Polymorphic Armor - A PC Exclusive Armor Path (SE Edition) V1.2

[GeJorge]

Hey @fingerscrossed

Thanks for the mod, it works well enough, although I have a suggestion.
Could you make it so that if the mod does not find a mesh to replace with, it will ignore the piece altogether instead of assigning an empty mesh to it?

Edited January 16, 2023 by GeJorge

[fingerscrossed]

On 1/16/2023 at 4:57 AM, GeJorge said:

Hey @fingerscrossed

Thanks for the mod, it works well enough, although I have a suggestion.
Could you make it so that if the mod does not find a mesh to replace with, it will ignore the piece altogether instead of assigning an empty mesh to it?

 

I've mentioned this a few times in various PA threads, but there is no native way I have found to check and see if a mesh exists and if not ignore it.  As near as I can tell, this would require a SKSE .dll plugin to add a few function to papyrus to be able to check, which is something I do not have the knowledge of how to do nor currently the desire to figure out.  If someone has a method for doing this, or wishes to create a plugin to check and see if a file exists inside of papyrus, I will happily implement this as an update.

[angelhunter]

Just had a quick question since I couldn't see it in the thread, but how exactly does this work with armor mods? Do I just add the meshes into "ArmorRPA"? Or do I need to create a new folder for them?

[RileyRileyRiley]

So, how exactly does this mod work with armor mods that don't follow the "armor", "clothes", etc folder structure? I don't imagine you can just ad "pa" to the end of the folder names?

 

  

On 2/12/2022 at 2:33 PM, violencepierre said:

Man this keeps unequipping my cock. but then if i prohibit slot 52, it won't change body anymore

 

This is still an issue too? Kind of a tough one to overcome when the only means to keeping dicks on and armor correctly swapping is to leave things on manual handling and clicking through a dozen popups every time you put armor on.

 

Is there no way to like, have the mod remember choices or something? I get that if multiple things are set on using slot 52 it's an unavoidable issue, but there's gotta be a way to tell PA to remember not to handle (and fail to handle) schlongs.

Edited July 22, 2023 by RileyRileyRiley

[fingerscrossed]

On 2/1/2023 at 5:18 AM, angelhunter said:

Just had a quick question since I couldn't see it in the thread, but how exactly does this work with armor mods? Do I just add the meshes into "ArmorRPA"? Or do I need to create a new folder for them?

 

Missed this post a while back, but it should work the same for armor mods.  If the armor is normally in Meshes/Armor/XXXX then it should just be in Meshes/ArmorPA/XXXX.  If it's Meshes/MyModName/XXXX, then it should be Meshes/MyModNamePA/XXXX.

 

On 7/21/2023 at 5:41 PM, RileyRileyRiley said:

So, how exactly does this mod work with armor mods that don't follow the "armor", "clothes", etc folder structure? I don't imagine you can just ad "pa" to the end of the folder names?

 

  

 

This is still an issue too? Kind of a tough one to overcome when the only means to keeping dicks on and armor correctly swapping is to leave things on manual handling and clicking through a dozen popups every time you put armor on.

 

Is there no way to like, have the mod remember choices or something? I get that if multiple things are set on using slot 52 it's an unavoidable issue, but there's gotta be a way to tell PA to remember not to handle (and fail to handle) schlongs.

 

Similar to above, you just add pa to the end of the new folder.  In terms of remembering choices, there's probably a way of doing that, but that's also probably non-trivial.  If I had to guess, when the body/cock gets replaced, it like has a mesh somewhere (i.e., Meshes/Actors/XXXX) and when it comes to the pa check, it then attempts to replace the mesh with a pa version.  If you haven't tried it, try finding the mesh for the schlong and then copying it's path to an equivalent path (i.e., Meshes/Actorspa/XXXX) and see if that works.

[RileyRileyRiley]

40 minutes ago, fingerscrossed said:

Missed this post a while back, but it should work the same for armor mods.  If the armor is normally in Meshes/Armor/XXXX then it should just be in Meshes/ArmorPA/XXXX.  If it's Meshes/MyModName/XXXX, then it should be Meshes/MyModNamePA/XXXX.

 

Similar to above, you just add pa to the end of the new folder.  In terms of remembering choices, there's probably a way of doing that, but that's also probably non-trivial.  If I had to guess, when the body/cock gets replaced, it like has a mesh somewhere (i.e., Meshes/Actors/XXXX) and when it comes to the pa check, it then attempts to replace the mesh with a pa version.  If you haven't tried it, try finding the mesh for the schlong and then copying it's path to an equivalent path (i.e., Meshes/Actorspa/XXXX) and see if that works.

 

This is exactly what I tried before bed and it did indeed work! It's no trivial amount of setup (much of my night was also spent figuring out which hands and feet CBBE Bodyslide meshes I needed to generate (since 3BA doesn't include hands and feet, apparently), but for the moment I think most/all armor I've got in game should be auto-handled by PA now.

[fingerscrossed]

The set up is indeed kind of a pain.  Glad to hear that it is working out, though.

[sila]

So I have the mod working, but I was having an issue with my character constantly looping the weapon drawing animation.

 

If I disable Polymorphic Armor in the mcm, the loop stops immediately. If I enable it, the loop is still not happening. But then if I equip an item or reload the save, the loop starts again.

 

Any idea what would cause that?

[fingerscrossed]

14 hours ago, sila said:

So I have the mod working, but I was having an issue with my character constantly looping the weapon drawing animation.

 

If I disable Polymorphic Armor in the mcm, the loop stops immediately. If I enable it, the loop is still not happening. But then if I equip an item or reload the save, the loop starts again.

 

Any idea what would cause that?

 

Which mode are you running the mod in?  Do you have any mods that change animations or do any replacement on doing things like weapon drawing?

[sila]

5 hours ago, fingerscrossed said:

 

Which mode are you running the mod in?  Do you have any mods that change animations or do any replacement on doing things like weapon drawing?

It was on batch mode, the recommended one. I do have open animation replacer and pretty combat animations but it still seemed to do it when I disabled OAR and ran fnis again.

 

The animation mods were my first guess at the source, but then I noticed it didn't start doing it on a new character until I reloaded a save and polymorphic turned on.

Edited August 1, 2023 by sila

[sila]

After much hunting and rebuilding skyrim a handful of mods at a time....

 

I have tracked down the source of the draw weapon loop. It seems to be caused by devious devices' device hider for some reason. 

[fingerscrossed]

13 hours ago, sila said:

After much hunting and rebuilding skyrim a handful of mods at a time....

 

I have tracked down the source of the draw weapon loop. It seems to be caused by devious devices' device hider for some reason. 

 

Ahhh, yeah, okay, I can see this making some sense.  I don't know exactly how the DD Device Hider works on the backend, but I could definitely see it doing some kind of a loop with PA were one of them tries to unequip/reequip/change nif and it triggers the other which activates and the triggers the other ad nauseum.  The Devices Underneath/Device Hider is one that I usually turn off on DD, so I didn't even think of it.  

 

I'm not sure it's something I could fix without probably going into DD Device Hider to see what they are using to trigger it and it might even require a DD compatibility patch with PA.

[sila]

Honestly I didn't really use the device hider much either, I just left it on default. I was happy enough to just turn it off after I found the source but it took quite a few hours to find it 

 

At least perhaps someone else will see the answer here and not go through the same thing.

[shadowzedX]

Below will be a list of my doubts using bandit armor (vanilla) and a standalone outfit (added by mod) as examples:
a. Is pa mesh creation automatic in-game, or is it done manually by the player outside of the game?
Based on the "pa meshes are manually created by the player" assumption:
b. If I use replacement mode for the bandit armor, then in fact the mesh that this gear points to is in the pa folder (as I understand it from reading your documentation), so anyone wearing it will look the same. So why not just modify the original mesh？

 

Edited April 29, 2024 by shadowzedX

[shadowzedX]

Based on the "pa meshes are manually created by the player" assumption:
  For example, if I want to enable polymorphism for separate exposed bikinis (keel, vamo, steel) so that npc's wear them as normal clothing, I would have to add meshes for the npc's in each folder, which would be too much work.
  Would it be possible to have a feature where each slot has a default outfit XX. when enabling polymorphism for outfits added by unofficial plugins, the default mesh used for the npc points to the preset XX outfit.
  Anyway, the goal is to make the player and npc look inconsistent when wearing the same outfit. Specifying the PC's appearance (pc's use the exclusive pa folder) has the same effect as specifying the npc's appearance (PCEAr's method, npc's use the exclusive custom folder).

 

PC Exclusive Armor Path - PCEAr https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16815?tab=posts

 

Dude, did you get your inspiration from this mod, you guys have the same purpose, but the implementation looks a bit opposite.
I often modify the BS-preset for player (I'm sure my behavior is probably quite common). If the player uses an exclusive path: when I use BS to generate a mesh for a preset, I have to be careful not to overwrite the npc's mesh and move it to the pa folder; when I use oBodyNG, I run into the same compatibility issues mentioned in this thread.
But suppose the player uses the default path and the npc uses the pa path. I just need to assign a mesh to the npc when I install the mod; I don't need to do anything extra after that, no matter how I modify the preset.

 

Edited April 29, 2024 by shadowzedX

[fingerscrossed]

2 hours ago, shadowzedX said:

Below will be a list of my doubts using bandit armor (vanilla) and a standalone outfit (added by mod) as examples:
a. Is pa mesh creation automatic in-game, or is it done manually by the player outside of the game?
Based on the "pa meshes are manually created by the player" assumption:
b. If I use replacement mode for the bandit armor, then in fact the mesh that this gear points to is in the pa folder (as I understand it from reading your documentation), so anyone wearing it will look the same. So why not just modify the original mesh？

 

 

2 hours ago, shadowzedX said:

Based on the "pa meshes are manually created by the player" assumption:
  For example, if I want to enable polymorphism for separate exposed bikinis (keel, vamo, steel) so that npc's wear them as normal clothing, I would have to add meshes for the npc's in each folder, which would be too much work.
  Would it be possible to have a feature where each slot has a default outfit XX. when enabling polymorphism for outfits added by unofficial plugins, the default mesh used for the npc points to the preset XX outfit.
  Anyway, the goal is to make the player and npc look inconsistent when wearing the same outfit. Specifying the PC's appearance (pc's use the exclusive pa folder) has the same effect as specifying the npc's appearance (PCEAr's method, npc's use the exclusive custom folder).

 

PC Exclusive Armor Path - PCEAr https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16815?tab=posts

 

Dude, did you get your inspiration from this mod, you guys have the same purpose, but the implementation looks a bit opposite.
I often modify the BS-preset for player (I'm sure my behavior is probably quite common). If the player uses an exclusive path: when I use BS to generate a mesh for a preset, I have to be careful not to overwrite the npc's mesh and move it to the pa folder; when I use oBodyNG, I run into the same compatibility issues mentioned in this thread.
But suppose the player uses the default path and the npc uses the pa path. I just need to assign a mesh to the npc when I install the mod; I don't need to do anything extra after that, no matter how I modify the preset.

 

 

 

I didn't directly get inspiration (this was something I wanted and made for myself), and indeed the implementation does look like same goal but pretty opposite approaches.  I'm only going to discuss the newer replacement implementation I have, because the old one has additional issues.  I'll briefly answer question and explain why I used my approach instead of the one used in PCEAr (at least as I understand their implementation from a quick look):

 

First, yes, there are two sets of armor meshes:

"Regular" - NPCs (and player, if you either disable a slot or an armor) will use these.

"pa" - The folder for the player specific meshes.

 

You do have to build the files you want into the pa folder separate for the player to use it this way.

 

I use scripts for, when the player equips a piece of armor, it dynamically changes the target meshes used in the armor addons (after a short delay) to the pa meshes.  This is in comparison to PCEAr which looks to make two sets of armor (A player armor and a NPC armor) with two different sets of base meshes/etc., and then uses scripts to replace one with the other.  I believe the NPCs will then use the secondary armor while the player uses the primary. 

 

The main benefit of the PA approach is that it supports having modded armor sets that have different builds without requiring a plug-in to make it compatible since you do not need to go into creation kit and create new armors in game for the secondary armor effect.  From a quick example:

 

You have an armor "Special Bikini Chainmail" and a custom player body.

 

In PCEAr, you would likely need to do something like:

1) Create the two meshes and put them in proper folders

2) Create a plugin/modification to create the new armor mesh and add it to PCEAr (requiring Creation Kit and some knowledge there)

 

In PA, 

1) Create the two meshes and put them in proper folders

 

This nominally makes PA much more compatible with other mods and is intended so that the user doesn't have to go into the creation kit and do anything there each time they add a new set of modded/etc armor.  Additionally, since the mod doesn't effect any of the armors in game base, it shouldn't interfere with any mod that would does.  Additionally, because in batch mode, the current recommended, only the meshes are dynamically changed, the item and its stats/enchantments are not affected at all switching between modes.

 

But, use what you want to.  I made this mod primarily for myself and then distributed it in case it something others were interested in.  If you prefer PCEAr's implementation then I'm glad you've got options and they've got something you like.

 

[shadowzedX]

1 hour ago, fingerscrossed said:

 

 

 

I didn't directly get inspiration (this was something I wanted and made for myself), and indeed the implementation does look like same goal but pretty opposite approaches.  I'm only going to discuss the newer replacement implementation I have, because the old one has additional issues.  I'll briefly answer question and explain why I used my approach instead of the one used in PCEAr (at least as I understand their implementation from a quick look):

 

First, yes, there are two sets of armor meshes:

"Regular" - NPCs (and player, if you either disable a slot or an armor) will use these.

"pa" - The folder for the player specific meshes.

 

You do have to build the files you want into the pa folder separate for the player to use it this way.

 

I use scripts for, when the player equips a piece of armor, it dynamically changes the target meshes used in the armor addons (after a short delay) to the pa meshes.  This is in comparison to PCEAr which looks to make two sets of armor (A player armor and a NPC armor) with two different sets of base meshes/etc., and then uses scripts to replace one with the other.  I believe the NPCs will then use the secondary armor while the player uses the primary. 

 

The main benefit of the PA approach is that it supports having modded armor sets that have different builds without requiring a plug-in to make it compatible since you do not need to go into creation kit and create new armors in game for the secondary armor effect.  From a quick example:

 

You have an armor "Special Bikini Chainmail" and a custom player body.

 

In PCEAr, you would likely need to do something like:

1) Create the two meshes and put them in proper folders

2) Create a plugin/modification to create the new armor mesh and add it to PCEAr (requiring Creation Kit and some knowledge there)

 

In PA, 

1) Create the two meshes and put them in proper folders

 

This nominally makes PA much more compatible with other mods and is intended so that the user doesn't have to go into the creation kit and do anything there each time they add a new set of modded/etc armor.  Additionally, since the mod doesn't effect any of the armors in game base, it shouldn't interfere with any mod that would does.  Additionally, because in batch mode, the current recommended, only the meshes are dynamically changed, the item and its stats/enchantments are not affected at all switching between modes.

 

But, use what you want to.  I made this mod primarily for myself and then distributed it in case it something others were interested in.  If you prefer PCEAr's implementation then I'm glad you've got options and they've got something you like.

 

I suddenly realized that my fond fantasies about pcer were the result of my unrealistic visions of script functions and misunderstanding of outfit mesh addressing. I didn't read his content carefully, I thought his method was similar to yours, you used a script to only change the outfit‘s mesh paths into 'pa' folder, he replaced the grid paths into 'custom' folder. but he actually created the eponymous outfit for the npc. I actually like your design concept better.

Edited April 29, 2024 by shadowzedX

[sila]

So a bit of a question for you. I recently moved to TNG instead of SoS, for various reasons. For some reason, TNG is unable to update the polymorphic armors to be revealing. "This armor cannot be updated" is the message that is given for every attempt to change it to revealing in game. The armor is flagged as revealing but the polymorphic version is not. When I was using SoS it was able to add a revealing tag just fine to polymorphic but it seems TNG handles it a bit differently... I hope I won't have to switch back over this.

 

Do you have any idea what I would need to do to add a revealing keyword to the polymorphic armors? Would it be possible to do with sseedit perhaps?

 

Edit: I got it working. If anyone else runs into the same thing, there is a guide on TNG's mod description on how to add an .ini to make every nif from a mod revealing. Worked like a charm!

Edited September 2, 2024 by sila

[NittytheKitty]

Trying to troubleshoot how to make this work with OBody! I think that the idea for why it does not work is because we can't have one steelarmor.nif in the regular folder and one wildly different steelarmor.nif in the armorpa folder both working off the same .tri file?

I wonder if it would be possible to instead simply let OBody work elsewhere, but then generate bodyslide preset'd .nifs for every armor according to the OBody preset your character is using?

[fingerscrossed]

New updated dropped.  PapyrusUtils now required, but also now checks whether or not a nif exists before attempting to replace it.  Also some other QoL bugfixes.

 

Use Batch Mode, it should work best and be most stable.

 

Use Restore Mode on armor replacement to replace the nif after the player 3D meshes generate to keep it from having impact on NPCs.

 

Use Phoneme mode to reset player facial expressions.

 

This should (hopefully) fix all of the major issues.