[WIPz]Enter the Dragon(born)

[Vain]

Current progress - 

Got the front door down and a rudimentary floorplan completed!

 

After entering you will go down a cave-like hallway to a large central cavern.

The central cavern will feature a huge table, roaring fireplace, and plenty of glorious reminders of your dragonborn heritage.

There will also be nine doors, two of which lead to different cells.

Proceeding clockwise from the entrance hall will be

the family quarters

a kitchen with storage

trophies from your conquests

an armory

a very amazing library which will include enchanting and teleportation circles to all player homes (if they have been purchased)

an alchemy room with storage

a different cell for an underground garden area (so that it will respawn without endangering your home storage and in a reasonable amount of time)

and a blacksmith and stables added outside.

I've noticed a minor bandit encampment just outside Whiterun, complete with a carriage and horse and I'm thinking of making the stables an addition you can purchase after clearing out the vagrants.  Not sure what I'm going to do to add the blacksmith in, maybe you can hire Haedrig from D3 or something 

Housecarls for now I'm thinking I will just leave so that they default go home to the city in which you are Thane (makes sense to me).  But it'd be awesome if I could get the barracks so that any mercenaries you hire that would rejoin you for free (some do, I've heard) will instead move in with you in addition to your personal bard, chef, blacksmith, ect.

 

This is gonna be pretty big mod if I ever finish it D:

Edited February 9, 2014 by Vain

[BrettM]

Make the skull an activator and over-ride the activation text with the same text used for a door. Attach a script that teleports the player and any followers inside, to the same location where a door marker would usually be found. Why wouldn't that solve your problem? The script you need is super simple, and could not be told from the way a door works. To exit, just set up the regular door as usual.

 

For that matter, I think you could actually define the skull as a load door, and just use it like a regular door, though there wouldn't be any animation to go with it unless you know how to animate.

 

I really doubt the CK is going to add the ability to make collisions, since that's a bit outside its scope.

 

Edit: Here we go: DarkFox127's video  tutorial on Custom Load Doors. He even provides the script.

 

Edit 2: And if you want to turn off collision entirely, that's very simple. Open the nif in NifSkope and delete any bkhCollisionObject branches you find. But you will then have to provide the nif as part of your mod, so it wouldn't matter whether you used a vanilla skull or not. And people walking through the giant skull would be a bit less than immersive. I wouldn't consider this a good option. Though you could, of course, try to set up collision planes and cubes with the CK to block parts of the skull while still leaving a channel through to the door.

Edited September 23, 2013 by BrettM

[Vain]

You underestimate my inexperience.

TO THE VIDEO TUTORIAL!
And a collisionless skull would only be apparent when jumping onto the skull from above I think.  I SHALL TRY BOTH!

 

Now what should be in the house!

Skyforge, coffins, ect...

 

Edit - also... everyone talks about NIFs like I know how to access them.  I been trying to find it all day.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Vain

[Tamira]

I am not quite sure if I understand what you want to do. Something like this?

 

 

If so, here is a dragonskull with a new collision that will allow you to enter it and walk through the opening in the throat, one cannot walk through the skull (bones) itself.

 

http://en.file-upload.net/download-8106483/NEWdragonbonesskull01.nif.html

[BrettM]

You underestimate my inexperience.

TO THE VIDEO TUTORIAL!

And a collisionless skull would only be apparent when jumping onto the skull from above I think.  I SHALL TRY BOTH!

 

Now what should be in the house!

Skyforge, coffins, ect...

 

Edit - also... everyone talks about NIFs like I know how to access them.  I been trying to find it all day.

Sorry about that. I'm so used to being a complete clueless newbie that I just automatically assume that anybody around here knows at least as much as I do (or think I do), which is not a very high hurdle to jump.

 

Do you not have a copy of NifSkope? It's free, very easy to use, and probably the most essential tool you can have aside from the CK itself. Download it HERE.

 

The Skyrim nifs are all packed inside BSA archives, which the CK can read but most other tools can't. To get at them you will need a BSA unpacker, which is kind of a zip-file extractor for BSA files. I use BSAopt, which is another free and easy-to-use program.

 

Those should get you off to a good start.

Edited September 23, 2013 by BrettM

[Vain]

Last question... about the skull... for now...

How does one pack a .nif into the .esm mod file?

Or does this count as a retexture?

I don't want to replace the vanilla file (to avoid as much conflict as possible), but just have this one instance of it reference a different file.

 

Edit - they tell me I don't put it back.  More later, working.

Edited September 24, 2013 by Vain

[BrettM]

This one doesn't count as a retexture, since your nif is (I presume) still pointing to the regular textures. Open Tamira's nif in NifSkope and look at the Block List window on the left side of the screen. Follow the tree down until you find the BSShaderTextureSet block under each NiTriShape in the nif. Those blocks tell you what textures each shape is looking for.

 

What you have is a custom version of the nif, and you're right that you don't want to replace the regular version with it. The first thing you do with it, if Tamira didn't already do it, is give it a different name than the regular version. Then, create a new folder under Skyrim\Data\Meshes and place your nif there. See the tutorial How To Package Your Mod for good suggestions on the best ways to name your files and set up your directories.

 

In the CK you will create a new object under Statics in the Object Window that points to your nif as the model, and you will attach that object to your house as the entry. (Or under Activators if you decide to make it a teleport door.)

 

When it comes time to release your mod, you will just include your custom files -- any nifs, textures, and/or scripts that you created or customized for your mod and any such files you used from modder resource packs -- in the zip package along with your ESP file. Or, you can use the Archiver in the CK to make a private BSA file for your mod that automatically includes all custom files used by the mod. Then you just zip up YourMod.esp and YourMod.bsa to create a complete package that's easy to install and uninstall.

Edited September 24, 2013 by BrettM

[Vain]

Notes to self -

Name your interior so that the door leading in says where it leads.

If the object isn't working as intended, try copying it, renaming it, and placing it from that source instead of the vanilla source. (Some doors, chests, ect...)

[BrettM]

Notes on notes to self: Personally, making copies of certain things has become automatic for me, right from the start, not as something to try as a problem resolution.  If I put in a door, for example, I never know when I might get the idea to retexture it or put a custom name to it or whatever. Having started by making a copy, it's easy to do that. Otherwise I have to go replace any existing doors with the new copy.

 

I find this especially important for lights, lighting templates, and FX. If I see a light that I basically like, I immediately make a copy. Then I have no fear about going back later if I want to tweak something, like making the color a touch warmer or cooler, or toning down the flickering.

 

Doing this also makes it easier to filter forms in the Object  Window to find all the lights, FX, etc. that I'm using without wading through all the vanilla names. "Wait, did I use <somelongnamefirelight>02a or 03?"

[Vain]

And another hiccup.

Removable wall sconce for torches.  They're everywhere in the game.  I've seen them in other player mods.

The warehouse fabrication cell shows a wall sconce linked to a light source which is then linked to another light source.  Seems redundant, I don't want a million torch lights, just one.  Copying the warehouse setup minus the double light source gives me a torch sconce, torchless, emitting light.

The torch sconce is not activatable despite saying so on mouseover.

Using the Torch01 light object and linking it to THAT instead of just a torchless light gives me a torch lying on the ground by the still unusable torch sconce.

All the internet says on it is just link the torch sconce to a light source and it will work.  The script option is set up by default to include a torch - probably why the torch ends up on the ground.

http://www.creationkit.com/Additional_Prefabs#Removable_Torches

Functional torch sconces (such as those in Broken Oar Grotto) appear to only have done this (nothing fancy) and they work just fine as we all know.  They use the removable torch sconce from activators and just a plain old torch light from lights and link the sconce to the light.
I'd like to shed some removable light on this if we could...

[BrettM]

Here's what I did: I added a RemovableTorchSconce01 to the wall of my test lab. I added a DefaultTorch01NS_Fast light a little way in front of it. I edited the sconce to add the light as a linked ref. That's it.

 

I sent my player in, and he saw the same problem you're having. The sconce had an Activate prompt, but no torch in it and no light and no action when activated. Why? Because my default save was in that cell, meaning that I appeared there when I started the launcher and picked Continue.

 

That matters because the script on the sconce adds the torch and sets everything up in an On Cell Load event, which was not being called because I was already in the cell. All I needed to do was to start with an earlier save from outside the cell and enter it. The torch was there and the sconce turned the light on and off as I took and replaced the torch. Problem solved.

[Vain]

I facepalm myself

[BrettM]

So do I, every time I make the same mistake. And believe me, we're talking more than once.