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CS Basics: Lesson #4


DarkRider
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Here is a catch-up on my homework - I still need to do the Basement Ladder link to the interior and clean the mod with the Gecko. These screens should cover everything else.

** Aside from the assigned plants in the garden, we were supposed to use our own creativity. My garden is all different types of seaweed, I scoured the lists for each different one, dragged a sample of it up and debated if I wanted that particular one, etc. - so a lot of thought went into it, and I spent a lot of time arranging it into what I thought was beautiful. It isn't neat rows of veggies or flowers, but it is what I really wanted. I hope it won't knock my grade.

Here is the link, the new screens are :

* a gridpath for the Basement

* the gridpaths for the house, property, and garden

* the garden itself

* a surprise - I saw everyone was putting more boards down and extending their area for a better stables. Since it was allowed, I wanted to do that too. The remaining screens are the new barn and horse area, meaning I had to redo all the gridpaths - so there are screens of the new gridpaths I laid down as well.

http://s434.photobucket.com/albums/qq67/Maxical1/TESAlliance%20Homework/

*

Edited by mALX
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Very good homework Mal, as soon as you send the door teleport pics and the Gecko pic you'll be ready for the final exam. :clap: The pathing is good though a bit on the excessive side, try to find a happy medium between too little and too much. :thumbup:

Here is the proof the trap door and ladder link both work! Yeah !!! That thing you see shoot across the room flying in the air at the end of the clip is my mouse throwing a temper fit because I left him behind, lol. I was afraid to bring him, not knowing if it would work or not.

So now it is on to download the Gecko to clean the mod.

Er ... it is too bright in the basement for me. Am I allowed to change out the lights in that basement since I've been graded on that already? (The grade hasn't been posted yet for Lesson #3, by the way).

Edited by mALX
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okay did the lesson and the extra credit http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/gallery/album/10804/267-darthkenobis-public-view-album/ gecko before screens 1 and 2 gecko ignored cells to show what i told it to ignore and yes i did tell it to save changes then for the extra credit garden pathgrid and screenshots 36-39

Edited by Darthkenobi
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Very good work Mal! You can light the basement how you like, it's too bright I think as well. The shimmering walls mean your kits are overlapping, looks like you moved them together one snap to grid unit too far, you just have to turn on snap to grid and pull it away, then pull the others away to make sure none are overlapping. You'll need to fix those shimmering walls to get full marks on the credit challenge and I will be awaiting your Gecko pics. :thumbup:

Excellent homework to you as well Darth! I am very pleased with your fountain you've earned a rare +5 bonus points! Your pathing is textbook! :clap: One thing of note in your Gecko picture ARBlueAmb160 is highlighted in yellow meaning you changed that light. Remember you need to rename an object before you change it, otherwise all ARBlueAmb160 objects in the game will reflect your changes. That's a dirty change that needs to be cleaned out if you missed it. You are ready for the final exam.

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Alright, I'm ready to turn in chapter four stuff. For convenience, I'm gonna put the basement pics here, too.

*For mod clean-up, I went with tes4edit because I wasn't sure whether I could get permission to put Java on this computer--it's not mine and the owner's hard to get ahold of.

Anyway, it seems like it works basically the same way. Here's the SS of the auto portion and this is the manual part, all cleaned up. If you'll notice, I had originally intended to follow a different tutorial, creepycave. I had to quit at pretty much the first step, though, as it was so tedious (if whoever wrote that tutorial is reading this, I'm sorry. Please forgive me for being blunt)

*I might have overdone the pathing in the basement. I wanted to let the NPC's have a choice of where to go if they get blocked. Too much?

*Pathing for the garden

*Finally, some random shots done in game: a piece of the garden, and the dining room table for the basement

Edited by DarkRider
Images Removed to Prevent Assignment Confusion
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Very good work Mal! You can light the basement how you like, it's too bright I think as well. The shimmering walls mean your kits are overlapping, looks like you moved them together one snap to grid unit too far, you just have to turn on snap to grid and pull it away, then pull the others away to make sure none are overlapping. You'll need to fix those shimmering walls to get full marks on the credit challenge and I will be awaiting your Gecko pics. :thumbup:

I had to take everything out of the basement and re-do it, (and dimmed the lights way down, I like them much better now) - the shimmering is gone! (Yeah!!) Here is a video to prove it, and also shows the trap door still working. I added more exterior lighting (including pond lights in my garden), a stable, horses, ... and an Anvil-type beach complete with beach towels. Between the beach, horses, and fishing poles - this place is a dream vacation spot, lol. And Vilja can have her own quarters in the basement !!

*

Edited by mALX
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Very good Mal, though your vid reveals some small trouble spots and I have some comments. :yes:

-The castle banners don't make very good towels on the beach, maybe try one of the small rectangular rugs instead, the banners just look like misplaced statics you forgot to delete, takes away from your scene a bit. :)

-Creative use of castle statics!

-Fences and Fence posts need to be lowered so that the bottom rung of the fence nearly touches the ground. Not much of a fence if a wolf can run under it! :scary:

-The tree bench has too many exposed and opened faces, it's designed to be connected in a circle around a stone base, so on it's own, you have open faces and that's a modding no no, don't want anyone to see how the magic is made, breaks the player's illusion :D If you just really like that bench, use rocks to hide the open faces and give it some structural support.

-The angled support beams of the stable need to be slightly sunk into the floor, if they are floating your stable is too high up, use Z to lower it more. :yes:

-Like the curtains in the basement you may want to consider scaling them down though so they don't clip into the floor. With smaller curtains you may have to place more side by side to cover the same area, but being able to see the bottom of the curtain would have a nice realism effect.

Overall, aside from these minor aesthetic fubars, you have completed the assignments acceptably so you may prepare for your final exam. Good luck!

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Very nice modding there UmTheMuse, but unfortunately you are working way beyond the scope of this class and I can't award full marks for your credit challenges. This passage is cited from the introduction to this course:

Regardless of your skill set, if you do the homework assigned in step with the class you can certainly earn a medal. However, with advanced skills comes the temptation to show off a bit and add in resources and other custom touches like different interiors or locations. Screenshots of your work will only confuse and invalidate the other students who are just learning, so such images will be nixed and you won't get credit for your work toward a CS Medal. If you want to do the work, you must do the assignment within the outlined spirit of the class.

While I applaud all that you have learned and created on your journey, you have failed to follow the instructions given and you have not produced what was asked of you, and as a result I can't award you the points others have earned fairly. Because you did create a basement and all of the assigned kit pieces appear to be present I will concede partial credit for that challenge in the amount of 10pts.

Your Aquatic garden was supposed to be in the exterior and you were required to use these pieces:

  • BravilFenceDoor02 x1

  • FenceMid01 x12

  • FenceEnd02 x1

  • Lilypad01 x10

  • LilypadFlower01 X x6

  • CypressKneeCluster02 x3

As your garden contains nothing really of the assignment aside from plants and water, I'm afraid I can award no points for that challenge. :(

You may redo the assignments if you'd like to earn full credit or you may proceed to your final exam. :yes:

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Alright. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning, but I'm certainly willing to have another go at it. I guess I'll save the garden for the final or something, if that's alright?

Did you say you're only giving me partial credit for the basement because I'm missing parts or because it's underwater? I'm not really happy with the basement, anyway; those twisting passages and bumping my character's head against the lights don't seem so fun anymore.

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Think of it this way, if in school your teacher gave you an assignment to write the letter "A" 26 times and instead you write every letter of the alphabet once for a total of 26 letters, would you have done the assignment asked of you? I asked for a specific return and you didn't produce it, that's the reasoning. You followed your own drum and unlike others who simply embellish the existing assignment with personal touches, you just did your own assignment.

In the basement what I asked for was a 3x3 kit square room, with a 2 kit entry point. Not multiple rooms with multiple entry points and twisty halls, etc. You earned 10pts because you did use the pieces I requested, but you lost 10pts for not following the assignment given.

You may reuse your garden in the final exam, provided you choose the release option. If you do the non release option, it has specific requirements that must be met. :yes:

As modders we often have to share ideas to achieve a single vision, you might someday ask another modder to make a model for your mod. You would give him or her specific instructions on what you want. But what if instead of the fancy knife you asked for, what they sent back was a fancy knife on a spear mounted to a plaque? It's nice but not the weapon you wanted. :shrug:

It's good practice, learn to hone your creativity so that you can set it free or rein it in as needed, just as you hone your skills with the tool. One of the number one mod killers is scope creep. When a modder can't manage their creativity and flow of ideas, they just free build until the mod loses substance and structure or becomes too big to be finished so they abandon it. Your assignments in this class simulate a dev plan, what I am teaching you is how to follow a dev plan and complete what you set out to do. :good:

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Alright, thank you for clarifying that. I'll hop to it.

Well, when I'm able; depending on how something in RL shake-out, it might be a week or two (probably not, but just in case, I wanted to touch base with you). Please don't think it's because of this disagreement or anything.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Looks great Comrad. :clap: Just a note for the future, rotate plants and make the rows slightly imperfect to get a more realistic result. Plants grow a bit shabbily. XD You are ready for the final exam. Stay focused on the assignment, but I think you can handle the release option, so give it some consideration. :good:

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  • 3 months later...

Hey guys, finished cleaning up the mod :jellytime: and the first thing I'd like to do is give some advice to people;

When you use Gecko you must be VERY careful at what you set to ignore; I had accidently ran over into nearby cells when designing the pathway that approached my house and also in re-designing the terrain. So when I clicked ignore on the cells which had been edited I also caused the loss of my pathway and I produced 'tears' in the landscape so I had to seal all them up as well.

Anyway, back to the lesson, I have improved the lighting in my house and also made an aquatic garden, !SPOILER!, with a giant mushroom!!! Unfortunately the lighting is not that evident (I had three ambient (and very powerful) blue light spots) even though it is at the dead of night (perhaps a mistake when I made the light).

When you see my pics, please give me a little sympathy for the awful quality water - I have to set all graphical quality possible to nil for Oblivion to near nil for it to work at even a bad fps, at the lowest settings possible I got about 14 fps average outside but in interior cells I manage a half decent 35 fps average at least. Oh and just to impress the fact that my desktop is soooooooooooooo old I was also playing in Windowed mode XD.

So, here are my pics;

Light, Light, LIGHT!!!

Ooooo first the close up

And now a far away view XD

Does I getz any :cookie4u: ?

Edited by proleap360quikscopemoddor
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