Prettier Bandits

[EinarrTheRed]

I've run into a number of mods that "just add encounter spawns" and then looked under the hood and found they did a lot more.  Like one that was supposed to add some animals, then found out it modified the races of all animals so their attacks did a LOT more damage (like a wolf with a bite that did a base damage 2x a steel sword ).  Its one reason I'm hesitant about all these changes to to the Vigilants and I'm being 100% open about it here.  PB has been billed as a cosmetic appearance change, but these changes cross that line, so if I'm going to cross it I want to make sure its documented and anyone who downloads the mod knows what they're getting.

 

If I get a chance I'll look at some other things that might affect your problem.  If I find anything I'll pass the info along.

[karlpaws]

I've run into a number of mods that "just add encounter spawns" and then looked under the hood and found they did a lot more.  Like one that was supposed to add some animals, then found out it modified the races of all animals so their attacks did a LOT more damage (like a wolf with a bite that did a base damage 2x a steel sword ).  Its one reason I'm hesitant about all these changes to to the Vigilants and I'm being 100% open about it here.  PB has been billed as a cosmetic appearance change, but these changes cross that line, so if I'm going to cross it I want to make sure its documented and anyone who downloads the mod knows what they're getting.

 

If I get a chance I'll look at some other things that might affect your problem.  If I find anything I'll pass the info along.

 

I'll thank you for any help.  I took a look at some through TesVedit and realized I was over my head though I don't think there were any edited packages in the few I looked through.

 

Might be easier the next time I do a restart to disable a bunch of the mods I suspect (MO makes that easy) and play to a good spot, then enable them one by one and see whether I notice any obvious changes.

 

The top two I suspect are the More Bandit Camps mod from the nexus and the Expanded Encounters mod there as well.

[EinarrTheRed]

Oh an on the Vigilants and Daedric items.  I'd never paid attention to this before because to be honest I'd never paid that much attention to the Vigilants until I started on this part of the PB project.  Up til now they'd pretty much been archery targets in most of my games and not much else.

 

Anyway, after doing some reading it seems that Bethesda never fully implemented that behavior package and some dialog that goes with it.  Supposedly if you had daedric artifacts on you they'd get all huffy (dialog options, forced greeting, etc.) and possibly attack you, but it has never worked.  There do seem to be other mods out there that fix this and enable it.  So this weekend I'm going to set aside some time to take a look at those and what they did and see about possibly incorporating that into PB.  Or else I could just leave it disabled.  I won't really know until I have time to actually dig into it and see what is what.

 

Once I know more I'll have to decide whether this is something I want to fix in PB or leave til Smexy Bandits.

 

Does kind of underscore how and why mods drift over time, evolving into more than they intended to be.  You start out to fix one thing and end up fixing 20.

 

 

 

[karlpaws]

 

Anyway, after doing some reading it seems that Bethesda never fully implemented that behavior package and some dialog that goes with it.  Supposedly if you had daedric artifacts on you they'd get all huffy (dialog options, forced greeting, etc.) and possibly attack you, but it has never worked.  There do seem to be other mods out there that fix this and enable it.  So this weekend I'm going to set aside some time to take a look at those and what they did and see about possibly incorporating that into PB.  Or else I could just leave it disabled.  I won't really know until I have time to actually dig into it and see what is what.

 

Keeping with your appearance overhaul theme and if the other mods will not conflict with yours, I'd say leave them for the user to install if the changes are wanted, and just stick to what you already plan. Changing the spawn groupings (especially when announced) fits with appearance as the "more females in the leveled lists, but no AI changes or spawn point changes" that other mods provide also do.

 

 

 

Does kind of underscore how and why mods drift over time, evolving into more than they intended to be.  You start out to fix one thing and end up fixing 20.

 

Feature creep is probably more common and harder to fight when you're your own customer than when it is someone else asking "can you just add?" to which you can respond "Yes, and it'll be this much more."

[EinarrTheRed]

Good points.

 

I think you're right, if the other fixes will work with PB, then I'll probably just leave it alone and maybe post a link to one or more of the other mods.  I'll still need to look at them this weekend to determine what they do, how they do it and if that's going to work with PB though.  If that turns out to be the case then I can focus on more of what I set out to do.

 

You also hit on part of why I keep posting my thoughts here instead of just doing stuff.  The feedback helps me keep my focus and sometimes some of you remind me which way I need to be going.  Not to mention that I have a hard time staying focused these days, so posting regular updates and progress reports helps keep me motivated.  If I was just doing this in isolation without the feedback, yeah, would be very easy to drift off in various directions.  I think that's what happened to several mods I've looked at and tried out.  You could see how the author started with a core idea and then over time it evolved and drifted beyond the original intent.  Sometimes that's a good thing, that's kind of how PB got started.  I began with the idea of a cave with a half dozen sexy bandits (Wet Rock Cave), and then that started becoming Smexy Bandits... and then someone said "hey, why not just overhaul the appearance of the female bandits," so I started Prettier Bandits.  I still want to do Smexy Bandits and I view it as a successor to PB that will eventually replace it, but I also intend it to be more than just an appearance mod. 

 

Meanwhile I've just got the Bandit Marauders for the bandit faction to finish up and the bandits will be ready. 

[karlpaws]

 

 

Okay, two subjects here let's take the outfits first.

 

There are a number of mods that can edit the outfits of individual actors, that's a pretty well known concept and if that's all I wanted to do it probably wouldn't be an issue at all.  But what I want to do is something much more fundamental than that.  To understand it, I guess I need to explain more of what's already been done in PB, how outfits work for NPCs, etc.

 

Every actor in the game is assigned an outfit to wear.  That outfit is a specific kind of leveled list.  Some outfits may only contain a few items, for example 'FarmClothesOutfit01' which contains only the items 'ClothesFarmBoots01' and 'ClothesFarmClothes01'.  Others contain multiple items set at different levels to form a more conventional leveled list.  More commonly the random NPC we encounter have outfits that are composed of several leveled lists contained within the outfit.  As an example of that there is the 'BanditArmorMeleeShield20Outfit' which contains four leveled lists:

• LItemBanditBoots
• LItemBanditCuirass
• LItemBanditGauntlets50
• LItemBanditShield20

The numbers indicate the percentage chance that item will be generated, so the bandit wearing that outfit has a 20% chance of having a shield and a 50% chance of having gauntlets.  The percentage chance is assigned inside the leveled list, the number in the name is just for a handy reference; this is a typical naming scheme used by Bethesda throughout Skyrim.  Each of those lists contain items rated according to level, only items rated at or below the level of the player character have a chance to appear.  This is how the apparently random equipment is actually generated, it can get a little complex as there are sometimes still more leveled lists nested inside these lists but it also create more variety.

 

At the top though is the main outfit which really just serves as a way for Skyrim to identify what group of items, lists, etc to look at when equipping that NPC.  In the current version of PB I duplicated the existing main outfits used by the bandits, warlocks, etc and renamed the duplicates with the PB_ prefix and then assigned those outfits to the PB NPCs.  But the outfits themselves are currently just duplicates of what is already in the game, same items and leveled lists and it all works exactly the same.

 

So why do this?  Because it allows those of you who know a lil bit about CK to go in and edit those outfits and drop in whatever you like.  You can add your own items, leveled lists, etc.  I need to write a tutorial on how to do this and post it.  Should put that on my To Do list.    The short version is, say you wanted to give one of those outfits you were just talking about to all the NPC who wear the bandit armor described above.  Okay, fire up CK, then open the mod with the armor AND PB but do NOT assign either as active.  Add the armor to the banditarmor outfit however you like, whether that's just replacing all the stuff in that outfit or adding it to the leveled lists.  Now save the mod as something like "Your_PB_Outfit_Mod" or whatever you want to name it.  Now open Wrye Bash and select your mod.  There is an option to Add Masters, add the original armor mod and PB as masters (note, you only need to add the original armor mod if it was an esp, for example TERA armors is an esm so it will already be added as a master when you saved your mod in CK, this is just for force adding esp files as masters).  Close Wrye Bash.  Done.  Just activate your mod in your load order after the armor mod and PB and you're good to go and you'll start seeing the armor you added on bandits.  Want all your PB bandits wearing Daedric Reaper armor... whatever floats your boat man, go for it.  (That's the very brief abridged version, I really do need to write a full tutorial on that.  But once you know how to do it its actually pretty easy to do.)

 

Point is, the only NPCs who will wear those updated outfits are the PB NPCs.  And since there are different outfits for different factions and even different types of NPC within that faction, you can really start customizing their gear.  Whatever changes you make only affect the PB NPCs, but because this is being done inside the outfit container itself, those changes will automatically be applied to every PB NPC assigned to wear that outfit.  Its all automatic from there.

 

This also lay the foundation for my Outfit Manager idea since it would need these same outfits to work with.

 

Okay, next subject, how to make an NPC look like a PB NPC.  Its actually pretty darn easy.

 

Open CK and again load PB but do NOT make it active.  Let's say you want to give Ysolda a new look based on a PB NPC you like.  Find Ysolda (or whoever you want to update) under the Actors/Actor folder and open her actor form.  In the bottom left you'll see Template Data.  There is a drop down menu and some check boxes.  You'll need to know the form ID of the bandit you want to copy, but assuming you know that, open the drop down box and quickly type PB_.  This will filter it down to just the PB_ actors and save you a ton of scrolling.  If you can type really fast and know what type of NPC you might type something like PB_encbandit for bandits or PB_encwarlock for warlocks (you have to type quickly because if you pause it stops and then resets the filter which will annoy the piss out of you... take that from a guy who as done this a few million types at this point ).  Now find the one you want to copy and select that one.

 

Once you've done that part the check boxes won't be greyed out anymore.  The only one you need to worry about it the first one Traits.  Check that one.  Presto, Ysolda now looks exactly like the bandit you chose.  Now there are some warnings here.  Traits includes the facial data, but also the body weight and the RACE.  So Ysolda is a Nord, but if you picked a Redguard bandit then your Ysolda is now a Reguard.  It also includes one other bit of data that can really cause you problems... VoiceType.  Ysolda normally has the FemaleYoungAndEager voice type, but virtually no random NPC uses this (most Nords use the FemaleNord, Reguards often use the FemaleEvenToned).  So if you left it this way, Ysolda would try to speak but there would be no audio for much of her dialogs because the voice type doesn't match her dialog lines.  To fix this just uncheck the Traits box.

 

Yup, you read that right, uncheck it.  And also clear the Template drop down box, set it back to None.  Don't worry, you'll still get to keep the appearance.

 

You may have noticed that when you checked the Traits box everything on the Traits tab got greyed out, but when you unchecked it things can now be edited again.  If you were really paying attention you may have noticed Ysolda normally has a body weight of 50 but after you did the above her weight may be different now (a lot of the PB NPCs have a body weight over 50... I figured a lot of you would like them a bit... umm... chesty).  That's because your changes are still there, they didn't go away.  Reset her voice back to the FemaleYoungAndEager so she has her voice back when she talks.  Now if you want to see what's happened just to verify things have changed, click on the Preview check box bottom center of the form.  In a window on the right side (you can grab the edge and resize it btw), Ysolda will now be rendered and she'll have the new appearance.  If you want to alter her body weight up or down, do it now, if you do it later you'll have open neck seams.  Same if you want to tweak her make up a bit or something.

 

Now... if you don't like what you see... just click cancel and everything gets reset and no harm done; Ysolda will be back to her vanilla self.  But if you like your choice and want to update her, click okay.  The form will now close

 

We're almost done, just one more step.  Select Ysolda in the actor list by clicking on her name once (one click only you just want it highlighted).  Now press Cntrl + F4 at the same time.  You get a pop up asking if you want to export the face date, say yes, you do.  Wait 15-30 sec in most cases and another box will pop up that simply says Done.  Click it and your done.  Save your mod now naming it whatever you like (I have one called My NPC Updates) and enable the esp in your load order.  Next time you see Ysolda (or whoever you updated) they'll have the appearance you just gave them.  That's it.

 

Now one more warning, don't go back an edit them again or stuff will mess up, particularly the hair color.  Why, because we did it the lazy way and didn't actually import the PB hair color.  You can do this if you want, and in the long run it may be better to do so (I'd have to do another tutorial on importing the hair colors that's a whole process in itself).  Or you could use Wrye Bash again and make PB an assigned master and then your mod will simply load it from PB each time you load your game.  Either way works.

 

An that's pretty much it.  BTW, if you're building a mod and want to "borrow" the appearance of some PB NPCs for your mod, same deal and feel free to do so.  PB is a resource, if people want to use it to spiffy up some NPCs in their own mods that fine by me.

 

 

Hope that was clear enough, I really do need to set aside time to write some proper tutorials on all this.

 

Spoiler'd the original cause it was long, but just in case you wanted to remember what you wrote.

 

I was looking at the AI stuff, and with a mix of mods can't figure out when or why they do what I think they shouldn't and am not sure if they are actually behaving in ways they shouldn't.

 

So... making a little test mod to see what changing the AI does, using the AI Data tab.  I've noticed that if I change a template NPC and save it, then open something using that template it will change the info in the greyed out boxed and if I click OK on that screen it saves it as if edited. (with the asterisk in the Count column). If I open an npc down the inheritance tree, it does not do that.

 

I'm mostly writing this so I can edit it later and post what I find, but I'm not going to double click every single NPC just to update them... right now.

[EinarrTheRed]

CK is a lil quirky about tracking edits.  Open anything and then click OK and CK counts that as an edit even if you changed nothing.  On the other hand, open something and then cancel edit, and no edit is recorded.  Same if you look at something in a cell in the render window, if you open its properties but don't cancel out, that gets recorded as an edit as well even if you changed nothing.  You can clean those out in TESVedit, just make sure you're cleaning things that actually need to be removed.

 

For quick reference, here's the wiki for the AI Data tab. 

 

You can also look at behavior packages, specifically at the No Combat Alert and Aggro Radius Behavior flags

 

The No Combat Alert flag might be particularly interesting to look for since you said as soon as one of them detected you they all went into combat.  Could be one detected you and with that flag set they would go straight into combat (come after you) rather than first going into their alert state.  If others were close enough to have the "alert" chain reaction (one NPC triggers another, that one triggers another, etc.), then you'd get a whole pack going straight into combat.  Also, since PB doesn't change the default behavior packages, if another mod did then that would affect PB NPCs as well.  What alarms me a little about that is that most PB NPCs use the DefaultMasterPackageList., so if someone changed those they're changing a default behavior packages which is kind of a modding no no.  Hopefully that's not the case but if it is once you track it down its fairly simple to flip the flag back off.

[karlpaws]

Well I guess you saw my post before I got back to it... I looked at that wiki page too, but it doesn't say if you need to open and save every NPC that uses a base template that you want to change.

 

I thought I'd change that warn/attack radius just for good measure since my problem isn't just when they detect me, but anything that counts as an enemy... bandits will chase after mudcrabs, hunters will cross three cells going after foxes or rabbits cause they can't hit anything with a bow it seems.

 

I changed aggression and confidence to Unaggressive and Cautious, and those changes seem the most obvious on some NPCs so I think that the couple I opened did change and the rest I need to. Bleh.

 

[ EDIT ]

 

As I'm going through these I see some use the base template's AI and some do not.  Level 6 bandit melee does, for example, but missile and magic do not.  It looks like maybe it shouldn't either, as that means it isn't using the level 6 bandit combat style.  At least all the wizard/witch/warlock ones use the common base template. I just have to make sure I do the regular npcs before I do the leveled boss ones.

[EinarrTheRed]

Yes, you'll need to edit every base template to clear out the changes or add whatever you wish to add.  I'd suggest picking out one specific group and focus on that until you find the problem and once you have that then go back an edit the rest.

 

Just going from your descriptions, it still sounds as if something has given them a very large aggro radius.  Bandits will normally go after mudcrabs, foxes, deer, etc.  But because they have a more reasonable radius by default they only go after stuff that gets within about 1024 units IIRC (going on memory on that, didn't look it up so take that with a pinch of salt).  But without being able to observe what's happening its difficult to say exactly.  All I can do is point you at likely problems.

 

Oh an this might be helpful for understanding how NPC Detection works as well as having some additional info on how NPCs go from Alert state to Combat State and so forth.

 

If you want to try an design some test mods in CK, I could make some suggestions.

 

The aggression probably isn't a factor, most bandits and so forth that are supposed to be hostile are set to be very aggressive.  Its only when you get into friendly NPCs, followers, etc that it plays more of a role.  Confidence affects behavior once they are in combat.  That can actually be a way to manipulate the AI and get it to behave more intelligently.  For example, you would want a berserker to be overly confident (foolhardy seems to have been the default setting for most hostile NPCs Bethesda made).  But I've found making archers Brave or Average instead can make them better archers as they're more likely to back away from melee and get back to bow range for example; same with mages.  On the other hand dropping it too low an they run away and don't help their friends so there's a balancing point there.  Course you also have to go into the AI itself and start tweaking things as well to really get archers and mages to act smarter, but that's a whole other discussion.

 

An yeah, I'd just sat down at my computer with a snack and was checking email when you posted. 

[karlpaws]

At this point I'm not really trying to make a combat realism or true difficulty situation.  I have been either using Skyrim as a "how does this work" project for entertainment and wasting time or just going into the game and wandering around, seeing how far I can get distracted from some target I pick (quest chain, made up series of tasks, or something like that).  I should probably switch to some other game entirely, like Minecraft.

[EinarrTheRed]

Gotcha.  I think there's a limit to how realistic you can make combat in Skyrim and beyond that you're just going to frustrate yourself; but with that understanding there is a lot you can do.  One of my goals for Smexy Bandits is to make the NPCs more intelligent in combat, like the archer example above.  Bethesda took a hamfisted approach to just about everything, every hostile NPC is foolhardy and fights to the death.  They pester the shit out of you with new quests, especially the daedric and DLC stuff (like the one in Markarth involving Molag Bal or the invasion of Afflicted when that triggers).  Most mods I've seen that make NPCs tougher end up doing about the same thing, they just make them uber powerful and throw mobs of them at you.  Making the NPC fight more intelligently is a lot harder to do and takes more finesse, but you can get some useful results if you work at it.   The AI seems to have a terrible time knowing when to use heal spells, here again there are some 'hamfisted' techniques to get it to do so but they're a clumsy approach and I'm currently experimenting and trying to find better methods.

 

I never could get interested in Minecraft, I think if I wanted to spend that much time building so much from scratch I'd fire up Unity and just make a whole game.  Which is actually something else I've been learning a lil bit about.  I love how easy it is to go from Blender to Unity.

 

Skyrim is still fun for me to wander around in and just explore.  Even after over 3k hours playing I still sometimes find shit I've never seen before.  Couple of months ago I discovered a small hidden mountain valley I'd never seen or know was there, really surprised me and makes me wonder what else is still out there tucked away that I never noticed.

[karlpaws]

I haven't actually gotten Minecraft, so I don't know if it would be fun or not.  I used to spend hours with LEGO blocks though, so *shrug*

 

I think also something is wrong with my logic, as I found 2 bandits and an arch cryomancer that attacked me, but using the console I could see they did have the aggressive level 1 (edit... no, that should be a 0 have to check that when I get out of the game), and confidence level 2 I set them with.

 

edit

 

yeah, I need to go through and "update" all of the encwarlock0#<race>M and such entries.

 

edit again

 

Well I was successful. Bandits don't go racing off after everything nearby anymore.  Some I can even walk up to and talk to, which was unexpected and might be a clue to something else being broken.  Others fight me just fine, so I'm not exactly sure.

 

Found the 3 bandits standing outside the Whiterun outpost tower (they're supposed to be attacking the 3 guards there).

[EinarrTheRed]

Okay, weekend progress report time...

 

Have a few redguard left to do in the Bandit Marauder group and the bandit faction expansion will be done.  This will be the last planned change / expansion to the bandit faction.  Hoping tomorrow, barring anymore unexpected company dropping in, to get that done and maybe a sort of "family album" of preview screen shots of all the finished bandit groups (Bandits, Outlaws, Thugs, etc.)

 

I've also got about 80% of the Warlock Necromancers done, but still a long way to go on the Ice, Fire, Storm and Conjurer warlocks.

 

====================================================================

 

I also got started looking at the Vigilants and putting together some notes.  To re-organize them into Vigilant Knights and Vigilant Mages, I will need to set up a new set of templates, outfits and combat classes, possibly skill classes as well.

 

For templates it will look something like this (probably exactly this)

PB_EncVigilantOfStendarr00Template

•   PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrMage00Template

1.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrMage01Template
2.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrMage02Template
3.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrMage03Template
4.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrMage04Template
5.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrMage05Template
6.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrMage06Template

•   PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrKnight00Template

1.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrKnight01Template
2.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrKnight02Template
3.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrKnight03Template
4.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrKnight04Template
5.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrKnight05Template
6.    PB_EncVigilantOfStendarrKnight06Template

So we have the base template that will set some basic loot, factions, etc. that will then feed into the base knight and mage templates.  Those will add the combat classes and basic skills, perks and the outfit.  Those two templates will then feed into each of the level templates for the six encounter groups.  The actors will then of course be built off those level templates.

 

Skill Classes

Not sure if I will make their own skill class or just use an existing one, most likely I'll just use a couple of the bandit skill classes.  Based on game lore from Dawnguard it doesn't seem like the Vigilants were very well trained; sort of "hedge knights" if you will, so I don't want them to be particularly tough.

 

Combat Classes

I probably will make a PB_VigilantKnightCC and a PB_VigilantMageCC just so I can apply a few of the lessons I've learned about tweaking the AI.  In addition on the AI Data tab, the Knights will probably only be Brave instead of Foolhardy, and Mages will probably be Average confidence.  They may talk tough, but they ain't.  Again I think this fits well with existing game lore.  Plus it adds some variety to Bethesda's "everyone is suicidally brave" shtick.

 

Outfits

PB_VigilantKnightM

PB_VigilantKnightF

PB_VigilantMageM

PB_VigilantMageF

 

So four outfits, with male and female versions for the knights and mages.  Mage outfits will be pretty much what they wear now, female outfits sans hoods.  The knights will get studded leather, iron, steel and at the high end steel plate armors, with a small (maybe 20% chance) some of it may be enchanted.  I don't want their gear to be too good because again they seem to be more an order of "hedge knights" and they are outclassed by the Dawnguard not only in training but also gear.  "Pocket loot" I'll take a look at to see about maybe giving them a few goodies, but these guys aren't rich so don't expect bags of gems.

 

Races

Right now the Vigilants are an odd mix.  The default encounters have four different male Nord actors, 1 female Nord, 1 female Redguard and one female Dark elf (per level group).  Why there are no male Redguard or Dark elves I don't know; also why no Bretons? (I'm currently looking at game lore to see if there is some sort of rational for this or not)  All the females use the FemaleEvenToned voice, while the nord males all use the MaleEvenTonedAccented.  I'm still checking to see if there are any other voice types compatible with the Vigilant dialog, but so far it doesn't look like it; so for an additional actors I add those are going probably going to be the only voice options available.  I'm thinking I may add some male Redguard and 1 male Dark elf, and maybe also a couple of male Bretons; not sure how you guys feel about Redguard, Dark elves and Bretons with an Nord accented voice, feedback on that welcome.  For the females, increase that to 5 female Nord actors, 2-3 Redguard, 2 Dark elf and maybe 2-3 Bretons.  

 

 

 

So that's about it for now.  Will continue to work on the Vigilants as time allows and in between holiday interruptions.  Will hopefully have some sneak preview screen shots of the bandits for you guys soon as well.

 

Happy Holidays!

 

 

[EinarrTheRed]

First screen shots of the bandits, more probably later today.  Five more sets to go for the bandit faction. Not an expert at getting these shots yet LOL  Hopefully they're clear enough and give a fair idea of what the mod contains.

 

[EinarrTheRed]

The outlaws...

[EinarrTheRed]

The bandit thugs...

[karlpaws]

I might have to get a few shots as well, because those do not look quite like mine. Partly it will be the lighting and body mods I'm sure, but the faces themselves look a little odd.

 

My AI modification success was tempered by the fact that I think some of your bandits were overridden. I have a few grey faces and original hair bandits now.

[EinarrTheRed]

If you modify the actors, yes that will override changes in PB.  If you (or anyone) can get better screen shots, have at it; it would be more than welcome.  I readily admit I'm not the best at it and I'm also not running any ENB or anything else the 'screen archers" use to get the really high quality screen shots, plus I think I turned shadow quality down a bit, turned off the antistropic stuff and a few other things.  All I did was pick out a wilderness spot, drop a set of empty idle markers and then dropped a group of actors in and set each one to use one of the idle markers.  There's probably a better way of doing it than that, but its not something I've ever thought about or messed with before.

 

If anyone comes up with better screen shots (try to group them the way I have), I'll use them when I update the main download page on the next release.  Don't worry about adding the text, I can do that.

 

I'll see about posting my working copy here tomorrow so you can try out the new bandits and such.

[karlpaws]

I won't be able to make a group quite like that, but I can take screenshots and cut them down to single or twos and mash them together into a single or three images.

[karlpaws]

A trio of necromancer / warlock / mage types, all happen to be high elf I think but at least I found 3 hair styles.

 

Also got a random selection of mostly lower level bandits from a couple different places... one at night lit by a magelight spell.

[EinarrTheRed]

In the second set I really liked one of the redguard 2nd from the end, had a nice warmth to it; where was that taken (indoors or out?) and what sort of lighting conditions?  What I might do is make a PB_testcell where I can replicate those conditions and then go ahead and set up all the bandits on markers so they're there for viewing / screenshots whenever, just turn tdetect off and then coc into the cell.  With that set up you could grab screen shots an we're in business.

 

Appreciate the help.

[karlpaws]

Ah, she was in White River Watch but I think any indoor or cave location would probably work.  She's backlit by the light that is in the room but mostly lit by the campfire in the second room (where she and another bandit are talking about the boss and his rheumy eyed uncle watchman.)  She was facing the fire, walking back to it from farther away.  I used console codes to set up most of these.  TAI freezes them in place, TCL let me move closer without getting the name on the crosshair, and then I would TM to hide the hud elements I had. Turns out you do need to hit the ~ to close the console to take a screenshot.

 

The night shots I took, or tried, except for the one in the middle, never took since I hadn't closed the console.

[EinarrTheRed]

Thanks for the detailed answer, that should give me everything I need to replicate their lighting rig in a test cell.  I'll see what I can put together tomorrow and do another test shot, got a few ideas to make it a bit more "artistic".   I also re-installed and changed my skin textures and a few other things so hopefully mine will look a lil better for that as well.

[EinarrTheRed]

A funny thing happened on the way to making that test cell...

 

I decided to re-install my skin textures to see if I could improve my own screen shots a lil bit, simple right.  That's when things went horribly wrong.  Took me the better part of the day to figure out what was going on.  For awhile the appearance of NPCs in CK was completely borked.  Couldn't change skin tone, make up, war paint, color was way off on some skin textures.  Even crazier, it only seemed to affect the female NPCs, the guys were fine despite also having a custom skin installed.  Eventually I got it sorted and things do seem to look better now... buy oiy can CK be quirky.

 

So that test cell might be a bit longer coming.

[karlpaws]

I don't think I've installed any skin tex, but I've thought about it.  Some of the faces... probably number 2 or 3 on the complexion slider? are kinda bleh. The red/moddled cheeks I think are the worst, but I don't know really what options there are.