GothGirlDanielle

@ Willie and Viper: Thanks for the help! I'll try that. @ Willie: Sorry - didn't mean to hijack your thread. I'll post further questions in study hall. ~ Dani ~

Thanks. I found another one, GraphicCoverter, that requires a purchase. Yes, it does appear that in this respect, Macs are not supported at all, despite having really great graphics editing software. Oh well, I got to send along an angry note to NVIDIA reminding them we are in the 21st century ... ~ Dani ~

I've had two college level courses, for what that's worth. One was more photography oriented, the other was basic. I'm comfortable using image adjustments including tone, staturation, levels and curves to improve image quality, most of the tools, layers, etc. As I noted I've used Topaz ReMask extensively to pull images or sections out of works of art, to create background layers or shadow layers. That may (or may not ) sound impressive, but most of my work has been in graphic images, making images for brochures and pamphlets. I guess I'm saying, I use Photoshop a lot, but I'm by now means an expert. ~ Dani ~ Edit: Oh crap, I hate NVIDIA. Their .dds plugins for Photoshop only work with a Windows OS. All my PS CS4 software is for a Mac. I can't be the only MacBook user. Does anyone know a workaround for Macs? ~ D ~

I'm a serious pack rat. I hang out at Deviant Art and a half dozen other sites, shamlessly downloading all the free brushes and patterns (although I stricty adhere to licensing permissions). If I see a cool bush set ... well, one click and it's mine. I have, like, a hundred bush sets ... seriously gigs of these things. Probably more than I'll ever use. Back last summer, I did an internship at the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian. In addition to working exhibits, I got a chance to work on some of the exhibit materials. My brushes did come in useful then. Thanks again for the help! ~ Dani ~

I've no idea why this seems so overwhelming to me - I've done googles of this stuff before, just not with Oblivion. Learning to retexture is like going to the dentist - you never know how bad it is until you walk through the door. Do you use a particular plugin to open .dds files? Do I need one? EDIT: @ StarX: Thank you! That's what I needed to know ... Hmm .... that's very good to know. Yes, I won't survive long without some kind of magic wand, extraction tool. Topaz Remask is one of my favorites: simple but very powerful. Even does stuff like hair. I'm going to try Photoshop ... [as she bites her lip nervously] ... we'll see how this goes. ~ Dani ~

Okay, second post for the day. I have to learn texturing. I can't keep asking people to make stuff for me. So I've read a few tutorials and most people seem to use GIMP. I've never used GIMP. Instead, I use Photoshop CS4 Masterworks ... extensively. In fact, my parents have spent a grundle on photo-editing software for me (birthdays and Christmas are wonderful!), including the full Nix Software and Topaz plugin suites. In addition, I've downloaded gigs of brushes, patterns, fills, etc. Is there a reason why no one uses Photoshop? Is GIMP more friendly to Oblivion rexturing? I mean, my biggest problem is all my fancy-shmancy software is on the Mac side of my MacBook Pro and Oblivion is on the Windows side (yes, it's a bit of a split personality thingy ...), so I'd have to unpack the .dds, find a plugin that works with Photoshop (I assume, I've never edited a .dds), then go back and forth between via BootCamp ... Anyway, is there benefit to using GIMP that I'm not seeing (other than the free part ... that I do get ... ) ~ Dani ~

Julian: Good luck with this. I like the way you think ... although I, too, would loose the name Fang. You could go for a bit of levity at that moment: Evil Guild Master: Take caution, my friend. Prepare yourself for your impending death, for I am sending my best assassin to claim your life. His name is ... Leroy. Player: You're best assassin's name is Leroy? Evil Guild Master: I know, I know, but what can I say? He's quite good. Or ... maybe not. (That dialog came to mind the moment I read the word "Fang", etc.) Anyway, a bit of advice ... something I learned the hard way: beware giving out too many plot lines in a dev thread. Some of us might have looked forward to playing your mod, but now I know your assassin has an accomplice. Good luck with this. Sounds wonderful. I'd offer to help but I'm up to my eyeballs in my own much-too-large-and-ambitious quest mod. ~ Dani ~

Yes, this little spell is great fun. For pure amusement, I set the magnitude very high, went to the IC Marketplace, with Better Cities installed and about 14 NPCs wandering around, and let it rip. Hilarious. Okay, back to serious. Another moment of inspiration, thanks to your classes. I've been thinking for awhile that I want to add a new disease to the game. The plot idea is very simple: a kind of plague effected part of Cyordiil, people died, and were hastily buried. The disease was contagious, sort of like Black Death. But I didn't know to implement it. Then along comes this tutorial. Here is your script: scn ShivernAddSpellPushScript short doOnce begin onactivate if doOnce == 0 Activate Message "You have memorized the spells of the Fist!" playsound SPLMysticismCast player.addspell ShivernPush1Spell set doOnce to 1 endif end Okay, scn = script name, got that. Short identifies functions, right? If you have a function in the script, you have to identify it at the top with a "short" designation? Otherwise, I'm not sure what "short" does. The meat of the script works like this: player opens book (onactivate), and if she hasn't opened the book before (doOnce is set to 0) then she's given the spell as a sound plays and the text appears. Using your script, I'd like to give a spell (disease) to the player if they open a coffin. So player opens coffin, gets disease. Pretty basic. Here is my script: scn RONINBlackDeathScript short doOnce begin onactivate if doOnce == 0 Activate Message "You have contracted the Black Plague" playsound SPLMysticismCast player.addspell RONINBlackPlague set doOnce to 1 endif end Now, I have two problems and I'm looking for suggestions. I need the script to check and see if the player already has Black Plague, return a 1 (I think), and then end without giving her the plague a second time. Problem two: I need it be random and low random. I know there's a function for this, but I'm not certain that's the best way to handle it. Should I just put that in this script - player has a 5% chance of getting the Black Plague if they search this coffin - or is it better as leveled list item (then I could put it in any coffin). That may be a stupid question, just trying to think creatively. Thanks for your help. ~ Dani ~

Thanks for that. I'll find his info here and send him another e-mail. Just like to keep people informed ... ~ Dani ~

Here's the thing: I try to be as fair as possible to people whose work I'm using in my mod. At long last, I've decided on an armor mod for my Ventaria, trollf's Armamentarium Complete 1.35. This is the statement from the ReadMe: "This mod is being provided as freeware. Please feel free to change its content to suit your personal desires. All I ask is that you don't claim/release it as your own and if you want to use part of it give me some credits for what I have done." As a general practice in the modding community, can I accept that as full permission granted to use these armors in my mod, so long as I credit trollf in any release materials, such as a ReadMe, forum release page, and any screenshots or images I release which include his armor? Or do I need to do something more? The reason I ask is I sent an e-mail awhile back to trollf (based on his TEXNexus e-mail) and I haven't gotten a response (I do try to ask, even if permission is granted in the ReadMe ... no suprises for anyone). Also, this armor set is used in at least one popular large mod: MMM/FCOM. Do I have to get permission from the MMM team as well? Sorry, I'm just not sure how all this works, and I'd like to have this "legal" stuff settled before I release, so there's no problems or suprises afterwards. Also, I'd like to post some pictures ... ~ Dani ~

Thanks for the help, Willie. The problem is the tile .nif includes both a door frame and a door, unlike the other door and frame sets that have separate frames and doors. After a little research into collision lines and mechanics, etc., I came to understand that for some reason, when Bethesda made the static STCryptDoor tile, they clearly left collision mechanics off the door but on the frame. In other words, you can literally walk through a solid door. Who knew? The fix - and probably the original plan, I discovered, is to use a different door. There's one that kind of matches, and with a bit rescaling it worked. I just ending up changing 30 doors in several dungeons last night. But that's fixed now. Moving on to the next problem. ~ Dani ~

Yes, AI packaging was the problem. That's what I get for using existing NPCs as the basis for my NPCs. Thanks for the tip. And there are red lines around the door. Is there a way to fix this? To change it, or do I just have to use another door - that would suck. ~ Dani ~

Sorry to bug again, but two problems: 1. None of my NPCs appear in the game. I can see them clearly in the CS, but when I load up the game and enter the cell, they're nowhere to be seen. And the cell is not that big. In fact, it uses the Sancre Tor crypt tileset, so most IC merchant cells are about the same size. Visibile when distance is not checked; but it's not checked for any other NPCs either. Initially disabled is not checked. Im using the AbGhostNPC spell, but I deleted that and they still don't appear. I read the CSWiki page on NPCs ... any hints? 2. Again, using the Sancre Tor tileset, I've make the static STCryptDoor an actual door. To do this, I changed the name of an existing door, and then linked to the STCryptDoor mesh. Looks great in the CS, and they all spawned teleport boxes, just like any other door. But ... of course, in game, things gotta be different ... when I approach the door, and mouse over it, I don't get the activator hand. instead, I have to mouse over the edge of the door, the part that sticks out around the edge of the door. Now that I know that, it works fine, but it's odd not being able to use the door itself, but the stone edge. Any suggestions why or how to fix it? Thanks for the help. ~ Dani ~ EDIT: I just realized ... I can walk right through the "doors" part. There's no havoc turned on? Does that make sense? How would I fix that? ~ D ~

That is exactly what I was looking for, Arthmoor. I'm off to download and test it. ~ Dani ~

Somehow ... I thought that would be the answer. Since I'm only using a few things, I could identify them, then delete the rest en masse. But what do you use to identify textures? Textures are linked to meshes, and meshes are linked to the item in the CS. So finding the mesh is easy, but the determining the texture (hopefully there's some common naming convention that makes it easy). ~ Dani ~

Okay, there's probably an easy way to do this, but what am I missing? I've decided to use Trolff's Armamentarium armors for some of my NPCs. Obviously, though, I don't need the entire collection of armors in my mod (nor any of the weapons, etc.). Is there an easy way to either (1) extract only the armors you want to use or (2) delete the armors you don't use - including meshes and textures - leaving only those resources you need and used? Sorry for the obvious question and thanks for the help. ~ Dani ~

That's a much, much better solution. It also prevents the player from inadvertently putting something else in the container, only to find it sealed up forever. The player will fight or kill an NPC ... in fact, a specific, unique NPC (well, not a leveled list NPC). When the NPC dies, there needs to be a switch to removed the NPC and in that place put in an item. At first, I thought of just a unique skull, but that seemed kind of lame. Then I thought of a variety of random bones - but the frustrating hilarity of a message box informing the player ... "Sorry, you cannot lay NPC to rest as you haven't yet collected all the body parts" ... um, I don't know, takes something away from the scene. Also, as a story device, once the NPC is killed, their body will disintegrated into bones and dust (think vampire here ... although they are not vampires ...). So a skeleton seemed to fit the idea nicely. But you raise an interesting point: can an NPC/creature be an item? Skeletons have a variety of "parts", including meshes, textures, animations. Egggh. I'm guessing you can't make a "skeleton" item. Crap. Maybe the skull - already an item - is just the best way to do it. Thanks for the input. ~ Dani ~

I'm wondering how to allow the player to pick up a dead body. I'm thinking this will be done through scripts, but maybe there's a more efficient way. Here's what would happen: 1. Player fights NPC. NPC dies. 2. At the moment of NPC death, there is a cloud of color, a flash of light (some visual distraction or cover), and the NPC is removed from the game. This script would attach to the NPC (let's call it NPC script) and would require the initiation of visual effect, the removal of the NPC, and the insertion into the game of the "corpse". This should be doable in the same way that, when a player clicks a sigel stone, the flash of light appears. 3. When the light (or darkness) clears, there is a corpse or skeleton on the ground in front of the player. This corpse is NOT a dead npc (or creature if I use a skeleton). Rather, it's an item that the player can pick up, like a fork or a sword. Picked up, the item lists in the player's inventory, with a skull icon (make's perfect sense and I don't have to make an icon ). Next to it is the name of the item: "Body of GothGirl Danielle" or whatever. I don't think a script would be needed for this - I would just make the corpse, skeleton an item. 4. Player then approaches a crypt and places the item into the crypt, which is a container. The crypt would then seal, giving the player a message that the NPC has been placed to rest and the crypt has sealed. The script would lock the contain and instead of the "This lock requires a key" message, the messagebox would read: "This crypt is sealed and cannot be opened." Does this seem like a logical way to do this? Unless I'm missing something, the scripts would be pretty basic, and it doesn't seem that complicated. But maybe it's more complicated than I think? ~ Dani ~

I loved this tutorial - and I found an interesting use for it in-game: tombstone epitaphs. In my Ronin mod, I have several "catacomb" style dungeons in different styles. Player enters catacombs and discovers basically what you'd expect to find: a variety of larger private crypts, some smaller single crypts, some wall to wall crypts (like those under the city of Rome), and so one. For my crypt markers, I'm using resized and carefully placed tombstones - but I've made them into "activators". The player mouses over them and reads epitaphs. Sounds pretty basic but it adds a nice touch of realism to the mod. Thanks for taking the time to teach this. ~ Dani ~

Okay, I spent this afternoon downloading and testing mTES4. What an amazing tool! In about an hour, I reinstalled Oblivion, tweaked my .ini file, and installed four working copies of the game on my hard drive: Oblivion CS (for modding) Oblivion Unmodded ('cause sometimes you just want to kill a stunted scamp with a steel shortsword) Oblivion Modded (for my main game) Oblivon Clean Copy (the clone copy) Oblivon Backup (so I can have a backup before I install major mods) Switching works and seems to be easy enough. The install instructions were pretty basic (of course, I was doing a clean install, so it's probably easier for me than someone like Arthmoor). Thanks for the tip and the link. I've been looking for something like this since I discovered Oblivion. ~ Dani ~ And it has instructions for Wrye Bash and OMM ...

Thanks. I should have thought of that. Sorry. ~ Dani ~