CK Basics: Final Exam

[DarkRider]

Looks good Cam, I'll have a grade for you as soon as I get some playtime to give it a test in game.

[camaro_69_327]

Thanks teach...take your time, I value your input and the time you invest!!

[ResolveThatChord]

For my final exam I have chosen the release option.

Hakea House

Beginning with the interior, I used the solitude interiors tileset. It took longer to put the architecture together than it did to actually clutter it! Here are the top orthographic views of:

The upper floor:

The main floor:

And the basement:

I realise the basement is not a seperate interior location as in the lessons, however I found this to be the most organic way to implement it given the tileset resources.

Now some in-game screenshots to show off the cluttering:

Dining hall (main floor):

Main bedroom (upper floor):

Kitchen, Pantry, Alchemy lab (basement):

And finally, the navmesh:

For the exterior, I used the Solitude player home asset, and chose the cell (-4,-13) for it's excellent view of the lake:

Exterior features include a mushroom garden below a smithy, and some platforms and walls made from the imperial fort and solitude interior tilesets, to account for the sloped terrain and to fill the gaps left in the house mesh.

Here is the exterior navmesh:

Thank you Darkrider, the course has been a great opportunity and heaps of fun!

Edited May 24, 2012 by ResolveThatChord

[syscrusher]

Greetings, DarkRider!

For your inspection, I have just released (as a ver 0.1 BETA) my Humblespire mod, here on TESA.

The screenshots include three to show the navmesh under test; let me know if you need more than that. I don't think I'm allowed to put photos in forums.

In my README is a comment to the effect that I plan to take out the road statics as soon as the exam is graded. That's not meant to imply anything negative about them being a requirement for the exam. They're tricky to place, and a good demonstration of skill in the CK, so I absolutely support your requiring this as part of the exam. They just don't fit well in my particular mod because it literally sits adjacent to a vanilla road.

Please let me know if you need other screen shots or submission materials.

Kind regards,

Syscrusher

[DesertRat]

I've just uploaded my House Mod for the Final Exam, Release Option:

Screenshots of the CK Views and Navmesh, Main House:

Basement:

(Added a North Marker after I took the the screenshot)

Exterior:

Sceenshots in-game:

Interior:

Basement:

Aaaand I just realized that I don't have any screenshots of the second house, my friendly trader's.

It is also fully navmeshed and inhabited by a general goods trader and his wife (who spends part of the day outside on the farm grounds), and locked at night.

It has become quite a huge project, and it's been great fun. That house already serves me well, as it's tailor-made to my requirements, me being a Skyrim Hoarder.

[DarkRider]

Please post a link to your release so I can download for grading. I'll be grading all of these exams today

[DesertRat]

Oh, sorry. Somehow I deleted that while posting pictures.

Mammoth's Rest Farm

[syscrusher]

I'm working on an updated release of mine for later tonight. I did some additional testing over the weekend and found only one minor bug, so I'm going to fix that and re-upload.

EDIT: New release uploaded. DR, I may need some help resolving that navmesh issue. I moved my door markers toward the center of the room, and it fixed the problem for two out of the three followers in my testing. On the plus side, the horse marker now works! Version 0.2 is current.

Edited May 30, 2012 by syscrusher

[DarkRider]

Okay gents, grades are in on these exams, overall a very good crop of mods.

Couple minor notes, when loading the mods in the CK, the kit gave me a conflict warning between Waterfall Retreat and Mammoth's Rest Farm, a conflict where you both touched something similar I didn't catch the ID sorry.

For syscrusher, I had no issues with NPC followers looks good to me

For Resolve, you have some floating bread on one of your bookshelves, because they don't havoc settle you need to settle them in the CK.

For DesertRat, for release mods you may want to use a different naming convention like "aaDRat" as I've been modding with aaDR for a long time, you may end up having conflicts with all my mods down the line.

Overall, very nicely done lads. Lot of diversity and each adds something unique to the game, look forward to seeing what you crank out next.

[DesertRat]

For DesertRat, for release mods you may want to use a different naming convention like "aaDRat" as I've been modding with aaDR for a long time, you may end up having conflicts with all my mods down the line.

I didn't know that that could create conflicts, I'll keep it in mind for the future.

Should I change that for this mod?

edit:

Regarding the conflict with Waterfall Retreat, I just checked both mods. It is the non-parent form 00012BF4.

I can't find that ID in the CK, and since both mods are in completely different locations, no worries?

Edited May 30, 2012 by DesertRat

[syscrusher]

For syscrusher, I had no issues with NPC followers looks good to me

Thanks for the test report. Could you tell me which NPC or NPCs you used, so I can add that to my test data? So far I can reliably replicate the problem here with Lydia but not any of the others we have tried. Vermicula is also testing, for more diversity of game conditions.

I have a couple of general questions that arose in my mind as I did the release prep, but I'll take those to Study Hall so as not to clog this forum.

[DarkRider]

I took Lydia through successfully, though she is infamous for bad behavior your issues with her are likely not location related, but just a design flaw in the character. I also took one of my custom followers through without trouble and one of the Companion fighters.

[the-manta]

Okay, I'm finished at last . This could take a while...

"Cover" Image:

Exterior, showing the house itself, along with landscaping and outbuildings, as well as my landscaping efforts... :

House itself:

Garden:

Tower outbuilding:

Stable/smithing outbuilding:

Porch for woodchopping, weapon sharpening and leatherworking:

I extended the road *towards*, but not all the way up to, the house (didn't want to spoil the stone circle):

Interior, showing statics, clutter, furniture, containers etc.:

Downstairs:

Downstairs:

Study:

Some storage:

Upstairs:

Upstairs:

Upstairs in the tower:

Pathing (exterior and interior):

Interior downstairs:

And again:

Interior upstairs:

Tower upstairs:

Exterior:

And again:

And *again*:

And once more:

On the map in relation to Dragon Bridge:

And finally the download link here on TESA:

Thanks so much for this course Rider, it has been, as I expected, massively helpful! Now I can conquer the world continue making mods.

[DarkRider]

Hey Manta,

Let me start by saying there's a lot of right in this mod, you've done a nice job with the layout and the concept. The stable is a particularly nice touch. That said, you've got some pretty serious NavMesh issues in the exterior. Your mesh needs to go around the posts of your house and stables, can't go through. Can't be floating either. With the various levels in your complex, you may want to delete a lot of that original mesh and start fresh.

The NavMesh in the interiors are quite good though so don't give up

[the-manta]

Hey Manta,

Let me start by saying there's a lot of right in this mod, you've done a nice job with the layout and the concept. The stable is a particularly nice touch. That said, you've got some pretty serious NavMesh issues in the exterior. Your mesh needs to go around the posts of your house and stables, can't go through. Can't be floating either. With the various levels in your complex, you may want to delete a lot of that original mesh and start fresh.

The NavMesh in the interiors are quite good though so don't give up

Thanks

I'll get to work on the exterior navmesh now.

EDIT:

I've used much smaller triangles now, and treated it a lot more like and interior (an interior with a ridiculously uneven floor). Is this any better?

Edited June 4, 2012 by the-manta

[the-manta]

It occurs to me that putting that in an edit instead of a new post was not very bright of me. Would it be really rude of me to "bump" here?

[DarkRider]

Huh, somehow I thought I'd wrapped this up, sorry manta. Yes, your redone pathing is much better, well done. And you have graduated the CK Basics course congrats!

[the-manta]

Woo, thanks Rider These classes have been great!

[RonRay33]

CK Basics Final Examine posting.

I have released "Overlook ver. 1.00" earlier today on TESA. It can be seen at

http://tesalliance.o...19-skyrim-mods/

Posted images follow:

http://tesalliance.o...ps-to-overlook/

http://tesalliance.o...encounter-zone/

http://tesalliance.o...-exterior-cell/

http://tesalliance.o...-1-common-data/

http://tesalliance.o...ell-1-lighting/

http://tesalliance.o...-interior-data/

http://tesalliance.o...-2-common-data/

http://tesalliance.o...ell-2-lighting/

http://tesalliance.o...-interior-data/

http://tesalliance.o...cation-cropped/

http://tesalliance.o...sh-120818-1900/

http://tesalliance.o...sh-120818-1901/

http://tesalliance.o...-the-underdeep/

http://tesalliance.o...14-final-steps/

http://tesalliance.o...fx-15-wildlife/

http://tesalliance.o...-16-talos-view/

http://tesalliance.o...bfx-17-house-1/

http://tesalliance.o...bfx-18-house-2/

http://tesalliance.o...-19-in-house-1/

http://tesalliance.o...-20-in-house-2/

http://tesalliance.o...rlook-entrance/

After release notes:

1/ "Overlook ver. 1.00" had an Update.esm set when the when Overlook.esp was created.

I have since been advised that this might cause some players to have a problem, if their

installed program was not at sufficiently updated level.

2/ It has been suggested that a more detailed statement of the location be included within

the readme.txt in order to help make finding Overlook easier.

Both of these points are reviewed in the following two posted entries. Please read those.

If anyone has other concerns, please contact me here on TESA, or at the link below:

Ron@ronray.us

Edited July 23, 2012 by RonRay33

[DarkRider]

Everything looks steller Ron, well done. You have passed the course and your medals have been awarded, Congratulations! I look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

1/ "Overlook ver. 1.00" had an Update.esm set when the when Overlook.esp was created.

I have since been advised that this might cause some players to have a problem, if their

installed program was not at sufficiently updated level.

Really the Update.esm dependency is most likely to cause an issue for pirates and hackers who don't have the Update.esm which is installed by Steam automatically to handle Bethsoft's automatic micro edits. People with unpatched games may experience trouble, but that's sort of the price they pay for not patching; as the game and CK advance in versions, their chances for various incompatibilities rise. Many modders create that dependency on purpose as that .esm includes Bethesda's changes to the game; if you are modding something that has already been modded by the Update.esm you can create a conflict when your mod is loaded with it. By loading the Update.esm in the CK when you make your mods, you can see what they've already changed and ensure your mod is compatible with the Update.esm. In most cases, a simple house mod would not require the Update.esm dependency by design which is why we don't load it and create dependency in this class setting.

Whether you keep that dependency or not is entirely up to you. My own practice is to mod without the Update.esm loaded and if a conflict appears later, it would be simple enough to load the Update.esm, fix the conflict in my mod, and update it. In other words, don't create an unnecessary dependency until it becomes necessary.

2/ It has been suggested that a more detailed statement of the location be included within

the readme.txt in order to help make finding Overlook easier.

Easiest thing? Take a screen shot of the location when it's active on your in-game map and include it. Some people are not explorers and have very little of the map unlocked so directions can be challenging, a picture is worth 1,000 words they say

[RonRay33]

DA,

Thank you for the kind words and for the enlightening information on the Update.esm situation. As it turns out,

I have been unable to get rid of the Update.esm - as you know my knowledge at this point is very limited

I cannot create a new Overlook.esp without it Automatically adding back in Update.esm - even though I

only [X] the Skyrim.esm and my Overlook.esp. Nor can I remove it once CK has loaded.

I can unset it, but that initiates a new reloading, where it is back actively in place after the reload.

I think that since the Overlook.esp was created with it, that just loading the Overlook.esp itself will 'call' the

Update.esm. In any event, operationally that is what seems to happen.

Given this, and what you've explained above. I will consider it a lesson learned, leave it as is, and move on to a

revision of the readme info and additional an image, as suggest. But not tonight, since I don't seem to think straight

this evening. A good night's sleep should go far to cure dusty brain.

Thanks again for all the time you have given to these tutorials, and to the individual assistance you provide to everyone.

Ron

[phosphor]

Hey, I just wanted to give an update about my final exam project and let you know it's going to be uploaded soon.

I uploaded it onto the Nexus first because I understand their setup a little better than here. I plan on uploading it to both TES Alliance and Steam. It's done, so far as a house mod is concerned, but there's plenty more I want to add to it.

Pictures will follow when I return from a meeting tonight.

[phosphor]

Okay... the file is uploaded. It is called "Embershard Home." The point of the Mod is to tell the story of the family that owned the Embershard Mine and their fate. The home is not yet prepared to be a fully functioning player home as I need to learn how to script certain events to make it happen. But for the purposes of this Exam it should be fully functional and then some.

http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/gallery/image/22246-embershard-home-01/

I've uploaded almost thirty screens of the house with details beneath each image. I didn't want to add a link to all of them so that it doesn't spam this section too much. If you wish it I can add the links in through an edit.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Edited August 28, 2012 by phosphor

[DarkRider]

Downloaded

[phosphor]

Wow... that was fast.