Animal Research: The Insatiable Scholar

[eflat01]

1 hour ago, Gristle said:

Like @killer905 mentioned, the quest is not set up to automatically end when the counter drops to 0. Presently, the PC can help, but this only results in a Tirwin dialogue choice to end Tirwin's adventures one stage early. I could give her also give her a dialogue choice to end two stages early, if the counter is at 0. (I don't think it's really possible to hit 0 any sooner than that.) But, at the same time, the thought was that most players would not want to cut short the party.

 

I'm not sure if I somehow broke Tirwin's force greet due to my DB's promiscuity or what it was? Like I said I took it slower in subsequent runs and she played thru fine.

 

I also figure something else out... particular to my load.

Spoiler

I was wondering why some of the female npcs at the party were dressed, Well I figured that out.

 

When looking at how they're built you're using templates...

 

i.e. Iona at the party is using "Idgrod the Younger" as a template.

 

So happens I use SPID to change the default outfits of many female npcs.

 

This is the SPID ini for Idgrod  

; Idgrod the Younger - TrissBocadeSilverOutfit
Outfit = 0x869~TrissDress.esp|ActorTypeNPC|0x135EC|NONE|F|NONE|100

 

Thus then Iona at the party ended up dressed in TrissBocadeSilverOutfit because SPID is casting right at the Base Editor ID. 0x135EC

 

 

I was wondering why Idgrod was tending bar before I walked up to her and saw it wasn't her. 😉 

 

Hana uses Carlotta as a template in a spid .ini it has: 

 

; Carlotta
Outfit = 0x85A~zzMaidOutfits.esp|ActorTypeNPC|0x13B99|NONE|F|NONE|100

 

and so forth...

 

Oh the template use also explained to me why most npcs at the party also had high-poly heads and different varying bodies too (I bodyslide many of them different), most coldsun's bodies like CS_Idgrod_Body "CS_Idgrod_Body" [ARMO:FE0DD803]

 

 

 

Edited July 27, 2025 by eflat01

[nothing2lose]

got few bug that force tirwin to talk to me but no new dialog option, also theres a bug with harkon when he about to take tirwin for the second time he just stand there so i had to disabled and enabled him to continue the scene, and the second is tirwin and the gargoyle, when VAR_gargoyle is set to stage 215, i manualy push it to 216 but nothing happen then i  push it to 220 thats when the new quest appear to talk to valerica/tirwin

[Carnotaurus]

Continuing the quests, still haven't finished the Volkihar quests. But I see I was not the only one to think that Valerica had made gargoyles for some, um, "special purposes" when Serana mentions it during the Dawnguard quest.

 

And a gargoyle named Gygax? I see what you all did there. 😆

[r34charmander]

great mod keep it up   hope to maybe see animal mansion overhaul in the future aswell 

[killer905]

7 hours ago, eflat01 said:

  Hide contents

 

Could be? Maybe the user was not keeping tight count of Tirwin's body count or she's really competitive and got jealous when the PC was leaving her in the dust. 😜 

 

I do know it seemed she stopped and she just stood there. I turned off spectators before taking on the entertainment tasks from the start just to be sure to eliminate any interference from that.

 

All in all it played through fine on the second and third run throughs. I also double-checked her inventory after she got the bottles of bear and troll cum and that worked fine so the only major issue I think is the empty cum bottle. Aside from that some things while I don't like things being obvious, took a little thought to figure out. Slick.

 

I liked your use of Nocturnal, Saguine and all the props. Oh, and you suckered us in with that disguised Hagraven 🤣... bad enough Saguine did that in base-game. That dude of a deamora happened to toy around and rape the DB repeatedly early on in this very game when she was level ten or so, is why there's a Rose tattooed above her snatch. 

 

I have to say you both outdone yourselves @killer905 and @Gristle, I see people asking you about Animal Mansion but I think this mod well outdoes that mod by a thousand, been years since I used AM but can't imagine Animal Mansion even getting close.

 

This version of AR was rather ambitious, it's put together very well, has some puzzles and even misdirection, but most of all has great storylines. Is the best mod on LL in years.

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

Is it staying in place? Theoretically, doing a setstage will make it move again.

 

Overall, the idea for the party quest was mine, as was the Nocturnal NPC herself, but the use of Nocturnal's items and the disguised Hagraven was Gristle's.

 

There were a few smaller ideas, but we had to compromise because there would have been another delay in release.

 

As for Animal Research, the main question would be: leave the quests as they are, rework them a little, or scrap them entirely? So, the NPCs, the general storyline, the creatures in the main AM quest, and the building in Falkreath remain.

 

Personally, I have played all versions of AM. Even the one in DEV AM 4. However, I think that the AM Plus version would be the basis. Just as I liked the changes in AM 4 in the tasks with the Wolf (replacing the task of the party at the Companions with the wolf and werewolves) and the bear, there is not much content.

 

[killer905]

7 hours ago, eflat01 said:

 

You're running on LE right? I'm on SSE 1.6.1170 so may as well be AE. I wonder if that's why for some reason?

Yeah I also had CTD on the LE version, but the record itself was corrupted? As i say i delete this record in CK and no more CTD in Tiorwin inventory.

Also, @Gristle can restore the Inventory Object for Nocturnal Clothing.

[killer905]

7 hours ago, eflat01 said:

 

I'm not sure if I somehow broke Tirwin's force greet due to my DB's promiscuity or what it was? Like I said I took it slower in subsequent runs and she played thru fine.

 

I also figure something else out... particular to my load.

  Hide contents

I was wondering why some of the female npcs at the party were dressed, Well I figured that out.

 

When looking at how they're built you're using templates...

 

i.e. Iona at the party is using "Idgrod the Younger" as a template.

 

So happens I use SPID to change the default outfits of many female npcs.

 

This is the SPID ini for Idgrod  

; Idgrod the Younger - TrissBocadeSilverOutfit
Outfit = 0x869~TrissDress.esp|ActorTypeNPC|0x135EC|NONE|F|NONE|100

 

Thus then Iona at the party ended up dressed in TrissBocadeSilverOutfit because SPID is casting right at the Base Editor ID. 0x135EC

 

 

I was wondering why Idgrod was tending bar before I walked up to her and saw it wasn't her. 😉 

 

Hana uses Carlotta as a template in a spid .ini it has: 

 

; Carlotta
Outfit = 0x85A~zzMaidOutfits.esp|ActorTypeNPC|0x13B99|NONE|F|NONE|100

 

and so forth...

 

Oh the template use also explained to me why most npcs at the party also had high-poly heads and different varying bodies too (I bodyslide many of them different), most coldsun's bodies like CS_Idgrod_Body "CS_Idgrod_Body" [ARMO:FE0DD803]

 

 

 

Mod conflict. I'm closing this thread

But the truth is that we could have created a unique look for the bar girls instead of using a template, but for the rest of the guests it didn't make much sense, so they wouldn't have had a unique look.

[killer905]

6 hours ago, nothing2lose said:

got few bug that force tirwin to talk to me but no new dialog option, also theres a bug with harkon when he about to take tirwin for the second time he just stand there so i had to disabled and enabled him to continue the scene, and the second is tirwin and the gargoyle, when VAR_gargoyle is set to stage 215, i manualy push it to 216 but nothing happen then i  push it to 220 thats when the new quest appear to talk to valerica/tirwin

@GristleNeed look at this.

[killer905]

3 hours ago, Carnotaurus said:

Continuing the quests, still haven't finished the Volkihar quests. But I see I was not the only one to think that Valerica had made gargoyles for some, um, "special purposes" when Serana mentions it during the Dawnguard quest.

 

And a gargoyle named Gygax? I see what you all did there. 😆

What we did with Gygax? Is that a reference to a movie or something?

[killer905]

2 hours ago, r34charmander said:

great mod keep it up   hope to maybe see animal mansion overhaul in the future aswell 

It's in the plans, but it won't happen anytime soon.

[LordofLurking]

Regarding the v0.42 update, to address the empty bottle CTD...does not address the issue if you install this update after receiving the bottles. I updated during the final quest and I continued to crash. However it's simple enough to reload a save to before you get the problematic bottles and you can interact with Tirwin without issue then. Thanks for the quick patch!

[killer905]

2 hours ago, LordofLurking said:

Regarding the v0.42 update, to address the empty bottle CTD...does not address the issue if you install this update after receiving the bottles. I updated during the final quest and I continued to crash. However it's simple enough to reload a save to before you get the problematic bottles and you can interact with Tirwin without issue then. Thanks for the quick patch!

Open console, click on her and type 

removeitem xx4CB76E 3

 

xx it's your modorder ID

[eflat01]

4 hours ago, killer905 said:

What we did with Gygax? Is that a reference to a movie or something?

 

One thing I can think of is Gary Gygax who came up with the game Dungeons & Dragons. 

[eflat01]

5 hours ago, killer905 said:

Mod conflict. I'm closing this thread

But the truth is that we could have created a unique look for the bar girls instead of using a template, but for the rest of the guests it didn't make much sense, so they wouldn't have had a unique look.

😜using the templates like that does cut down needing more nif/dss since it reuses the templates. So I can't blame you... When I create a new npc I copy one or use a template to copy their values then unclick and eventually remove the template.

 

I was just surprised about SPID overriding your npcs, however this gave me a better idea on how to use SPID to randomly spam whole groups of npcs via just knowing the templates.

 

Edited July 27, 2025 by eflat01

[apEna]

Good job as always. Started with 0.40 and updated somewhere to 0.41.

Got through the new stuff without any bigger problems that few reload saves or few puches from SSEEdit didn't solve.

Most problems have already been talked here but will just drop mine to the mix too.

 

CTD from the bottles:

Gave them blank effect in xedit and CTD was gone. I think that it comes from the fact that the empty bottles are ingredients but were not given any effect (NULL). This causes the engine spiral on some config or mod configurations like description framework. They also had some object bounds (OBND) that i reset.

Might want to make them misc items or just remove them like done in 0.42

 

Gygax was hostile when spawning from statue -> quick Pacify and everything went normally from there

 

Darkdfaces:

VAR_Kustr missing template trait flag to use the template.

VAR_Bren The cook in the party, missing template traits flag to use the template

Otto, dunno why, made him use Sams template to skip this mods face files.

 

Tirwins scenes got stuck cause I entertained guest she was going to entertain too -> reload and wait for Tirwin to star her scenes before doing my part. Just Skyrim being Skyrim.

 

After asking Tirwin to keep her hair down, the option to put the hair back up completly dissapeared.

 

One thing I would like to see is that the all Tirwins dialogue options are changed under one top-level option like "Hey Tirwin..." and from there the about options. This way they wouldn't be all over the top-level dialogues.

[eflat01]

12 hours ago, kamithemoon said:

Oh, awesome!

 

Dialogue with aliases is the hardest to deal with in voice packs.  The script can't tell who's supposed to be talking so it generates voice files for all generic NPCs.  The same happens for faction dialogue too, since anyone can be part of a faction, even if only a few people actually are.

 

If I may ask, moving forward, if it's possible to easily do in the CK, adding voice type or npc conditions to scene dialogue that uses aliases would be helpful in removing dialogue bloat.

 

One other minor bug.  In the voice files under the Dawnguard esp are voice files that replace the original vanilla NPC voices.  These shouldn't be here and the Dawnguard and Dragonborn folders should be deleted.  02015A87 is also an ITM and should be cleaned from the esp.

 

I remember I used to run most all my dialog off just on voicetype (for generic) and/or npc in Creation Kit (even way back when on GECK). You're pretty much assured a child for instance is not going to have some adult voice for that matter an elderrace npc likely don't have  femaleyoungeager voice. So it often eliminates a lot of other checks.

 

Some Unique npcs also have their own voicetype so it only ever requires one condition check for those too. Though some npcs like Aela use female commander voice type so you have to check if it's her to be specific to her, still that's only two conditions you need for it.

 

Edited July 27, 2025 by eflat01

[Carnotaurus]

1 hour ago, eflat01 said:

 

One thing I can think of is Gary Gygax who came up with the game Dungeons & Dragons. 

 

Yep. That's what I was thinking. I thought it was too much of a coincidence. 😊

[eflat01]

39 minutes ago, apEna said:

Tirwins scenes got stuck cause I entertained guest she was going to entertain too -> reload and wait for Tirwin to star her scenes before doing my part. Just Skyrim being Skyrim.

 

After asking Tirwin to keep her hair down, the option to put the hair back up completly dissapeared.

 

One thing I would like to see is that the all Tirwins dialogue options are changed under one top-level option like "Hey Tirwin..." and from there the about options. This way they wouldn't be all over the top-level dialogues.

 

1. I believe that could had been the issue I had with my first attempted play-thru at the party. (I moved the DB quickly servicing guests... likely had two to one ratio DB/Tirwin) All my subsequent play-thru's had no issues because I took my time. 

 

2. I noticed that also, but assumed when you tell her to keep it down completely it just was coded that way? Would be nice to reverse it if we decided later.

 

3. Yes, I always have to remember it's the "about your outfit" has her look in her entire inventory option. 

Edited July 27, 2025 by eflat01

[eflat01]

42 minutes ago, apEna said:

 

CTD from the bottles:

Gave them blank effect in xedit and CTD was gone. I think that it comes from the fact that the empty bottles are ingredients but were not given any effect (NULL). This causes the engine spiral on some config or mod configurations like description framework. They also had some object bounds (OBND) that i reset.

Might want to make them misc items or just remove them like done in 0.42

 

 

I gave it a blank effect as a test too and it did not work, but did not notice the OBND on it, I wonder if that was the real issue with the bottle?

[eflat01]

2 hours ago, killer905 said:

Open console, click on her and type 

removeitem xx4CB76E 3

 

xx it's your modorder ID

 

They should do that before they update. 

 

Inventory system (containers) are funny like that, i.e. with a mannequin, if you put clothes from a mod on one, then remove the mod before taking the clothes off the mannequin it still exist in the slot in your save, so you can't put anything in that slot again on the mannequin, although you can't see it nor grab it even in console. 

[killer905]

1 hour ago, eflat01 said:

 

One thing I can think of is Gary Gygax who came up with the game Dungeons & Dragons. 

Ahh, i see

[killer905]

1 hour ago, eflat01 said:

😜using the templates like that does cut down needing more nif/dss since it reuses the templates. So I can't blame you... When I create a new npc I copy one or use a template to copy their values then unclick and eventually remove the template.

 

I was just surprised about SPID overriding your npcs, however this gave me a better idea on how to use SPID to randomly spam whole groups of npcs via just knowing the templates.

 

Bad mod design... what can I say ;D

[killer905]

11 minutes ago, eflat01 said:

 

They should do that before they update. 

 

Inventory system (containers) are funny like that, i.e. with a mannequin, if you put clothes from a mod on one, then remove the mod before taking the clothes off the mannequin it still exist in the slot in your save, so you can't put anything in that slot again on the mannequin, although you can't see it nor grab it even in console. 

Um... I added a broken bottle to Tirwin's EQ, and when I tried to access her custom outfit, it crashed. After using the removeitem command, I can now view her custom outfit without any problems. So, theoretically, you can safely get rid of the problematic item if Tirwin already has it in her EQ.

[eflat01]

29 minutes ago, killer905 said:

Bad mod design... what can I say ;D

 

No not at all, It's good design because you're keeping the mod from being bloated.

 

Beside what I described is rather tedious to do (adding a template to generate the npc, then removing what's used from it one by one then finally removing the template from the npc takes a bit of time). 

Edited July 27, 2025 by eflat01

[Gristle]

14 hours ago, kamithemoon said:

If I may ask, moving forward, if it's possible to easily do in the CK, adding voice type or npc conditions to scene dialogue that uses aliases would be helpful in removing dialogue bloat.

All scene dialogue uses aliases, but there are two relevant types of alias definition. Most aliases are assigned to a specific actor. However, some are "force filled" on the fly. For example, Tirwin's alias is filled by Tirwin, but when she approaches someone for sex, that actor is forced into an empty 'sex partner' alias. This way, the same scene can be used no matter who she approaches. When I look at the scene dialogue for Tirwin, it is only showing one voice type (Tirwin's). So, I think the issue is only with the latter type of alias, right?

 

EDIT: Also, on the todo list: Adding actor ID conditions to all normal dialogue. This is already added on the first line of dialogue of course. But, where there is a conversation thread, I didn't put the actor ID condition on the subsequent dialogue that can only be access through the first (conditioned) line of dialogue. But I realize now that, although this works fine for "who can say what" logic purposes, the game wants to generate 50+ voice files for every subsequent line of dialogue. So, I plan to go back through and add these actor ID conditions.

14 hours ago, kamithemoon said:

One other minor bug.  In the voice files under the Dawnguard esp are voice files that replace the original vanilla NPC voices.  These shouldn't be here and the Dawnguard and Dragonborn folders should be deleted.  02015A87 is also an ITM and should be cleaned from the esp.

@killer905 There should be no Dawnguard or Dragonborn sound folders, right?

Edited July 27, 2025 by Gristle