Apropos

[gooser]

Edited once, then copied.

[daihard]

Anyone has the recompiled sources for JContainer latest version? A wonderful person made one for version 3 of it here, but when I install them, I got a warning that my JContainer version is too old for current Creature Framework.

 

Thank you, and have a nice weekend folks!

[Carida]

I've a question, since sexlab has multiple orgasms that can occur during a scene, is there a way they can trigger a description in Apropos? And thus I can write my own descriptions for them? 

 

Thanks  

 

-C

[JustCaroAnon]

Did anyone end up posting a guide to how to write new sets of descriptions for animations? I know there are a ludicrous number of animations out there and I don't expect the mod author to include them all (even with the use of tags I'm sure it would still take a long time). I'd love to know how to write some of my own to cover those animations that don't have descriptions at the moment, but I'm not sure where/how to start. (I've found some people's additional text file packs, which I hope will fill in the blank files for now, but I'd still like to be able to add some of my own.)

 

I've already set up my own synonyms files, and edited some of the dialogue files to suit myself. And I've noticed an issue - some of the capitalization of some synonyms is off, mostly being capitalized in the middle of sentence (with correct capitalization where a synonym starts a sentence). I checked my synonyms file, and I deliberately didn't capitalize any of them (because none of the originals were) so I don't know what's causing this. Has anyone else had this issue? How did you fix it?

[karlpaws]

You can check through this link. I was going to try and find a post, because I know there are several, but I don't have the time now.

 

http://www.loverslab.com/topic/28360-apropos-feature-request-and-descriptions-submission/

 

Quick list of steps is to add the animation name to the uniqueanimations file, just follow the pattern already there.

 

Make files for each stage and rape stage, like the other animations you can see in the folder.

 

Copy in the content and edit to suit, or just write all new. Look for JSON syntax guides in these threads or elsewhere... it isn't that complex.

 

IIRC, the synonym problem is based on certain words, not just any, and are for words that are in programming terms "reserved", essentially treated by the game as proper names, and thus always capitalized.

 

PS any animation can be described by name, but the tags are handled by the mod. The modder doesn't add animations, but does handle how tags are done or would add new tags as they are available.... when he's got time to work on the mod.

[JustCaroAnon]

I looked through that thread, and while there were a few pointers given I couldn't find any detailed guides. I've never worked with JSON files before, or done any serious coding, so I can't get much out of that thread, other than to use Notepad++ and use the online JSON validator to check the end results. 

 

Is there a list of tags somewhere in the mod files? I'm guessing I would need to go through the SLAL packs etc. that I have to find the animation names. 

[karlpaws]

I looked through that thread, and while there were a few pointers given I couldn't find any detailed guides. I've never worked with JSON files before, or done any serious coding, so I can't get much out of that thread, other than to use Notepad++ and use the online JSON validator to check the end results. 

 

Is there a list of tags somewhere in the mod files? I'm guessing I would need to go through the SLAL packs etc. that I have to find the animation names. 

 

Well, JSON isn't all that complicated. For what this mod uses, you'll only need to watch the commas, square brackets, and curly braces. Most easily missed rule is that the last line in a  [  ] set can't end with a comma, all the other lines have to.

 

Not all tags are supported by the mod either, so no need to check through SLAL. There should be a bunch of files in the mod you downloaded, look for the anal, oral, blowjob, vaginal, etc. ones.

 

For individual animations, just look for the uniqueanimations file and add the names of what you want there. Then follow the pattern of the other files.

 

If you have done any coding and know what syntax is, you won't have a problem.  Its easier than HTML.

 

[sidfu]

anyone know why would creature descriptions not work?

ive rebuilt skyrim on a differnt computer but cant seem to get the to work. all other descriptions work but for creatures. even ones

 

 

 

06/10/2016 - 09:01:26PM] Actors >>
[06/10/2016 - 09:01:26PM] 1 Dog
[06/10/2016 - 09:01:26PM]     [0]: arissa, female (Victim)
[06/10/2016 - 09:01:26PM]     [1]: Guard Dog, Creature
[06/10/2016 - 09:01:26PM] Animation: '(Dog) Dominate' ('CanineDoggystyle2') (Panicforever,Creature,Bestiality,Dirty,DoggyStyle,Canine,Dog,Anal,FC,CF,AggressiveDefault,Aggressive)
[06/10/2016 - 09:01:28PM] ---- StageStart ---- Stage: 1
[06/10/2016 - 09:01:44PM] Found Slavetats
[06/10/2016 - 09:01:53PM] ---- StageStart ---- Stage: 2
[06/10/2016 - 09:02:49PM] ---- StageStart ---- Stage: 3
[06/10/2016 - 09:02:54PM] ---- StageStart ---- Stage: 4
[06/10/2016 - 09:02:58PM] ---- OrgasmStart ----
[06/10/2016 - 09:02:58PM] Actors >>
[06/10/2016 - 09:02:58PM] 1 Dog
[06/10/2016 - 09:02:58PM] ---- StageStart ---- Stage: 5
[06/10/2016 - 09:02:58PM]     [0]: arissa, female (Victim)
[06/10/2016 - 09:02:58PM]     [1]: Guard Dog, Creature
[06/10/2016 - 09:02:58PM] Animation: '(Dog) Dominate' ('CanineDoggystyle2') (Panicforever,Creature,Bestiality,Dirty,DoggyStyle,Canine,Dog,Anal,FC,CF,AggressiveDefault,Aggressive)
[06/10/2016 - 09:03:40PM] Found Slavetats

 

 

 

as u see in this its seeing the dog as a animal. it sees the animation but never dispays anything

[karlpaws]

assuming lines show up for human sex, have you checked the apropos log earlier for errors on loading? possibly the dog files aren't recognized?

[sidfu]

assuming lines show up for human sex, have you checked the apropos log earlier for errors on loading? possibly the dog files aren't recognized?

 

checked with all mke logs on and their no errors. its almost like its not seeing that their descriptions for animals.

 

this is a example of when a pperson has sex. its lmost like the apropos descrition text not regesteringg that there animal desciptions

 

 

[06/04/2016 - 09:02:07PM] ---- StageStart ---- Stage: 1

[06/04/2016 - 09:02:07PM] Actors >>

[06/04/2016 - 09:02:07PM]     [0]: Camilla Valerius, female  <lewd> <enjoyment:23> <pain:23> <arousal:31>

[06/04/2016 - 09:02:08PM]     [1]: Motoko, male  <lewd> <enjoyment:23> <pain:23> <arousal:100>

[06/04/2016 - 09:02:09PM] AproposDescriptions.DisplayMaleActorFemaleHandjobDescriptions(animation=MitosFootjob,isPrimaryActorVictim=False,activeActor=Motoko,primaryFemaleActor=Camilla Valerius,effectiveVoice=2nd Person,isOrgasm=False)

[Vauria]

So I've been making my own edits to the Apropos DB as I'm sure many of us have, but I quickly got frustrated with having to open a whole bunch of text files every time I want to edit a scene, fix JSON errors, look for inspiration for new lines I was writing, etc. So I started writing a few scripts in Java based on the Google JSON libraries just to do things like combine all the first person lines for a particular animation so I could open it in just one Notepad++ tab instead of five. As this one .java file got more and more painful to look at, I decided it was time to start over, and properly this time. Now I have this:

 

 

You can load up any file in your database in the main window or in an external window, double click a line to allow editing, duplicate lines, remove lines, wipe entire stages or perspectives and then write all your changes to the database, overwriting existing files without any need to worry about missing commas or JSON validation errors.

 

The editor is by no means complete, you should see in the image a bunch of disabled options on the side panel that I do intend to implement, as well as a few other ideas like fetching lines from the apropos log files for easy editing, searching the entire database with regex to perhaps delete all lines that pertain to a fetish you may not be interested in, maybe even automatic perspective shifting for copying lines between first and second person.

 

I know there's a big database restructuring in the works, so I tried to lay things out in a way to let me easily convert  the format the editor looks for when those changes do happen.

 

My question then, is would anyone be interested in using this? I have it in a good enough working state that I could post a release build with a few caveats (you may want a git repo in your DB folder), but I'm sure many of the more active database contributors have their own workflows or indeed scripts that could mirror the functionality I'm trying to provide. I have been keeping a git repository for all the source which I would make public, and running it would only be a matter of double clicking an executable .jar.

[dTd]

I think there should be a place where people can upload custom edits they've done. This mod is pretty cool but I find some of the descriptions of scenes overly harsh or foul languaged for my tastes. I really don't want to get into editing database files just to change some wording though. So, if any of you have toned some of this down to a pg-13 level I'd sure appreciate a dl link, or perhaps it could be an entirely separate section. Anyway, enjoy what you do

[The Great Orochi]

So I've been making my own edits to the Apropos DB as I'm sure many of us have, but I quickly got frustrated with having to open a whole bunch of text files every time I want to edit a scene, fix JSON errors, look for inspiration for new lines I was writing, etc. So I started writing a few scripts in Java based on the Google JSON libraries just to do things like combine all the first person lines for a particular animation so I could open it in just one Notepad++ tab instead of five. As this one .java file got more and more painful to look at, I decided it was time to start over, and properly this time. Now I have this:

 

[ Imagine the first attached image was inline here, figures I'm not allowed to do that with 0 posts >.> ]

 

You can load up any file in your database in the main window or in an external window, double click a line to allow editing, duplicate lines, remove lines, wipe entire stages or perspectives and then write all your changes to the database, overwriting existing files without any need to worry about missing commas or JSON validation errors.

 

The editor is by no means complete, you should see in the image a bunch of disabled options on the side panel that I do intend to implement, as well as a few other ideas like fetching lines from the apropos log files for easy editing, searching the entire database with regex to perhaps delete all lines that pertain to a fetish you may not be interested in, maybe even automatic perspective shifting for copying lines between first and second person.

 

I know there's a big database restructuring in the works, so I tried to lay things out in a way to let me easily convert  the format the editor looks for when those changes do happen.

 

My question then, is would anyone be interested in using this? I have it in a good enough working state that I could post a release build with a few caveats (you may want a git repo in your DB folder), but I'm sure many of the more active database contributors have their own workflows or indeed scripts that could mirror the functionality I'm trying to provide. I have been keeping a git repository for all the source which I would make public, and running it would only be a matter of double clicking an executable .jar.

 

I'd use it all the time. It seems fluid, well programmed, and it looks decent aesthetically. I'm all for it

 

[Vauria]

I think there should be a place where people can upload custom edits they've done. This mod is pretty cool but I find some of the descriptions of scenes overly harsh or foul languaged for my tastes. I really don't want to get into editing database files just to change some wording though. So, if any of you have toned some of this down to a pg-13 level I'd sure appreciate a dl link, or perhaps it could be an entirely separate section. Anyway, enjoy what you do

 

There technically is, see the Feature Request and Descriptions Submission thread. I don't know if anyone has made a database that fits that description (I have to admit, asking for a PG-13 Porn descriptor database made me laugh), but you could make a few simple changes to your synonyms.txt file to remove the harsher words, which would be the quickest way to reduce the amount of swear words Apropos spits out. 

 

As for a way to remove swearing from the database lines themselves... well, stay tuned 

 

 

 

So I've been making my own edits to the [...]

 

I'd use it all the time. It seems fluid, well programmed, and it looks decent aesthetically. I'm all for it

 

 

Heh, thanks. I have one big fix to make and a few small features to add before I'd release a build, but if you're familiar at all with Eclipse or Java in general, I have made the code public, so feel free to play around with it provided you have a backup of your database.

[saviliana]

My question then, is would anyone be interested in using this? I have it in a good enough working state that I could post a release build with a few caveats (you may want a git repo in your DB folder), but I'm sure many of the more active database contributors have their own workflows or indeed scripts that could mirror the functionality I'm trying to provide. I have been keeping a git repository for all the source which I would make public, and running it would only be a matter of double clicking an executable .jar.

 

I would, I want that for a long time and I can't find it anywhere on the internet.(Might be the filter that they put on for few years to stop "terror acts" happens. What a BS.)

[Dargaron]

Hello.

 

I apologize if this has been asked before: I looked through the first and last 20 or so pages and nothing caught my eye, but I could have missed something.

 

Is there anything one would have to do to add files, not for specific animations, but for new Actor_actor combinations? I've been trying to get a couple new files (MaleActor_Hagraven and FemaleActor_Skeever/skeever, to be specific) to work, but the messages never show up either in console or in the widget. I've verified the files on JSON and I even copy-pasted the non-Actor parts of the files from already-working Apropos files to make sure I got the formatting right (for instance, I cut the Vaginal_Rape_Stage2 from the MaleActor_FemaleActor file),\, but do I need to do anything else to make the mod recognize new folders?

 

I'd prefer not to make new files for every single animation, but if that's the only way to do it without mucking with the script files, then I'd be happy to know that so I can get to it instead of trying to take a shortcut and failing.

[karlpaws]

Hello.

 

I apologize if this has been asked before: I looked through the first and last 20 or so pages and nothing caught my eye, but I could have missed something.

 

Is there anything one would have to do to add files, not for specific animations, but for new Actor_actor combinations? I've been trying to get a couple new files (MaleActor_Hagraven and FemaleActor_Skeever/skeever, to be specific) to work, but the messages never show up either in console or in the widget. I've verified the files on JSON and I even copy-pasted the non-Actor parts of the files from already-working Apropos files to make sure I got the formatting right (for instance, I cut the Vaginal_Rape_Stage2 from the MaleActor_FemaleActor file),\, but do I need to do anything else to make the mod recognize new folders?

 

I'd prefer not to make new files for every single animation, but if that's the only way to do it without mucking with the script files, then I'd be happy to know that so I can get to it instead of trying to take a shortcut and failing.

 

I think it has been covered, if not here, then over in the Features and suggestions thread linked in the OP, and last page (I think).

 

At the point the mod needs to be updated to support the new creature races that have been added.

[Zor2k13]

Why is there no dialogue for female to female sex the same way it is for male to female sex only using the words dildo or strapon in place of penis?

[Vauria]

Hello.

 

I apologize if this has been asked before: I looked through the first and last 20 or so pages and nothing caught my eye, but I could have missed something.

 

Is there anything one would have to do to add files, not for specific animations, but for new Actor_actor combinations? I've been trying to get a couple new files (MaleActor_Hagraven and FemaleActor_Skeever/skeever, to be specific) to work, but the messages never show up either in console or in the widget. I've verified the files on JSON and I even copy-pasted the non-Actor parts of the files from already-working Apropos files to make sure I got the formatting right (for instance, I cut the Vaginal_Rape_Stage2 from the MaleActor_FemaleActor file),\, but do I need to do anything else to make the mod recognize new folders?

 

I'd prefer not to make new files for every single animation, but if that's the only way to do it without mucking with the script files, then I'd be happy to know that so I can get to it instead of trying to take a shortcut and failing.

 

Creature races seem to be assigned to their relevant folders (FemaleActor_Troll, FemaleActor_Draugr, etc) programmatically, as opposed to dynamically by race. I assume it's so the different variations on each race can each be accounted for (Wolf, Ice_Wolf, things like that), but this does mean the scripts need to be updated in order to identify the new races and point them towards the new folders. You should see in the log that the getStringsFromArray() is failing because it can't find the files FemaleActor__Stage1 or MaleActor__Orgasm, the double underscore showing the empty string where the creature's race should have been inserted. I haven't tested it, but making these folders should let you have generic animation descriptors, just don't be surprised if they also play for Females with Deer or Males with Spriggans. 

 

The only alternative to waiting for an update or delving into the scripts then is registering each animation for these creatures as unique and populating those folders. You could just copy paste files around so it would have the same affect as if there was a single race folder, but yeah, it's a lot of work. I've been working on Skeever files, and have four animations done (Mount, Doggy, Facefuck and 4pGangbang)  so I'm hoping that completing the set won't be too much more work now.

 

 

Why is there no dialogue for female to female sex the same way it is for male to female sex only using the words dildo or strapon in place of penis?

 

The main reason is Apropos has no way of telling who's wearing the strapon. Decauk's Database has some Female_FemaleActor/FemaleActor_Female files, but only for the First Person perspective, and they only make sense if it's the PC receiving. They do still play in game, but there's nothing to stop "{ACTIVE} is fucking me hard, violently... Is this how guys fuck her? Is she taking it out on me?" from being played while you're the one wearing the strapon.

[Zor2k13]

Well can it be changed to just assume if female and is the dom/aggressor/screwer in the scene then play the strapon dialogue? or just make it so the dialogue talks about "her" dick or penis etc.

[Vauria]

The strapon dialogue can already be played for two female actors playing any vaginal, oral, anal, boobjob, handjob or footjob tagged animation, and 3rd person descriptors can work as {ACTIVE} will always be wearing the strapon and {PRIMARY} is always the one the strapon is being used on. The problem with first and second person is the messages need to be completely different if the PC is the one wearing the strapon, and there is no way at current to look for different files based on if the PC is the receiver or the active actor. If you only ever plan on being one of the two, then you can fill the appropriate files with descriptors that would match.

 

Strapon rape is even messier, as Apropos has no way to handle the PC being the rapist. Even for FM animations, if the PC is female and the aggressor, apropos defaults to consensual FemaleActor_Male files, which at least is better than it playing the rape variants of these files and your character screaming and crying as she forces herself on some defeated bandit. As such, for FF rape, the FemaleActor_Female_Vaginal/Anal/etc_Rape files will be played, and can be safely filled with messages from the victim and receiver's perspective. But as soon as you're one wearing the strapon and doing the raping, it falls back to the consensual files, and you get the same dilemma as before.

 

Better support may be coming for these situations, which is why no one has really bothered to write lines the current system can play

[karlpaws]

Well can it be changed to just assume if female and is the dom/aggressor/screwer in the scene then play the strapon dialogue? or just make it so the dialogue talks about "her" dick or penis etc.

 

This will be changed whenever gooser gets the next update out. There was a lot of discussion many months ago about how to handle everything, including female with strapon on male and such.

 

 

Hello.

 

I apologize if this has been asked before: I looked through the first and last 20 or so pages and nothing caught my eye, but I could have missed something.

 

Is there anything one would have to do to add files, not for specific animations, but for new Actor_actor combinations? I've been trying to get a couple new files (MaleActor_Hagraven and FemaleActor_Skeever/skeever, to be specific) to work, but the messages never show up either in console or in the widget. I've verified the files on JSON and I even copy-pasted the non-Actor parts of the files from already-working Apropos files to make sure I got the formatting right (for instance, I cut the Vaginal_Rape_Stage2 from the MaleActor_FemaleActor file),\, but do I need to do anything else to make the mod recognize new folders?

 

I'd prefer not to make new files for every single animation, but if that's the only way to do it without mucking with the script files, then I'd be happy to know that so I can get to it instead of trying to take a shortcut and failing.

 

Creature races seem to be assigned to their relevant folders (FemaleActor_Troll, FemaleActor_Draugr, etc) programmatically, as opposed to dynamically by race. I assume it's so the different variations on each race can each be accounted for (Wolf, Ice_Wolf, things like that), but this does mean the scripts need to be updated in order to identify the new races and point them towards the new folders. You should see in the log that the getStringsFromArray() is failing because it can't find the files FemaleActor__Stage1 or MaleActor__Orgasm, the double underscore showing the empty string where the creature's race should have been inserted. I haven't tested it, but making these folders should let you have generic animation descriptors, just don't be surprised if they also play for Females with Deer or Males with Spriggans. 

 

The only alternative to waiting for an update or delving into the scripts then is registering each animation for these creatures as unique and populating those folders. You could just copy paste files around so it would have the same affect as if there was a single race folder, but yeah, it's a lot of work. I've been working on Skeever files, and have four animations done (Mount, Doggy, Facefuck and 4pGangbang)  so I'm hoping that completing the set won't be too much more work now.

 

 

This is only partially correct. Sexlab has various supported races, and some of those were hard coded into Apropos when the mod was originally created. There was discussion about doing something dynamically a while back and gooser I think was going to do that, but I don't remember.

 

The double underscore does show where a race name should be inserted and creating a folder with the __ work. And the descriptions will play for anything not supported.   Useful for testing maybe, but not for immersion. The races are simpler than you thought too, all wolves are race wolf, no ice wolf, frost troll, etc.

[JustCaroAnon]

Is there any reason, other than accidentally letting an old file overwrite, that Apropos might not recognize changes to description files? I'm still seeing lines that I know I removed. I'm going to double-check all of the files anyway, but I'm confused - the description says that it doesn't store those files in-game, only the synonym and Wear & Tear files. 

[Vauria]

 

 

Hello.

 

I apologize if this has been asked before: I looked through the first [...]

 

Creature races seem to be assigned to their relevant folders (FemaleActor_Troll, FemaleActor_Draugr, etc) programmatically, as opposed to dynamically [...]

 

This is only partially correct. Sexlab has various supported races, and some of those were hard coded into Apropos when the mod was originally created. There was discussion about doing something dynamically a while back and gooser I think was going to do that, but I don't remember.

 

The double underscore does show where a race name should be inserted and creating a folder with the __ work. And the descriptions will play for anything not supported.   Useful for testing maybe, but not for immersion. The races are simpler than you thought too, all wolves are race wolf, no ice wolf, frost troll, etc.

 

 

My mistake, I was thinking of the NPC encounter records there. There are still a few races in the base game that represent the same creatures, at least animation and description wise, like DogRace/DA03BarbasDogRace/DogCompanionRace/MG07DogRace, DraugrRace/DraugrMagicRace, BearBrownRace/BearBlackRace, SprigganRace/SprigganMatronRace and indeed TrollRace/TrollFrostRace. I assume these splits were for things like different AI packages or something.

 

I'm almost surprised there isn't a JSON file for race lookups, something like:

 

 

{
    "Bear" :
    [
        "BearBrownRace",
        "BearBlackRace"
    ],
    "BigSpider" :
    [
        "FrostbiteSpiderRaceGiant"
    ],
    "Cat" :
    [
        "SabreCatRace",
        "DLC1SabreCatGlowRace"
    ],
    "Canine" :
    [
        "DogRace",
        "DA03BarbasDogRace",
        "DogCompanionRace",
        "MG07DogRace",
        "DLC1DeathHoundCompanionRace",
        "DLC1HuskyArmoredCompanionRace",
        "DLC1DeathHoundRace",
        "etc..." 

 

 

Which could be read and stored just like the synonyms file. This only works of course if Apropos is given the actor's race's EditorID, I don't know how much info SexLab passes to it. I am also assuming that SexLab doesn't give you basically the same thing by passing DogRace if a DogCompanionRace was selected or something. Even if it does, iirc it would pass DraugrRace for an Ashman as well, based on how it treats animating those two, so a separate lookup map may be preferable. A system like this would make it much easier to add new race folders, or even new races added by mods. 

 

Is there any reason, other than accidentally letting an old file overwrite, that Apropos might not recognize changes to description files? I'm still seeing lines that I know I removed. I'm going to double-check all of the files anyway, but I'm confused - the description says that it doesn't store those files in-game, only the synonym and Wear & Tear files. 

 

The descriptors are indeed not stored in the save game (it'd be like an extra 3MB on each save if they were), and changes to the files should be reflected instantly in game. If you're using Mod Organiser, the obvious first place to check is the Apropos Folder in the Data tab, to see if any mod other than the one who's files you are editing is winning the conflict, overwriting your changes. Check your themes folders (\bdsm\) , as any matching files in there can overwrite your files in the main db folder. Other than that, try using something like Windows Grep to search the entire database for some of the lines you remember removing, it's possible that duplicates exist for other positions or in some of the Unique Animations files.

[karlpaws]

Is there any reason, other than accidentally letting an old file overwrite, that Apropos might not recognize changes to description files? I'm still seeing lines that I know I removed. I'm going to double-check all of the files anyway, but I'm confused - the description says that it doesn't store those files in-game, only the synonym and Wear & Tear files. 

 

I would say check the theme folders if you only edited files outside them. You may have 2 whole copies and the files in the theme folder are used first, if they exist. While you can put numbers in the themes.txt (I think that's the name) so that each theme is used, you may not want to do that, and there is no reason you cannot put a 1 or a 5 even for the one you want, and 0's in the rest.... or even remove the rest so only your chosen theme is present.

 

 

 

 

Hello.

 

I apologize if this has been asked before: I looked through the first [...]

 

Creature races seem to be assigned to their relevant folders (FemaleActor_Troll, FemaleActor_Draugr, etc) programmatically, as opposed to dynamically [...]

 

This is only partially correct. Sexlab has various supported races, and some of those were hard coded into Apropos when the mod was originally created. There was discussion about doing something dynamically a while back and gooser I think was going to do that, but I don't remember.

 

The double underscore does show where a race name should be inserted and creating a folder with the __ work. And the descriptions will play for anything not supported.   Useful for testing maybe, but not for immersion. The races are simpler than you thought too, all wolves are race wolf, no ice wolf, frost troll, etc.

 

 

My mistake, I was thinking of the NPC encounter records there. There are still a few races in the base game that represent the same creatures, at least animation and description wise, like DogRace/DA03BarbasDogRace/DogCompanionRace/MG07DogRace, DraugrRace/DraugrMagicRace, BearBrownRace/BearBlackRace, SprigganRace/SprigganMatronRace and indeed TrollRace/TrollFrostRace. I assume these splits were for things like different AI packages or something.

 

I think the various IDs have three reasons...

 

- leveled encounters/area population diversity: brown bears in the Rift and Blacks in Falkreath (though I don't think that's the right pairing).  Blacks could also just be the level 10 ones and browns the level 5s.  Wolf and Ice wolf is that way I think, and sprigan vs sprigganmatron.

 

- alternate AI behavior as you mentioned, as draugr vs draugr magic, and ashman are essentially draugr skeletons with a different skin and loot table, but the same skeleton and behavior (melee vs magic casters). AFAIK, it is the skeleton tag that sexlab uses, and reports to mods like Apropos. because that determines how the body moves and what animations are possible. I forget which two NPC types had similar skeletons even though the mobs were wildly different... shades or spectral things and dragon priests maybe.   Skeletons are also the same skeleton as draugr, so they share animations.

 

- Bethesda programmers all did their own thing and that apparently included 5 different ways to write a quest, just to start with. Hence the DA03dograce and the MG07dograce. There are armor types that are not used, NPC classes I think that are ignored, and a whole bunch of messy.