Current Personal Arena ideas

[Skaera75b]

------------------UPDATE----28/12/09-------------------

New Arena is in the basement of Benirus Manor, which has been retextured using unreleased high-res Daedric textures. Looks amazing. One button on the left of the (similarly retextured) entrance to the Arena summons a choice of irritating NPCs, and one on the right summons multiple, oversized creatures. It's all pretty wonderful. But the corpses are starting to pile up, and the smell is appalling. So the reason I'm posting is to ask for help with a corpse clearing button- the idea is that fireballs launch from statues located over the entrance at either point, 'incinerating' the remaining corpses (using an ifdead disable command) or something. I know just enough about scripting at this point to find it annoying that I can't seem to do it. In the last post, I've made a more detailed beg for help.

When this is released, it'll be a beautiful, gothic house in Anvil, fully furnished, with an arena in the basement. Bliss.

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Original post:

Earlier today, I tried and failed to add new NPCs to Ysabel's Arena options. I failed because once I'd killed an enemy, they didn't come back. IE, I'd choose 'Fight a condemned prisoner', and it'd work beautifully. Once. But I'd ask for the same fight again, and he wouldn't appear.

So I thought, if I can get into the arena anyway, why not put a script on a gate, or a skull in a corner or something, so that once activated, a menu pops up asking you what you'd like to fight. There is a mod like this, a Portable Arena, and it's great- but if you leave it somewhere, it disappears. So I thought, a static object, press Space on it, list comes up- Yellow Team Champion, Condemned Criminal, Captured Dremora, things like that- responsibility set to zero on all, so it's not just murder.

I'm no scripter. That's why I'm asking how hard this might be to achieve with custom NPCs- I'd hate to think the Arena comes to nothing in the end, and you can only use it to fight 3 minotaur lords once in a while. You can do that around Bruma. I want the Arena to be an Arena.

Is this possible?

[WillieSea]

There are a few things you need to do.

1. Place a >static >XMarkerHeading where you want the creatures to appear when summoned by the script. Give it a heading and that will be the direction the creatures show up facing. Double-click this marker and give it the Reference ID name "MyXMarkerREF". Click the OK button.

2. If you want to use the animated switches (>Activator >ARSwitch01) then double-click on it in the Object Window. Give it a new Editor ID name and change the name to something like "Summon Combatant". Click OK button and click the 'YES' button, that you want to create a new object.

3. Copy and paste the below script into a 'new' script of the type 'object'.

scn MySummonScript

short busy

short buttonPress


begin onActivate

	if busy == 0

		set busy to 2

		messagebox "Summon what creature?", "Ghost(1)", "Zombie(2)", "Skeleton Guardian(6)", "Headless Zombie(8)", "Skeleton Hero(10)", "Faded Wraith(12)", "Skeleton Champion(15)", "Lich(24)", "Cancel"

	endif

end


begin gameMode

	if isAnimPlaying == 0 && busy == 1

		set busy to 0

	endif

	if busy == 2

		set buttonPress to getbuttonpressed

		if buttonPress > -1

			set busy to 1

			if buttonPress == 0

				MyXMarkerREF.placeatme CreatureGhost 1

			elseif buttonPress == 1

				MyXMarkerREF.placeatme CreatureZombie1 1

			elseif buttonPress == 2

				MyXMarkerREF.placeatme CreatureSkeleton2Guardian 1

			elseif buttonPress == 3

				MyXMarkerREF.placeatme CreatureZombieHeadless1 1

			elseif buttonPress == 4

				MyXMarkerREF.placeatme CreatureSkeleton3Hero 1

			elseif buttonPress == 5

				MyXMarkerREF.placeatme CreatureWraith0Faded 1

			elseif buttonPress == 6

				MyXMarkerREF.placeatme CreatureSkeleton4Champion 1

			elseif buttonPress == 7

				MyXMarkerREF.placeatme CreatureLich 1

			endif

		endif

	endif

end[/code]


4. Double-click on the switch you made in step 2 from the Object Window. Attach the script you created above to the switch using the script dropdown list. The script name is 'MySummonScript'. Ok this change.


5. Place the switch you made in step 2 and edited in step 4 into the arena.


6. Save your mod and test it.

[Skaera75b]

Thank you so much! I'll try it right now- you've saved my arena

[Skaera75b]

Incredible Couldn't have worked better. I've decided I do want my own private arena, so I'm having one. Thank you!

[WillieSea]

Glad it worked out for you.

This is just one example of using a menu to perform actions in the game.

And its actually very simple.

[Skaera75b]

If you know what you're doing, perhaps- I would have lost much of my hair trying to work that out, haha. I've now got it spawning NPCs in a private Daedric arena down a tunnel in the Cheydinhal Abandoned House Basement. I've set it up for 'rematches' with NPCs I wanted to kill and kill again, like that arrogant Nord Yellow Team Champion, or Mathieu Bellamont for what he did to Lucien. Agronak, too, but that's just because it's annoying, having to fight the Grand Champion at level 5 or whatever. Nice to revisit the situation as an 'adult' character.

Thanks very much again, I'm really happy with how this has turned out. I'll release it once the Forgotten Isles mod is out (As I've got a few meshes and textures from that included, seeing as transferred Morrowind ones are forbidden and lower quality anyway).

[WillieSea]

You might want to think about removing the corpses from the arena. I did that in ancient towers automatically on the guardians, and there is a button in the training room that clears them out.

Unless you want to stand waist deep in carcasses.

[Skaera75b]

I was contemplating this. I get tired of using the disable command incessantly. I figured the script on ancient towers would only clear creature corpses, so I didn't look into it- I will now. Thanks. The more I think about this arena, the more I want to do with it. I'm worried about over-egging the pudding, but I'm sure worse things happen at sea

[WillieSea]

I made a number of 'changes' to the original arena. Including adding increasinly more 'colorful' spectators as you progress, more lights and night time fights, better prizes and even a clock.

I released that mod a while ago.

[Skaera75b]

I took a little break, remade my house. I actually stopped playing Oblivion for a while, but life just wasn't the same. I've checked back in, I've got a working arena once more. I'm going to release this one, in time, once the textures I've used have been officially released (Still waiting on that).

In the meantime, I wondered if I could bother anyone for help with the previously mentioned Corpse Clear button? I did try this, pulling scripts from other places, and I couldn't make it co-operate. I like the idea of fireballs being shot from possibly statues of Dagon above either entrance (The Arena is Daedric, so that would work quite well) incinerating the corpses as in Willie's Ancient Towers mod- I'd not been able to make it work, though. I remember that much. But this is (again) a new game, a new start, and a new mod. So maybe I'll be luckier this time round?

Thanks for any advice offered, and everything up to this point

[Skaera75b]

Here's what I have; I put a statue of Boethiah on the platform above the PC's entrance, and an X-marker in the centre of the arena. The plan is, I press a button (Probably to be located on the boarded-up Opponants' entrance) which launches a fireball (large.) from Boethiah, to this aforementioned X-marker, creating a nice, tasty explosion. Then I'd use the disable if dead command that I still haven't worked out. That'll be a nice way to clear corpses, don't you think?

I'd be grateful for any help, seeing as I'm pretty much at a loose end here... Thanks.

I've set up the statue, the X marker, and the activator (I chose a headstone. Seemed appropriate). I don't know how to make the Statue cast the fire spell I made onto the X, nor am I entirely clear about how to write the disable if dead command in. I'd appreciate any help.

[WillieSea]

I would 'not' use the 'disable' command. You will be creating a lot of whats termed 'save game bloat'. That is where your save game gets bigger and bigger until its in the hundreds of MB in size.

The Ancient towers was easily set up.

You create a >Spell that has a 'script effect' on it:

-Magic Effect Script-

scn AncientClearBodiesScript


begin ScriptEffectStart

	if GetDead == 1

		moveto AncientXMarkCreatureREF

	endif

end[/code]




The 'AncientXMarkCreatureREF' is an xmarker and the name is its reference ID name. This is a 'dead' area that cannot be traveled to by the player. Its basically a storage area for the dead creatures. I do this so the game engine will clean them up instead of just disabling them and leaving them on the ground. So, you 'MoveTo' the dead area the bodies.



You then need two 'activator' objects. In my oubellete haunted entry, I use this method to create the lightning that strikes the ground when you are in the castle exterior location. Give these two activator objects a unique Reference ID name.



So, when you cast the spell, it fires the magic from one activator to the other like so:

[code]AncientShooter1REF.Cast AncientCleanSpell AncientShooter1xREF

The name of the spell is "AncientCleanSpell". The left ref name is the casting point, the right ref name is the target point.

Since I use an area effect spell, the spell effect, being a script with the MoveTo command, will run on every creature that is hit by the spell. If they are dead, they get moved. If they are not, they remain.

[Skaera75b]

Firstly, thanks again for running to my aid

I set up a containment area for my dead, using the same Ref as you had, and I copied the script from above and made a spell that should cause that script effect. I've set it to have the visual effect of fire, shooting from an X-heading over Boethia, to an X-marker in the centre of the arena. The spell is targeted. AncientXMarkCreatureREF is an X-marker inside a the containment area- this all looks decent. I press the button, Boathia explodes (for some reason, the fireball never heaves his head area), and the corpses remain.

Sorry for not being able to get my head round this, but have I missed something?

scn AncientClearBodiesScript

begin ScriptEffectStart

if GetDead == 1

moveto AncientXMarkCreatureREF

endif

end

Inputted successfully.

Scriptname RSTest2

Begin OnActivate

ShootREF.Cast RSClearBodies BurnMe

End

^ That's the troublesome one. It's on a switch at the back wall. All I can see it doing is making a large explosion- I've got three large bear corpses that seem persistant.

Thanks for reading, again

[WillieSea]

The 'spell' will be cast from the 'fire node' on the mesh. Or, where the 'center' of the mesh is defined. Since boethia has a center defined 'inside' the mesh, the spell explodes when it hits that mesh instead of travelling towards your XMarker.

Also, if your 'caster' and 'target' are not >Activators, then the spell will ignore the target and just head 'due North' in your cell.

If you have the obuellete, you can copy the 'object' I am using in my level (door XII) as the casting point and the target if you wish.