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

[Rez Delnava]

As the creator of one of the original armor mods for kids, I will agree with en_hawk; using vanilla form overrides for getting child armor to load is a huge pain in the ass for both the user and the mod author (especially the author). I only had a few thousand downloads, but for every three DL's there was a PM complaining about how I broke something or compatibility patch x, y, and z.  It was a nightmare. And it was disheartening, and ultimately the reason why I quit working on that mod.

SkyProc just makes sense to use for the mod author.

As for the BOSS/LOOT debate... I've used both and like neither.  But as a sympathetic mod author, I would still advocate for BOSS because, with an author configured userlist, it will produce a dependable load order which makes troubleshooting a whole lot easier.  LOOT does not guarantee that consistency; I had it give me two different load orders with consecutive runs (neither of which were correct (and nor were any of BOSS's attempts) but thats aside from my point).

Now to put this thread back on the rails...

The couple of users with recent issues with the SK patcher not finding skykids.esm; I have a few suggestions:

1) Try updating your Java installation, making sure it installs with administrator permissions and that you have the correct x86/x64 version to match your OS.

2) Try running the SK patcher as admin.

3) Try using SUM (in admin mode) and check the Force Patch option in the upper right (optionally you can use SUM to bypass BOSS).

4) Do a quick integrity check on the esm:  Make sure the spelling on the esm is correct, the file size should be ~966KB, and the date modified is 07Dec2013. If any of those are incorrect, re-download and reinstall. Sometimes an archive extraction produces broken files or the LL servers served you a broken DL.

 

If none of that works, send me a PM with your load order (please use a spoiler or code tag so the message isn't a wall of text), what mod management software you're using, what steps you've already taken, and as much detail as you think you need, and I'll try to help from there.

[LordPrettyPie]

As the creator of one of the original armor mods for kids, I will agree with en_hawk; using vanilla form overrides for getting child armor to load is a huge pain in the ass for both the user and the mod author (especially the author). I only had a few thousand downloads, but for every three DL's there was a PM complaining about how I broke something or compatibility patch x, y, and z.  It was a nightmare. And it was disheartening, and ultimately the reason why I quit working on that mod.

 

SkyProc just makes sense to use for the mod author.

 

As for the BOSS/LOOT debate... I've used both and like neither.  But as a sympathetic mod author, I would still advocate for BOSS because, with an author configured userlist, it will produce a dependable load order which makes troubleshooting a whole lot easier.  LOOT does not guarantee that consistency; I had it give me two different load orders with consecutive runs (neither of which were correct (and nor were any of BOSS's attempts) but thats aside from my point).

 

Now to put this thread back on the rails...

 

The couple of users with recent issues with the SK patcher not finding skykids.esm; I have a few suggestions:

1) Try updating your Java installation, making sure it installs with administrator permissions and that you have the correct x86/x64 version to match your OS.

2) Try running the SK patcher as admin.

3) Try using SUM (in admin mode) and check the Force Patch option in the upper right (optionally you can use SUM to bypass BOSS).

4) Do a quick integrity check on the esm:  Make sure the spelling on the esm is correct, the file size should be ~966KB, and the date modified is 07Dec2013. If any of those are incorrect, re-download and reinstall. Sometimes an archive extraction produces broken files or the LL servers served you a broken DL.

 

If none of that works, send me a PM with your load order (please use a spoiler or code tag so the message isn't a wall of text), what mod management software you're using, what steps you've already taken, and as much detail as you think you need, and I'll try to help from there.

YES! Thank you so much! I ran it with SUM and it went off without a hitch! I'm not entirely sure what difference it made using it via SUM, and frankly, now that it's working, I really don't care! I'mma go make a little girl beat the living hell out of a dragon while wearing it's cousin's bones as armor, you rock!

[Kestrix]

Damnit I'm at such a crossroads. I like Skykids and the whole concept of the mod but I prefer the look of RS Children/Dreamburrow's kids. Would it be possible to go through and tweak the look of each child so they look as nice as RS Children? Sorry for my sleep deprived mommy brain.

[en_hawk]

Damnit I'm at such a crossroads. I like Skykids and the whole concept of the mod but I prefer the look of RS Children/Dreamburrow's kids. Would it be possible to go through and tweak the look of each child so they look as nice as RS Children? Sorry for my sleep deprived mommy brain.

I've actually been considering proposing a collaboration that would be pretty much just what you're looking for. The best I can offer is for you to stay tuned for potential future updates on the matter, though...

[Rez Delnava]

I'm looking forward to a potential collaboration.  I've been longing to get my hands on DreamBurrow's Aventus and Henry (her character's child) assets for a while. Its just too bad DB won't release her mash-up children's armors--they're so damn cute--but I respect her for respecting other modders and not releasing them.

[zzz72w3r]

Collaboration would be fantastic.  I too like the looks of custom made RS Children, however, probably due to its technical limitation the patched kids such as the ones from Inconsequential NPC kinda give me the Chucky vibe.

[Kestrix]

I'm looking forward to a potential collaboration.  I've been longing to get my hands on DreamBurrow's Aventus and Henry (her character's child) assets for a while. Its just too bad DB won't release her mash-up children's armors--they're so damn cute--but I respect her for respecting other modders and not releasing them.

 

I think also a lot of it is real life keeping her super busy. Though I think RS children use a lot of the same assets - their Henry looks super close to DreamBurrows and I've sourced most of the armor pieces DB's used to make her mash ups. It's just a matter of me -not- being lazy and getting around to making the mash ups.

 

That said, how hard would it be to use the newer/better Khajiit tris/morphs that were recently released for khajiit on Nexus to work for the child races? Or resizing the streamlined Argonian female heads?

 

Actually another question is - Skykids being made standalone-ish for npcs/followers -should- work the same way as other standalone follower making right?

[Rez Delnava]

 

I think also a lot of it is real life keeping her super busy. Though I think RS children use a lot of the same assets - their Henry looks super close to DreamBurrows and I've sourced most of the armor pieces DB's used to make her mash ups. It's just a matter of me -not- being lazy and getting around to making the mash ups.

 

That said, how hard would it be to use the newer/better Khajiit tris/morphs that were recently released for khajiit on Nexus to work for the child races? Or resizing the streamlined Argonian female heads?

 

Actually another question is - Skykids being made standalone-ish for npcs/followers -should- work the same way as other standalone follower making right?

 

 

I have yet to find a one-size-fits-all formula for making standalone followers, so depends on what you mean by 'same way'. You would have to contend with the dependency on the SK armor patch to get armor onto the follower, and the dependency on the race forms.  Not impossible to do, but enough work to make me want to just slap full SK as a required prerequisite.

[ppetersmith]

Hi can anyone help me getting this error

https://imageshack.com/i/f00sfpzgj

 

The hands and feed are wrong

 

 

[TamAmaruk]

Hi can anyone help me getting this error

https://imageshack.com/i/f00sfpzgj

 

The hands and feed are wrong

 

Hi,

 

I had a similar issue when first installing SkyKids.

 

For me it was an incorrect installation of SkyKids and second an incompatible mod.

Backing up my savegames, making a clean install of Skyrim and then adding SkyKids followed by my other mods solved that issue for me. I do not know, if it will work for you or if there is an easier solution.

 

I also did not recognise that armor on your screenshot. I don't thik it is a vanilla one, isn't it?

As far as I know (any SK mod author please correct me if I am wrong) immersive armors is still not fully compatible with the child body meshes used by SkyKids.

 

I am also looking for a solution to that, because there are some cool armors inside immersive armors that I like my boy to wear...

 

Greets

Tam

[TamAmaruk]

 

 

 

 

The armor patcher just allows armor mods to work on SkyKids. A lot of custom armors won't work on custom races in general. The armor patcher for SkyKids changes that and allows them to work for SkyKids.

 

The problem you are having is the mesh for those armors, are not designed to fit the SkyKids body. Until someone converts those armors in Immersive Armors to use the SkyKids body, then there will be a gap there cause the SkyKids are using a different body than Immersive Armors uses.

 

Currently, all the vanilla armors (or most if not all) of them have been converted to fit the SkyKids body. Thus why they work fine. But in order to have any other armor fit the SkyKids body, someone needs to adapt that armor to the SkyKids body. Otherwise it will use whatever default body that armor was designed for. I believe Immersive Armors uses the default vanilla male body as a base, so your SkyKids will be using that as well until it is converted to the SkyKids body. Thus why you see the seams everywhere.

 

Hope that explains it.

 

Many thanks for your explanaition. It makes things clearer.

 

Until now I thought, the SK armor patcher will do such kind of "adapt-the-armor-to-skykids-magic". But if I understand you right, it just kind of "enables" armor mods to be recognised by SK, so the Kids would not be naked if equiped with such an armor.

 

Due to the fact I cannot do the conversion myself, I can only add it to the "big growing wishlist" and hopefully wait for someone capable to throw himself into work

 

Maybe someone can advise some bare-chested male armor (other than the vanilla fur armor) that just works with SK?

Would be much appreciated...

 

Just out of couriosity: What body mesh is SK using / based on?

Maybe if I can find some armor fitted for that "base-body mesh" it hopefully may work...

Or is it some complete own design (if so: much respect...) ?

 

Greets

Tam

 

 

 

 

You could probably use the meshes out of this mod.

http://www.loverslab.com/files/download/602-child-males-armorpack-replacement-body-replacement/

 

Just replace the meshes that are included with the SK armor pack.

 

 

Sorry for pushing this again and my naive question, but ...

 

can someome tell me how to do this and if that may work?

 

Maybe a SK Author can advise whether to try or not, because I do not know what this will break (it will surely break something, I guess).

 

Greets

Tam

[ppetersmith]

 

Hi can anyone help me getting this error

https://imageshack.com/i/f00sfpzgj

 

The hands and feed are wrong

 

Hi,

 

I had a similar issue when first installing SkyKids.

 

For me it was an incorrect installation of SkyKids and second an incompatible mod.

Backing up my savegames, making a clean install of Skyrim and then adding SkyKids followed by my other mods solved that issue for me. I do not know, if it will work for you or if there is an easier solution.

 

I also did not recognise that armor on your screenshot. I don't thik it is a vanilla one, isn't it?

As far as I know (any SK mod author please correct me if I am wrong) immersive armors is still not fully compatible with the child body meshes used by SkyKids.

 

I am also looking for a solution to that, because there are some cool armors inside immersive armors that I like my boy to wear...

 

Greets

Tam

 

 

Hi thx for the reply.

Trying reinstall today, wish me luck lol (like the fifth time), the hand and feet error seems to curse me.

The armor is immersive armor + cots +rcots + spykids, and i might have seen a male mesh download option for spykids.

Cheers

[angelstrike]

I must be missing something here.

 

So far, I've followed the instructions to exact detail, except I can't find the .jar file.

 

If I'm correct, SKArmorPatcher,jar should be in Data/SkyProc Patchers/SKArmorPatcher. But its not there. Neither does it exists in the same directory in the download package.

[johann7124]

The jar file is included in the [Core] Skykids Base.rar

[kettchup]

For some reason setting the javaw.exe as the default program to open .jar files fixed it for me. I don't know why, but this might work for someone else. Thanks all for your responses!

[daveylighter]

First, thank you en_hawk for this great mod!  I got everything running fine first try.  The character designs look good and fit in with the game's art design very well.  Overall the level of polish and attention to detail is readily apparent.

 

Second, I have Immersive Armors.  I'm aware of the body mesh switching that happens and am wondering what the recommmended steps might be to refit an armor to the SK body mesh.  I have CK, Nifscope, and Blender.  I'm decent at Blender, but new to CK and Nifscope.  I plan to educate myself but would appreciate some pointers so as not to break stuff.

[Rez Delnava]

Luckily, you probably won't need the CK (I think its a worthless heap as far as its Form editor is concerned) but you will need to get familiar with NifScope. 

 

You will also need a tool called BSA Opt;  you will need it to unpack IA's files into 'loose files' (unless HothTrooper is now offering a loose files version of IA, then just download that). You can find BSAOpt on the Nexus.

 

To avoid breaking stuff, I would highly recommend using ModOrganizer.  It compartmentalizes your mods so you don't accidentally overwrite or break other mods.  It does take some getting used to, but if you can manage Blender's quirks, MO should be a breeze to pick up (plus there are SK specific MO tips earlier in this thread).

 

The first step is to unpack IA using BSAOpt.

Next would be to copy the directory layout of Immersive Armors into the meshes/skykids-armorswap/child/ folder.  I use MO and have a a custom MO mod/Folder for mods I'm working on so mine looks like this after:

 

...\MO\mods\~Sandbox~\meshes\skykids-armorswap\child\armor\*armorname*\

You could just copy the entirety of the extracted Immersive Armors if you plan on converting all the armors, but keep in mind that that doubling could impact load times.

 

The next step is to open SK nude/underwear body in NIfSkope. Its found in the Skykids\Meshes\actors\character\skykids\ folder.

Then open the armor you're trying to adapt in a second instance of NifSkope. Do some comparison, see what needs to be scaled, etc. In some cases the armor will have a tri-shape part that is segments of the default body, usually around the wrists, neck and ankles (where ever you would see exposed skin); you'll need to remove that part (delete branch) and import the SK body in its place (Copy Branch from the SK Body, then paste into (you may need to rename the top-layer NiNode to match eachother--usually the top layer is called 'Scene Root', but some people rename it)).

 

If the armor doesn't need detailed retooling, NifSkope can be used to simply rescale the entire mesh (right-click the NiTriShape>Transform>Edit/ScaleVertices) to fit the SK body. Otherwise, time to load-up Blender and do detail work. Afterward, reload the armor in NifSkope and make sure the textures stayed intact (some of the import/export tools sometimes break the texture paths, so its easier to always double check then have to comeback later).

 

And as a general tip for meshing both in NifSkope and Blender: iterate your saves.  Its easier to open a save after a catastrophic screw-up than to try to undo, or worse, having to start over.

[daveylighter]

Thanks for that explanation, Rez.

 

I was mostly converted over to Mod Organizer, but with Skykids I reinstalled the main ESMs back to the physical directories with Wrye Bash and NMM.

 

Then I extracted the SK cores directly into Skyrim Data. 

 

That way I could ensure I would get results without worrying about "virtual" directories.

 

I used BOSS and then ran the armor patcher. 

 

I rechecked the result with Wrye Bash and finally got everything re-sorted with the remaining MO installed files using LOOT.

 

So, I'm still using MO for the final load priority and load order, but I can also use the other tools just fine. 

 

The results are worth the effort.

 

In a personal project like this I am most interested in the armors that I like, so I'm not about to take on the entire Immersive Armors set.

 

I'll just have to see how long my interest holds out.

 

I've downloaded BSAOpt, and I'll have a look inside the Immersive Armors package. 

 

I really appreciate your taking the time to explain all that.

 

 

[johann7124]

 

 

 

 

 

The armor patcher just allows armor mods to work on SkyKids. A lot of custom armors won't work on custom races in general. The armor patcher for SkyKids changes that and allows them to work for SkyKids.

 

The problem you are having is the mesh for those armors, are not designed to fit the SkyKids body. Until someone converts those armors in Immersive Armors to use the SkyKids body, then there will be a gap there cause the SkyKids are using a different body than Immersive Armors uses.

 

Currently, all the vanilla armors (or most if not all) of them have been converted to fit the SkyKids body. Thus why they work fine. But in order to have any other armor fit the SkyKids body, someone needs to adapt that armor to the SkyKids body. Otherwise it will use whatever default body that armor was designed for. I believe Immersive Armors uses the default vanilla male body as a base, so your SkyKids will be using that as well until it is converted to the SkyKids body. Thus why you see the seams everywhere.

 

Hope that explains it.

 

Many thanks for your explanaition. It makes things clearer.

 

Until now I thought, the SK armor patcher will do such kind of "adapt-the-armor-to-skykids-magic". But if I understand you right, it just kind of "enables" armor mods to be recognised by SK, so the Kids would not be naked if equiped with such an armor.

 

Due to the fact I cannot do the conversion myself, I can only add it to the "big growing wishlist" and hopefully wait for someone capable to throw himself into work

 

Maybe someone can advise some bare-chested male armor (other than the vanilla fur armor) that just works with SK?

Would be much appreciated...

 

Just out of couriosity: What body mesh is SK using / based on?

Maybe if I can find some armor fitted for that "base-body mesh" it hopefully may work...

Or is it some complete own design (if so: much respect...) ?

 

Greets

Tam

 

 

 

 

You could probably use the meshes out of this mod.

http://www.loverslab.com/files/download/602-child-males-armorpack-replacement-body-replacement/

 

Just replace the meshes that are included with the SK armor pack.

 

 

Sorry for pushing this again and my naive question, but ...

 

can someome tell me how to do this and if that may work?

 

Maybe a SK Author can advise whether to try or not, because I do not know what this will break (it will surely break something, I guess).

 

Greets

Tam

 

 

I make no guarantees, but this should do the trick.

 

https://mega.co.nz/#!FEoCHLzI!aBVmgWlwlpmExkhd0XemScp-8RC7B5W5CnO4F1dIdOg

 

It should go into the proper folders now.

 

[MidbossVyers]

Also, in terms of the SkyProc Patcher, is it normal for the application to be "stuck" 100% Done Importing? IIRC, the application exits itself out once it is done, but currently, mine is stuck at that message whenever I try to use it.

[Rez Delnava]

The stuck at 100% issue sometimes happens to SkyProc when there is an issue overwriting the existing file.  Sometimes just setting the .jar to run as administrator is enough to fix it, other times you have to delete the existing patch before running a new one.

[MidbossVyers]

How do I run a .jar file as administrator?  I can only do that with .exe files.  Also, even though it is stuck at 100%, it does create an .esp file, specifically a 0KB SK Child Armor Swapper.esp in my C:\ directory (rather than my current 1611KB .esp file in my C:\Games\SteamApps\common\Skyrim\Data).  Also, while SkyKids.esm in the original .rar file does say 12/7/2013, when I extract it and run BOSS, it appears to set the date to 1/1/2008.  File size and the like are the same; just the date modified changed.  It doesn't seem to affect anything, but is this normal?

[johnny2by4]

i've got something strange occurring when i use the different hair patches you provide.  when active it seems to block adults from using any apachihair and of course when i disable it my skykid characters only have access to vanilla hair.

 

edit:  apparently does the same with the oblivion hair pack, strangely eyes of beauty seem unaffected.

 

edit2:  thanks for the clarification, i've read your first post but its long and sometimes hard to understand.  maybe i'll just activate the oblivion one and let them have those hairs.

[en_hawk]

i've got something strange occurring when i use the different hair patches you provide.  when active it seems to block adults from using any apachihair and of course when i disable it my skykid characters only have access to vanilla hair.

 

edit:  apparently does the same with the oblivion hair pack, strangely eyes of beauty seem unaffected.

That's intentional, and explained in the technical information section. Its an engine limitation, and that was the best I could come up with to work around it.

[en_hawk]

The hair patches only affect whether the hair is selectable during chargen on a given race; there's nothing stopping you from making an adult/child character with the plugin off/on and then toggling it after the fact.