CK Basics: Final Exam

[DarkRider]

Great joedpa, I'll download, take a look and return with a grade as soon as possible!

[aussie500]

Heartwood Manor a release version

http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/1798-heartwood-manor/

 

 

 

And yes you can sit in the bath, or just have a shower.

 

And the cellar

Location Heartwood Manor

External Navmesh

 

First floor navmesh.

 

Some of the ground floor navmesh, it is a bit hard to get screenshots of.

 

And the entire navmesh for that area, with no house in the way.

 

Cellar Navmesh

 

Loft Navmesh

[DarkRider]

Apologies for my long silence, seems once a Kickstarter campaigns ends the work load increases rather than diminishing

 

So, two VERY different and very nice final exam projects, well done both Aussie and Joedpa!

 

@Joedpa:

Overall your Aldison House was quite nice. It's a great location with a real haunting vibe. There were no serious technical issues, everything was pretty good, but I have a few notes:

 

Outside

• The exterior could use some lamps, or light fixtures to warm up the scene, its a really desolate ambiance by default so some light and warmth would make it feel more like a home and less like trouble may be brewing.

 

• Timber wolves spawn out front, they will continue to respawn; generally when building a home you want avoid or relocate enemy spawns and any markers attached to them. Just down the slope would be far enough away. If you can keep them in the same cell it's even better.

Inside

 

• Noticed some (at times serious) lag in a few spots, and my rig is built to make games not just play them, so my hardware is top notch. The lag is likely a combination of two factors. When you take large things and scale them down, and do this several times in one interior, you can get a performance hit. You have several statues right inside the door that cause an immediate lag in the small entry hall. Also, overuse of duplication can cause performance hits. You have lots of duplicate objects, which aesthetically makes a poor visual palette, but can also decrease performance. Modder Resources which glue a bunch of static meshes into one large pile, often don't reduce the geometry and save you anything performance wise either. I did a demonstration for another student here on setting a scene without resorting to duplication if you'd like another example.
• Couple design oddities, you placed a roasting spit with no cooking source below it seems out of place. You placed snow berry branches just growing out of the table with no vases, it's either a missing vase resource or just an odd placement.
• The use of quest items is generally a bad idea. Even if you duplicate the item with a new ID and make it no longer quest relevant, it's kind of jarring to players to have a quest item appear in their home, contrary to the game lore that says it's one of a kind. Best to not use them for decor.

 

Like I said, the mod is sound, most of what I found was aesthetic so I offered notes for your consideration, full marks, well done, and good luck on your future modding endeavors.

@Aussie

Worst house in the whole class....I'm kidding. A great example of solid level design technique, you have a lot of natural talent I hope you consider doing more with it than just modding! I didn't get a real manor vibe it screams hunting lodge, and that is great, the overall feel and ambiance is pulled together nicely. You obviously put a lot of care into the details. I didn't find much to give notes on, just a couple.

 

Outside

• There is a prey spawn near the structure and the deer are spawning like a prey fountain, which is fine but you might want to move it further from the house. I noticed several deer getting stuck trying to bound away from your garden
• The multi level garden was a nice touch, you want to learn UE4 next? We could use another level designer...

Inside

• The animal statues were a nice touch!
• I'm not sure mannequins need their own pathing, in my own mods, just having the proper markers for them was sufficient.

Overall, A+ material, full marks and best wishes for your future design endeavors, well done.

[aussie500]

Thanks DarkRider, still not sure I will take to modding but you never know, I have a long way to go before I know how to properly do things with the CK. I have moved those prey spawn several times, yet the deer seem very attached to the house, is it OK to just delete two of them? Not that I mind lunch lining up at the front door, but I would have preferred them to bound off onto a neighboring block. I will try moving them right to the edge of the cell, and rotate them around, hope they go the other way. I did not really want to move them to another cell.

 

It took me a while to sort out the mannequins, first two attempts walked, one despite having their own navmesh, so that was just sort of the final attempt and I got sick of testing them out, they stayed put I was happy. The next house I will experiment a bit more.

[DarkRider]

You can safely disable spawns rather than delete them

[Joedpa]

Well... the flowers on the table are indeed an odd decoration lol. Yeah, I'll take note of these details since I did the house in a novice way, hehe.

Thanks a lot for this tutorials!

 

But wait... isn't the exam worth 30 points. 20 for completion and 10 for the basement? As I remember I had 90 points before the finals.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Joedpa

[oldladyonthemoon]

Here are the images for my final exam.
 
The house is in fact a fully functional farm, with grain mill, cow, chicken, goat, vegetable garden, etc. The player will be able to buy it from the Jarl of Whiterun's steward assuming he has the necessary amount of gold: 15,000. All containers in the main house are custom and this cell is set "no reset zone", which means that nothing respawns in it. I did this so that users can customise their interior freely. The basement is inhabited by an old couple who tend the farm; there everything respawns normally. The dog in the garden belongs to the couple and cannot be hired.

Exterior:

Exterior in game:

Basement:

Interior:

 
I need some time to publish it, if you allow me.

Edited November 14, 2014 by ladyonthemoon

[DarkRider]

Looks great lady, I look forward to testing it out

[oldladyonthemoon]

Looks great lady, I look forward to testing it out

I sent it to you via pm. Please, don't forget to take à look at my Credit challenge #3: http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/6841-ck-basics-credit-challenges/?p=111207

 

[oldladyonthemoon]

Looks great lady, I look forward to testing it out

Download link removed.

Edited May 21, 2015 by ladyonthemoon

[DarkRider]

Sorry lady, thought I awarded your final points! Whitewater Farm is a lovely mod, I don't really have any criticisms so yay! It was a pleasure having you in the course and I look forward to seeing what you create next! Happy Holidays!

[oldladyonthemoon]

Sorry lady, thought I awarded your final points! Whitewater Farm is a lovely mod, I don't really have any criticisms so yay! It was a pleasure having you in the course and I look forward to seeing what you create next! Happy Holidays!

Thank you! Happy holidays to you too and to everyone!

[dolphin66th]

Hi DarkRider, I know you haven't given approval to move on but the final exam mod (release option) is ready so I posted Let me know if you need me to fix anything for lesson 4 and the 3 credit challenges please.

Readme File
Riverwood Shack
dolphin66th (aka dolphin22811 on Steam)

About this Mod: A small starter home located near Riverwood (yes I know, modders always put their stuff in Riverwood, but it's the first town we come to in the game, and it's pretty!)

Features:  
-Outdoor workbench, tanning rack, and blacksmith's anvil
-Vegetable Garden
-Outdoor safe storage chest, if you want to just drop your loot and not worry about load doors
-basement with crafting stations

Acknowledgments: TESA for the awesome tutorial series!  Thanks especially to DarkRider for their creation kit basics tutorials.

Note: Bit of an odd Dr. Who moment - the house is slightly bigger inside than out.  Sorry about that - but Skyrim doesn't seem to have a static that worked any better for the interior I have.

Resources used: Insanity's Table Cloths by InsanitySorrow
http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/1723-insanitys-tablecloths/
-Table Cloth

Paintings and Frames for Skyrim by Artisanix
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17423/?
-Paintings

Modders Resource Pack by Oaristys and Tony67
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16525/?
-Multiple Resources
 

[dolphin66th]

FYI about the book case, it looks legit player interactive but it isn't, it is collision barriers and dummy books.  I still haven't gotten player bookshelves right just yet; it is one of the things I don't know how to do well.  

[dolphin66th]

So, it's been a really crazy month, and at some point, I went through and deleted some partially finished mods; unfortunately I seem to have deleted the previous lesson work as well, so I can't go back and edit the credit challenges or Lesson 4's NavMesh unless I want to redo the whole series from scratch.  As such, and since I had moved on before getting approval to do so, I went ahead and also completed the Non-Release version of the final exam as well as the release option previously posted.  Not sure how you want to go about doing credit for these, whatever you feel works best is fine with me :-)  If you have any problems with the link I can give you my login info or re-upload here as needed.

Here's the link to the gallery.

https://myalbum.com/album/UHWY5M9qIjNe

[Gr1phn]

Hi, just a quick check in. I'm basically done with my release version. Just having a wee fight with the exterior Navmesh since it crosses cells right on my pathway to the house ... since it is over water, the navmesh in the cell is a bit of a disaster to just drag into place.  Once I figure that out, I'll upload ... probably by the end of the week. 

And welcome back! Nasty server ... grrr

[fredlaus]

This is nice to see, dolphin. You progress faster than lightening.

Regarding my project - I am opening the mod for users and modders to work on.

"Leaking Towers" are supposed to be placed all around Skyrim. Atm there are three towers placed around the Riften area:

Fort Greenwall in one end, the walls of Riften on the second and Treva,s Watch on a the third.

There are interiors to be worked on, tunnel accesses, dungeons need rework and so on.

Quests should be made.

Enemy markers needs to be placed.

Different AI behaviours needs to be created.

A new, race of heroines are already created.

If you are interested I can send you some images to take a closer look at, and even the mod as it is now.

As I have already said - this mod is open for anyone to elaborate on and develop.

Take care.

[oldladyonthemoon]

On 02/07/2016 at 7:06 PM, dolphin66th said:

FYI about the book case, it looks legit player interactive but it isn't, it is collision barriers and dummy books.  I still haven't gotten player bookshelves right just yet; it is one of the things I don't know how to do well.  

Here:

Be fast, DR will remove all the off topics posts here as soon as he'll have time.