Help using elevators?

[chitokusan]

I cant find out how to make elevators work in oblivion. ive had a few incomplete, private mods that remain incomplete simply because i cannot find anywhere that gives a nice tutorial or example of an elevator. id tried TEDS house resource for an elevator, and simply copied and pasted the script he made onto the new mesh i wanted elevated, but in games, the activator or the static mesh dont even budge. id be deeply appreciated if someone could thoroughly explain to me how elevator scripts and animations work, or point me where i can find a turtorial as to how to make one.

[Lanceor]

I guess no-one's answered this as it's in the "too hard" category. Very few people have attempted to make elevators and there's no tutorial for them as it's actually quite hard to do. There's generally two ways to make a working elevator:

 

Scripted Movement

 

You can attach a script to an activator to make it move. I find this the easiest to implement, but it has its limitations. Only the simplest of meshes can be moved this way. If you try it with a complex mesh (anything more than a simple cube is dicey), you may find that the collision block may fail to move. Also, running more than one such script at the same time will probably cause CPU overload, lag or other undesirable effects.

 

Plug: You can find some scripted moving doors at the end of Anduril Reforged that should be easy to modify into a moving platform.

 

Animated Meshes

 

These are more reliable once they're working, but usually much harder to make it work. I'd start by modifying something like meshes\dungeons\ayleidruins\interior\argate01.nif that has both Forward and Backward animations. There's a large number of things that you'll need to modify (using argate01 as an example):

 

5 NiControllerSequence - Change the Start and Stop Times to match your animation.

7 NiTransformData: In Translations, modify the Num Keys string and each of the Keys for the desired Forward movement.

12 NiControllerSequence - Change the Start and Stop Times to match your animation.

14 NiTransformData: In Translations, modify the Num Keys string and each of the Keys for the desired Backward movement.

20 Change the mesh to something that you want, including the collision block.

 

If you can modify all those without the mesh crashing the game, then you need to add scripting to select when to Playgroup Forward and Playgroup Backward.

 

Fake Elevators

 

If that is all too hard, then just fake it: Enter a small rectangular room, hit a switch and the door you came in from exits to elsewhere. ;)

[chitokusan]

I guess no-one's answered this as it's in the "too hard" category. Very few people have attempted to make elevators and there's no tutorial for them as it's actually quite hard to do. There's generally two ways to make a working elevator:

 

Scripted Movement

 

You can attach a script to an activator to make it move. I find this the easiest to implement, but it has its limitations. Only the simplest of meshes can be moved this way. If you try it with a complex mesh (anything more than a simple cube is dicey), you may find that the collision block may fail to move. Also, running more than one such script at the same time will probably cause CPU overload, lag or other undesirable effects.

 

Plug: You can find some scripted moving doors at the end of Anduril Reforged that should be easy to modify into a moving platform.

 

Animated Meshes

 

These are more reliable once they're working, but usually much harder to make it work. I'd start by modifying something like meshes\dungeons\ayleidruins\interior\argate01.nif that has both Forward and Backward animations. There's a large number of things that you'll need to modify (using argate01 as an example):

 

5 NiControllerSequence - Change the Start and Stop Times to match your animation.

7 NiTransformData: In Translations, modify the Num Keys string and each of the Keys for the desired Forward movement.

12 NiControllerSequence - Change the Start and Stop Times to match your animation.

14 NiTransformData: In Translations, modify the Num Keys string and each of the Keys for the desired Backward movement.

20 Change the mesh to something that you want, including the collision block.

 

If you can modify all those without the mesh crashing the game, then you need to add scripting to select when to Playgroup Forward and Playgroup Backward.

 

Fake Elevators

 

If that is all too hard, then just fake it: Enter a small rectangular room, hit a switch and the door you came in from exits to elsewhere. ;)

ill try that script idea. though im a novice when it cmes to scripts, or anything else that doesnt involve editing textures, and putting meshes into the CS :P. thnx for the link. if all goes bad, ill just use the fake elevator :/. the Nifscope idea seems to complicated for me, but then again, this is complicated in general lol :P. thanks for the help

Edited January 27, 2013 by chitokusan

[Lanceor]

Good luck with the scripted elevator. Most of the hard work is already in the wiki so hopefully you can get it to work. :)

[Glitchipedia]

Here's an idea. How do the Corpse Mashers on the planes of Oblivion work?