Animal Mansion 4??? (Dev Thread)

[tasairis]

3 hours ago, beanman2122 said:

Could you perhaps include a Multiple Followers Framework integration? It would be nice to allow for the choosing of which follower does the current job for you. I am trying to figure it out myself, (editing the code of animal mansion plus) but am having a bit of trouble finding a program that allows me to edit it.

 

You do know that this thread is for a completely new mod, right?

 

But while we're on the subject, I don't think I'll get it in time for 0.5.0 (so instead 0.5.x) but I do plan to support the player bringing one follower down with them and the client to the animal. And the quests are written for that, so like the follower can potentially get involved in what happens. What's not done is fiddling with followers: past experience says follower managers that have "catch-up" functions, where the follower is too far away so they get teleported to you, are a pain in the ass because even if I override the follower AI to stay behind, they might get forced back to the player's side. And then the AI takes over and walks them back upstairs. And then they get teleported again. And so on. (Although I'm not sure how they handle places like the DB Sanctuary that aren't supposed to have followers inside...)

Worst case would be coding in support for every follower manager, but I'm not going to do that. So I think will probably happen is the mod will try to keep the other followers sandboxing in the waiting room, and if the management mod does something else to get in the way then sorry.

[beanman2122]

15 hours ago, tasairis said:

 

You do know that this thread is for a completely new mod, right?

 

But while we're on the subject, I don't think I'll get it in time for 0.5.0 (so instead 0.5.x) but I do plan to support the player bringing one follower down with them and the client to the animal. And the quests are written for that, so like the follower can potentially get involved in what happens. What's not done is fiddling with followers: past experience says follower managers that have "catch-up" functions, where the follower is too far away so they get teleported to you, are a pain in the ass because even if I override the follower AI to stay behind, they might get forced back to the player's side. And then the AI takes over and walks them back upstairs. And then they get teleported again. And so on. (Although I'm not sure how they handle places like the DB Sanctuary that aren't supposed to have followers inside...)

Worst case would be coding in support for every follower manager, but I'm not going to do that. So I think will probably happen is the mod will try to keep the other followers sandboxing in the waiting room, and if the management mod does something else to get in the way then sorry.

Yes of course I know that this is for a separate mod, I was just wondering how difficult it would be to support multiple followers for it, sounds like it could be a real pain though. Just thought I could ask, maybe plant a seed or something.

[tasairis]

2 hours ago, beanman2122 said:

Yes of course I know that this is for a separate mod, I was just wondering how difficult it would be to support multiple followers for it, sounds like it could be a real pain though. Just thought I could ask, maybe plant a seed or something.

 

As long as you're only talking about this mod "using" one follower at a time, it doesn't matter how many you actually have in your entourage. Using more than one isn't any more difficult from the technical side but it is exponentially more work to try to actually do stuff with those followers. Like right now, running the basic client quest with just the client and the player creates 108 combinations of what can happen, but throw in a single follower and that becomes 960. Add a second follower and it becomes 5500 combinations. (Technically it's more than 108/960/5500 because of nuances but whatever.) Not saying that I have to do something special for every single one - it's more about the overall complexity resulting from adding more actors.

 

Of course that's just for the basic client quest, which is designed to be highly flexible so that I can get the most reuse out of it as I can: more flexibility means less repetitious boredom playing it means fewer quests needed to help alleviate accrued boredom. Other quests will be much less flexible/more prescriptive in how they work, and that means it's more feasible to do things like support a second follower.

 

Quick detour into how I'm planning to use followers. You choose one for general purposes, as in "hey, I'd like you to assist me with Mansion stuff as it comes up", and they'll automatically come with you when it comes time to do quest things. But each quest has its follower in its own right, so you could dismiss them from just that quest (they'll join you again for the next one) and grab a different follower for just that quest (they wouldn't join you for any others). For in-Mansion quests, I hope to keep any other followers you might have sandboxing in the waiting room.

 

So I don't mind supporting a second follower, where the first follower is "primary" and preferred for quests while the other is "secondary" and an additional and/or fallback follower if desired, but a quest would still have to specifically include support for two followers. I don't see a need for more than two followers.

[skyrim482]

Hey just checking in, whats left to do for the 0.5? Those follower mechanics your working towards bringing in seem nice. I really like the idea of being able to pick your own "help" at the mansion. Like maybe they dont do quests for you but you can ask followers to work at the mansion and entertain clients and parties with or without you. I would say 2 followers is plenty and this seems like a good replacement for the idea of JALA. You can still make it immersive. You and Theana talk about bringing in some help- You find a follower - convince them to come, maybe a demonstration- help them train with a few different creatures - now they are ready for clients- maybe they ask for help with bigger creatures later...

While followers are working the client system, If you are in the mansion, they might approach and say-  The client and I are going to this animal , do you want to help or watch? Gives you options to watch, hop in, take turns ect. Good way to bring in FFM creature threesomes on supported creatures.  Just my thoughts as always, cheers! 

[skyrim482]

Also I agree you shouldn't need more than 2 followers supported because Thaena is going to get her ass to work! Literally hopefully ?

[tasairis]

5 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

Hey just checking in, whats left to do for the 0.5?

 

A couple days ago I finished redoing how "the one client quest to rule them all" (supposed to save me effort in the long run) should actually be multiple individual quests (turned out I was totally wrong), which gave me an opportunity to write a lot more custom dialogue for the different animals - before it was more generic than that. Got a big chunk of those out of the way and will probably revisit the rest of the dialogue eventually.

 

Before that, I realized I had done something totally stupid with how it would start random quests for a client: made my own thing to manage what quests were available and how common/uncommon/rare they were. The stupid part was that Skyrim has this thing called the Story Manager and it already does exactly that. So I tore out a few files of code and deleted some stuff, then replaced it with Story Manager bits.

 

Anyway, what's left is some fuckery with what client quest options are available to happen. I had copied what was done with the main story quests (basically, "enable this dialogue and sequence of events if I have certain animations available") but I hadn't considered that different gender players, clients, followers, and animals makes that a pain. I then gave up on supporting female animals so I could cut the complexity in half, and will instead create special separate quests for that, which then made me start thinking about how much of female animals I actually want to support in the mod as a whole... But that aside, I'm double-checking that what I had now (re: genders and options) works, meaning that the quest won't actually try to do things that are impossible - such as attempt female-oriented animations when there aren't any female characters to use.

 

Besides that, I also want to see how much of the follower thing I can get up and running before the end of the month. Would at least like to be able to use a follower in the client quests, given how the quests are already set up to use one. Should be a simple matter of a quest alias, a quick AI package or two, and some dialogue options to control who occupies it.

 

5 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

Those follower mechanics your working towards bringing in seem nice. I really like the idea of being able to pick your own "help" at the mansion. Like maybe they dont do quests for you but you can ask followers to work at the mansion and entertain clients and parties with or without you.

 

Hold on. At the moment I'm not implementing "take one of your followers and make them work at the Mansion while you go do whatever". I think I would like to at some point, but first I have to solve how I make Thaena work (or more likely, appear to be working). What I'm doing now is "take one of your followers with you as you serve a client and they could get involved in that (or potentially take your place entirely)".

 

5 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

I would say 2 followers is plenty and this seems like a good replacement for the idea of JALA.

 

I don't want to use followers to replace Jala because [redacted]. In fact, I've already [redacted].

 

5 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

While followers are working the client system, If you are in the mansion, they might approach and say-  The client and I are going to this animal , do you want to help or watch? Gives you options to watch, hop in, take turns ect. Good way to bring in FFM creature threesomes on supported creatures.

 

That goes back to the whole "appear to be working". Because some stuff behind load doors doesn't necessarily happen.

 

There's two ways NPCs can go. If they bring the player along to watch then that's great because it's all packages and scenes; if they bring the player to possibly participate then it's mostly packages and scenes but would have to be interruptible for the player to take actions (or fully AI-control the player, but I don't want that). Potentially complicated.

The other way is without a player, and... I'm not entirely sure. Theoretically I could send the NPCs through the load door, not do anything for X minutes, then bring them back. But what about an inquisitive player who follows along unprompted? If the player loads into where the NPCs are then they should actually do things. Definitely complicated.

 

I think the two will end up being combined: (a) if the player is present and has opted into participating then do quest X, otherwise (b) run quest Y as it would actually happen but substitute some bits with timers if the player is not present to witness.

Edited December 14, 2021 by tasairis

[PippinTom]

20 minutes ago, tasairis said:

But what about an inquisitive player who follows along unprompted? If the player loads into where the NPCs are then they should actually do things.

 

I would definitely follow, just to be sure that nothing fancy eludes me.

 

You are sure you are not trying to overdo this mod, are you?

 

BTW: Animal Mansion Evolved due to [redacted] ? ?

[tasairis]

1 hour ago, PippinTom said:

I would definitely follow, just to be sure that nothing fancy eludes me.

 

Same. At least occasionally.

 

1 hour ago, PippinTom said:

You are sure you are not trying to overdo this mod, are you?

 

Probably. But I'm not trying to overdo it right at this very moment, so it's okay.

 

1 hour ago, PippinTom said:

BTW: Animal Mansion Evolved due to [redacted] ? ?

 

"Evolved"? Sounds like I'd be turning Skyrim into a Pokemon game. A very perverted Pokemon game.

 

Hmm.

Edited December 14, 2021 by tasairis

[PippinTom]

13 minutes ago, tasairis said:

"Evolved"? Sounds like I'd be turning Skyrim into a Pokemon game. A very perverted Pokemon game.

 

I do not have such associations because in the subject of this franchise I am a total ignorant, probably not losing much.

 

Why Evolved?

Because mod concept is the same, yet different. (some/base) Quests seems similar yet are improved on few different levels. General reception is different while subject seems the same.  It's not just new, it's not just better - not by redo from the scratch but by building up on healthy old parts with addition of completely new ones - thus - whole has evolved, organically. Well... actually its still evolving, but that's not my fault ?.

 

freedom of speech

[tasairis]

1 hour ago, PippinTom said:

I do not have such associations because in the subject of this franchise I am a total ignorant, probably not losing much.

 

Pokemon was just my immediate reaction, but it then started a whole train of thought about what a LoversLab-style "Skymon/Pokerim" mod could look like. Had some actually interesting ideas about that. So now there's a good chance I'll end up making a quest that hints at Pokemon in some way - you know, for humor's sake.

 

But that's a different subject entirely.

 

1 hour ago, PippinTom said:

Why Evolved?

Because mod concept is the same, yet different. (some/base) Quests seems similar yet are improved on few different levels. General reception is different while subject seems the same.  It's not just new, it's not just better - not by redo from the scratch but by building up on healthy old parts with addition of completely new ones - thus - whole has evolved, organically. Well... actually its still evolving, but that's not my fault ?.

 

freedom of speech

 

I get it. And it's not a bad idea for a name. It's just that "evolved" sounds so... serious? Deliberate? Fancy? Like, do I really think I can live up to the expectations that word is setting?

 

Ah, it's probably just me.

[PippinTom]

4 minutes ago, tasairis said:

 It's just that "evolved" sounds so... serious?

 

I see your point - it's not catchy.

In my defense - I just threw a loose idea without thinking a lot, and next one in that line would be "NG" but then ...nvm.

My problem with "new" is that it's so generic that plain "4.0" would be better as more informative - gives precise placement in timeline / number of predecessors while "new" is by definition temporary state in undefined space, and easily gets old.

 

I'm done for today ?

 

[mad.scientist]

How about "The Lusty Stable" for the mod name and establishment?

 

Pros:

-uses pre-established TES vocabulary  ("lusty argonian maid")

-follows similar pattern as other taverns, ie "winking skeever, sleeping giant"

 

Cons:

-might be a bit too "on the nose" for in-world use ?

-might imply a bit more "farm-ish" environment than a tavern

[tasairis]

Yeah, does seem a bit farm-ish. I'm still considering words along the lines of "evolved", but I'm beginning to think I'll just go with the cheap "new" cop-out.

 

If it weren't for Redux there would be a fuckton of "re-" words to choose from. I might give that another shot and see if I can find one that could reasonably abbreviate to something other than "AMR". Like "Animal Mansion (re)Something"?

Edited December 15, 2021 by tasairis

[monty359]

32 minutes ago, tasairis said:

Yeah, does seem a bit farm-ish. I'm still considering words along the lines of "evolved", but I'm beginning to think I'll just go with the cheap "new" cop-out.

 

If it weren't for Redux there would be a fuckton of "re-" words to choose from. I might give that another shot and see if I can find one that could reasonably abbreviate to something other than "AMR". Like "Animal Mansion (re)Something"?

AME => Animal Mansion Extended

Why extended? Well, you have big plans for the mod, that go beyond the scope of the original mod.

 

cheers

[raeder87]

Animal Mansion Remastered, just kidding this is stupid.

[JesusKreist]

4 hours ago, tasairis said:

Yeah, does seem a bit farm-ish. I'm still considering words along the lines of "evolved", but I'm beginning to think I'll just go with the cheap "new" cop-out.

 

If it weren't for Redux there would be a fuckton of "re-" words to choose from. I might give that another shot and see if I can find one that could reasonably abbreviate to something other than "AMR". Like "Animal Mansion (re)Something"?

 

If you 100% want to keep "Animal Mansion" the best option for that is "Evolved" because it ... well evolved from it's original. Rather close second would be "Extended" but that has a somewhat weird ring to it. Mainly because of the many other mods that were called "Extended" and were lackluster at best.

 

If you are accepting other names "Beast Mansion" (closest to original as you'd get), "Beast House" or "Carnal Cave" (the house would need a visual appearance change. darker, more rocks, ...) and similar spring to my mind. For the later I'd even suggest a location change to the other side of the road (roughly 400 feet distance) and kinda inlet into the mountain. Making it look like a house that was built as an extension to an existing cave ...

The abbreviations would be BM, BH or CC for these examples.

Keep in mind we are in skyrim and while the location is in a somewhat warmer region (freezing merely 5 month) the inhabitants are mostly nord aka. viking inspired. And the word "Beast" is more common than "Animal" in the nord tongue. IIRC most horse sellers call their horses beasts in dialogue as it is more common.

That and some later inhabitants are more beast like to begin with (sabre cat, bear, troll, ...).

Edited December 15, 2021 by JesusKreist

[skyrim482]

17 hours ago, tasairis said:

Hold on. At the moment I'm not implementing "take one of your followers and make them work at the Mansion while you go do whatever". I think I would like to at some point, but first I have to solve how I make Thaena work (or more likely, appear to be working). What I'm doing now is "take one of your followers with you as you serve a client and they could get involved in that (or potentially take your place entirely)".

 

Alright, just trying to understand it all from whats been collectively shared. To clarify and make it simple My idea - I would think the appearance approach would work the best as far as followers \Jala\ Theana"working"  you get custom dialogue and the go to and from the basement or new Door ( Private room that is locked to player because its "in use")  this would make scene as not everyone would want to be watched or be in a group because its a "private showing" . This would allow the client and the host to * disappear for a few minutes and come back* without all the crazy background scripting.  Now the only time they would go to the regular basement if you were directly invited to watch or join as well as parties. I honestly think that is a win for all scenarios and fits.

 

Side note the female creatures seems like a huge pain to implement for so few animations and doesn't seem fitting to be "thrown in" with the males I would say separate missions to get the would be great if optional including the dog / horse at the beginning. They might simply ask you if you want a female as well to send back to the mansion and you could be like yes or im the only female they need and you wouldn't get the female at all.  Other mods like Sl arousad creatures doesn't recognize the female dogs as being female for example and they just behave as males so i just have to console disable them every time I play thru this.

 

[skyrim482]

Thaena's Nut Hut ?

[Fakenet]

9 hours ago, mad.scientist said:

How about "The Lusty Stable" for the mod name and establishment?

 

Pros:

-uses pre-established TES vocabulary  ("lusty argonian maid")

-follows similar pattern as other taverns, ie "winking skeever, sleeping giant"

 

Cons:

-might be a bit too "on the nose" for in-world use ?

-might imply a bit more "farm-ish" environment than a tavern

Going with the mentioned naming conventions the first thing I think of is "whistling wolf" or "horny hound"-tavern/inn/boardhouse or whatever.

I know it doesn't need to be an aliteration but I am good at those.

[PippinTom]

Hasn't it already been decided few pages ago that due to many "Keeping ... (reusing assets)" it's probably best to honor original mod with keeping its name intact, just slightly modifying it by adding pre- or suffix (preferably meaningful one).

Keeping as much as possible was IMHO good move as it lowers cost of development and increases chances that we will live long enough to actually enjoy this mod when it hits the download section, so maybe hold your horses people and do not tempt @tasairis with world changes that will eat whole budget for this production ?

Edited December 15, 2021 by PippinTom

[tasairis]

10 hours ago, monty359 said:

AME => Animal Mansion Extended

Why extended? Well, you have big plans for the mod, that go beyond the scope of the original mod.

 

?

 

That was the original name I chose when I first made this thread, except I called it AMX. Then I decided it felt weird and I didn't like it anymore.

[tasairis]

10 hours ago, raeder87 said:

Animal Mansion Remastered, just kidding this is stupid.

 

Could call it Reloaded or Revolutions, but I want this mod to be an improvement on the originals.

[tasairis]

I'm actually starting to like "evolved" now...

[tasairis]

6 hours ago, JesusKreist said:

If you are accepting other names "Beast Mansion" (closest to original as you'd get), "Beast House" or "Carnal Cave" (the house would need a visual appearance change. darker, more rocks, ...) and similar spring to my mind. For the later I'd even suggest a location change to the other side of the road (roughly 400 feet distance) and kinda inlet into the mountain. Making it look like a house that was built as an extension to an existing cave ...

The abbreviations would be BM, BH or CC for these examples.

Keep in mind we are in skyrim and while the location is in a somewhat warmer region (freezing merely 5 month) the inhabitants are mostly nord aka. viking inspired. And the word "Beast" is more common than "Animal" in the nord tongue. IIRC most horse sellers call their horses beasts in dialogue as it is more common.

That and some later inhabitants are more beast like to begin with (sabre cat, bear, troll, ...).

 

I would prefer something similar to "Animal Mansion" because that's what this mod is based on. Feels rude to call it something too different from that.

 

It's funny you mention the Mansion building moving somewhere and that creating an opportunity for a new name because *cough*. But even though [redacted] the building would still be a prominent feature, so still calling it a "Mansion" would be appropriate. Quite possibly even more so than now, depending what I do with it: client lodgings would be nice, and the player and NPCs should all have bedrooms of their own (that's at least 4), so the building will need to be bigger.

[tasairis]

6 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

Alright, just trying to understand it all from whats been collectively shared. To clarify and make it simple My idea - I would think the appearance approach would work the best as far as followers \Jala\ Theana"working"  you get custom dialogue and the go to and from the basement or new Door ( Private room that is locked to player because its "in use")  this would make scene as not everyone would want to be watched or be in a group because its a "private showing" . This would allow the client and the host to * disappear for a few minutes and come back* without all the crazy background scripting.  Now the only time they would go to the regular basement if you were directly invited to watch or join as well as parties. I honestly think that is a win for all scenarios and fits.

 

I had considered locking them in a room, but I would like to allow the player to peek/voyeur if they wanted (can just pretend the NPCs don't notice). There's also the fact that sex scenes play sounds, so one would notice if nothing was actually happening.

 

If I have two NPCs around an animal, like in the room and all standing around doing nothing, then it's not much more to also throw in some scripted dialogue and actual sex.

 

6 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

Side note the female creatures seems like a huge pain to implement for so few animations and doesn't seem fitting to be "thrown in" with the males I would say separate missions to get the would be great if optional including the dog / horse at the beginning. They might simply ask you if you want a female as well to send back to the mansion and you could be like yes or im the only female they need and you wouldn't get the female at all.

 

That's the rabbit hole I didn't want to go down yet: redoing the earlier quests to throw out the female animals entirely. Because that would be a fair deal (not drastically) more editing and rewriting that doesn't need to happen for 0.5.

 

My current state of mind has me doing it in a 0.5.x release - guessing .2 or .3. I do want to have them around, partly for male actors and partly because I'd like to throw in some HCoS integration, but it doesn't have to happen now and can wait until 2.0 and/or when I support multiple animals of a species.

 

6 hours ago, skyrim482 said:

Other mods like Sl arousad creatures doesn't recognize the female dogs as being female for example and they just behave as males so i just have to console disable them every time I play thru this.

 

Ah...

 

I hadn't considered this before now: do you have SL's Match Creature Genders turned on?