So, I mentioned my new Oblivion game, to get some race mods... and some *ahem* other mods fully working.
I've been hitting the ruins surrounding the Imperial City, picking up loots to sell, for pretties from the Goddess store, and houses.
We worked our way around the west shore this evening. I was just going through everywhere as I came across it. Strip everything that isn't nailed down; and if it is nailed down? Here's a crowbar.
Eventually, we happened across Vindasel.
It's been so long since I did Clavicus Vile's quest that I had completely forgotten the significance of the place.
Turns out Umbra is in there from the game start; and we blundered right into her.
At level four.
Amazingly, I survived. It was dumbest luck that I had a few healing potions and a flame-enchanted sword found in previous ruins. I pretended to be a Spartan; hid behind my shield and held Umbra's attention while dealing what damage I could. Survived - barely. Thankfully, I had not just Branwen, but all four of my CW-Neko race companions along as well.
That ebony armor of hers should fetch enough to put us over the top for acquiring Benirus Manor, at least.
Oh man, do I miss carrying automatic weapons and explosives. Going to be sore, tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
I Try
It may not seem it, but I try really, really hard not to rant and rave and bitch around here. Really, you guys see less than ten percent of it.
But these people on the Nexus... it's like they're making it a point to be as dense as humanly possible.
Posted to the NCCS file comments this evening was this: "Do any of you know how to work the New Vegas Facegen Exchanger? It would really help with my project."
This person has never communicated with me before that I am aware of. I have no idea what "his project" is. Never heard of it.
Now, I can extrapolate from the name what the New Vegas Facegen Exchanger does... but I'd never before heard of this utility. It was not being widely discussed in the comments - nor discussed at all, ever, as far as I know.
So what... in the holy hell... would make it seem like NCCS was the place to ask about this utility?
Why not ask at, oh I don't know... the utility's file entry? If it isn't on the Nexus, why not ask the author direct through their site?
I mean, you have to get the fucking thing somewhere, right? And odds are good, wherever it was made available for download, or linked to in a forum post or whatever... it would seem like someone made it known that it was available because they found it useful.
So... why ask us?
I know I didn't have anything to do with creating the file; and I doubt Herculine did, either - seems like the sort of thing she'd mention if she had authored such a file.
This is a perfect example of why I'm coming to loathe the Nexus more and more. You help somebody once; or write a tutorial or answer a question, and all of a sudden the people come to you with every question, every issue; in lieu of reading the documentation or going to the author of the file in question.
As I've said in the past: helping people on the Nexus is like feeding a stray dog. Do it a couple times, and from then on, any time the dog gets hungry, it expects you to feed it.
It's like the other post, a few down from that one. The individual there thinks I should rewrite the companion tutorial to include a complete primer on every possible method of and technique for ini editing available.
I don't mind helping, guys; really. If you have a problem with one of my mods, or even someone's companions who are dependent on one of my mods - mention it and odds are very good I'll do what I can to get it sorted for you.
But Goddammit, I am not an on-call tech support database. Neither is Herculine. We do like to do things other than answer technical questions and validate inane modding concepts for your new super-plugin that's going to use NCCS but change everything about it.
We are modders. We are not Bethesda Tech Support. We do this for fun; to share our little ideas with the community on the whole - we do not do it to be your personal Rolodex of technical procedures and minutiae.
If you have a question about the inner workings of the companion AI, then fine, ask. That pertains to companion mods. That's fine. Weapon usage, classes, AI packages, even leveled lists. These are all things that are part of the "companion experience", and are perfectly fine to ask for information about, or general help with.
If it doesn't pertain to one of our mods, please: fucking Google it. Search the forum. Then, if you can't find any workable solution, you can ask if you must - though understand that no one owes you an answer or any help whatsoever.
Unless of course I have made a blog post about some mod; then you can ask for help with it, and I'll probably help. Or at least point you to the forum thread where I found answers.
But these people on the Nexus... it's like they're making it a point to be as dense as humanly possible.
Posted to the NCCS file comments this evening was this: "Do any of you know how to work the New Vegas Facegen Exchanger? It would really help with my project."
This person has never communicated with me before that I am aware of. I have no idea what "his project" is. Never heard of it.
Now, I can extrapolate from the name what the New Vegas Facegen Exchanger does... but I'd never before heard of this utility. It was not being widely discussed in the comments - nor discussed at all, ever, as far as I know.
So what... in the holy hell... would make it seem like NCCS was the place to ask about this utility?
Why not ask at, oh I don't know... the utility's file entry? If it isn't on the Nexus, why not ask the author direct through their site?
I mean, you have to get the fucking thing somewhere, right? And odds are good, wherever it was made available for download, or linked to in a forum post or whatever... it would seem like someone made it known that it was available because they found it useful.
So... why ask us?
I know I didn't have anything to do with creating the file; and I doubt Herculine did, either - seems like the sort of thing she'd mention if she had authored such a file.
This is a perfect example of why I'm coming to loathe the Nexus more and more. You help somebody once; or write a tutorial or answer a question, and all of a sudden the people come to you with every question, every issue; in lieu of reading the documentation or going to the author of the file in question.
As I've said in the past: helping people on the Nexus is like feeding a stray dog. Do it a couple times, and from then on, any time the dog gets hungry, it expects you to feed it.
It's like the other post, a few down from that one. The individual there thinks I should rewrite the companion tutorial to include a complete primer on every possible method of and technique for ini editing available.
I don't mind helping, guys; really. If you have a problem with one of my mods, or even someone's companions who are dependent on one of my mods - mention it and odds are very good I'll do what I can to get it sorted for you.
But Goddammit, I am not an on-call tech support database. Neither is Herculine. We do like to do things other than answer technical questions and validate inane modding concepts for your new super-plugin that's going to use NCCS but change everything about it.
We are modders. We are not Bethesda Tech Support. We do this for fun; to share our little ideas with the community on the whole - we do not do it to be your personal Rolodex of technical procedures and minutiae.
If you have a question about the inner workings of the companion AI, then fine, ask. That pertains to companion mods. That's fine. Weapon usage, classes, AI packages, even leveled lists. These are all things that are part of the "companion experience", and are perfectly fine to ask for information about, or general help with.
If it doesn't pertain to one of our mods, please: fucking Google it. Search the forum. Then, if you can't find any workable solution, you can ask if you must - though understand that no one owes you an answer or any help whatsoever.
Unless of course I have made a blog post about some mod; then you can ask for help with it, and I'll probably help. Or at least point you to the forum thread where I found answers.
Cosmetic Overhaul for Oblivion
So, I mentioned the other day installing some race mods; specifically, Modular Beautiful People, MPB++, and XEOSP.
I showed off a screenshot of my Aribeth companion as an example of what the mods did to the High Elf race.
This morning, I happened to get in some more play, and started taking note of what it had done to default game characters. Took a few screenshots; thought folks on the fence might be interested to see just the sort of caliber these mods are.
Now, obviously those are a small fraction of the changed NPCs in the game; but it should give you an idea of the skill of the mod-makers.
As I said, these definitely won't be for everyone - as they're more than a tish anime-inspired. Then again, considering the comment-conversation that broke out a few posts down from this one, I'd say many of us are hiding more than a bit of powerlevel, and probably wouldn't consider the inspiration to be a bad thing.
Even if it isn't your bag, tell me that isn't an improvement and a half? I mean, Goddamn; they actually look good. Not "well, I guess this doesn't suck as bad anymore..." that you get from most beauty mods, but actual good.
Now, if you are planning to make this here drastic change to your Oblivion install, do yourself a favor, and go ahead and edit your Oblivion.ini file. bFaceGenTexturing= needs to be 0, where it is 1 by default. This is important; otherwise you get the splotchy, crappy face textures. The number one complaint of people who try to run these mods is that they don't come out looking right because the downloader didn't pay attention when told to make that ini mod. It helps that much, yes.
I showed off a screenshot of my Aribeth companion as an example of what the mods did to the High Elf race.
This morning, I happened to get in some more play, and started taking note of what it had done to default game characters. Took a few screenshots; thought folks on the fence might be interested to see just the sort of caliber these mods are.
Now, obviously those are a small fraction of the changed NPCs in the game; but it should give you an idea of the skill of the mod-makers.
As I said, these definitely won't be for everyone - as they're more than a tish anime-inspired. Then again, considering the comment-conversation that broke out a few posts down from this one, I'd say many of us are hiding more than a bit of powerlevel, and probably wouldn't consider the inspiration to be a bad thing.
Even if it isn't your bag, tell me that isn't an improvement and a half? I mean, Goddamn; they actually look good. Not "well, I guess this doesn't suck as bad anymore..." that you get from most beauty mods, but actual good.
Now, if you are planning to make this here drastic change to your Oblivion install, do yourself a favor, and go ahead and edit your Oblivion.ini file. bFaceGenTexturing= needs to be 0, where it is 1 by default. This is important; otherwise you get the splotchy, crappy face textures. The number one complaint of people who try to run these mods is that they don't come out looking right because the downloader didn't pay attention when told to make that ini mod. It helps that much, yes.
The GECK Powerup
Modders of Fallout: New Vegas have run into special issues that previous iterations of the construction set didn't have. Those primarily being error reporting. For whatever reason, Obsidian doesn't see fit to enable such things; so if a script fails to compile, it doesn't tell you as much - it simply refuses to save.
We got out around this for months with a utility called the GECK Powerup, or simply GECK-PU. It reenabled the error reporting, fixed some crashes and stability issues, and was an all-round improvement.
Well, we lost the powerup in the transition to GECK v1.3; and still Obsidian couldn't be bothered to enable even error reporting to tell us why the script failed to parse.
I lamented loudly the other day the loss of this utility, as it made the NV-GECK infinitely more bearable to mod with.
Apparently, someone was listening. This morning, there was a new file uploaded to the NVNexus, The GECK 1 3 PowerUp for Fallout New Vegas. If you're a modder for NV, I highly recommend picking it up. I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but I'm not expecting much in the way of issues.
We got out around this for months with a utility called the GECK Powerup, or simply GECK-PU. It reenabled the error reporting, fixed some crashes and stability issues, and was an all-round improvement.
Well, we lost the powerup in the transition to GECK v1.3; and still Obsidian couldn't be bothered to enable even error reporting to tell us why the script failed to parse.
I lamented loudly the other day the loss of this utility, as it made the NV-GECK infinitely more bearable to mod with.
Apparently, someone was listening. This morning, there was a new file uploaded to the NVNexus, The GECK 1 3 PowerUp for Fallout New Vegas. If you're a modder for NV, I highly recommend picking it up. I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but I'm not expecting much in the way of issues.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Why Me?
I mentioned in the last post getting the rest of the cosplay code written; based on the one completed section for the NCR that I had tested and found to work correctly.
Well, before I got a chance to test it, things happened that resulted in my not getting to sleep (at all), leaving town, and then later being set upon by a feral succubus...
Anyway; the end result was that I crashed out at 2200, and never got to fire the game up again, until this morning.
Which I just did, only to find that the fucking script - that parses fine, remember - doesn't run anymore. No sneaking, no draw/holster behavior, no cosplay messages.
Son of a bitch.
I've run the script through the validator three times now to no errors.
So, either there's something in there that the new iteration of the engine doesn't like, but isn't causing an actual error; or something got its wired crossed in my savegame again.
First order of business will of course be cleaning said save; but if that doesn't fix it, I'm not sure how to save this feature. I might be able to rig it up in run in a quest script instead of the companion script... but I don't know.
See, this is why I don't announce new features three-quarters of the time anymore - the stuff just stops working at random...
Edit:
Just cleaned save, and no dice. Looks like it is the script itself. Now I get to go block by block commenting out code until I find the one that lets it run again.
Edit the second:
On the up side, the XP-sharing code does work; and quite beautifully. So while I still have to rewrite the disguise stuff, there is at least that much going according to plan.
Well, before I got a chance to test it, things happened that resulted in my not getting to sleep (at all), leaving town, and then later being set upon by a feral succubus...
Anyway; the end result was that I crashed out at 2200, and never got to fire the game up again, until this morning.
Which I just did, only to find that the fucking script - that parses fine, remember - doesn't run anymore. No sneaking, no draw/holster behavior, no cosplay messages.
Son of a bitch.
I've run the script through the validator three times now to no errors.
So, either there's something in there that the new iteration of the engine doesn't like, but isn't causing an actual error; or something got its wired crossed in my savegame again.
First order of business will of course be cleaning said save; but if that doesn't fix it, I'm not sure how to save this feature. I might be able to rig it up in run in a quest script instead of the companion script... but I don't know.
See, this is why I don't announce new features three-quarters of the time anymore - the stuff just stops working at random...
Edit:
Just cleaned save, and no dice. Looks like it is the script itself. Now I get to go block by block commenting out code until I find the one that lets it run again.
Edit the second:
On the up side, the XP-sharing code does work; and quite beautifully. So while I still have to rewrite the disguise stuff, there is at least that much going according to plan.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Fallout NV - Companion Evolution
You guys might have noticed I'm Johnny-on-the-spot with replying to comments this morning. That's because I'm sitting right here.
Having been inspired, I've been scripting on a new prototype script for my personal companions. Assuming the revisions work out, most will make it into NCCS shortly thereafter.
How big of revisions are we talking about?
The script when I started was 155 lines. I just closed the NVGECK, and the new script sits at a whopping 529 lines. I more than tripled the size.
Assuming I wrote it correctly, the companions will now share XP with the player without the wheel being activated; will be able to be "disguised" by wearing certain factions armor or other outfits; and will keep track of your target to remove themselves from said faction should a fight break out - so that they won't hesitate to engage members of the faction they're cosplaying as, should one take a shot at you or things otherwise go to hell.
Must still have it, since I only had to look up two functions during the whole mess. Would've only been one; but I'm not used to using GetCombatTarget and was declaring the reference on the wrong end. I wish they'd pick a format for these things...
Anyway. Testing to begin soon; will let you know how it goes.
Edit:
Well, it took some doing. The first block of code I used caused an infinite loop of messages. The second block wouldn't parse (stupid GECK). Third time's the charm, though:
Equipped and unequipped multiple times, tried alternate armors, all worked correctly.
I do wish Obsidian had spent as much time bug-testing the game as they did fellating California. There are five factions I saw going through the GECK that the player (and now companions) can cosplay as: Brotherhood of Steel, Caesar's Legion, Great Khans, NCR, and Powder Gangers.
BoS, Legion, Khans, and Gangers all put together have seventeen outfits that disguise the player.
The NCR, by itself, has fourteen.
Also: error reporting for the script editor in the "new" NVGECK? Yeah, they still couldn't be bothered to enable it. I do just love yelling at the monitor: "WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG NOW?!"
I end up having to use Cipcis' script validator tool. It would be really nice if the author of the GECK powerup would poof back into existence, and give us a new version. I don't mean that sarcastically or condescendingly either - it really would be nice. That thing was a lifesaver when it was still compatible.
Anyhow, the new disguising seems to work; but won't be able to report companions by name, so you'll have to keep track of who's wearing what, yourself.
Having been inspired, I've been scripting on a new prototype script for my personal companions. Assuming the revisions work out, most will make it into NCCS shortly thereafter.
How big of revisions are we talking about?
The script when I started was 155 lines. I just closed the NVGECK, and the new script sits at a whopping 529 lines. I more than tripled the size.
Assuming I wrote it correctly, the companions will now share XP with the player without the wheel being activated; will be able to be "disguised" by wearing certain factions armor or other outfits; and will keep track of your target to remove themselves from said faction should a fight break out - so that they won't hesitate to engage members of the faction they're cosplaying as, should one take a shot at you or things otherwise go to hell.
Must still have it, since I only had to look up two functions during the whole mess. Would've only been one; but I'm not used to using GetCombatTarget and was declaring the reference on the wrong end. I wish they'd pick a format for these things...
Anyway. Testing to begin soon; will let you know how it goes.
Edit:
Well, it took some doing. The first block of code I used caused an infinite loop of messages. The second block wouldn't parse (stupid GECK). Third time's the charm, though:
Equipped and unequipped multiple times, tried alternate armors, all worked correctly.
I do wish Obsidian had spent as much time bug-testing the game as they did fellating California. There are five factions I saw going through the GECK that the player (and now companions) can cosplay as: Brotherhood of Steel, Caesar's Legion, Great Khans, NCR, and Powder Gangers.
BoS, Legion, Khans, and Gangers all put together have seventeen outfits that disguise the player.
The NCR, by itself, has fourteen.
Also: error reporting for the script editor in the "new" NVGECK? Yeah, they still couldn't be bothered to enable it. I do just love yelling at the monitor: "WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG NOW?!"
I end up having to use Cipcis' script validator tool. It would be really nice if the author of the GECK powerup would poof back into existence, and give us a new version. I don't mean that sarcastically or condescendingly either - it really would be nice. That thing was a lifesaver when it was still compatible.
Anyhow, the new disguising seems to work; but won't be able to report companions by name, so you'll have to keep track of who's wearing what, yourself.
Fallout NV - Roadblocks and Frustration
As long-time readers of the modding blog here will remember, I've been toying with a "NosCo HQ" on and off for well over a year now. A house mod of my own; something made to my own specs. I've come to like Vault 1... but a steel lined hole in the ground just isn't me. Maybe I'm not as much of a redneck survivalist as I'm accused of being?
Anyway, the first draft as it were of this concept was Nos' Tower; which of course I never finished because of massive texture issues (that'll teach me to try to create my own).
I still like the idea of a tower. Yes, it's not as survivable as a bunker; but what are we? Moles? Are we politicians; running away to hide underground every time the wind blows? No! We raise an army, and defend our damned keep...
*ahem* Sorry. Going downright medieval there, wasn't I?
I always liked Tenpenny in that respect, but didn't like its lack of real windows. So, you can imagine my unfettered joy the first time I stepped into the Lucky 38 Penthouse, and looked out the windows onto the wasteland. Very cool.
It still is very cool. I was in there again this morning, around sunset game-time. After talking to House (and as an aside, they missed a golden opportunity there. Mister House could have been a sarcastic ass voiced by Hugh Laurie. Don't get me wrong, Renee did a great job, but come on...) I stepped over to the window and looked out, and was reminded how bad I wanted a penthouse cell of my own.
Now, SOP for creating such things is just to copy. Copy the world space, copy the cell; rename it all so there are no conflicts and change the interior to suit yourself. This approach is frowned upon by some "serious" modders - and a great deal of self-styled critics - but it is nonetheless the most time and effort-efficient method; especially for one's first go at a new type of cell.
Following that train of thought, the first time the idea occurred to me to have a penthouse with a view, I set about copying the worldspace. Keeeeeeee-rash.
So instead, I tried loading the cell to potentially copy it after creating a worldspace of my own.
Crash again.
Much profanity ensued, as anyone who's read my blog for more than a week will doubtless have expected. Shortly thereafter, my interest in FONV waned due mostly to unrelated issues, and the idea was shelved.
Being as I seem to be in a Vegas mood here lately, I decided to try again this morning, after taking in the view from House's suite. This, I think, can not happen again. FNV and the GECK are different versions, installed clean on a new hard drive, and I'm loading them in a different plugin.
Hoo-boy, was I wrong. I still get a crash any time I try to interact with the Lucky 38 worldspace in any way. Can't load it, can't duplicate it; nada.
This strikes me as exceedingly odd, as I broached the subject with my ever-stalwart partner Miss Herculine, once before, and she said she could load the worldspace without issue. So, apparently my GECK just hates me. Story of my life.
Just tried copying the world space to a new plugin in TESSnip. Ate so much system resources that I ended up have to hard-boot my computer to get control back. Thank the universe for Blogger's auto-saving of posts to draft status.
Am beginning to think I'm not meant to have a tower with a view.
Anyway, the first draft as it were of this concept was Nos' Tower; which of course I never finished because of massive texture issues (that'll teach me to try to create my own).
I still like the idea of a tower. Yes, it's not as survivable as a bunker; but what are we? Moles? Are we politicians; running away to hide underground every time the wind blows? No! We raise an army, and defend our damned keep...
*ahem* Sorry. Going downright medieval there, wasn't I?
I always liked Tenpenny in that respect, but didn't like its lack of real windows. So, you can imagine my unfettered joy the first time I stepped into the Lucky 38 Penthouse, and looked out the windows onto the wasteland. Very cool.
It still is very cool. I was in there again this morning, around sunset game-time. After talking to House (and as an aside, they missed a golden opportunity there. Mister House could have been a sarcastic ass voiced by Hugh Laurie. Don't get me wrong, Renee did a great job, but come on...) I stepped over to the window and looked out, and was reminded how bad I wanted a penthouse cell of my own.
Now, SOP for creating such things is just to copy. Copy the world space, copy the cell; rename it all so there are no conflicts and change the interior to suit yourself. This approach is frowned upon by some "serious" modders - and a great deal of self-styled critics - but it is nonetheless the most time and effort-efficient method; especially for one's first go at a new type of cell.
Following that train of thought, the first time the idea occurred to me to have a penthouse with a view, I set about copying the worldspace. Keeeeeeee-rash.
So instead, I tried loading the cell to potentially copy it after creating a worldspace of my own.
Crash again.
Much profanity ensued, as anyone who's read my blog for more than a week will doubtless have expected. Shortly thereafter, my interest in FONV waned due mostly to unrelated issues, and the idea was shelved.
Being as I seem to be in a Vegas mood here lately, I decided to try again this morning, after taking in the view from House's suite. This, I think, can not happen again. FNV and the GECK are different versions, installed clean on a new hard drive, and I'm loading them in a different plugin.
Hoo-boy, was I wrong. I still get a crash any time I try to interact with the Lucky 38 worldspace in any way. Can't load it, can't duplicate it; nada.
This strikes me as exceedingly odd, as I broached the subject with my ever-stalwart partner Miss Herculine, once before, and she said she could load the worldspace without issue. So, apparently my GECK just hates me. Story of my life.
Just tried copying the world space to a new plugin in TESSnip. Ate so much system resources that I ended up have to hard-boot my computer to get control back. Thank the universe for Blogger's auto-saving of posts to draft status.
Am beginning to think I'm not meant to have a tower with a view.
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