Symon

Beth use several nominally independent SDKs these days (in a pretty lazy fashion I might add).

See http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Nif_Format/Nif_Resources for a VERY partial list of games based on the NetImmerse/Gamebryo 3D engine. There are a lot more, if you care to peruse the Niftools 'Other Games' section. Bridge Commander is the oldest I'm aware of with Version 3.0 (that far back!). Me, I first came across it with Freedom Force and version 4.0.0.2 (same as Morrowind). I might add that Irrational Games were far more supportive a fans than Beth have ever been. They released decent 3DSMax exporters and tons of documentation.

Beth now (but didn't originally) use Speedtree and Havoc to name but two third party SDKs. These can (so I'm told) use any engine, including Gambryo.

Don't blame any of the engines for Beths strange decisions. (Males and Females using the same Skeleton in Oblivion anyone?).

The Nif format has a flag for collision detection type since at least 4.0.0.2 (Nifscope: select an NiTristrip/NiTrishape and examine the flags. See the collision detection options? Triangles!) (DON'T change it, you'll break the mesh at best).

Honestly guys and gals, it isn't a simple as you think and Beth are notably bad at using Gaming Toolkits and SDKs.

Chain beasts.

A search on Nexus will locate it.

Just an update for those who haven't seen it:

Version 1.0 of our sexintamriel document is now available.

http://www.loverslab.com/files/file/1041-asxsexintamriel

This is a fifteen page word document discussing why sexuality in Tamriel is not like any country on 21st century Earth with many sample terms and samples of use. (Warning: Reading is the only thing to do with this).

For modders of Oblivion, Skyrim and Morrowind. Use as much as you wish.

They are, I believe they are still WIP and (sadly) possibly from one of her lines of work that doesn't get a public release.

I'd really like to know what software the people at Bethesda were using for their mesh creations. I'm serious. I cannot imagine that they had to deal with the Blender-Nifskope-workaround annoyance (no offense to the nifscript creators since they did an awesome job).

The current version of 3DSMax when the game was being made along with the Gamebryo SDK plugins of the time.

This is what they used from Morrowind through to Skyrim.

Quick technical question (I apologize if I've not spotted it in the thread).

Do you use PlayIdle or PickIdle to select animations to play on an actor?

Would you like to watch a movie where you have to read all the time?

Yes! They are called 'Foreign language films with subtitles' and are often much more enjoyable than bad dubbing.

I've been keeping out of this discussion as my opinions on this whole genre of game probably isn't relevant but I can't let this pass.

Sorry, but I have a deeply ingrained suspicion of anyone who 'doesn't like to read' and suspect I have no common point of reference with them.

If this type of game is for the 'non-readers', to me it says it all.

Vampires can (and are) used badly by some fiction but have been stylish for thousands of years. They go back a long way.

Oh, and the crisping in daylight seems to be a relatively  modern invention (certainly no Mesopotamian vampire turned to ashes in this way), which is probably partly why it's now not universally observed. (The other being it makes for better TV/films).

Thanks. In most cases I hope to be working with, Scenario 1. should hold.

Quick question. If you need to run mesh-rigger to correct weight-painting and clothing converter on the same meshes (e.g. a male->female outfit conversion), is there a preferred order of operations or does it not matter? I've not seen it mentioned.

I hope it discards those orphans? (there are large numbers of meshes out there with all sorts of flock in them. I know, 'cos I'm always cleaning them out (grin)).

What you have to remember is that even very senior, highly paid professionals will attach twenty or more bmps into an email and then scream and shout that email is broken and that they just want to send pictures and their time is far too valuable to waste it learning anything about file formats and converting them.

A sense of entitlement goes along way to explaining a lot of commonly seen laziness.

Another good one. Although I mostly work in OBSE20+ these days, I mostly write far more functions than traditional Quest and Object scripts. (OK, I mostly work in Bash, Sed, Awk and PhP these days but that's work that pays).

Good additions! Explaining why you do something or how to choose one of several equivalent techniques ought to be very useful to beginner.

Well, a few comments:

I know what you mean but these two statements aren't equivalent.

Set someQuestID.someVar to ThatSameQuestID.ThatSameGodDamnVARThatIShouldveSpelledShorter + 1

and

let someQuestID.someVar += 1

Surely you meant

Set someQuestID.someVar to ThatSameQuestID.somevar + 1

for the first example. I'd add that another important lesson is NOT to choose over-long variable names or ones that are easy to typo.

If eval (fTimer += GetSecondsPassed) >  10

               ; do something

Endif

I've always understood that the eval version has more of a performance hit. Not an issue unless you are doing it a lot. Perhaps point this out?

Perhaps warn people about while loops that are over-long (or worse) never actually terminate.

Set iCount to ListGetCount rList

Label 1

If 0 < iCount

               Set iCount to iCount – 1

               Set rForm to ListGetNthForm List iCount

               ; do stuff with rForm

               ListRemoveNthForm List iCount

               GoTo 1

Endif

AGH! I loathe labels with a passion and they are never required! I can think of several ways to process each element that don't require the fearsome unconditioned jump! Mentioning them in the section that covers the more elegant while loop seems a bit strange.

Some screenshots, showing what can be done with Menuque and AddActorValues:

As to an using ini file like LoversPK, maybe not.

In ASX, an 'animation sequence' is defined as containing one or more actors, each of which will have a separate chain of one or more keyframes, that will have variable run times and/or even loop counts.

The arrays to hold all this may not load well from an ini file.

The thing to remember about calling Update3D on the player is that it updates the CURRENT player meshes.

So if you are in 1st person, Update3d updates the 1st person meshes. Not normally what you wanted to do. You normally change and want to update the 3rd person meshes. So you need to toggle the view (via script) to third person before swapping a mesh and calling Update3d on the player (via script).

Things work much better when you do this.

ASX uses this to produce visible male and female stages of arousal. Works a treat and seems pretty bomb proof. You can hide the signs under clothes but they won't go away!

As this got mentioned recently, I thought it was time for another update.

The OBSE dependencies will now include Blockhead and Menuque (to go with USV and AddActorValues). The ability to have custom skills and easier body transformations is just too powerful to ignore. My test characters now have Flirt, seduce and copulate visible in their lists of skills complete with mouse-over descriptions and graphics.

A word on threesomes and more. LoversPK has a real problem with these which would appear to be down to the fundamentals of its design. If you think about it, the 'Offensive/defensive' animation paradigm implies two and only two actors.

We are hoping to create a system where an animation sequence can have one, two or three actors. Foursomes or more might then be possible by invoking two animations with two actors, or one with three and one with two. etc. Orgies here we come!

Blockhead 9.1 is now available.

That's the plan. Still some way off mind.

A fine present for us all! Now to find time to take these for a spin.

Thirty five - interesting!

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Facial_expressions_in_animations has 43 'named' expressions. I'm assuming some named expressions might be duplicates?

The Nexus servers are scattered across the globe. Obviously, the content needs syncing. As the sync begins, all servers become unavailable for a time. They seem to sync one by one.

Perhaps naturally, the Premium Member servers sync first. I've caught it at times when only (some) of the premium servers are up to date, so no download for me at that time. All it means is that you have to wait half an hour to an hour and then all is well.

Honestly, it beats the 'You must wait 20 minutes for your next download or pay us money' of many file sharing sites. That can be really tedious.

Yes, the mod is still active and the current alpha has been in my load order for some time now. Rock stable and I use WryeMorph! There is a lot to do though.

I've looked at OBME and thought about it. We feel ew magical effects is a little out of the scope for the core mod (though not necessarily some potential plugins).

We want to keep the number of dependencies as low as possible. So far it needs OBSEv20+, AddActorValues and Blockhead. It may be extended to require MenuQue but so far that's it. No cosmetic mod requirement you'll note.