Animal Research: The Insatiable Scholar

[Jubei69]

Hi, so after having a few issues first time around, I decided to make a new character & playthrough the mod again & I've had nowhere near as many issues this time around. However, I've encountered a big issue with the Lust for Knowledge quest & Aroused in Alinor. First, I'm getting sucked into Tirwin's memory after the Seeker part, before any Lurker shows up. Is this meant to happen? 2nd & by far the biggest issue is, once I'm in the memory as Tirwin, the moment I speak to her parents the camera goes mental & then locks itself in a far corner of the dining room, making it impossible to continue the mod. Has this happened to anyone else & how the hell do I fix it? I've tried 3 times now & it's happened every time. Thanks

[killer905]

25 minutes ago, Jubei69 said:

Hi, so after having a few issues first time around, I decided to make a new character & playthrough the mod again & I've had nowhere near as many issues this time around. However, I've encountered a big issue with the Lust for Knowledge quest & Aroused in Alinor. First, I'm getting sucked into Tirwin's memory after the Seeker part, before any Lurker shows up. Is this meant to happen? 2nd & by far the biggest issue is, once I'm in the memory as Tirwin, the moment I speak to her parents the camera goes mental & then locks itself in a far corner of the dining room, making it impossible to continue the mod. Has this happened to anyone else & how the hell do I fix it? I've tried 3 times now & it's happened every time. Thanks

After having sex with Tirwin and Seeker, you enter her dream. Then you control her for a while. If the camera cuts out, you probably have a mod causing the glitch. Try selecting Tirwin (in the dream) and typing in console TC . Only once you’ve completed the dream sequence will a Lurker show up.

[ylt_enes]

Hi, I’m having some issues. Actually, I have just one issue regarding the sex scenes with the creatures: While there’s no problem with my own character, the opposite happens with Tirwinde; the character approaches the creature, undresses, and the scene ends before the animation even starts. What exactly is the problem?

[killer905]

1 hour ago, ylt_enes said:

Hi, I’m having some issues. Actually, I have just one issue regarding the sex scenes with the creatures: While there’s no problem with my own character, the opposite happens with Tirwinde; the character approaches the creature, undresses, and the scene ends before the animation even starts. What exactly is the problem?

Do you have Sexlab P+?

[Lusciouslochs]

i remember there being some issues with P+ in the past with the scenes not initiating/starting, they got patched but are they cropping up again?

[ylt_enes]

3 hours ago, killer905 said:

Do you have Sexlab P+?

I'm using the normal SexLab. Is there a difference? The NPC-NPC scenes work with other NPCs, but the creature-NPC scenes don't work.

[eflat01]

6 hours ago, ylt_enes said:

I'm using the normal SexLab. Is there a difference? The NPC-NPC scenes work with other NPCs, but the creature-NPC scenes don't work.

 

Just to be sure... You have to be sure animations are loaded into sexlab.

 

1. Make sure you have at some creature animations such as Billyy's loaded into sexlab, I also have MNC and Anubs.
2. Make sure you have creature support turned on in SexLab - there's a setting option there, I beleive it's called "allow Creature Animations" it defaults to not on.
3. Many creature animations have an aggressive tag on them, so also in SexLab make sure you turn that setting turned on also.

 

 

Edited May 6 by eflat01

[lindah]

Im having trouble with the Riekling and Boar quest.

 

I reach the put the headdress on her, the quest tell us to enter the mine. We do so, but it stops updating there I never get to stage 140 to follow her. If I set the stage to 140 she just stand behind me glaring at me. Probably wanting some riekling dick but .. I just can't seem to get it to work. 

 

Sadly I have no save before picking up the quest. So will try with a much older save and try and speed run it and see if that helps/

[killer905]

10 hours ago, Lusciouslochs said:

i remember there being some issues with P+ in the past with the scenes not initiating/starting, they got patched but are they cropping up again?

Some version of Sexlab P+ was fixed this issue, but it’s only available on Discord.

[killer905]

2 hours ago, lindah said:

Im having trouble with the Riekling and Boar quest.

 

I reach the put the headdress on her, the quest tell us to enter the mine. We do so, but it stops updating there I never get to stage 140 to follow her. If I set the stage to 140 she just stand behind me glaring at me. Probably wanting some riekling dick but .. I just can't seem to get it to work. 

 

Sadly I have no save before picking up the quest. So will try with a much older save and try and speed run it and see if that helps/

Generally speaking, once you’ve gone inside, she should approach the Rekling and then follow him to the Rekling chieftain. After a few brief exchanges, the stage should change to ‘Talk to Tirwin’.

You can move Tirwin and the Rekling to the chieftain, and then enter further stages such as 150, 160, etc.

[lindah]

Yeah that part isn't happening. If i set it to 140 to follow she just stands there next to the riekling at the entrence, if i move to the chieftain again nothing happens. If I leave it at 130 (enter the mine) same thing. It worked on my previous character. im so confused. Im gonna restart the whole thing from a previous save. I dashed up to tel mithrin and the ash guy so not much longer

 

got it to work. setstage 150 worked now and then talk to her and fixed it. thanks

Edited May 6 by lindah

[killer905]

7 hours ago, lindah said:

Yeah that part isn't happening. If i set it to 140 to follow she just stands there next to the riekling at the entrence, if i move to the chieftain again nothing happens. If I leave it at 130 (enter the mine) same thing. It worked on my previous character. im so confused. Im gonna restart the whole thing from a previous save. I dashed up to tel mithrin and the ash guy so not much longer

 

got it to work. setstage 150 worked now and then talk to her and fixed it. thanks

Don't forget "Skyrim Engine"

[ylt_enes]

On 5/6/2026 at 5:44 AM, eflat01 said:

 

Just to be sure... You have to be sure animations are loaded into sexlab.

 

1. Make sure you have at some creature animations such as Billyy's loaded into sexlab, I also have MNC and Anubs.
2. Make sure you have creature support turned on in SexLab - there's a setting option there, I beleive it's called "allow Creature Animations" it defaults to not on.
3. Many creature animations have an aggressive tag on them, so also in SexLab make sure you turn that setting turned on also.

 

 

My issue isn't with the animations—they work for the main character, but not for the NPCs; their clothes disappear and then return to normal after 2 seconds. But there's no problem with my own character.

[eflat01]

9 hours ago, ylt_enes said:

My issue isn't with the animations—they work for the main character, but not for the NPCs; their clothes disappear and then return to normal after 2 seconds. But there's no problem with my own character.

 

I was going by what you said in the post... 

 

On 5/5/2026 at 3:54 PM, ylt_enes said:

The NPC-NPC scenes work with other NPCs, but the creature-NPC scenes don't work.

 

I took that to mean none of the creature animations are playing. Can your PC have sex with a creature?

 

What you're describing - the npc gets positioned, undress, redressed and no SexLab scene played, typically happens when SexLab cannot find an animation which matches the call to play. The gender and racetypes have to match with the sexlab call at the very least. In any case you should be able to log what's happening in SexLab to give you some clue.

 

i.e. AR sets up the animation call for the races then calls sexlab to take control... 

 

Spoiler

;BEGIN FRAGMENT Fragment_18
Function Fragment_18()
;BEGIN CODE
Actor[] acts = new Actor[2]
acts[0] = Tirwin
acts[1] = Horse
sslBaseAnimation[] anims = SexLab.GetCreatureAnimationsByRaceKey (2,"Horses")
SexLab.StartSex(acts, anims, CenterOn = HorseSexMarker)
;END CODE
EndFunction
;END FRAGMENT

 

In the above script:

sslBaseAnimation[] anims = SexLab.GetCreatureAnimationsByRaceKey (2,"Horses") <-- ask Sexlab for the animation which matches 2 actors one being "Horses"

 SexLab.StartSex(acts, anims, CenterOn = HorseSexMarker) <-- tells Sexlab to take control of the actors in acts and the animation in anims and play the animation at HorseSexMarker  for the scene.

 

So if a scene is not happening yet other sex scenes happen it's usually sexlab could not find the animation which matched the search. Typically thats because it's not loaded into sexlab... you can check via sexlab animation loaded to start.

 

Edited May 7 by eflat01

[kamithemoon]

On 5/4/2026 at 11:28 AM, killer905 said:

After having sex with Tirwin and Seeker, you enter her dream. Then you control her for a while. If the camera cuts out, you probably have a mod causing the glitch. Try selecting Tirwin (in the dream) and typing in console TC . Only once you’ve completed the dream sequence will a Lurker show up.

Have any VR players actually gotten to this point?

 

IIRC, in VR, camera movement is more or less locked to the PC.  Something like Skyrim on Skooma, for example, has an effect where you turn into a squirrel, but while you can control the critter, your camera is locked to the spot you were last standing at.  Which is a bit of a shame because the perspective of a squirrel would be fun.

 

It also makes Player Death Animation less fun.  Because while it's immersive to only see what your character's head can see.  Being killed and staring at the dirt while stuff happens around you is less fun then it would seem and I'd rather the camera was able to pan out so I can see what my enemies were doing to my corpse.

 

Anywho, how does this scene work?  If you actually take over Tirwin's body for a bit, it probably won't work in VR and I'd kindly ask for an option to skip this.  Or maybe have it have no actual change so you perceive yourself as your normal self but everyone else just perceives you as Tirwin?

 

Do you happen to know what options or console commands I would need to use to skip to this point so I can test it?

Edited May 7 by kamithemoon

[Gristle]

5 hours ago, kamithemoon said:

Anywho, how does this scene work?  If you actually take over Tirwin's body for a bit, it probably won't work in VR and I'd kindly ask for an option to skip this.  Or maybe have it have no actual change so you perceive yourself as your normal self but everyone else just perceives you as Tirwin?

You actually take over and control Tirwin's body. This is pushing the Skyrim engine to it's limits, so there's a bit of trickery involved. Basically, player movement controls are transferred from the PC to Tirwin, the camera is set to Tirwin, and the PC is set to be invisible and AI controlled. The PC needs to be there because "controlled Tirwin" can't enable anything or use normal dialogue. So, the invisible PC is parked in a corner, but is moved behind Tirwin whenever she is force-greeted so the dialogue works.

 

I suppose an alternative would be to force the view into first person and just walk the PC around (but then you'd see the PC's hands, right, or do you see more in VR?), but sex scenes (there are many) will switch to third person. I guess Tirwin could be swapped in for sex scenes, but then what do you do with the PC during sex scenes? I guess you could just set the PC in a viewing position and lock their controls, but that's not as good as the usual "fly around" camera control during sex. How does VR handle the camera during sex?

 

The entire dream sequence could be made skippable, but I'm not sure what would trigger the skip. I guess I could try to figure out a way to detect Skyrim VR. Also, it's fairly lengthy (I think 7 potential sex scenes), and the setting is Tirwin's home (with unique architecture) and family in Alinor, so it would be a shame to skip it.

5 hours ago, kamithemoon said:

Do you happen to know what options or console commands I would need to use to skip to this point so I can test it?

You can start Tirwin's dream sequence with 'setstage VAR_Alinor 10'.

[kamithemoon]

59 minutes ago, Gristle said:

You actually take over and control Tirwin's body. This is pushing the Skyrim engine to it's limits, so there's a bit of trickery involved. Basically, player movement controls are transferred from the PC to Tirwin, the camera is set to Tirwin, and the PC is set to be invisible and AI controlled. The PC needs to be there because "controlled Tirwin" can't enable anything or use normal dialogue. So, the invisible PC is parked in a corner, but is moved behind Tirwin whenever she is force-greeted so the dialogue works.

 

I suppose an alternative would be to force the view into first person and just walk the PC around (but then you'd see the PC's hands, right, or do you see more in VR?), but sex scenes (there are many) will switch to third person. I guess Tirwin could be swapped in for sex scenes, but then what do you do with the PC during sex scenes? I guess you could just set the PC in a viewing position and lock their controls, but that's not as good as the usual "fly around" camera control during sex. How does VR handle the camera during sex?

 

The entire dream sequence could be made skippable, but I'm not sure what would trigger the skip. I guess I could try to figure out a way to detect Skyrim VR. Also, it's fairly lengthy (I think 7 potential sex scenes), and the setting is Tirwin's home (with unique architecture) and family in Alinor, so it would be a shame to skip it.

You can start Tirwin's dream sequence with 'setstage VAR_Alinor 10'.

 

Hrm, "VAR__Alinor" not found...  Oh. I think it's "VAR_AlinorManor" I'll try that.

Spoiler

 

I'm actually not quite sure how Sexlab VR handles sex for the player.  Its an out of body experience where your perspective leaves your body but is not a clone as the body you're looking at reacts to your movements.  Enemies will react to the camera though and hostile enemies can attack the camera.

Edited May 8 by kamithemoon

[kamithemoon]

Drat. It is as I feared.  While you can indeed control Tirwin, your perspective is locked so you can't see out of her eyes and I'm not sure you can interact with anything like this.  A janky thing that's probably not even a work around though is that you can use Tirwin to bump "you" around so you can kinda see what's happening.

 

I wouldn't mind if what happens here is that Tirwin is disabled and you remain yourself and look like yourself.  And everyone else just treats you like Tirwin.  It's kinda what happens in movies anyways when body switching happens.  Like Quantum Leap or something.

 

Hrm...  AI Explanation.
 

Spoiler

In Skyrim VR, the “possess another actor” trick mostly fails because the VR runtime hard-binds the camera, hands, and HMD tracking to the actual PlayerRef. Even if you transfer controls or camera focus, the headset origin still belongs to the player actor.

So the short answer is:

• Vanilla CK/Papyrus: not really
• With SKSEVR + native plugin work: yes, partially
• Fully seamless NPC possession in VR: extremely difficult

Here’s why and what does work.

---

Why the normal trick fails in VR

In flat Skyrim SE, you can fake possession using:

• Game.ForceThirdPerson()
• camera state changes
• controlling another actor
• disabling player visuals

In VR:

• The headset camera is attached to the VR player node
• Motion controllers are attached to VR hand nodes
• The engine continuously recenters around PlayerRef

So even if:

• another actor animates,
• the camera targets them,
• controls redirect,

the player’s physical tracked position still exists independently.

That’s why:

• the viewpoint drifts,
• hands disappear or stay behind,
• height/origin mismatch happens,
• body IK breaks.

---

What modders actually do in Skyrim VR

Replace the player’s appearance directly

This is the most stable VR-compatible solution.

Instead of possessing another NPC:

• keep PlayerRef active,
• swap the player’s appearance to match the NPC,
• run the scene,
• restore afterward.

This avoids fighting the VR camera system.

Usually implemented with:

• SKSEVR
• RaceMenu VR / NiOverride
• Custom native plugin

You can:

• swap head mesh
• swap tint layers
• change hair
• change skin textures
• equip NPC outfit
• optionally alter voice via dialogue tricks

This is the closest thing to a reliable VR “body swap.”

 

Edited May 8 by kamithemoon

[Unknown34]

Guys have problems with the part where harkin uses the vampire spell to weaken player's body and will. not happens after it. what am i supposed to do?

 

[killer905]

10 hours ago, kamithemoon said:

Have any VR players actually gotten to this point?

 

IIRC, in VR, camera movement is more or less locked to the PC.  Something like Skyrim on Skooma, for example, has an effect where you turn into a squirrel, but while you can control the critter, your camera is locked to the spot you were last standing at.  Which is a bit of a shame because the perspective of a squirrel would be fun.

 

It also makes Player Death Animation less fun.  Because while it's immersive to only see what your character's head can see.  Being killed and staring at the dirt while stuff happens around you is less fun then it would seem and I'd rather the camera was able to pan out so I can see what my enemies were doing to my corpse.

 

Anywho, how does this scene work?  If you actually take over Tirwin's body for a bit, it probably won't work in VR and I'd kindly ask for an option to skip this.  Or maybe have it have no actual change so you perceive yourself as your normal self but everyone else just perceives you as Tirwin?

 

Do you happen to know what options or console commands I would need to use to skip to this point so I can test it?

 

4 hours ago, Gristle said:

You actually take over and control Tirwin's body. This is pushing the Skyrim engine to it's limits, so there's a bit of trickery involved. Basically, player movement controls are transferred from the PC to Tirwin, the camera is set to Tirwin, and the PC is set to be invisible and AI controlled. The PC needs to be there because "controlled Tirwin" can't enable anything or use normal dialogue. So, the invisible PC is parked in a corner, but is moved behind Tirwin whenever she is force-greeted so the dialogue works.

 

I suppose an alternative would be to force the view into first person and just walk the PC around (but then you'd see the PC's hands, right, or do you see more in VR?), but sex scenes (there are many) will switch to third person. I guess Tirwin could be swapped in for sex scenes, but then what do you do with the PC during sex scenes? I guess you could just set the PC in a viewing position and lock their controls, but that's not as good as the usual "fly around" camera control during sex. How does VR handle the camera during sex?

 

The entire dream sequence could be made skippable, but I'm not sure what would trigger the skip. I guess I could try to figure out a way to detect Skyrim VR. Also, it's fairly lengthy (I think 7 potential sex scenes), and the setting is Tirwin's home (with unique architecture) and family in Alinor, so it would be a shame to skip it.

You can start Tirwin's dream sequence with 'setstage VAR_Alinor 10'.

 

3 hours ago, kamithemoon said:

 

Hrm, "VAR__Alinor" not found...  Oh. I think it's "VAR_AlinorManor" I'll try that.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I'm actually not quite sure how Sexlab VR handles sex for the player.  Its an out of body experience where your perspective leaves your body but is not a clone as the body you're looking at reacts to your movements.  Enemies will react to the camera though and hostile enemies can attack the camera.

 

3 hours ago, kamithemoon said:

Drat. It is as I feared.  While you can indeed control Tirwin, your perspective is locked so you can't see out of her eyes and I'm not sure you can interact with anything like this.  A janky thing that's probably not even a work around though is that you can use Tirwin to bump "you" around so you can kinda see what's happening.

 

I wouldn't mind if what happens here is that Tirwin is disabled and you remain yourself and look like yourself.  And everyone else just treats you like Tirwin.  It's kinda what happens in movies anyways when body switching happens.  Like Quantum Leap or something.

 

Hrm...  AI Explanation.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

In Skyrim VR, the “possess another actor” trick mostly fails because the VR runtime hard-binds the camera, hands, and HMD tracking to the actual PlayerRef. Even if you transfer controls or camera focus, the headset origin still belongs to the player actor.

So the short answer is:

• Vanilla CK/Papyrus: not really
• With SKSEVR + native plugin work: yes, partially
• Fully seamless NPC possession in VR: extremely difficult

Here’s why and what does work.

---

Why the normal trick fails in VR

In flat Skyrim SE, you can fake possession using:

• Game.ForceThirdPerson()
• camera state changes
• controlling another actor
• disabling player visuals

In VR:

• The headset camera is attached to the VR player node
• Motion controllers are attached to VR hand nodes
• The engine continuously recenters around PlayerRef

So even if:

• another actor animates,
• the camera targets them,
• controls redirect,

the player’s physical tracked position still exists independently.

That’s why:

• the viewpoint drifts,
• hands disappear or stay behind,
• height/origin mismatch happens,
• body IK breaks.

---

What modders actually do in Skyrim VR

Replace the player’s appearance directly

This is the most stable VR-compatible solution.

Instead of possessing another NPC:

• keep PlayerRef active,
• swap the player’s appearance to match the NPC,
• run the scene,
• restore afterward.

This avoids fighting the VR camera system.

Usually implemented with:

• SKSEVR
• RaceMenu VR / NiOverride
• Custom native plugin

You can:

• swap head mesh
• swap tint layers
• change hair
• change skin textures
• equip NPC outfit
• optionally alter voice via dialogue tricks

This is the closest thing to a reliable VR “body swap.”

 

I think a simple solution would be to add a pop-up window (before actually sending the character to sleep) asking whether the player is a VR user or not; if they select VR, the player would simply control their character, and Triwin would follow the PC, with the PC conducting the dialogue on her behalf.

[killer905]

2 hours ago, Unknown34 said:

Guys have problems with the part where harkin uses the vampire spell to weaken player's body and will. not happens after it. what am i supposed to do?

 

He should cast a paralysis spell on PC and Tirwin, and then transform into a vampire lord.

[kamithemoon]

39 minutes ago, killer905 said:

 

 

 

I think a simple solution would be to add a pop-up window (before actually sending the character to sleep) asking whether the player is a VR user or not; if they select VR, the player would simply control their character, and Triwin would follow the PC, with the PC conducting the dialogue on her behalf.

Maybe not a pop up window, which would disrupt normalish play.  How about a tiny esl patch that does this instead?  That way, pancake players need never even be confronted with this issue.

[killer905]

1 hour ago, kamithemoon said:

Maybe not a pop up window, which would disrupt normalish play.  How about a tiny esl patch that does this instead?  That way, pancake players need never even be confronted with this issue.

That would be fine too, and I might even be able to add a third option during installation. So it would be:
Legendary Edition
Special Edition/Anniversary Edition
VR

[ylt_enes]

18 hours ago, eflat01 said:

 

I was going by what you said in the post... 

 

 

I took that to mean none of the creature animations are playing. Can your PC have sex with a creature?

 

What you're describing - the npc gets positioned, undress, redressed and no SexLab scene played, typically happens when SexLab cannot find an animation which matches the call to play. The gender and racetypes have to match with the sexlab call at the very least. In any case you should be able to log what's happening in SexLab to give you some clue.

 

i.e. AR sets up the animation call for the races then calls sexlab to take control... 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

;BEGIN FRAGMENT Fragment_18
Function Fragment_18()
;BEGIN CODE
Actor[] acts = new Actor[2]
acts[0] = Tirwin
acts[1] = Horse
sslBaseAnimation[] anims = SexLab.GetCreatureAnimationsByRaceKey (2,"Horses")
SexLab.StartSex(acts, anims, CenterOn = HorseSexMarker)
;END CODE
EndFunction
;END FRAGMENT

 

In the above script:

sslBaseAnimation[] anims = SexLab.GetCreatureAnimationsByRaceKey (2,"Horses") <-- ask Sexlab for the animation which matches 2 actors one being "Horses"

 SexLab.StartSex(acts, anims, CenterOn = HorseSexMarker) <-- tells Sexlab to take control of the actors in acts and the animation in anims and play the animation at HorseSexMarker  for the scene.

 

So if a scene is not happening yet other sex scenes happen it's usually sexlab could not find the animation which matched the search. Typically thats because it's not loaded into sexlab... you can check via sexlab animation loaded to start.

 

mc-creature: no issues

mc-npc: no issues

npc-creature: there are issues here — they’re preparing, but it ends immediately; they don’t even start the scene. There are only undressing scenes. However, it works in some scenes, but only for two creatures: Ashspawn and Netch. Aside from these two, nothing else works

[Angel019]

Hello, just a quick question, i started a new playthrough with this mod and got Tirwin to follow me however i noticed that i can't ask to trade with her and my issue is that i play with iNeed mod and basically she gets hungry and thirsty and i can't give her waterskin or any food, do i need to progress with her to unlock trading option?