[WIP] Skykids - Child races & other technical goodies - No more armor patcher! New CotS R2 Race!(6/22/15)

[en_hawk]

 

They look great, kyods. Handling tints is a pain in the ass for me, but that isn't your fault.

 

Thanks, en_hawk. I added the CGE exports to my post. I'll deal with Aeta soonish, should I not bother with tints with her?

 

No no, its fine, go ahead and tint. It's just the CK is a piece of shit and can't handle high res tintmasks when you export, and the CGE exporter doesn't build its face textures right(notice how the skin tone doesn't get included?), so its kind of a pain to make everything go. I either have to use custom low res tintmasks(you can't just flat downscale it or it looks like butt), or manually build each NPCs facegen texture in photoshop.

 

I'll figure something out, I don't want to handicap you.

[JerWA]

Them not being essential is my fault, super easy fix. I don't know if 'hawk will stand still long enough for me to do it or not haha. I think you'll still be able to pick their pockets, and attack them/do damage, you just won't be able to kill them. These changes are easy.

 

Them all wearing the same clothes (boys and girls both) is as it should be for now. I mentioned it briefly before, it's just a side effect of making them real people instead of potato heads. It'll be updated, though one thing that would be helpful is if you've got backstory/suggestions for outfits. e.g. should Dorthe wear a dress or a blacksmith outfit? Does someone make a "cute" blacksmith outfit? If a kid should be in rags or riches, that kinda thing. Just makes the updates faster instead of me having to figure this stuff out on my own. These changes are easy.

 

Likewise if you think eye/hair colors should be changed on our NPCs please feel free to suggest it (especially if it makes more sense like their parents have black hair and somehow the kid is blonde haha). Given how convoluted the process has become it is no longer trivial to change things, but if something needs it badly enough I guess I can make 'hawk teach me how to do it so he doesn't have to. So, to categorize, these changes are not easy, but I'm willing to take them on if something needs adjustment.

 

I also need to update my 2 followers and re-post those if anyone is interested. They're still mostly just a proof of concept, no real back story or anything other than they're sisters and I need to work on one of their faces more because she's all crazy squinty eyed haha.

[Rez Delnava]

@kyods

Androgyny isn't a bad thing considering most of the boys in the mod are under 13; its an expected trait for preteens.

 

@en_hawk

I don't yet fully understand the tint layers, but the NPC data has a line 'FTST Head Texture'.  Maybe its possible to assemble a texture set and assign it there.

There is also a texture call in the Nif itself for a 'Detail Map' that is currently pointing to a blank map.  Maybe we can plug the exported texture there.

I'll poke at those tomorrow night, see I can break something make it work.

 

@JerWA

There is a tool called NifMerge on the nexus that can do the eye changes. Use the CGE export to export any head with the correct eyes, open that and the head you're fixing in NifMerge, and move the correct eyes over.  At least thats how I understand how it works, I've never had a destination head to merge onto before.

Hair color is controlled in the NPC data and should be as easy to change as an outfit.

 

EDIT: Nevermind about the nifmerge tool.  I just tested it, and it doesn't update strings or texture paths on merge, so its worthless for updating eyes.

[Rez Delnava]

DOH!

I just realized the exported nifs I've been posting are worthless since I forgot to remove armor before hitting export.

You'll need to generate your own from the slot files, sorry.

[SolidSnakeFH]

DOH!

I just realized the exported nifs I've been posting are worthless since I forgot to remove armor before hitting export.

You'll need to generate your own from the slot files, sorry.

 

Could you elaborate a little on this? It's very likely that I made the same mistake.

 

In any case, I will post what I have if the workaround is simple enough to handle it, I'll leave this as is, if not, I'll attempt to fix it myself. I followed the process that you mentioned before, so the CGE export files and the slot files are in this .rar included with this post. 

 

Anyway, I'm glad that androgynous beauty is acceptable, since they are preteens, that should be the ideology and really, who wants to see a bunch of homely kids? With that preamble out of the way, I know my boys tend to be pretty.

 

I posted pics of him before, but I'll do so again for the sake of inclusion: Here's Francois:

 

I wanted Francois to have an uneasy, timid, soft kind of face, cherub-like to go with his sweet personality. One of his first lines is about how he wants the Dragonborn to pick him, but then he looks dejected and says "Just pick one of the other ones". He's been abandoned, feels like chattel and unloved. I wanted to translate that onto his expression. Since his parents, did in fact, dump him off at the orphanage one year prior to meeting the Dragonborn, I presumed that up until that point, they fed and cared for him at least more adequately than Grelod. So I gave him a rounder face to account for a healthy fat reserve in the skin.

 

Samuel:

 

Samuel is the leader of the orphanage kids and also the oldest. He was born there and as such, I wanted his face to reflect what a kid who had endured all of Grelod's "kindness" since birth, would look like. He wears a stern, but still compassionate expression, this boy is serious, but a bit ofl a rogue. He's the kind of boy you expect to get into fistfights protecting his siblings. He's got sharper, features, a wide face and forehead, reflecting his slip into teenager, soon. I gave him a little scar, under his left eye, to emphasize Grelod's "soft handling" of the boy.

 

Hroar:

 

Not much is known about Hroar. He doesn't speak about his past much, all he mentions is that his mother named him after the sound a lion makes; a roar. I let this inform my creation and came up with a little backstory. Hroar is the kind of kid that loves attention, why else would this be the first thing he lets you know? He's impish and quirtky, but has a real strength that springs from the abundance of his heart. I imagine that he never knew his mother, but the one lady he did know and respect a lot? Mjoll the Lioness, who he watched patrol Riften and would sometimes give him a septim or toss him an apple while passing by. One day, he saw her get into a scuffle with some thieves, dispatching them with strength and ferocity and that's when he decided "I want to be a lion, too". So I wanted to make him look like a lion cub. Slightly angled eyes, I cat like grin to his face, freckles and big cheeks to make him look like a trouble-maker.

 

Finally, Blaise:

 

Blaise, introduces himself by saying  "you don't want me, I'm just the stable boy" and I built his look upon that phrase. I wanted him to have a wizened, slightly aloof look on his face. This boy is used to apathy, his parents were killed in the war and since then his only refuge has been living in a stable but for the graces of some farmers who have none to spare. He's somewhat emaciated, from malnutrition, I gave him a thinner face for that reason and as mentioned elsewhere, despite parents in the imperial army, he's a Breton, with some Nord mixed in, no doubt. I wanted his lineage to affect his features.

 

There you have it, I wanted to keep the boys looking mostly in line with how people remember them, thus I didn't do anything too drastic with their hair. Besides, I figured the orphanage boys would likely be required to maintain short hair on account of lice and Blaise would want to for the same reason. 

 

Let me know what you guys think.Skykids Honorhall Boys and Blaise.rar

[Stormsone]

@Kyods I think Sofie looks great as she is. Lucia looks good but to me her eyebrows seem to high it makes her look slightly off. 

[kyods]

@Kyods I think Sofie looks great as she is. Lucia looks good but to me her eyebrows seem to high it makes her look slightly off. 

 

Thanks. I'll try giving Lucia lower eyebrows once I get back home.

[Rez Delnava]

re: CGE exports

The export feature breaks if the character is wearing armor and spits out a junk .nif fille. 'hawk only really needs the .slot fiile

which is uneffected.

 

I'll work on the dragon's reach boys later tonight.

[kyods]

re: CGE exports

The export feature breaks if the character is wearing armor and spits out a junk .nif fille. 'hawk only really needs the .slot fiile

which is uneffected.

Thanks, this is good to know. I'll work on Aeta, and then I think I'll focus on two Hearthfire boys.

[SolidSnakeFH]

re: CGE exports

The export feature breaks if the character is wearing armor and spits out a junk .nif fille. 'hawk only really needs the .slot fiile

which is uneffected.

 

I'll work on the dragon's reach boys later tonight.

 

Cool, all the future presets I put down will come sans armors or clothes from now on. 

 

I think I'll work on Joric, Skuli and Alesan.

[bob11]

Aww, no Babette yet? /sad panda 

[JerWA]

Yeah Babette is a special case, even more of a PITA haha.

 

Edit: I'm going to be releasing an interim ESP if anyone wants to test some stuff and/or really wants the essential flag set on kids. There's another flag taking protection even further, is there any consensus on which is preferred? e.g. being able to attack but not kill or them being unattackable.

[panthercom]

 I was checking out your work.

 

 I think the boys would benefit from more variety to their facial structure;

they all have rather long noses and similar forehead/nose/chin ratios.

 

 The long noses make them look more like older teens, as the nose lengthens

quite a bit after puberty.

 

Looks good!

 

 

re: CGE exports
The export feature breaks if the character is wearing armor and spits out a junk .nif fille. 'hawk only really needs the .slot fiile
which is uneffected.

I'll work on the dragon's reach boys later tonight.

 

Cool, all the future presets I put down will come sans armors or clothes from now on. 

 

I think I'll work on Joric, Skuli and Alesan.

 

 

[panthercom]

 I've been running around with Kierstynn for a while; she's a useful companion. Beats the hell

out of trying to see around Lydia's big, fat ass I swear Lydia's been giving me dirty looks since

I dumped her for Keirstynn...

 

 If I would change anything I would drop the "Ow!" and the the "Hey!" exclamations from her dialog;

it grates on the nerves after a while, especially when she runs into my character. I know that's typical

vanilla companion AI behavior for Skyrim; it's gets on my nerves with the vanilla companions too.

 

Them not being essential is my fault, super easy fix. I don't know if 'hawk will stand still long enough for me to do it or not haha. I think you'll still be able to pick their pockets, and attack them/do damage, you just won't be able to kill them. These changes are easy.

 

Them all wearing the same clothes (boys and girls both) is as it should be for now. I mentioned it briefly before, it's just a side effect of making them real people instead of potato heads. It'll be updated, though one thing that would be helpful is if you've got backstory/suggestions for outfits. e.g. should Dorthe wear a dress or a blacksmith outfit? Does someone make a "cute" blacksmith outfit? If a kid should be in rags or riches, that kinda thing. Just makes the updates faster instead of me having to figure this stuff out on my own. These changes are easy.

 

Likewise if you think eye/hair colors should be changed on our NPCs please feel free to suggest it (especially if it makes more sense like their parents have black hair and somehow the kid is blonde haha). Given how convoluted the process has become it is no longer trivial to change things, but if something needs it badly enough I guess I can make 'hawk teach me how to do it so he doesn't have to. So, to categorize, these changes are not easy, but I'm willing to take them on if something needs adjustment.

 

I also need to update my 2 followers and re-post those if anyone is interested. They're still mostly just a proof of concept, no real back story or anything other than they're sisters and I need to work on one of their faces more because she's all crazy squinty eyed haha.

 

[panthercom]

 I really want to be able to punch Braith in the nose: I'd love it if you could

brawl with her

 

Yeah Babette is a special case, even more of a PITA haha.

 

Edit: I'm going to be releasing an interim ESP if anyone wants to test some stuff and/or really wants the essential flag set on kids. There's another flag taking protection even further, is there any consensus on which is preferred? e.g. being able to attack but not kill or them being unattackable.

 

[SolidSnakeFH]

 

 I was checking out your work.

 

 I think the boys would benefit from more variety to their facial structure;

they all have rather long noses and similar forehead/nose/chin ratios.

 

 The long noses make them look more like older teens, as the nose lengthens

quite a bit after puberty.

 

Looks good!

 

It's true, I could play a little more with giving them snub and button noses, but I was also taking into account that we would presumably be able to change their scale (height). In the notes, I specify what height I think they should have, The orphanage boys I see being 10-14 with Francois at the bottom and Samuel at the top. I crafted the faces accordingly. The long noses and broader heads I determined more through racial factors of what Nords and imperials eventually look like. With the exception of Blaise, I'd imagine these features would be prevalent in the peoples of Skyrim. 

 

Either way, I will look into it. I'm extremely appreciative of the criticism! =]

[JerWA]

 

 I've been running around with Kierstynn for a while; she's a useful companion. Beats the hell

out of trying to see around Lydia's big, fat ass I swear Lydia's been giving me dirty looks since

I dumped her for Keirstynn...

 

 If I would change anything I would drop the "Ow!" and the the "Hey!" exclamations from her dialog;

it grates on the nerves after a while, especially when she runs into my character. I know that's typical

vanilla companion AI behavior for Skyrim; it's gets on my nerves with the vanilla companions too.

 

 

Unfortunately the behavior you mention isn't something I can change without writing my own AI. All vanilla AI companions do it as far as I can tell, though if someone knows a way feel free to chime in. The updated one will rely on the follower voice mod linked in the first post here though, so it does expand on what they say at least, gives some environmental reactions, menu dialogs are spoken etc. Worth it. I'll have that up in a bit.

[JerWA]

<snip>

 

Removed as this is now integrated into later updates.

[panthercom]

 I had a feeling that was hard-coded behavior.

 

 Out of all the companions I've traveled with the most pleasant one was---

Buxom Wench Amame.

 

Pleasant voice, didn't seem to run into me a lot or get in my way;

I'm not sure which vanilla character the mod author borrowed the AI from, but it worked as

well as one could hope for in Skyrim. I'd be tempted to 'downsize' her and turn her into

'Skinny Brat Amame' just because she worked so well in my other game.

 

 

 

 

 I've been running around with Kierstynn for a while; she's a useful companion. Beats the hell

out of trying to see around Lydia's big, fat ass I swear Lydia's been giving me dirty looks since

I dumped her for Keirstynn...

 

 If I would change anything I would drop the "Ow!" and the the "Hey!" exclamations from her dialog;

it grates on the nerves after a while, especially when she runs into my character. I know that's typical

vanilla companion AI behavior for Skyrim; it's gets on my nerves with the vanilla companions too.

 

 

Unfortunately the behavior you mention isn't something I can change without writing my own AI. All vanilla AI companions do it as far as I can tell, though if someone knows a way feel free to chime in. The updated one will rely on the follower voice mod linked in the first post here though, so it does expand on what they say at least, gives some environmental reactions, menu dialogs are spoken etc. Worth it. I'll have that up in a bit.

 

 

[JerWA]

 

 I had a feeling that was hard-coded behavior.

 

 Out of all the companions I've traveled with the most pleasant one was---

Buxom Wench Amame.

 

Pleasant voice, didn't seem to run into me a lot or get in my way;

I'm not sure which vanilla character the mod author borrowed the AI from, but it worked as

well as one could hope for in Skyrim. I'd be tempted to 'downsize' her and turn her into

'Skinny Brat Amame' just because she worked so well in my other game.

It's quite possible to write your own, so it may not be based on anything vanilla. I'm sure there are AI packages that don't include neutral/friendly impact responses as well but I don't want to wander too far from the child idle AI (the combat AI is separate). If someone knows a good solution I'm not adverse to looking into it. Heck, I may go look at the NPC you're mentioning to see what they're using. It's also possible the AI is the same but the voiced response is removed haha. Complain all you want, I can't hear you!

 

While we're on the subject, here's my test followers for anyone that's interested!

 

Melee and Ranger Nord Skykid Followers v003 - Mega.co.nz 153 KB

- If you don't like reading, they're in the Sleeping Giant Inn, in Riverwood. As of this release you WILL need a way to either tamper with formlists for follower voices or use a mod like this one which is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/36913/ as mentioned in the first post. This mod fixes a lot of the "silent dialog" issues with custom followers, and adds some environmental reactions and such like normal followers do. It's totally worth it.

[SolidSnakeFH]

More Boys!

 

The sleepless and haunted Joric:

 

 

The no-nonsense barkeep-in-training Skuli:

 

 

The precocious and friendly miner's assistant Alesan:

 

I'm still working on them, so I won't put their description or CharGen data up just yet. I'm going to work on diversifying all of them a little. Hopefully not sacrificing their aesthetics (It's hard to manipulate the Racemenu right to change certain parts of their faces when the sliders don't work.)

 

As always, criticism and comments welcome.

[User13]

So I thought I'd give this a shot.  I've learned to make separate profiles in MO for my two different toons, one of which uses Cots and the other Rcots.  So I figured I'd go ahead and make a new profile using Skykids.  However, I'm a bit concerned about BOSS.  Is it a similar program to MO?  I know you can't use NMM with it, but what about MO?  If it's incompatible, being the same basic type of program, how could I go about using Skykids and BOSS and still keep my MO and Cots and Rcots toons?

[JerWA]

BOSS is for sorting load order, it's not a mod manager. However, given the weird way in which MO works, I'm not sure they will play entirely nicely together. I mean MO has the option to run BOSS from inside MO and that would work, but you need to run the armor patcher outside MO which will call BOSS as well. I don't know how well those two operations will work.

 

And BOSS works fine with NMM. It's this mod, SK, that is not NMM friendly due to pathing. I think MO handles that better but I've no first hand experience with it.

[bob11]

So I thought I'd give this a shot.  I've learned to make separate profiles in MO for my two different toons, one of which uses Cots and the other Rcots.  So I figured I'd go ahead and make a new profile using Skykids.  However, I'm a bit concerned about BOSS.  Is it a similar program to MO?  I know you can't use NMM with it, but what about MO?  If it's incompatible, being the same basic type of program, how could I go about using Skykids and BOSS and still keep my MO and Cots and Rcots toons?

 

BOSS and BUM can both be added and run through MO, BOSS is a load order sorting utility, not  a mod manager.  What does BOSS have to do with having a different profile for Skykids though? They're basically in the same mod category, they normally would go around the same spot in the load order.

[SkyWarrior623]

 

Awesome, downloaded and installing.

Out of curiosity, though, why isn't NMM supported? It seems like if all you have to do is extract the files to your data folder, NMM should be fine, but I tried putting all the files into one .7z file with a quick custom fomod info.xml and it didn't work.

Any of the packages with optional content are not packed in a way that is compatible with NMM. Or a more correct way of describing it, is that NMM is not compatible with them(its also a piece of crap that can't identify missing masters). The installation instructions are quite simple, you should not need NMM.

It's not that I need NMM to install, obviously. I just like using it so it's easier to uninstall later, so I don't have to go digging around for all the files. My HD space is a precious commodity, so if for whatever reason I decide I don't like this mod (which so far nothing has given me reason to not like it), I can't really just disable the .esps and .esms.

And I don't really feel like going through the learning curve for MO and getting everything set up the way I like with that, although I should probably do that anyway since, as you said, NMM is a piece of crap.

 

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly appreciate all of the time you and everyone else have put into this mod  . The fact that NMM support is my only complaint is a testament to your hard work.