Being a Cow (Alternate Version)

[Tegelmastaren]

1 hour ago, botticelli said:

That's kind of a compromise. When moving the spine node upwards, your arms will completely disappear in 1st person thus making any targeting nearly impossible. So to compensate for that, I move the shoulder nodes up the same amount in 1st person only. Depending on the skeleton used, it can happen that this also turns the elbow nodes slightly and then the arms look like those in your image. I cannot anticipate a) if this will happen and b) how much turn those nodes are given whicch is the reason I cannot change that.

ah i understand, thanks alot for taking your time to answer my questions!

[botticelli]

1 hour ago, peishibo said:

Sorry, I have set “Reset Overlay Slots” to “all parts” on the cow settings page, but the mcm menu cannot be saved

This will cause the reset to happen upon MCM exit (you can observe that in the console). This is a select option, no save necessary, and upon reentering MCM it will be available again (with the "no change" text). I have LE, not SE, so I have to change nioverride.ini instead of skee64.ini.

what I changed in there is this

Spoiler

[Overlays]
; Applies to only the player, or all humanoid actors NOT RECOMMENDED changing this, you can add overlays to certain actors via script
bPlayerOnly=0 ; Default[1]

; Determines whether face overlays are enabled
; disabling this disables the hook
; Note: face overlays are known to crash when decapitated
bEnableFaceOverlays=1 ; Default[0]

[Overlays/Body] ; "Body [Ovl#]" and "Body [SOvl#]"
; Determines how many body overlays there should be
iNumOverlays=30 ; Default[6]
iSpellOverlays=0 ; Default[0]

[Overlays/Hands] ; "Hands [Ovl#]" and "Hands [SOvl#]"
; Determines how many hand overlays there should be
iNumOverlays=20 ; Default[3]
iSpellOverlays=0 ; Default[0]

[Overlays/Feet] ; "Feet [Ovl#]" and "Feet [SOvl#]"
; Determines how many feet overlays there should be
iNumOverlays=20 ; Default[3]
iSpellOverlays=0 ; Default[0]

[Overlays/Face] ; "Face [Ovl#]" and "Face [SOvl#]"
; Determines how many face overlays there should be
iNumOverlays=20 ; Default[3]
iSpellOverlays=0 ; Default[0]

 

Edited March 6, 2025 by botticelli

[MysticDaedra]

On 2/4/2025 at 3:46 AM, botticelli said:

The Molag Bal quest is only available during "A Craftsman's Masterpiece" as a side quest acquired at Molag Bal's altar. Since A Craftsman's Masterpiece must be active and running to enable the talking activator there, it probably won't start after you finished that. You could try the following:

• in the console type prid xx0adfa6 [xx 0 BAC's mod ID], then enable
• go to the altar and see if it triggers
• if not - with the activator still targeted in the console - type activate player

Not sure, if that works but it's worth a try.

Please consider making this WAY more obvious. IMO, you shouldn't have to browse through a changelog or forum to get a clue about a mod feature/function, there should be some sort of tip, hint, glowy-stuff, something that leads to various features. Unless it's meant to be an easter egg or secret or something... which the molag bal quest is not. In fact, it seems (correct me if I'm wrong) that missing this during A Craftsman's Masterpiece effectively breaks the mod/game by locking the PC into a cow form at some point, with no chance at curing?

 

I just did A Craftsman's Masterpiece, and I never saw anything leading me to the altar. I went through the doors as the quest marker indicated, battled some dwemer centurions, nabbed the canisters, and headed back to Paul. There was no dialogue, quest marker, anything that would lead me to believe that I needed to go back to the altar.

[MysticDaedra]

I solved (?) the above via console commands. bac_mandyandhugh seems to be the correct quest.

 

Another question, RE Molag Bal's Blessing: what constitutes a valid NPC for the scrolls? Do they have to be a follower, or just any NPC?

[peishibo]

I have modified "skee64.ini" according to the example you provided. After selecting "All Parts," I will still reset to "No Change" when exiting the mcm menu. Perhaps you can help me "Save config to Json" in "about", and then I will try loading your "config. Json”。 I'm not sure if this is effective.

config.json

Edited March 7, 2025 by peishibo

[peishibo]

skee64.txt

Edited March 7, 2025 by peishibo

[botticelli]

10 hours ago, peishibo said:

skee64.txt 6.05 kB · 1 download

That looks ok. As already stated, the option in MCM does not save anything. It's effectively just a button you press to redo the overlay slot assignment that was already and probably incompletely done at cow registration. config.json will not help here. When you set that to ALL CHANGES and exit MCM, open the console and watch the reassignment messages. For those to appear at all, you need to turn log verbosity on the Settings page to at least "Brief", better "Normal"

 

12 hours ago, MysticDaedra said:

what constitutes a valid NPC for the scrolls?

any bovinified npc will do. The targeting is a little tricky. I try to get the talk activatior ([E] Talk to ...) visible and then cast it.

 

14 hours ago, MysticDaedra said:

Unless it's meant to be an easter egg or secret or something

That was the original intention. I might put in some optional objective to have it be more obvious. IMHO it does not break the mod since getting rid of the cow is not related to this quest. The quest gets you some extra debuffs you can later get rid of, too but the actual recipe quest to reach the emissary has nothing to do with this one.

Edited March 7, 2025 by botticelli

[peishibo]

47 minutes ago, botticelli said:

That looks ok. As already stated, the option in MCM does not save anything. It's effectively just a button you press to redo the overlay slot assignment that was already and probably incompletely done at cow registration. config.json will not help here. When you set that to ALL CHANGES and exit MCM, open the console and watch the reassignment messages. For those to appear at all, you need to turn log verbosity on the Settings page to at least "Brief", better "Normal"

 

 

 

After I selected "All Parts," there was no display of any Bac-related content in the console. Could you please tell me where the log verbosity were set?

Edited March 7, 2025 by peishibo

[peishibo]

Because the mcm menu gets stuck when setting "All Parts," clicking on any other settings does not respond, it's possible that this option was not successfully configured.

[botticelli]

26 minutes ago, peishibo said:

After I selected "All Parts," there was no display of any Bac-related content in the console. Could you please tell me where the log verbosity were set?

Sorry, it was the About and not the Settings page. Do it like this:

Spoiler

then

then leave MCM, wait for about 3 seconds and then open the console. It should display messages like this:

 

Edited March 7, 2025 by botticelli

[peishibo]

Thank you very much for your help! Everything is back to normal here.Can I make one more small suggestion?

It's just that I stumbled upon a tail mod in "Nexus," which pairs very well with BAC. Replacing the old tail model mod would be even better! I tried to replace this tail model, but  I failed~~~

May I ask if you are interested in this?

 

FFANTASY CREATURE HDT SMP TAILS - maching body texture -CBBE 3BA at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community

 

[botticelli]

5 hours ago, peishibo said:

Thank you very much for your help! Everything is back to normal here.Can I make one more small suggestion?

It's just that I stumbled upon a tail mod in "Nexus," which pairs very well with BAC. Replacing the old tail model mod would be even better! I tried to replace this tail model, but  I failed~~~

May I ask if you are interested in this?

 

FFANTASY CREATURE HDT SMP TAILS - maching body texture -CBBE 3BA at Skyrim Special Edition Nexus - Mods and Community

 

The problem is that mod is SE only. It will not run with LE which I use to build this. I'd need to switch to SE to integrate this which is its own story since despite turning all upgrade settings for Steam off, I still get automatically upgraded to the latest AE version which then causes problems with all those people running 1.5.97 or something in between.

So, this would need to be done by someone on a functioning SE version. There are currently 8 tails to replace: data\meshes\bac\<color>\cowtail01.nif and data\meshes\bac\<color>\cowtail02.nif with <color> being brown, spots, white, and black. Plus their physics file which for the current HDT-PE tail is data\SKSE\Plugins\hdtPhysicsExtensions\equip_tail\cow_tail.xml.

Edited March 7, 2025 by botticelli

[Jokekiller]

Hi, i was trying to troubleshoot infamous purple face bug, that keeps happening on my SSE modlist. It gets purple randomly or most certainly on equiping items and and stuff on a character - after quick showracemenu or update through bac mcm purple gets away, but it continues to return after some time.

It only happens after bac starting to change PC, so I assume it's related to this mod. I've tried to unpack textures from 2.1.0 BSA, used CAO, counted textures but there wasn't any clues.

 

Then I find out that, at least in my game, this bug is related to the 00000007.dds facetint for a PC. I've noticed that at the same time in the console there's a changes within a number of textures and I've found out that for some reason bac was trying to apply a second facetint (00000007.dds) on my char. After that I was trying to find this texture in my MO2 and for some unknown reason there was none in my game xD After I created a blank texture with a path of textures\actors\character\facegendata\facetint\0000007.dds the purple bug disappeared, the face just get pale sometimes, and now I'm trying to find a perfect color of this texture to match my default skintone. I don't know why, but by default in my game there wasn't 00000007 facetint with the name that bac trying to apply. I don't know if it helps someone but maybe!

[peishibo]

6 hours ago, botticelli said:

The problem is that mod is SE only. It will not run with LE which I use to build this. I'd need to switch to SE to integrate this which is its own story since despite turning all upgrade settings for Steam off, I still get automatically upgraded to the latest AE version which then causes problems with all those people running 1.5.97 or something in between.

So, this would need to be done by someone on a functioning SE version. There are currently 8 tails to replace: data\meshes\bac\<color>\cowtail01.nif and data\meshes\bac\<color>\cowtail02.nif with <color> being brown, spots, white, and black. Plus their physics file which for the current HDT-PE tail is data\SKSE\Plugins\hdtPhysicsExtensions\equip_tail\cow_tail.xml.

I tried replacing the model again, but it still failed~~~~ When the cow transformed to a long tail stage, its tail didn't show up~~~

 

[MysticDaedra]

9 hours ago, botticelli said:

The problem is that mod is SE only. It will not run with LE which I use to build this. I'd need to switch to SE to integrate this which is its own story since despite turning all upgrade settings for Steam off, I still get automatically upgraded to the latest AE version which then causes problems with all those people running 1.5.97 or something in between.

So, this would need to be done by someone on a functioning SE version. There are currently 8 tails to replace: data\meshes\bac\<color>\cowtail01.nif and data\meshes\bac\<color>\cowtail02.nif with <color> being brown, spots, white, and black. Plus their physics file which for the current HDT-PE tail is data\SKSE\Plugins\hdtPhysicsExtensions\equip_tail\cow_tail.xml.

Your reasoning for not switching to SE/AE is flawed, imo. Does BAC come with .dll files? If not, then the SE vs AE compatibility issue is literally non-existent. Anything you create for AE will also work for SE. Folks unable (or unwilling) to upgrade to AE can use BEES for archive compatibility.

 

RE: LE... It's time to move on, seriously. LE is ancient, unsupported, deprecated etc. SE/AE (mostly) solves script lag, has 64-bit addressable memory and (extremely limited) multithreading, and is supported by both Bethesda and the modding community. Additionally, a tiny fraction of the userbase even still plays LE anymore, the vast majority of players use either SE or AE (most use AE): In the past 24 hours, the peak users of LE was 2,290. The peak users of the past 24 hours of SE/AE was 28,781! That's literally over 12 times as many players. There's really no justifiable reason, in my opinion, to stick with LE in 2025.

 

RE: the Molag Bal quest, some sort of... something, indicating that speaking to the altar might do something, even if it is hidden away in the book that Farengar gives the player or something, might be neat. Maybe it's already mentioned in there, idk. Anyhow, thanks for your help on that.

[peishibo]

43 minutes ago, MysticDaedra said:

Your reasoning for not switching to SE/AE is flawed, imo. Does BAC come with .dll files? If not, then the SE vs AE compatibility issue is literally non-existent. Anything you create for AE will also work for SE. Folks unable (or unwilling) to upgrade to AE can use BEES for archive compatibility.

 

RE: LE... It's time to move on, seriously. LE is ancient, unsupported, deprecated etc. SE/AE (mostly) solves script lag, has 64-bit addressable memory and (extremely limited) multithreading, and is supported by both Bethesda and the modding community. Additionally, a tiny fraction of the userbase even still plays LE anymore, the vast majority of players use either SE or AE (most use AE): In the past 24 hours, the peak users of LE was 2,290. The peak users of the past 24 hours of SE/AE was 28,781! That's literally over 12 times as many players. There's really no justifiable reason, in my opinion, to stick with LE in 2025.

 

RE: the Molag Bal quest, some sort of... something, indicating that speaking to the altar might do something, even if it is hidden away in the book that Farengar gives the player or something, might be neat. Maybe it's already mentioned in there, idk. Anyhow, thanks for your help on that.

Directly switching to SE will render most mods ineffective, and switching to SE may require significant time for authors to re-load the corresponding mods. But most clothing mods should be generic.

[botticelli]

4 hours ago, peishibo said:

I tried replacing the model again, but it still failed~~~~ When the cow transformed to a long tail stage, its tail didn't show up~~~

 

the nif - actually all parts of it - need to be assigned to slot 40, else it will not match the armoraddon and not be displayed

 

1 hour ago, MysticDaedra said:

RE: LE... It's time to move on, seriously.

BAC does not ship a dll, however some of my loved mods do and the do no longer exist in SE. It's more like *I* want to stick around LE than BAC.  Since I need to get new hardware this year anyway and then need to reinstall everything, I'll try to do the switch then.

[peishibo]

1 hour ago, botticelli said:

the nif - actually all parts of it - need to be assigned to slot 40, else it will not match the armoraddon and not be displayed

 

BAC does not ship a dll, however some of my loved mods do and the do no longer exist in SE. It's more like *I* want to stick around LE than BAC.  Since I need to get new hardware this year anyway and then need to reinstall everything, I'll try to do the switch then.

The model of this tail mod looks great, but the physical effects are really, really terrible, hahaha. Although I successfully replaced the tail model, the author's tail physics is better.

I really don't know how to modify the physical effects, ha ha

[MysticDaedra]

23 hours ago, peishibo said:

Directly switching to SE will render most mods ineffective, and switching to SE may require significant time for authors to re-load the corresponding mods. But most clothing mods should be generic.

I'm a little confused by your statement here. You do realize that SE has been out since 2016, right? SE is literally almost a decade old at this point. As I stated, a tiny insignificant number of people continue to use LE, almost certainly for similar reasons as @botticelli (I'd argue that most mods for LE either have an SE counterpart or are directly compatible with CAO, I'd love to hear about any exceptions to this). The vast majority of mods are for SE/AE or have been updated for one or the other, and has been this way for some time. TBH, the only Skyrim modding community that I've ever seen push back against upgrading has been the skyrim adult modding community here on LL.

 

BTW, @botticelli: I've noticed that this version of BAC is noticeably more stable and performant that previous versions, excellent work

[ebbluminous]

2 hours ago, MysticDaedra said:

I'm a little confused by your statement here. You do realize that SE has been out since 2016, right? SE is literally almost a decade old at this point. As I stated, a tiny insignificant number of people continue to use LE, almost certainly for similar reasons as @botticelli (I'd argue that most mods for LE either have an SE counterpart or are directly compatible with CAO, I'd love to hear about any exceptions to this). The vast majority of mods are for SE/AE or have been updated for one or the other, and has been this way for some time. TBH, the only Skyrim modding community that I've ever seen push back against upgrading has been the skyrim adult modding community here on LL.

 

BTW, @botticelli: I've noticed that this version of BAC is noticeably more stable and performant that previous versions, excellent work

Plus...

 

I've seen that when some of the LE holdouts actually give SE a go... They say 'Why didn't I do this years ago?'

 

The main reason they give for that is discovering SE mods that are not on LE giving a world of new options...

[botticelli]

On 3/8/2025 at 10:14 AM, peishibo said:

I really don't know how to modify the physical effects, ha ha

The physics file is referenced somewhere in the mesh (.nif) with the old tails it's like this:

You just need to find those strings in your nifs and put the respective phsics files from the other mod into that location.

[Gino43]

so do anyone found a solution for the purple face once transformation starts?

 

[Tiruil]

On 2/24/2025 at 7:31 AM, botticelli said:

...and also nothing in the overwrites...?

Only thing that was in overwrites is a bac folder, but its apparently empty ? I'll try removing that folder then installing the latest version and let you know how it goes

[Guest]

Hi all does anyone have any custom head meshes they would be willing to share? I am hopeless and editing .nifs and I'm not the biggest fan of the ones included. Thanks  

[botticelli]

17 hours ago, Gino43 said:

so do anyone found a solution for the purple face once transformation starts?

 

somewhere in this thread is a reference to an SE mod that fixes the purple face bug. Other than that, disabling tint correction in BAC MCM could also help (Settings->Effects->Allow Face tint correction).