WindmillTilter

Unfortuneately Dell strips virtually all the user controllable options out of their BIOS. If you've been through the BIOS and can't find it there's a 99% chance it's because the option simply isn't present, and unless you can get hold of an original BIOS for the motherboard and flash it (dangerous and will VOID your warranty) you're out of luck. WT

No the yellow boxes are just a slightly different style of editor markers. The movement is controlled by constraints that act like hinges between the various nodes (bones) of what's basicly a skeleton. The root's shape is then "skinned" to this skeleton in the same fasion a creature's shape is skinned to it's skeleton. Looks like in the root skeleton the nodes are named variants of c_base and c_link, although the name doesn't affect anything. You can see the constraints in NifScope by going to Render and checkinig Draw Constraints. There is an excellent writup on Oblivion style constraints Here WT

Shhh, don't give that one away. Purple Box: Kill Box. Usualy placed underneath where the player can fall off in an interior cell, so they do not continue falling forever, dwelling upon the mistakes they've made and wishing they'd brought nail clippers and a change of clothes. Can also be tossed in random corridors just to mess with people. WT

If you need them or not depends entirely on what you're doing with your dungeon. If you have a dungeon you're happy with then it's all good. I'll give a brief description of each so you'll have a better idea of what they're for. The coloured boxes are "Editor Markers" that allow you to see and move an object in the CS if it has no physical body to grab. Beth colour coded them to make it easier to tell at a glance what kind of object it was. Green Boxes: Trigger Zones. Trigger Zones react invisibly to the player (or anyone else, or even an arrow or fireball) passing through them. This can be very usefull for setting up traps or timed fights. With a script you control what happens when the player passes through the TZ. For exampe you have a disabled creature in the hallway, 6' further along place a TZ that enables the monster, and you're guaranteed it will show up behind the player. The uses for these are virtualy infinite, very handy. The OnTrigger block of a script attached to the TZ fires when something enters the TZ. The wiki has a good description of this block and how it works. YellowBoxes: Collision Boxes. Just an invisible solid wall. You can use these to block off a passage keeping the player out or badguys in untill you want them to move. Just disable it via script when you want whatever you were blocking to be able to progress. You can also use them to create an invisible bridge the player can walk on but not see, if you want to create a "Leap of faith" type scenario. If you're really evil place a TZ halfway across with a script that diasables the Collision Box the player is standing on, and watch them tumble into the lava below. Orange Boxes: These are usualy special effects of some kind, for the most part you can preview them in the CS by clicking the Havok button on your toolbar, when looking at one in the render window. (the Havok button enables "Idle" animation as well as Havok physics) Red Boxes: The effective area of traps that don't rely on physics (like a mace hitting you in the face). Play around and post any questions you run into. Good Luck, WT.

As for as I know there is no way to directly preview the magic effects in the CS. There is a workaround though as the CS will preview Idle animations. If you haven't already done so COPY the nif you're interested in changing and give it a new name. There are likely to be several animation playgroups in each nif (SpecialIdle_Projectile, etc.), expand your root node, then your NiControllerManager untill you can see the NiControllerSequence(s) with matching names. Rename the NiControllerSequence you want to preview to Idle and if it isn't already set Cycle Type to CYCLE_LOOP and save your nif. Now create a new Static in the CS and point it at your altered nif, drop it into a cell and hit the Havok button in you're toolbar. Bingo you're animation is now playing in the CS. The CS preview does not render as well as the game, so you won't get a true preview of exactly how it will look, but it sure saves a lot of time with rough work. If you're making changes to the nif and saving you need to hit F5 with the render window in the CS active to reload your model before the changes show up. Of course before testing ingame you will need to set the NiControllerSequence back to it's original name and change your Cycle Type back to CYCLE_CLAMP if it was originaly. Good Luck, WT

Looks like an excellent sytem, the build uses all quality components. WT

Looks like an excellent system. I prefer this one to the one on Zoostorm, mostly because they give you the details of what it's built out of and it's all top quality stuff. (personaly I always stick with Seagate drives, but the WD are well reviewed) By the time you add the necessary accessories it takes you pretty well up to the 1.2K (Unless you have a monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers you're re-using?) Montior: I love the new LED backlit screens and would lean towards the 22" or 24" Iiyamas. Keyboard/Mouse: I'd stick with the inexpensive Logitech MK250 set. I never had a problem gaming with the lower end logitech sets, although lots of gamers insist you need to spend a fair bit more on a proper gaming mouse/keyboard. It's matter of personal prefference. Speakers: Depends how you're room is setup. I still use a 2.1 set and am quite happy, the Logictech Z323.1 should do you just fine. On the other hand if you can do a decent job of setting up surround sound where your going to be placing the PC, it sure is nice. Basicly up to you if it will work in your room and if it's worth the extra 30. WT

Aaaaww. WT

Congratulations! WT

Are you placing armor/weapons directly into his inventory, or using Leveled Lists? If the latter post which lists you're using, you might be running into trouble there if testing with a low level character. WT

Hmmm looks like it should be working fine. You can get odd misplacements if your cell isn't pathed, or has old pathing that doesn't match your current layout. Have you pathed your arena yet? If not, for testing purposes just place a path node on your aaaRainesArenaCreaturePoint1 marker, and see if the Litch shows up where he's supposed to. WT

I don't seen any indication of moving the litch in the script you posted. If you post a copy of the script in it's current state, or the new script if you're using a different one to move the litch it will make it easier for us to troubleshoot. WT

The 0x0000007F code most often means memory errors, (although unfortuneately it could be almost anything). First thing I'd check is the RAM for sure though. Download Memtest and burn the bootable ISO to a disk. Just reboot off it some night before you go to bed and let it run all night. WT

You can't use GetSecondsPassed that way. It returns "the number of seconds passed since the last frame in which the current script was processed" which in anything but a quest script will always be a fraction of a second. That's why you have to use a float (shorts only hold whole numbers). You setup a timer in the GameMode block so it continuosly adds to or subtracts from your variable. So GetSecondsPassed will never be greater than 8, it will always be somewhere around 0.016 depending on the speed of your PC and what's going on in the scene. If you want to count up for example you'd say If TimerSapper < 8 Set TimerSapper to TimerSapper + GetSecondsPassed Else SetStage WSMainQuest 60 MessageBox "IT WORKED" Endif[/code] So on the first pass it will see that TimerSapper is 0, which is less than 8 and add the fraction of a second to it. On the second pass it will see that TimerSapper is 0.016 (or similar) and add to it again. It will keep doing this untill TimerSapper is NOT less than 8, then it will process your instructions after the Else. On a side note that's why you never use == in a timer script, you may jump from 7.99 to 8.02 and never be exactly equal to 8. WT

Don't put you're timer in the quest script as by default they're only updated every 5 seconds. You could use the script you put on you're trigger zone to handle the timer and both quest advancemants. Off the top of my head something like this should work. scn MyScriptName Short Tripped Float Timer Begin OnTrigger If GetActionRef == Player && Tripped == 0 SetStage wsmainquest 55 DisablePlayerControls Enable.MyBadguyParent Set Timer to 8 Set Tripped to 1 Endif End Begin GameMode If Tripped == 1 If Timer <= 0 EnablePlayercontrols SetStage wsmainquest 60 Set Tripped to 2 Player.MoveTo MyXmarker Endif Endif If Timer > 0 Set Timer to Timer - GetSecondsPassed Endif End [/code] WT

You're GeoMorph animation didn't export properly. If you look at the original dog head's NiMorphData [5] it lists 5 Morphs that control 2112 vertices. If you look at the NiMorphData [4] block in you're NIF it lists 0 Morphs controlling 0 vertices. Unfortuneately I'm not that familiar with Blender yet, but if you post the export settings you're using I can hopefully see what's wrong. WT --------EDIT------- Come to think of it with the MAX importer at least you can't import GeoMorph animations. It may not be you're export settings at all, are you sure you got the GeoMorphs into Blender to begin with?

Hmm getting exported anims to work is always a little tricky (at least for me), if you want to post the file I can have a look. WT

If you set the physics attributes (Mass - Penetration Depth on your bhkRIgidBody) it seems to behave fine with the Motion System set to Box. Just copy them from another piece of clutter. WT

The Havok settings you're using look right. I'll bet it's you're BSXFlags that are the issue. They need to be set to 3 for clutter objects. WT

Woot for the 18 brave and beutiful!! WT

It's really easy if you use modelling software at all. You need a shape that has no texture UVSet applied, place it in it's own NiNode named "EditorMarker", and add 32 to your BSX flags (tells it there's an editor marker in the NIF). You can control the colour of your "editor marker" shape with the Material settings. If you don't use modelling software you might be able to get it to work just stripping the texture data from an existing NiTriStrips, but I have a vague recolection it doesn't work if It has UVMapping applied. Of course you could probably still just set "Num UV Sets" to 0 in your NiTriStripsData block, but I haven't tried it. WT