Generic Dialog for Custom NPC

[Ayelius]

Hi there,

 

I'm creating a character who's supposed to be "fully integrated" into the world of Oblivion, e.g. being able to do all the things other NPCs are doing as well, like random dialog and such.

 

My NPC is fully voiced (I got the voice files) but I'm facing issues with implementing all their dialog just for themselves. It's not a custom race (they're Breton) so in general they share generic dialog with all other Bretons. So many lines in random NPC chatter are mixed up, which is what I want to avoid.

 

I've created a quest that only contains this character's generic lines and gave it a priority of 10, which is higher than the standard Generic quest (prio. 5). In the filtered dialog window I can see that my custom lines are sitting on top of the generic ones. Yet still it seems to fall through to generic Breton lines sometimes.

Is there any way to block off all vanilla generic lines? I've read this:

https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Removing_default_dialog_tutorial

But that's not a good one in terms of compatibility, as any other mod could potentially override changes to the Generic quest conditions which I would need to do. So, is there a better way to implement this?

Edited February 1, 2021 by Ayelius

[Pellape]

Very good question. When it comes to topics and stuff, it is mostly done with which faction the NPC belongs too. The dialogue's are a bit complicated as there is not any good way I know off to get the full picture as it is very object oriented. We do have an option under File -> Export-> Dialogue's in CS and you could use it to search for a dialogue that you do not want your NPC to take part of with Ctrl-F. You could check the conditions for it in CS and if it is a faction that your NPC is part of, then either remove your NPC from that faction or just add a condition GetisID != <your NPC>

 

!= -> is not equal too

Edited February 1, 2021 by Pellape

[Ayelius]

Thanks for your input. The Thing is, generic dialog doesn't check factions but mostly disposition and race (to give appropriate greetings and differentiate the voices etc.) and they're mostly at the bottom of the list. So some kind of catch-all with no special conditions so they WILL be triggered if no special dialog precedes it.

 

 

To get the "full picture", at least just regarding my character, I just use the filtered dialog window in the CS and filter by my character. That way I can see all possible lines for each topic that my character can possibly trigger.

 

Dialogs for my character always check for it's ID already, so only that character can say these lines. But again also other generic breton lines are spoken, which is what I don't get. Adding another condition to vanilla dialog is not compatibility-friendly as stated in my entry post, so that's why I'd like to avoid that in hope for a better way.

 

From my understanding, Oblivion checks conditions in it's dialog list from top to botton and uses the first dialog which conditions are true. In that case my custom dialogs should always come first and the generic stuff shouldn't even be considered in the first place.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Ayelius

[Pellape]

Yes that is true. Only way to make it random is to do a RND that is less than 100... ;) Some Idles do that.

[Ayelius]

Oh I'm actually using GetRandomPercent checks for my random dialogues already. Found out that if you tick the "Random" checkbox in the CS it will randomize between all adjacent dialog lines, so also the ones from generic Bretons. Yet still I have that problem, so I don't quite remember what cases it fixed specifically but I know it was necessary.

[Striker879]

So what you are looking for is your custom NPC doesn't use any of the racial (Breton) dialogue and only your custom dialogue ... correct??

[Ayelius]

Correct, as my own dialogs are a "replacement" of some sorts. But I wouldn't want to create a custom race just for that either, if that's what you're about to suggest. :D

[Striker879]

I'm no dialogue expert ... but yes, that is the only way that comes to mind for me. Is there some specific reason you don't want a custom race?

[Ayelius]

To be honest, not really, no. At least no technical reason. I just find it somewhat irritating to make a special race of what is essentially still just a Breton. I keep in mind though, if nothing else comes up to solve this differently.

 

EDIT: If I'd change the race now that much of the dialog is already in place, wouldn't that break all references to audio files, as they are named or otherwise linked to the race?

Edited February 2, 2021 by Ayelius

[Striker879]

Yes I believe you'd need to spend some time redoing things ... wouldn't the custom race use it's own folder for voice files (I don't have anything in my game using custom races, so I can't check to see what others have done as far as naming the voice files themselves).