Advice On Custom Races?

[KoolHndLuke]

I want to make some custom followers/work on a new character overhaul for the game. It looks like the best way to achieve this is creating custom races. What are some of the problems with custom races in Oblivion?

[movomo]

Some vanilla scripts expect vanilla races. These may matter if you're going to make a total conversion.

1. Valen Dreth at the starting jail cell - probably not a problem for you though as you're dealing with npcs
2. Boethia's quest where you defeat one warrior from each race - I think I had a problem with custom race pc long ago. I don't remember what mod fixed this (could be uop). In any case, probably not your thing to worry.
3. Hermaeus Mora's quest where you collect a soul from each race - This can be a problem for you

 

[KoolHndLuke]

I intend to leave the vanilla races as they are except for cosmetic changes. I was thinking more like ImperialA, ImperialB, etc. I have read some other ppl's topics where they report their custom race not showing in game. Is this just for the pc, or does it affect npcs as well? I also intend to add custom animations to some If I can.

[movomo]

I don't think I've heard of such a problem. But then I've never been much into prettying up my game.... anyways, as far as I'm aware, there's no known & confirmed bug that stops a custom race character from showing up. Hopefully other people will have some more to tell on this matter...

 

You can override animations for any individual (including the pc himself) pretty easily by modifying their record in CS. Some people will recommend using Blockhead for it... while nothing's wrong in using Blockhead, it's not like you need to use it. Blockhead is useful when you're replacing bulk - per race. Or when you simply must force that animation for some dude. The CS way is suited when you want to play nice (the animation changes are merged into Bashed Patch normally, and the users can override it if they wish. Blockhead ignores all esp changes.)

[KoolHndLuke]

2 hours ago, movomo said:

You can override animations for any individual (including the pc himself) pretty easily by modifying their record in CS. Some people will recommend using Blockhead for it... while nothing's wrong in using Blockhead, it's not like you need to use it. Blockhead is useful when you're replacing bulk - per race. Or when you simply must force that animation for some dude. The CS way is suited when you want to play nice (the animation changes are merged into Bashed Patch normally, and the users can override it if they wish. Blockhead ignores all esp changes.)

I looked in the CS and I'm not seeing how to change animations for weapons- which is what I want. The other stuff like making her dance or whatever is pretty easy to figure out. I have the animations for the spear, but I don't know how to add them without "replacing" shit like I see a lot of mods do. I was thinking of copying some existing animations, but whats tripping me up are the relations. Like what moves one animation to the next. Oh...and the conditions. Can I use any reference for a condition?

[movomo]

What you're seeing is (presumably) menu->Gameplay->Idle Animations... stuff. You change idle animations there, but not combat animations. To change combat animations, open up individual npc record such as Player(000007) and go to the Animation tab. I think it's pretty straightforward after that. You can just rename the anim files differently and assign them there. All npc-specific anim files need to be in the meshes\characters\_male\specialanims folder, not just _male.

 

https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Animation_Tab

 

[KoolHndLuke]

3 hours ago, movomo said:

What you're seeing is (presumably) menu->Gameplay->Idle Animations... stuff. You change idle animations there, but not combat animations. To change combat animations, open up individual npc record such as Player(000007) and go to the Animation tab. I think it's pretty straightforward after that. You can just rename the anim files differently and assign them there. All npc-specific anim files need to be in the meshes\characters\_male\specialanims folder, not just _male.

 

https://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Animation_Tab

 

Thanks! I'll name one of my children after you. 

[fejeena]

With NPCs / companions you do not have problems with the start quest ( that's the player )

Not sure if NPCs can follow when you go into Boethia's world. But That is a follower problem, if there is a door they can follow. If a Script moves the player to another world the NPc can not follow. ( in some Mod readmes they tell you leave companions at home )

And the is a Mod for companions and the Oblivion worlds ( e.g. Companions returns from Oblivion by Goofy999. Not shure if it is part of the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, I do not use it )

Because the door will destroyed when you take the Seal Stone.  The Mod teleports the companions to the player when he/she shuts the Oblivion portal.

 

And new race NPCs can have "talk" problems. Some dialogs are set to "GetIsPlayableRace"

Bethesda did it so that Dremora , GoldenSaint and Dark Seducer do not use Tamriel dialogs.

Best you add one Greeting dialog for your new race so you do not get "I have no Greetings" error. 

You create a Quest in you Mod, ( no stages. only "Start game enabled" )

Then you create greetings ( can be a simple "Hello" or "Hey") and condition "RetIsRace" your race ID

 

 

[KoolHndLuke]

A bit of info from Fore on changing animations-

 

"Bear in mind, that it's not enough to simply rename animations. That doesn't work, especially when you are in the specialanims folder.

What an animation does is depending on the AnimGroups. And these AnimGroups are HARDCODED. So if you rename a normal attack to make it a powerattack, this doesn't work. 

The animGroups can be changed with NifSkope in the kf's NiControllerSequence.

One specialty are the skillattacks. As you can see from the said article, skillattacks are NOT predefined animgroups. Here the engine looks at the kf's name. So only the name handtohandskill1attackpower.kf turns an attackpower into a skilled attackpower. 

However: this skill naming works in the _male folder. If this works in the specialanims is beyond me. The reason is that in the specialanims you can name the kfs whatever you like (like sexy_walk). The engine takes the purposes of the kf from the NiControllerSequence. And since there is no "Skill" attribute encrypted (Nif doesn't know that), I don't know if how the engin should know.

The effect with an animation playing although it doesn't exist anymore is something i THINK I have also experienced. I believe (but this is pure speculation based on my experience) that the current animation is stored in the save file, and if, after loading, the animation for the same animgroup it technically incorrect (e.g. due to bad renaming or manipulation), the engine will continue the stored sequence.

Edit: to get a list I recommend to extract the Meshes.bsa with BSA Commander. There are almost 350 3rd person only, too much to list here. And I think they all are (almost) self-explanatory, once you see the systematics behind it."

[movomo]

Yeah I heard that combat animations indeed act a bit weird. You can rename the kf file appropriately (like "onehandattackforwardpower_2.kf") and it will show up at the correct place in CS, but I don't know if it will actually work in game.

I didn't think about this problem as currently I don't have any special attacks overridden for the pc. My bad.. To do it correctly without messy scripts, you might need to use Blockhead I think. (talking off my head)

 

[KoolHndLuke]

46 minutes ago, movomo said:

Yeah I heard that combat animations indeed act a bit weird. You can rename the kf file appropriately (like "onehandattackforwardpower_2.kf") and it will show up at the correct place in CS, but I don't know if it will actually work in game.

I didn't think about this problem as currently I don't have any special attacks overridden for the pc. My bad.. To do it correctly without messy scripts, you might need to use Blockhead I think. (talking off my head)

 

I got Blockhead installed. I made a mistake with multiple masters this morning with the CS and trashed my plug-in. I've spent all morning rebuilding it. Now to test.