[[WIPz] Meo's Castle Keep - Resource]

someone should write some scripts to automate the process - you have a window with many options where you can select what you want, then just press generate button and there you have you random castle made from Meo's meshes :]

[[WIPz] Meo's Castle Keep - Resource]

Third option is so true ;D

Since many many moons, I work on my castle and create new furniture over and over again, and still, there's more and more of it needed :]

[Skyrim Game Informer]

Bummed that they did away with the class system...

Actually there is no true class system in Oblivion either. Classes are just only the names given for certain sets of skills and abilities, and nothing more than that. So they've got rid of the least important feature of character development in Oblivion.

Anyway, me too looks forward to Skyrim as more of an action game than Oblivion is. I can only hope that all combat anims won't be so poor like they are in TES4.

[Skyrim Game Informer]

Unknown:

Blade, Blunt, Hand to Hand

Armorer, Block, Heavy Armor

Athletics, Acrobatics, Light Armor

Security, Sneak, Marksman

Mercantile, Speechcraft

Alchemy

In GI one of the pictures shows menu with the skills. Apart from all those five magic schools there are clearly visible Alchemy and Enchanting, and something which is close to picture's border and starts with "Smit" and it's cut there. So it could be Smithing for instance.

Now the questions is, whether these three skills are temporary or there will be more skills related to crafting after all.

[What can I use to view DDS files?]

for thumbnails try this one

[What can I use to view DDS files?]

I like it the most because it's simplest, fastest (at least it seems to me) and it has options to open draw menu, enter text...

Oh, it's not the fastest at all, Fast Stone Viewer, for instance, beats it by miles in terms of overall speed.

Well, to tell the truth, IrfanView was indeed my very favorite image viewer program in the past. But since a couple of months it isn't. Of course it all depends on things you like and need to work with, but for browsing photographs (in both jpg and raw formats) FSViewer is superior in comparison to Irfan (to all the information like meta data, exif, zooming, color managed images, you can access in FSV much quicker than in Irfan).

I can agree that IrfanView is one of the best from all-arounders out there (and I still use it for few things), but there are some apps and programs that do specific things just better and faster.

The same with DDS viewer - the best is WTV which Vince mentioned - it displays all the information you may need in one place (format, size, mipmaps) and you can switch back and forth between RGB composite and alpha channel which is very very useful (shift+A or ctrl+A displays the alpha channel; U switches back to RGB composite).

[Armor invisble in the CS]

There's nothing particularly wrong with your settings, so you should make a test - open blender with blank project and try to import any of the armors, and see whether vertex groups for any part of that armor are present (but remember that you need to select that part of the object with right click to have vertex group displayed for it).

The only difference I can spot between your and mine settings is the version of NifScripts - I use older 2.5.4.

[Armor invisble in the CS]

Nope, on these pictures you've just posted no any vertex groups are present.

Just look at the very first picture you posted in this thread, you should notice that under Vertex Group label there's one bone listed as Bip01 Spine2, so this means that one of selected objects has been skinned to that bone. And on your latest pictures there's no such thing at all. So, can you post picture with your import settings then?

[Armor invisble in the CS]

Well... actually when I started to think about this, we use a wrong term here. As rigging refers to the creation of the skeleton, the bones. And those have been already created. What should be done with this armor is skinning - the process of "association" the various parts of skin/clothes/armor to the skeleton (bones).

When the mesh has no any skinning info then the engine simply doesn't know how to move properly all parts of the object with the bones. Skinning just informs the engine that this particular part of the mesh is assigned to this certain bone (or bones) and should behave according to those bones' movement and rotations.

To resolve this puzzle, just select each part of the armor one by one and check whether it has any vertex groups under the Link and Material window - if all parts have vertex groups then it's probably something wrong with your export settings (some of these may be set incorrectly - so you may want to post a picture of those here for inspection).

[Armor invisble in the CS]

On that screen with NifSkope open... you have two NiTriStrips blocks expanded, and none of them has NiSkinInstance data block, so that means the armor is not rigged to the skeleton at all.

[help/hint for my custom weapon]

When you're looking at it in Nifskope do you have the BSX Flags, the NiStringExtraData (PRN), and the bhkCollisionObject?

You can forget about NiStringExtraData once and for all. The game doesn't use it at all. Nifs work exactly the same with or without it. Just one more piece of clutter-ish blocks less to worry about...

[Interior Cell Space]

It is possible to create complex and huge interior cell, but then it's good to set rather small clipping distance for that cell (below 4096 units or so).

[Divine Divinity Divinations]

Good news, vometia... the patch is here :]

EDIT:

I just noticed that this is the patch for DKS, for Flames you need to wait couple of days more....

[Divine Divinity Divinations]

Strange, I've seen some floating walls, or objects here and there, but that never caused the game to be unplayable. The only serious bug I encountered was with that Terror Patrol quest - I had obtained those herbs, but accidentally sold them later, and even while I bought another plant after that, the guy didn't want to start the ritual and open that hatch.

Anyway... I've finished base game content on hard yesterday :]

It was definitely more fun than playing on normal or casual. At least there's some challenge in combat, as it's quite easy to die while being care-less and rushing everywhere (though rush attack is my favorite skill nonetheless ;p).

There's only one place in the whole game that isn't balanced at all for playing on any other modes than casual - that part with our "not-so-fast-to-say-the-least" mage... I had to drop the hard mode there, as some of those creatures are scripted to reach Zandalor right away they respawn. And while you are capable of dispatching one or two quite fast with you abilities, then because of the skills' cooldowns, you're stuck with standard attacks for a while, and the next wave approaches... really bad, bad scripting and idea there :/ I actually had the feeling (couple of times) that guys at Larian created new game's content, improved many things, but no one did any beta-tests after that ;p Anyway, I can forgive them that, because of the add-on :]

[Understanding Arrays]

It's good that it works for you.

Though the script needs some little touches to improve its efficiency as the way it has been written is not the most elegant of all to say the least ;]

Have no idea how familiar you are with the commands you use and whether you know how those exactly work...

but that GameMode block runs in a loop mode once every frame, so if someone has a decent PC, and runs the game with, let's say 120 FPS or more, then between 0 and 6 hour, your scripts sets that remote light to 0,0,0 values hundreds times per second over and over... well, maybe that won't be very noticeable in game most of the time, but if you will be writing scripts this way, it may lead to potential performance issues or errors later when you will have many and/or very long scripts.

Good practice is to write scripts in such way to prevent some parts of code from executing when there's no any need for that.

So after some cosmetic changes your script could look like this:

scn LightVisibilityScript


array_var RGBDef

short LightOff

short DefLightVal



Begin GameMode


	if DefLightVal = 0

		let RGBDef := lightreference.GetLightRGB

		set DefLightVal to 1

	endif



	if (GameHour >= 0) && (GameHour < 6)


		if LightOff

			Return

		endif


		lightreference.SetLightRGB ar_List 0 0 0

		lightreference.Update3D

		set LightOff to 1


	else


		if LightOff == 0

			Return

		endif


		lightreference.SetLightRGB RGBDef

		lightreference.Update3D

		set LightOff to 0


	endif   


end

This script hasn't been tested in game as I do not use OBSE, but it should work I think if set up properly. Maybe some minor fix here or there...

And to make it even simpler, you may want to drop all "lightreference" parts, and attach such script directly to the light. And then there will be no any need to set the light as persistent reference and to give it an unique name.

[Understanding Arrays]

Look at post #46 here, maybe you'll learn something from it...

[Divine Divinity Divinations]

You're not seriously suggesting that marketing departments sometimes embellish the facts and are economical with the truth? That can't be! Say it ain't so!

Oh, I wish I could say that! :] But just look how it sounds - "New improved engine" - "Hey! Our engine is new! It must be good then. And it is not only a new but improved as well, dammit! It puts other new but unimproved engines to shame!" Can you even argue with that? ;D Anyway it just probably means that engine has been improved, and should be addressed as "new" in such a case, in opposition to an "old" but unimproved engine ;] Ah, all that logic...

You play it on hard?!!

Yes, but I started two days ago. So far so good. My char has level 10 and died no single time yet. All quests in village and its surroundings have been done and some areas around the tower have been cleared. But that's just an easy part, I wonder how it will be in those more demanding fights with Razakel, Liken, etc.

and I guess in part because I'm rather dreading tackling Slow Zandalor the Very Slow's Very Slow Spellcasting, you know, the bit he does extra slowly where you have to fend off all the beasties. Which aren't tough, but they're sneaky.

That's one of those parts that are bugged (not well balanced) when you play as an archer (and probably as a mage too). My archer relies mainly on basic bow damage and its enchantments and not on skills apart from "way of the ranger" in heavy situations. And that skill makes wonders as it increases bow's damage by 160% or more - and it lasts for 90 seconds or so - enough of time to dispatch without a problem all those pesky monsters that want to reach Zandalor.... well, but no, that's not so easy - as that stupid mage (Deodatus I think) who tries to assist you casts a great Battle Rage spell... very nice! apart from that it's only a great spell but for the warrior... and within 5 seconds or so it overrides that Way of the Ranger ability and makes my archer completely useless there... very frustrating that was, when I fought that battle for something like 15 or 20 minutes without any luck of success... they definitely should address this issue in a patch... of course, I had to lower difficulty to casual, and then it was a piece of cake, and I beat that first time, but should that be the only solution? ;p

[Divine Divinity Divinations]

The official website describes it as a "new engine":

I have none but one word to describe this: marketing :]

It is still challenging even on "easy" (or "casual" or whatever euphemism they use) if you're surrounded by skeletons or trying to take on Black Ring types, but not insanely so.

Hmm, I don't know. You have three settings there: Casual -> Normal -> Hard. And for me playing on easy/casual is like cheating with god mode enabled = not fun at all. Normal mode was pretty easy for me (with few exceptions when I played as archer, and it seems that the game has some moments which aren't designed to play in such a way), so now I'm currently playing on Hard :] Well, I very much like games with fast action, but I also like the challenge - and I never used pause in this game for anything (I re-mapped F key to one of the skills), and I also do not use any potions at all :]

I'd forgotten all the little elements of humour in the game too, whether it's encouraging the village gossips with the most absurd lies or cultural references to Merlin the Happy Pig (Blackadder) and Brave Sir Robin (Python)!

While vanilla game has some funny moments, the add-on beats it easily :] I've found it far more absurd, ridiculous, ominous, and entertaining :] It even starts with Terminator reference ;]

[Divine Divinity Divinations]

Yes, the game's much easier on normal difficulty than it was by default before. From what I remember, when I played Saga for the first time, my uber warrior had not died a single time until he obtained the tower. They just made single enemies easier, and some missiles (like normal arrows and magic) dodge-able. But on the other hand they also made lower level enemies (in comparison to your char) stronger, as they can still deal some damage to you (previously your char was invincible during the fights with enemies 3-4 levels below. That makes single enemies and small groups of them easy to dispatch, but if you encounter larger groups of adversaries then fights become more strategic, and you need to dodge attacks and change your position a lot.

As for the engine, well, it has not been replaced at all (why to even think of such thing anyway? :]). Just the textures have been replaced with higher resolution ones, some FX effects added, and some areas redesigned (flying fortresses especially).

Anyway, one of the easiest way to start and beat the first part of the broken valley is to do main quest in the village, then you have something like 5 or 6 level right away, and lots of money, and you can search for the bow in merchnats' stocks that has +20 physical or magic damage - with such a weapon: one shot - one kill. And later you can switch for bow that adds +40 to damage.

[NifScope Inserting nodes]

>> I have inserted an NIControllerManager as node 3

NiControllerManager is completely different kind of animal than other NiNodes and branches. Normally if you want to build NCM from scratch you can copy/insert all blocks anywhere you want and then you need to link all those via their certain properties in block details window.

As for NCM itself it must be linked to Controller property of main NiNode.

And you do not need to care about order of the branches as this will be sorted by NifSkope on save when its Auto Sanitize option is on.

>> I want an NIMultiTargetTransformController as node 4 and want it to appear in tree as nested or shifted right in list

You do not need this block for anything. Oblivion doesn't use it at all. It is just a remnant of 3ds max exporter. If you want to create NCM in NifSkope from scratch then don't bother with this block - just one thing less to make any errors and to worry about...

>> I want an NIControllerSequence as node 5 and want it to appear in tree as nested or shifted right in list

NCS is linked in two-way with NCM.

NCM has Num Controller Sequences property, you need to type 1 there, and refresh the array of Controller Sequences and type id number of NCS there. Next you need to type id number of NCM in Manager property of NCS. Then save your nif, and Nifskope should sort the branches properly.

[Ask Basic Texturing Questions]

Since I'm doing coffins, and since I'll be using upwards to 30+ coffins in a singe dungeon, this seems too big.

If those coffins use the same texture then such texture file is loaded into memory just once.

But if each coffin uses different texture file then all those files will be loaded into gfx card's memory.

[Two texturing questions ....]

GIMP is very comparable to PS, I've used both; in fact each has strengths over the other.

Well, I somehow disagree :]

I did couple of things in GIMP and made a few things in PS. And I can hardly see any advantages of GIMP over PS. I'm not saying that GIMP is somehow inferior to PS, as many outstanding and creative pieces of art can be made there, but in the long run PS has such tools that make your work much simpler and faster.

[Divine Divinity Divinations]

I haven't bought Flames of... well, I went for the whole saga instead And I'm playing it like crazy... ;p

There are so many changes, improvements and fixes there, as you have a feeling that this game should look like that from the start.

And one "drawback" that I noticed (if I may say so) is that many many fights are far easier than it was before. As a lot has changed in some of the key elements of combat. Though I play on default Normal difficulty, as there's a slider for these settings now (I think I'll test Hard in some future to see what it's all about and whether it makes any real difference).

As for the add-on... it's great so far. Not so many open spaces there (as the action takes place in city), but it's literally packed with the content. Every couple of meters there's something to see, discover or to quest for :]

[Object wont stay put in game]

then in Block Details window change where it says OL_CLUTTER into OL_STATIC,

These properties have nothing to do with objects' behavior. They only determine color of collision, and nothing else.

If you want to change how objects react in game you need to change mass, motion system, quality type and few other options respectively.

[[RELz] Wellspring Vale]

heh, I read this one's title as Wellspring Whale...

Is there any chance for such creature? Well, you know - Welshstring Whale in a Well in the Vale...