDIT: Gave up too soon. Found it for ya. https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/48799

[kallekukhuve]

Alright but what I offered you would be easier to do anyway.

There are already three different mods that increase the amount of arenaspecatorm.nif in the arena

[kallekukhuve]

I've seen a mod with a similar concept.

 

Making sure we are on same page first.

NPC's up close are their normal 3d self, but afar, they are 2d sprites.

This, hopefully, will reduce loads in cities gaining better performance overall.

 

The mod I remember used the regular 3d models up close, but as the npc got farther away, their face blurs and there

was a reduced poly count overall.

ITs still using the 3d model though, just using a super low quality the further the npc got.

In the video for the mod, it looked like it was a reasonable effect.

I just never got around to testing it out myself.

 

Unfortunately, I can't remember what its called or any keywords to do a search by.

I've searched for face and poly but no luck there.

 

EDIT: Gave up too soon. Found it for ya. https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/48799

Yes, that is exactly what I mean.

I am already using LodHead. It diminishes polygons on the face meshes so the fps goes down a bit. But other things that increases the FPS are the scripts and packages running on the NPCs, and also the animations.

In the arena the "crowds" are found in static in the CS, they are called ArenaSpectatorM and ArenaSpectatorF respectively (for male and female look alikes)

I guess they have an animation as the move their arms up and down, but its not a complicated one. And there are no scripts and packages running on them.

Even with lodhead you if you wanted 200 npcs in Cheydinhal for example, to fill up the streets, the lag would be huge. But if you placed those sprites from the arena in strategic positions, you wouldn't need 200 npc, but it would feel like much more.

 

*edit*

I don't mean changing the npcs into 2d sprites. If you understood me that way. Just replacing Crowded Cities 150 NPCs with Sprite Crowded Cities Fake NPCs and together with the last one use Maskars Overhaul or something that just adds a few of their own.

Edited February 11, 2019 by kallekukhuve

[Oblivionaddicted]

 

Alright but what I offered you would be easier to do anyway.

There are already three different mods that increase the amount of arenaspecatorm.nif in the arena

 

 

It's not at all the content of my message.

[kallekukhuve]

 

 

Alright but what I offered you would be easier to do anyway.

There are already three different mods that increase the amount of arenaspecatorm.nif in the arena

 

 

It's not at all the content of my message.

 

Haha no! But if you are talking about replacing the spectators in the arena with npcs, then that is not interesting for me because to fill up the arena with real npcs would crash the game for me.

If you mean instead of putting arena spectators in the street corners that are enabled and disabled dependin on the distance to the player, instead of that putting real npcs there, then that was the whole point of ...not doing that. Because its already done by lots of mods. And it really hurts the fps so to make the streets feel really crowded you would stop the game from moving.

My idea is just having the illusion of crowded streets. If there are about 10 npcs in the vicinity of the player, and then when you look towards the other side of town you see siluettes of people in every street corner, you would get the impression that wherever you would go you would be surrounded by npcs.

Well, since i havent tried yet i am not totally sure, but i believe so.

Edited February 11, 2019 by kallekukhuve