General discussions — Ask any question !

[Tirloque]

There are some questions every story creator may wonder about. Before the club, asking a more experienced author was the way to go. But now, as a community, we have the possibility to share both questions and answers among us.

 

So here we go, feel free to ask questions, and feel free to answer as well !

 

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For all practical purposes, a quick list of the questions previously asked :

• Change an already modded NPC hair/eyes/etc. without touching the CK.
• Fast or slow publishing rates.
• Image hosting sites.
• Moans and screams : the onomatopoeia question.
• Playthrough stories, is it a good idea ? Pro & cons.
• Warnings and disclaimers.
• When will Malicia romance with Caramel ?
• Which text to image ratio should I choose ?

 

[Tirloque]

I take the liberty of starting with Drunna, I hope you don't mind !

Quote

Hey guys

 

-I was curious, would people prefer if I released my next chapter all at once which takes longer .....or smaller but meaty parts  and released more frequently?

 

-Also, I asked in Discord but if I change my blog title to Dark Ascension, will that change everyone’s links/notification feed?

1 - The shorter the entry, the faster your publishing rate gets, the quicker you'll get followers. But the shorter the entry, the less satisfying it can be (less likes for the entry, less satisfaction for you). My advice would be to maintain a certain coherence as a whole within each entry (enough events to be considered as a small chapter). And it's better to have it feature key elements regularly (twists, humor, action, plot, adult content). If you can maintain that, reducing the size of your entries is entirely up to you.

In your case I think you could reduce your entries by 33% while still retaining as much key elements as you do in your large ones. Yet as a reader, I appreciate the length of your entries. Reducing more could affect the amount of key elements per entry, so some readers could be less satisfied, while others more (those lacking time do appreciate shorter entries, Prince for example). Once again, it's up to you. ?

 

2 - Changing a blog's name will indeed break the links gathered toward all the entries (as it is used for the blogs' url). Now only a select few people (just like some librarians ) do keep links towards blogs. However I don't think it would affect your followers notifications in any way.

 

[Jay-Omms]

Here's one question. What's a good image hosting site? I'm sure this probably has been answered before but for the sake of this discussion I will go ahead and ask away.  

[Crw0]

3 minutes ago, Jayomms said:

Here's one question. What's a good image hosting site? I'm sure this probably has been answered before but for the sake of this discussion I will go ahead and ask away.  

I think everyone has their own preferences here, but personally I use  https://imgbb.com/  So far, it did not let me down, besides, quite comfortable in terms of navigation.

[Jay-Omms]

30 minutes ago, Crw said:

I think everyone has their own preferences here, but personally I use  https://imgbb.com/  So far, it did not let me down, besides, quite comfortable in terms of navigation.

Hmm... I think I'll use this one. Time to get to work. THANX 

[Tirloque]

56 minutes ago, Jayomms said:

Here's one question. What's a good image hosting site? I'm sure this probably has been answered before but for the sake of this discussion I will go ahead and ask away.  

There are three main ones, on the top of which should be added FlickR (but free accounts are limited). You'll find the complete list in this tutorial, third spoiler.

[Jay-Omms]

38 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

There are three main ones, on the top of which should be added FlickR (but free accounts are limited). You'll find the complete list in this tutorial, third spoiler.

Seems I have accounts with those ones mentioned already way before storytellers was created. Guess I never bothered to keep track. Well now I know. 

[Agent Tex]

I forgot about this group, nice to know its around.

[Tirloque]

7 hours ago, Agent Tex said:

I forgot about this group

7 hours ago, Agent Tex said:

 nice to know its around.

 

Also, don't forget you've got a story-post in the club's story category. Warn me when you'll feel like reviving it.

 

[Resdayn]

When will Malicia romance with Caramel?

[Tirloque]

2 hours ago, Resdayn said:

When will Malicia romance with Caramel?

I asked her, she answered something like "When Resdayn will get done in the poo-poo by the whole Moo-Moo farm, yes".

 

 

 

 

[Irstina]

So in case anyone more clever than me is still reading this, here's a question!

 

I've gotten relatively decent at making custom poses nowadays, but I realized that in a future chapter, I'm going to have a character who uses a bow, and ehhm.. I have no idea how to make a pose where the bowstring is being pulled back, not to mention actually having an arrow on it!

 

Anyone know how I could do that?

 

Oh, and I'm totally uploading a new thing soon(TM), I've just had a break

[Tirloque]

9 hours ago, Irstina said:

So in case anyone more clever than me is still reading this, here's a question!

 

I've gotten relatively decent at making custom poses nowadays, but I realized that in a future chapter, I'm going to have a character who uses a bow, and ehhm.. I have no idea how to make a pose where the bowstring is being pulled back, not to mention actually having an arrow on it!

 

Anyone know how I could do that?

Dunno if I'm more clever but I'm still reading indeed. ^^

 

You'll find some tips about combat shots in Ther1pper's excellent tutorial here. In fact you don't need poses to do that : just spawn a rat (placeatme + rat ID), tai him and adjust his height and placement with Jaxonz. Your characters (NPCS and follower) will automatically aim at him provided they'd normally use a bow in combat. Then it's just a matter of freezing the action at the right moment (tfc 1), and (screen)shooting. ?

9 hours ago, Irstina said:

Oh, and I'm totally uploading a new thing soon(TM), I've just had a break

Great news !

[Irstina]

4 hours ago, Tirloque said:

Dunno if I'm more clever but I'm still reading indeed. ^^

 

You'll find some tips about combat shots in Ther1pper's excellent tutorial here. In fact you don't need poses to do that : just spawn a rat (placeatme + rat ID), tai him and adjust his height and placement with Jaxonz. Your characters (NPCS and follower) will automatically aim at him provided they'd normally use a bow in combat. Then it's just a matter of freezing the action at the right moment (tfc 1), and (screen)shooting. ?

I know about that and will be using it later, it's not necessary in this case since the character I'm controlling will be the one doing archery stuff. The problem is, Bethesda, in their wisdom, only really have one animation for firing a bow, and that just won't do. I would like to create some poses of my own with a bow. It's been all well and good making poses for moving around, interacting with/touching other characters and I've even gotten better at weapon posing, but bows remain rather mysterious.

 

So I'm just wondering how much more difficult it would be to weapon pose with a bow, if I'm supposed to use some different tools or such or where I could read about it!

 

Also, here's a bonus question: I may need some fires in a future chapter. Is there any easy way to spawn fires on the ground/on buildings/etc (like the ones in Helgen, for instance) without getting the Creation Kit involved? Like could I get the ID for those statics and spawn them with the console then move them with Jaxonz or something?

[Tirloque]

14 minutes ago, Irstina said:

I know about that and will be using it later, it's not necessary in this case since the character I'm controlling will be the one doing archery stuff. The problem is, Bethesda, in their wisdom, only really have one animation for firing a bow, and that just won't do. I would like to create some poses of my own with a bow. It's been all well and good making poses for moving around, interacting with/touching other characters and I've even gotten better at weapon posing, but bows remain rather mysterious.

 

So I'm just wondering how much more difficult it would be to weapon pose with a bow, if I'm supposed to use some different tools or such or where I could read about it!

With the main character ? Then it's even easier, you've got some poses here and there in common posers (such as Gomapero poses 2 & 3).

 

 

I suppose if I was in your situation I'd just spawn an arrow -> jaxonz it in position, and then alternate between poses and regular firing animations. I'm not too fond of those instrumental poses however, as they don't leave you a choice regarding the bow.

Alternatively, just download alternate combat animation packs, there are plenty of those on the nexus.

 

If you still want to create your poses (the screen above is evidence it's possible), then I'd suggest going around Collygon's tutorial topik, he's the club's scholar about those.

14 minutes ago, Irstina said:

Also, here's a bonus question: I may need some fires in a future chapter. Is there any easy way to spawn fires on the ground/on buildings/etc (like the ones in Helgen, for instance) without getting the Creation Kit involved? Like could I get the ID for those statics and spawn them with the console then move them with Jaxonz or something? 

It it's a movable object, you can spawn it. Fires and destroyed buildings aren't movable AFAIK, so you may have to get your hands dirty with the creation kit indeed. ?

 

[Irstina]

1 hour ago, Tirloque said:

With the main character ? Then it's even easier, you've got some poses here and there in common posers (such as Gomapero poses 2 & 3).

 

 

 

 

Ya! That's what I'm looking for! I did read Collygon's tutorial, that's where I learned to pose, now stuff like 55, 56 and 57 wouldn't be a problem, I know how to do that, but what I was wondering about is like 58, where the bow's string is being pulled. The tutorial doesn't talk about that., I guess cos it's like a really specific thing most sane people don't bother with ?

[Tirloque]

4 hours ago, Irstina said:

Ya!

Ja, ja.

Spoiler

4 hours ago, Irstina said:

Ya! That's what I'm looking for! I did read Collygon's tutorial, that's where I learned to pose, now stuff like 55, 56 and 57 wouldn't be a problem, I know how to do that, but what I was wondering about is like 58, where the bow's string is being pulled. The tutorial doesn't talk about that., I guess cos it's like a really specific thing most sane people don't bother with ?

Well that's because there are hella ton of poses already in the main posing mods. Just browsing them is a chore. You could also check Halo pose mods, and Collygon's also feature some combat poses.

 

Anyway, I don't know about the bows strings. One more proof of my ignorance !

 

[Irstina]

17 hours ago, Tirloque said:

 

Well that's because there are hella ton of poses already in the main posing mods. Just browsing them is a chore. You could also check Halo pose mods, and Collygon's also feature some combat poses.

 

Anyway, I don't know about the bows strings. One more proof of my ignorance !

 

True! But you'd be surprised how many relatively simple poses I couldn't find!

 

For instance, I wanted these elves to hold their shields up against their chests:

 

Or I want two characters to interact in some very specific way:

 

 

So I have to make most of the poses myself, even if I think they look a bit dodgy sometimes

 

Anyway, that's enough spoilers for next chapter - I'll figure something out for those pesky bows too~

[Alter Native]

On 7/6/2019 at 1:41 PM, Irstina said:

True! But you'd be surprised how many relatively simple poses I couldn't find!

 

For instance, I wanted these elves to hold their shields up against their chests:

 

Or I want two characters to interact in some very specific way:

 

 

So I have to make most of the poses myself, even if I think they look a bit dodgy sometimes

 

Anyway, that's enough spoilers for next chapter - I'll figure something out for those pesky bows too~

 

Sorry I'm a bit late, but for situations like this NiOverride Pose Adjustment is excellent. Which allows you to move individual bones of your character or a NPC. There is no need to create custom poses in most cases. You just pick a pose that's more or less what you want and make adjustments. 

So you could for example do the shoulder pat pose by modifying one of Halos poses ingame. 

 

[Tirloque]

Warnings & disclaimers

 

On 7/29/2019 at 12:48 PM, Rattlesnark said:

I don't know if it's necessary, and I'm not speaking on my own behalf, but I wonder if a gory-content warning would be appropriate to warn the more queasy folk! (of the severed arm). Though I realize that a moderate amount of gore has been part of this story since the beginning...

On 7/29/2019 at 4:00 PM, Alter Native said:

 I'm interested in more opinions on that topic. Let me know what you think about that. Should I put some warnings if needed?

*

 

This is something we see from time to time in the blogs section ; and as there had been no real discussion about it so far, it was suggested to do sum it up in a visible place, and I took the liberty of quoting the two sides of the question. Should an author issue a warning before featuring sexual, or violent content ?

 

I think it is useful to recall some facts before addressing it :

• First, upon login-in on Loverslab, there is already a warning about adult only content, and the viewer must answer he's 18+ years old to enter the site.
• Second, LL's rules : 
  • Forbids any explicit reference to sexual acts or nudity involving subjects appearing like underage. Those could be assimilated to pedophilia, and are thus strictly forbidden, warning or not.
  • On the contrary, that means that any kind of content involving subjects looking as being of age (18+) is allowed : sex, violence, BSDM, zoophilia, scatology, anything crosses your mind is allowed in the imaginary realm that are your stories.

 

As a consequence, I personally think that warnings regarding common types of sexual content are redundant, and look more as a disguised clickbaits than real information. Adding a /!\WARNING - THE MAIN CHARACTER IS GOING TO GET LAID/!\ isn't useful and essentially spoils the reader. Same for moderate degrees of violence.

 

Now, every blog is different, and do feature mostly certain kind of content (which is way some users do follow then in the first place). And so, if one entry contained types of content significantly unusual for the blog, that may surprise readers used to way different content, it could then be useful to warn them about it.

 

— For example, some stories (such as The Misadventures of Kiki) are essentially lighthearted, an prosper mostly on humor, with some consensual sexual acts, and no violence at all. If the same author then issued an entry with a vampire sexually assaulting a victim, and then savagely tearing his/her throat to shreds with abundant visible blood, it'll be highly unusual/disturbing for the readers, and prior warning would be recommended.

— On the contrary, if we're in the case of a blog dealing at his core with violent bloody, and somewhat unwilling content (such as Dark Ascension) ; then readers will most probably already used to seeing violence, blood, and rapes. And so warning about non consensual content would be utterly useless at anything but disguised advertising.

 

 

*

Spoiler

 

/!\ Warning : this image got done with the assistance of M. Marsoric, Little shack, WINTERHOLD. /!\

Spoiler

/!\ she's very pretty, very intelligent, and very strong, yes.  /!\

 

 

[Resdayn]

I personally find them pointless in LL for stories, especially for warning story being 18+ ?, I usually let the reader get suprised and not put any kind of warning about my stories, even if the story is rather turn darker then intended.

 

Of course this gets more problematic for those who not take well certain subjects, they kinda get the short stick of my method. ?

 

But generally for LL, I not really want use any warning.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

I have a question for you Trilog. Will Malicija marry Stranger?

[Guest]

On 7/6/2019 at 1:41 PM, Irstina said:

 

So I have to make most of the poses myself, even if I think they look a bit dodgy sometimes

 

Anyway, that's enough spoilers for next chapter - I'll figure something out for those pesky bows too~

These are wonderful pictures Irstina. You are very talented. Too bad you do not have a blog and make stories. Love your work.

[Tirloque]

2 hours ago, Resdayn said:

I personally find them pointless in LL for stories, especially for warning story being 18+ ?, I usually let the reader get suprised and not put any kind of warning about my stories, even if the story is rather turn darker then intended.

 

Of course this gets more problematic for those who not take well certain subjects, they kinda get the short stick of my method. ?

 

But generally for LL, I not really want use any warning.

Well your stories could get rather dark since a long time ago, so readers wouldn't be too surprised to have entries depicting rather harsh events. And so you're right, it'll basically be something spoiling the reader before even reading the entry. 

1 hour ago, Elf Prince said:

These are wonderful pictures Irstina. You are very talented. Too bad you do not have a blog and make stories. Love your work.

You didn't see her stories ? You're in for a treat then, feast your eyes on this.

 

I'm hoping the fourth entry is still on the way.

2 hours ago, Elf Prince said:

I have a question for you Trilog. Will Malicija marry Stranger?

Knowing her, the answer is no.

 

Only one man would have the privilege of Malicija accepting such request. Only one threat to her army of lovers. And no, it's not Caramel.

 

 

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

Well your stories could get rather dark since a long time ago, so readers wouldn't be too surprised to have entries depicting rather harsh events. And so you're right, it'll basically be something spoiling the reader before even reading the entry. 

You didn't see her stories ? You're in for a treat then, feast your eyes on this.

 

I'm hoping the fourth entry is still on the way.

Knowing her, the answer is no.

 

Only one man would have the privilege of Malicija accepting such request. Only one threat to her army of lovers. And no, it's not Caramel.

 

 

Thanks for the link for Irstina's pictures. Awesome!

 

Malicija lives in delusion. Jon loves "that cow" in Whiterun. He will never marry Malicija. Stranger does. Dammit, unhappy love triangle.