PEEK - Cover Camera for RaySense

[KEI997]

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PEEK - Cover Camera for RaySense

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An SKSE plugin for Skyrim SE / AE that gives you a Splinter Cell / Gears of War-style corner peek when RaySense - Cover Animation sticks you to a wall. Once you settle into cover, the third-person camera slides sideways so you can see past the wall's edge — you keep the concealment, you get the view. Layers additively on top of SmoothCam / True Directional Movement / Improved Camera SE without fighting them for camera ownership.

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■ On AI use
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Most of this plugin's code was generated by Claude Code (Anthropic). The author (KEI997) handled:
- Spec decisions, prioritization, trade-off calls
- In-game testing and bug reports (10+ rounds of log-submit → fix → retest iteration)
- Pointing the AI at specific reference mod sources ("read SmoothCam's SetPosition, use as reference")
- Reviewing and accepting/rejecting generated code
- SSEEdit ESL construction, Papyrus compilation, mod packaging
 

The non-trivial technical work — vtable hooks, call-site trampolines, direct camera-node writes, MCM Helper's internal file layout — was all borrowed from existing mods after reading their source. PEEK's own design choices are limited to the higher-level logic layer (how to fold 4 cover states into a left/right sign, how to damp offset by camera/character alignment, how to time the engagement delay). Per-feature attribution to the actual mod authors is listed in the GitHub README:
https://github.com/Kei-BWV997/PEEK

If any listed author objects to their source being used this way, please contact and I will rework the affected feature or adjust the credit.

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■ Features
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- Automatic corner peek: once you enter cover via RaySense and hold it briefly (default 300 ms), the camera slides in the peek direction
- Works with all 4 RaySense cover states (front-wall-right-edge, front-wall-left-edge, side-wall-left, side-wall-right), for both unarmed and armed/shield/bow cover animations
- Independent left / right offset sliders — so you can compensate for asymmetric shoulder-swap camera presets (SmoothCam Modern Camera / EasyEase etc.)
- Optional alignment damping: when the camera is aimed away from the character's facing (relevant under TDM directional mode), the peek offset smoothly reduces to zero
- Coexists with SmoothCam, True Directional Movement, and Improved Camera SE without ownership handoff — PEEK adds an additive offset on top of whatever the other camera mods produce
- Zero physics work of its own: PEEK reads RaySense's already-published wall-distance TESGlobals instead of doing its own raycasts
- Safe no-op if RaySense is not installed — the plugin detects the missing globals and stays inert
- MCM configuration with immediate reflection (no save-load required)

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■ How it works (quick technical note)
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- Detection: reads RaySense's five wall-distance TESGlobals every frame, derives one of {NoCover, FrontR, FrontL, SideLeft, SideRight}
- Engagement: state machine with a delay timer; instant re-target on side switches
- Camera write: trampoline hook on the same PlayerCamera::Update call site TDM uses, applied AFTER SmoothCam's write in the vtable chain, so PEEK's offset stacks additively without breaking SmoothCam's positioning / smoothing
- Menu protection: writes are skipped whenever any full-screen menu is open (Journal, Inventory, MCM, Map, Tween, etc.) — prevents the imagespace pipeline from producing grayscale-world artifacts during menu backdrop capture

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■ Known issues
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- First-person is auto-skipped (no first-person peek)
- SmoothCam presets with strong asymmetric shoulder swap may need manual tuning: use the separate left / right offset sliders in MCM
- During armed cover (bow / shield drawn), peek offset shifts the crosshair aim point. In practice this has no impact because your body is behind the wall and shots hit the wall anyway — but if you want to disable peek in armed states, toggle the relevant cover-state option off in MCM

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■ MCM options
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If your in-game language is set to English, the MCM should be displayed in English as well. The main options include:
- Master enable
- Peek delay (0 – 1000 ms)
- Right peek offset (0 – 200 game units)
- Left peek offset (0 – 200 game units)
- Fade by camera alignment (toggle)
- Per-cover-state enable toggles (Front R / Front L / Side Left / Side Right)

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■ Source code / technical details
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Open source under MIT license:
https://github.com/Kei-BWV997/PEEK

The GitHub README covers:
- Per-feature reference-source table (which mods were used for which techniques)
- Technical details of each feature (hook sites, TESGlobal names read, state machine)

TROUBLESHOOTING.md documents the eleven concrete problems encountered during development and how each was solved (SmoothCam's per-instance vtable trap, PlayerCamera::Update devirtualization, MCM Helper's undocumented two-file storage structure, the imagespace-pipeline grayscale artifact, etc.):
https://github.com/Kei-BWV997/PEEK/blob/main/docs/design/TROUBLESHOOTING.md

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome via GitHub Issues.

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■ About the author
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I'm normally an OStim animator, active on the OStim Community Discord. If you want to chat about this mod, request features, or just say hi — come by:

https://discord.gg/ostim

(PEEK is not an adult mod, but I develop from that community and that's where I hang out.)

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■ Requirements / Dependencies
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[Required]
- Skyrim SE / AE (1.6.11xx recommended)
- SKSE64 / SKSE-AE
- Address Library for SKSE Plugins (AE version)
- Open Animation Replacer (3.0 or later)
- RaySense - Cover Animation (PEEK reads its published TESGlobals; without RaySense, PEEK safely does nothing)
- SkyUI 5.2 SE
- MCM Helper
 

[Strongly recommended]
- True Directional Movement — the four RaySense cover states are only fully utilised under TDM's directional mode. Without TDM, only the front-wall states realistically trigger.
- SmoothCam — PEEK is designed to layer additively on top of SmoothCam. Works without it, but SmoothCam users get the intended baseline.
 

[Confirmed compatible]
- True Directional Movement
- SmoothCam (tested with EasyEase Preset and Modern Camera Preset)
- Improved Camera SE
 

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• Submitter
  KEI997
• Submitted
  08/17/26
• Category
  Regular Mods
• Requirements
  [Required]
  - Skyrim SE / AE (1.6.11xx recommended)
  - SKSE64 / SKSE-AE
  - Address Library for SKSE Plugins (AE version)
  - Open Animation Replacer (3.0 or later)
  - RaySense - Cover Animation (PEEK reads its published TESGlobals; without RaySense, PEEK safely does nothing)
  - SkyUI 5.2 SE
  - MCM Helper
  
  
  [Strongly recommended]
  - True Directional Movement — the four RaySense cover states are only fully utilised under TDM's directional mode. Without TDM, only the front-wall states realistically trigger.
  - SmoothCam — PEEK is designed to layer additively on top of SmoothCam. Works without it, but SmoothCam users get the intended baseline.
• Regular Edition Compatible
  No
• Install Instructions

  1. Install all Requirements first
  2. Install the PEEK zip via your mod manager (MO2 / Vortex) and enable it
  3. Make sure PEEK.esp is enabled in your load order
  4. Launch the game, load a save
  5. Confirm "PEEK" appears in the MCM list (Mod Configuration > PEEK)

 

[flatearthertom3]

Man this is really god damn cool! Going to try this once I boot up the game again!