Paatru Race - Progress Thread

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I hope you're getting there, KP. It sounds a really arduous process. Keep up the hard work....

[Koniption]

@ IG - I'll keep trucking along. It goes slow, because of my job, though.

Minor Update (though took me about three days to figure out this issue):

The *"Eye" Can't See you* Issue (resolved) -

I finally got the Paatru eyes and tongue to show up in CS and ingame. Prior, they showed up in the "Face" close-ups in the render window, but not in the whole body preview of the render window and not in game.

I finally figured out, that you have to skin the eyes & tongue to the "Bip01 P Head" bone, then export each eye, & the tongue, separately. You then enter them in their respective slots in the Race creation window.

I had originally tried to do it the way Bethesda did it, without any skinning for them. But it didn't work. It is probably because the game automatically attaches anything in the eyes and tongue slots, to the vanilla "Bip01 Head" bone, even though those nifs don't use skinning nor NiStringExtraData "Prn" attachment blocks. But since my Paatru does not use the vanilla head bone for the head and eyes/tongue, the engine did not render them.

But skinning to the "Bip01 P Head" node should still let morphs work for the eyes and the tongue, since the "head" nif already works in similar fashion by having both skinning data and morph data.

Almost Ready to Send Paatru Files to IG (this weekend, hopefully) -
I'm almost ready to send Ibsen the preliminary "Paatru" race files. I will try to get the files and esp consolidated this weekend. They'll be able to walk and swim around, only. And yes, you can talk to them..there just is no facial animations yet.

No exaggerated head/upper body scanning motion suffered -
I found out, that with my custom Paatru skeleton setup, that the Paatru does not suffer from that "exaggerated looking/scanning" motion that comes with inserting "Scaler" bones inbetween bones in the vanilla skeleton. I know that this is because of my renamed bones for the Paatru. I know TheTalkieToaster was having issues with the exaggerated head/upper body motion with his version of the vanilla skeleton where he inserts such Scaler bones. But then again, the Paatru do not turn their head to look at stuff, like vanilla NPCs do (this is still realistic, since the Paatru have a wide spectrum of vision due to their "side-mounted" eyes). The Paatru will turn towards you, though, if you get close enough, and will face you to talk to you. So I guess it's all good.

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Sounds awesome! :goodjob:

So will the prelim files be okay to use for setting AIs, only without the correct anims and so on...?

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
Sounds awesome! :goodjob:

So will the prelim files be okay to use for setting AIs, only without the correct anims and so on...?

Yes, it *should* work ok.

Without the sleeping animations, if the Paatru AI says it's time to sleep, the Paatru will walk towards the bed, and then should just stand there (as he keeps trying to activate the bed).

Notice I said *should*. I have not tested the Paatru with a bed and sleeping AI yet, but without using the sleeping anims I have.

But the Paatru should behave like I mentioned, without sleep anims, based on previous observations with how the lack of other anim types make NPCs behave.

FYI, the Paatru will still be able to activate load doors, animated doors, and stuff like that. But they won't be able to animate to sit down in chairs (much like the bed thing). I know, cause I decided to attack a Paatru, and he ran from the docks, into the intro sewer area (went through a load door).

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Great news, KP! I can probably put a little of them in the new trailer. :yes:

Btw, I tried to enter a Sload creature in the CS again for testing recently (and to show off in the trailer) and it worked fine when I used Corthian's Sload 'suit' but it always appears to crash when I lower the NPC model in the render window. It seems like it crashes whenever I make a move that will show the head. Would you be able to set a Sload creature up in the CS so I can see how it's set up? Maybe I'm not noticing something.... ?(

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
Great news, KP! I can probably put a little of them in the new trailer. :yes:

Btw, I tried to enter a Sload creature in the CS again for testing recently (and to show off in the trailer) and it worked fine when I used Corthian's Sload 'suit' but it always appears to crash when I lower the NPC model in the render window. It seems like it crashes whenever I make a move that will show the head. Would you be able to set a Sload creature up in the CS so I can see how it's set up? Maybe I'm not noticing something.... ?(

Hi IG,

Yes, I can set up the sload for you in the CS.
Can it wait until after I've sent the Paatru to you?

The Paatru is so close to being done, it isn't even funny. I even have made a male Paatru bodice of sorts, with over-arm strap (primitive-like look). When I put that bodice in the Paatru's inventory, he equipped ok, and it shows up ingame ok.

I have the following left to do:

1) Test a naked Paatru in an interior cell, to see if he/she will pick up the bodice and equip it, if using an "Use Item At" AI package to use it. (I tried for long time getting a naked Paatru to pick up such item in exterior world, but they wouldn't do anything. I even tested with vanilla race in outside world, and nothing different happened. So I'm thinking it's an "interior-only" AI package..maybe.)

2) Do same as above except with vanilla clothing, to see if Paatru will unequip said "unfitting" garment, when try to equip it. (Using the Script that Andalybay sent me, made by fg109. Said script was hinted at originally in Bethesda OBSE thread, by ScruggsyWTF.).

3) If the Paatru does not unequip the garment properly, in step #2 above, then it might be that what I read recently on the OBSE documentation, is true:

"Be aware that event handler scripts are invoked at the moment the event is registered by the game. For example, an OnEquip handler is invoked when an actor decides to equip an item, but before the item is actually equipped, which means that trying to unequip the item from within the handler will fail."

http://obse.silverlock.org/obse_command_doc.html#Events

I need to get with Andalaybay on this issue.

4) Figure out why using a similar, yet opposite Function Script and Event Handler won't keep the non-Paatru player from equipping Paatru clothes. The player can still equip the clothes, but the body parts in question, disappear. Luckily, that's all that happens. (See #3 above; is related to this issue)

5) Test to see if non-player vanilla actors will unequip the Paatru clothes, too. (See # 3 above, is related)

6) Clean the esp with Tes4Edit or somesuch program.

7) Send the files to you.
-----------------------------------
It might be a couple more days, depending.

Koniption

[AndalayBay]

Originally posted by Koniption

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
Great news, KP! I can probably put a little of them in the new trailer. :yes:

Btw, I tried to enter a Sload creature in the CS again for testing recently (and to show off in the trailer) and it worked fine when I used Corthian's Sload 'suit' but it always appears to crash when I lower the NPC model in the render window. It seems like it crashes whenever I make a move that will show the head. Would you be able to set a Sload creature up in the CS so I can see how it's set up? Maybe I'm not noticing something.... ?(

Hi IG,

Yes, I can set up the sload for you in the CS.
Can it wait until after I've sent the Paatru to you?

The Paatru is so close to being done, it isn't even funny. I even have made a male Paatru bodice of sorts, with over-arm strap (primitive-like look). When I put that bodice in the Paatru's inventory, he equipped ok, and it shows up ingame ok.

I have the following left to do:

1) Test a naked Paatru in an interior cell, to see if he/she will pick up the bodice and equip it, if using an "Use Item At" AI package to use it. (I tried for long time getting a naked Paatru to pick up such item in exterior world, but they wouldn't do anything. I even tested with vanilla race in outside world, and nothing different happened. So I'm thinking it's an "interior-only" AI package..maybe.)

2) Do same as above except with vanilla clothing, to see if Paatru will unequip said "unfitting" garment, when try to equip it. (Using the Script that Andalybay sent me, made by fg109. Said script was hinted at originally in Bethesda OBSE thread, by ScruggsyWTF.).

3) If the Paatru does not unequip the garment properly, in step #2 above, then it might be that what I read recently on the OBSE documentation, is true:

...snipped...

Koniption

Yeah, I don't think use item at will do it for you. I'd try a Find package. He'll find the item and pick it up. Then you could code a regular onAdd or onActivate and get him to equip the item - no OBSE required. The behaviour of some of the packages is a little odd. My favourite is getting an NPC to check a container or put something in a container. Believe it or not, the package you want is an Escort package! Basically the NPC escorts the item to the container. Find will work if there is a target item in the container already.

The tricky part is getting him to equip the item. The script fg created won't kick until he attempts to equip the item.

Why are you having him run around equipping stuff anyway? Wouldn't you just give him the clothes in his inventory already? Coming in late in the game here, so I don't know the backstory...

[Koniption]

Originally posted by AndalayBay
Why are you having him run around equipping stuff anyway? Wouldn't you just give him the clothes in his inventory already? Coming in late in the game here, so I don't know the backstory...

So that I can test to see if fg's script works...:

http://obse.silverlock.org/obse_command_doc.html#Events

At above linky, it says -
"Be aware that event handler scripts are invoked at the moment the event is registered by the game. For example, an OnEquip handler is invoked when an actor decides to equip an item, but before the item is actually equipped, which means that trying to unequip the item from within the handler will fail."

Koniption

[AndalayBay]

Ok, I can talk to fg, but I'm not sure you need his event handler anyway. Why do you think these guys will be trying to equip non-Paatru items?

To test his event handler, you just need a little script that will instruct them to equip an item. Stick a regular clothing item in his inventory. Plop him down in the testing cell. Create a quest that when invoked will attempt to equip the item, and voila, success or failure. I can set that up for you if you want.

[Koniption]

Originally posted by AndalayBay
Ok, I can talk to fg, but I'm not sure you need his event handler anyway. Why do you think these guys will be trying to equip non-Paatru items?

To test his event handler, you just need a little script that will instruct them to equip an item. Stick a regular clothing item in his inventory. Plop him down in the testing cell. Create a quest that when invoked will attempt to equip the item, and voila, success or failure. I can set that up for you if you want.

The reason I don't want the Paatru to equip vanilla race clothes, is because the Paatru has the vanilla skeleton bones. This means the Paatru can equip vanilla clothes, have their status benefits (if armor, etc), yet these articles will be invisible on the Paatru (because I scaled the vanilla Pelvis bone to zero). If the Paatru wears something, I want it to be visible. It'd be kind of weird to loot a Paatru and find human-sized clothes in it's inventory.

I guess the bigger problem, is preventing the vanilla player and vanilla NPCs from equipping Paatru-only clothes/armor. If they equip Paatru clothes, parts of their body will turn invisible (just the body part "slot(s)" that the clothes take up).

Yeah, if you can make a script/quest for equipping an item, that'd be peachy.

Thanks,
Koniption