Any interest in porting this to Skyrim?

[deviousMarsupial]

I hate to be the one to ask, because I can tell the community has done a ton of work on this mod, but would anyone be interested in porting it to Skyrim? I just found Sexout yesterday, and I was extremely impressed by the creativity and skill involved in creating such a unique mod. So much so that I would love to be involved writing plugins for it. Unfortunately, I've never coded for a Bethesda game, and if I need to learn a new system from scratch, I would rather learn to develop for Skyrim, given the more advanced engine and growing audience for mods.

 

If anyone is interested, I would be happy to help in any way that I can. I haven't played with scripting in Skyrim, but I'm confident that I could pick it up; I just know that it would take some time, and to try to lead a project like this would be too ambitious for me right now.

[Guest Loogie]

Prideslayer wants to, but new animations can't be added to Skyrum, just old ones replaced. That makes the entire enterprise null and void.

[deviousMarsupial]

Prideslayer wants to' date=' but new animations can't be added to Skyrum, just old ones replaced. That makes the entire enterprise null and void.

[/quote']

 

Oh. Yeah, that's a pretty major hurdle. Bummer. Any word on whether this will ever be possible? Is it simply a matter of someone eventually writing a blender plugin that can output to a Skyrim friendly format, or is it actually not possible to add new animation resources?

 

If it's something that will be overcome eventually, we could just use a screen effect for now.

[Guest Loogie]

Animations can be made. The problem is the game engine won't allow new animations, it'll just let you replace old ones.

 

Only hope is someone figuring out how to hack it, really.

[deviousMarsupial]

Animations can be made. The problem is the game engine won't allow new animations' date=' it'll just let you replace old ones.

 

Only hope is someone figuring out how to hack it, really.

[/quote']

 

I found a post on the Nexus Mods forum regarding the animation issue. If I'm understanding this correctly, you can't add new animations, but you can replace animations for individual races. How feasible would it be to create an alternative version of each race with a different set of animations and switch the player's race when the animations become necessary? e.g. you're walking around as a Nord until somebody drugs and collars you, at which point your race switches to Sexout_Nord and preserves all of your measurements, so you look the same but get the new animations? If we know the player won't be holding a weapon, that should free up a lot of animation slots.

 

Sorry if this sounds ignorant. Like I said, I really haven't played with scripting for Skyrim, but I would like to learn.

 

[prideslayer]

There are break throughs every day, and more made this week. The author of hkxcmd has managed to decode the behavior format so now we have almost everything we need. The last missing piece (which may not be missing, I've asked) is getting new idle animation 'types' to show up in the CK.

 

Also there's a thread on the beth forums asking for questions to them for the upcoming podcast. #2 question right now is "animations guys, we need tools and support, WTF."

[sen4mi]

Prideslayer wants to' date=' but new animations can't be added to Skyrum, just old ones replaced. That makes the entire enterprise null and void.

[/quote']

 

Not entirely, though...

 

For example, there is one animation which I think is used in only one quest. If SKSE gets modified to manage that animation (replacing it contextually), you can use arbitrary animations.

 

And, Skyrim lets you do independent eye and mouth animations (for example), so eyes roll back in forhead, or shifty look left, look right, mouth open, and so on, can all be independent of the base animation.

 

I think that you can also do stuff with camera motion for first person experiences (that might not be so popular for some people here, if they want to see their own character, but personally speaking I would be happy with that kind of thing).

[prideslayer]

Arbitrary animations has already been figured out by fore, he just posted about it here today. It still requires you to modify the main mt_behaviors.hkx file though, meaning mod conflicts galore.

 

Since I'm already screwing around in FOMM to add skyrim support, I've offered to do that part automatically via (basically) FOMOD support for skyrim. This would of course make installing animation mods via FOMM mandatory unless you really feel like doing a lot of work manually:

 

1. unpacking your BSA

2. decompiling the .hkx to xml with hkxcmd.

3. integrating the modders xml fragment into the vanilla hkx source.

4. recompile the xml to hkx with hkxcmd.

 

To me this sounds like something FOMM can do automatically very quickly, provided the modders XML is well formed and in the right spot in the archive.

 

Basically.. we're almost there. Even without beth support.

 

Not that I don't want beth support.. if they'd just fix the damn CK this would not be an issue.

[Stormsone]

Its funny because I asked if they were planning to make sexout for skyrim when I first joined too.I believe its a matter of time even if we can add animations which I am guessing someone will figure out how to soon or bethesda will give some support.It will of course take more time to figure out how to do various other things.So I think the answers yes but no time soon.

[prideslayer]

They is "Me" and the answer is "yes."

 

I have an announcement I put up before the CK was released, stating my intention to port sexout to skyrim, which I am calling "bluesky". I suspended it when all this animation trouble was found, which like most people, I found out the hard way within a few days of the CK being released.

 

Now that we're getting somewhere, I will take that off suspension fairly soon I suspect -- and then have another thing to devote time to that I don't have time to work on. Go figure.

[deviousMarsupial]

Now that we're getting somewhere' date=' I will take that off suspension fairly soon I suspect -- and then have another thing to devote time to that I don't have time to work on. Go figure.

[/quote']

 

Exciting to hear. Let me know if you need any help with the coding. Like I said, I have no experience writing game mods, but I supported myself for a while in college taking scripting jobs in Second Life, and I'm a professional developer now, so I'm assuming I can pick it up. I'm going to start playing with Papyrus tonight.

[prideslayer]

Definitely play with papyrus, it's different, but not terrible. If you've done Java or C# I think you'll find it fairly easy to adapt to, with it being somewhere between those two in terms of capabilities.

 

I will certainly be able to use all the help I can get.

 

The most kickass thing about it? The scripts are all plaintext files, before being compiled into the esp/m, by design. This means real collaboration (aka sourceforge, github, svn, etc) are very real and workable possibilities in skyrim, at least as far as working on scripts goes. That alone has me fairly excited.

[deviousMarsupial]

Definitely play with papyrus' date=' it's different, but not terrible. If you've done Java or C# I think you'll find it fairly easy to adapt to, with it being somewhere between those two in terms of capabilities.

[/quote']

 

I don't do much in Java, but I use C# at work, and all the work I do in PHP is object oriented (usually based on MVC), so I'm not a total OOP newb. The code I've looked at seems fairly straight forward, and as far as I can tell, the real challenge is in learning the libraries and how they interact with each other, more than the actual syntax. But isn't that always the way?

 

The most kickass thing about it? The scripts are all plaintext files' date=' before being compiled into the esp/m, by design. This means real collaboration (aka sourceforge, github, svn, etc) are very real and workable possibilities in skyrim, at least as far as working on scripts goes. That alone has me fairly excited.

[/quote']

 

That would definitely make collaboration easier.

 

Edit: Sorry if I'm over-posting. I really am excited to have found this forum.

[prideslayer]

C# will help you. It's a bit more advanced than papyrus -- no extension methods in papyrus for example. It's fairly close to PHP, which I use daily as well. On that topic, MVC is such a horrible design pattern for the web. I have no idea why it's so popular. I got so fed up with all the crappy MVC frameworks out there that I rolled my own site/app engine, based on some 3rd party non-mvc libs and the front controller pattern.

 

Collaboration is the best thing about the game engine. The best thing about papyrus is that... the scripting library is a dll, and there's a standalone compiler included. I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but it might be possible to duplicate the entire language and extend it, and replace the dll.. I stress might.

[deviousMarsupial]

On that topic' date=' MVC is such a horrible design pattern for the web. I have no idea why it's so popular. I got so fed up with all the crappy MVC frameworks out there that I rolled my own site/app engine, based on some 3rd party non-mvc libs and the front controller pattern.

[/quote']

 

It's mostly about maintainability. MVC tends to scale pretty well, and having the model, controller and view aspects all separated saves you from ever having to dig through thousands of lines of PHP + HTML. I can't comment on other frameworks though; I developed my own that I've been tweaking and using for everything, so I deploy that for freelance jobs, and I use .NET almost exclusively at work.

 

[prideslayer]

I've been writing MVC code for almost 20 years, I know what it's about and what the advantages are.. The problem is that web MVC is not actual MVC, so it ends up being a kludge.

 

"MVC on the web" uses the view as both the view and the controller (using MVCs terminology), the model basically the way it was intended, and controller as just some kind of traffic cop between the two.

 

There are much better patters for web development than the "knockoff" of MVC being used in web application frameworks today.

[deviousMarsupial]

I've been writing MVC code for almost 20 years' date=' I know what it's about and what the advantages are.. The problem is that web MVC is not actual MVC, so it ends up being a kludge.

 

"MVC on the web" uses the view as both the view and the controller (using MVCs terminology), the model basically the way it was intended, and controller as just some kind of traffic cop between the two.

 

There are much better patters for web development than the "knockoff" of MVC being used in web application frameworks today.

[/quote']

 

I'll grant that the hazy line between view and controller can be a problem, especially when collaborating; my idea of what belongs in the controller and view probably varies from the guy sitting across from me, and so on. I find that it has its advantages though, especially in AJAX-driven websites. Regardless, its the standard among professionals at the moment, and I don't have the kind of experience you do that would entitle me to ignore development fads.

 

Except CoffeeScript. I'm ignoring the shit out of CoffeeScript.

[prideslayer]

I agree with the pattern, I like it a lot, it just doesn't really fit the web very well, which was what my original comment was about before we geeked out.. "how did it get so popular??" I really just.. don't understand. Probably the same way VHS won out over Betamax.

 

Separation of responsibilities in code is a very good thing, but there are plenty of other patterns that solve that issue, or you can solve it yourself if you just write solid code (which is a book I highly recommend -- Writing Solid Code, MS Press). Been in print since '93, for a good reason.

 

Also, I don't get to ignore fads.. my experience does allow me to call them exactly what they are without worrying about repercussions though, even when I'm forced into using them. I had to write ruby on rails code for a while, FFS. I was in constant hulk mode in those days, barely able to stop myself from flying to wherever David Heinemeier Hansson lives and choking him the fuck out.

 

ETA: never heard of coffescript.. which means somebody is going to ask me to write them something in it soon.. bleh.

[deviousMarsupial]

ETA: never heard of coffescript.. which means somebody is going to ask me to write them something in it soon.. bleh.

 

Let me put it this way: the people I hear preaching Coffee Script now are the people I heard preaching Ruby on Rails five years ago.

[prideslayer]

Most of the rails guys I know/knew are going all nutty over Node.js these days. Thankfully, I don't work with any of them any more, so I don't have to rage against such a stupid fucking idea.

[Halstrom]

I agree with the pattern' date=' I like it a lot, it just doesn't really fit the web very well, which was what my original comment was about before we geeked out.. "how did it get so popular??" I really just.. don't understand. Probably the same way VHS won out over Betamax.

 

Separation of responsibilities in code is a very good thing, but there are plenty of other patterns that solve that issue, or you can solve it yourself if you just write solid code (which is a book I highly recommend -- Writing Solid Code, MS Press). Been in print since '93, for a good reason.

 

Also, I don't get to ignore fads.. my experience does allow me to call them exactly what they are without worrying about repercussions though, even when I'm forced into using them. I had to write ruby on rails code for a while, FFS. I was in constant hulk mode in those days, barely able to stop myself from flying to wherever David Heinemeier Hansson lives and choking him the fuck out.

 

ETA: never heard of coffescript.. which means somebody is going to ask me to write them something in it soon.. bleh.[/quote']

Coffee Script == Java I believe

Never used it myself but now I'm starting to head towards Mobile Apps I think I will end up finding out

We're better not rushing in with workarounds & hacks till we know they are our only options of course, there's still time for some new suprises from Beth.

I'm gunna have to buy Skyrim soon by the sounds of things

 

[prideslayer]

Java isn't half bad once you get past how verbose the language is and some other weird little things. This work on NVSE is reminding me really fast of everything that's wrong with C and C++

 

Exception handling for example is just stupid, I completely forgot how asinine it is compared to how you do it in a more modern language. Not like it's going anywhere though so.. suck it up, soldier!

 

I'm in no rush to work on the Skyrim port. I was excited about the game due to the hype and was severely disappointed. Waited for the CK like everyone else to get this project done, and then.. disappointment again. The animation thing is really close to being figured out, and once it is, maybe I'll get excited again. Right now I'm not "feelin' it."

 

[sen4mi]

Coffee Script == Java I believe

 

Actually... CoffeeScript == a preprocessor for javascript, implemented in javascript.

 

You get lots of new syntax to memorize (which is its downfall)

 

You have to debug its generated javascript instead of coffeescript (which some people is not too bad -- I do not know, I have not tried it myself).

 

You get concise notation for loops, for creating functions and classes and maybe some other stuff.

 

If you and the programmers you care about are already using another language that uses the same syntax -- removing that memorizing burden -- coffeescript might be a good thing for you.

 

 

[deviousMarsupial]

I'm in no rush to work on the Skyrim port. I was excited about the game due to the hype and was severely disappointed. Waited for the CK like everyone else to get this project done' date=' and then.. disappointment again. The animation thing is really close to being figured out, and once it is, maybe I'll get excited again. Right now I'm not "feelin' it."

[/quote']

 

Were you disappointed from a modding standpoint, or did you actually not like the game? I'm hoping we can eventually get as much freedom as we had with Oblivion, because the engine seems like a big step up.