A Tentative Stab At A Skyrim Mod

[Silver Sorrow]

This is worse than I expected...almost a nightmare. Following the official CK wiki's step-by-step instructions to create a custom race is all well and good, but woe to the enterprising fool who wishes to add custom eyebrows. (They work in the CK, but not the game. I've been seeing a lot of threads mentioning the same problem with various items, bodies, etc.) I know I must be doing something wrong and I'll figure it out eventually, but god DAMN is the CK nonintuituve.

The official forums are as useless as ever (no surprise there) and the Nexus forums have no answers (of course), so I'll just have to wait for more info to be discovered. In the meantime, I'll keep experimenting with this lump of crap.

[Silver Sorrow]

Hooray. I figured out that I needed to add my custom race to a bunch of FormLists for the various headparts to show up. So now the important things (eyebrows, eyes, beards, hair, etc.) show up on CharGen.

Yes, I started with the PVA race, as they're essentially Nords with more resistances.

Oh, and about CharGen: so far, starting with a custom race wasn't a problem at all; Hadvar just turned to the captain and mentioned that I wasn't on the list. And it went on from there.

I'm still not sure about the possibility of custom body meshes yet, as today was spent just getting the basics down. I think it may be possible, but that's for tomorrow, I suppose.

[Silver Sorrow]

If you haven't guessed by now, this is me posting updates as I learn how to create a new race and modify it as I go along. You're welcome.

Now. I figured out how to modify various aspects of a character's head and face -- custom bodies are something I'll worry about later -- and I've added not only six presets, but also a custom hairstyle. That was easier than I expected. I also added racial bonuses, so hooray for me.

The new presets; the female redhead and blonde have the new hairstyle.

   

   

Oh, and yes: the last three show custom hair tints. The redhead has custom freckles.

Next up: more hairs and adding custom eyes. After that: bodies, perhaps.

EDIT: one of the Coolsims hairs:

[Starfox]

Amusingly enough, the CK takes so much time to load Skyrim files that I completely forget what I wanted to do with it once opened (so, ok, my memory is not that bad, the comment merely reflects how bored I am when finally staring at the thing in it's "ready for work" state).

I imagine that when they developed Skyrim, the guys at Bethesda would turn their comps on, launch the CK then go sip their morning coffee the time the damn thing finished loading.

[The Rogue Wolf]

Holy crap, they actually almost look like real people who bathe in the morning. Also, is the redhead single?

[Silver Sorrow]

She's single, but who knows for how long?   And she's very clean.

I actually *do* forget what I was going to do when the CK finally loads. I have to write down what I intend to do, then...I don't know, stare into space until the thing loads. Then I look at what I had written down. It's always a surprise!

Maybe I could learn a trade while the CK loads. Who knows? Today: an unskilled moron. Tomorrow: a licensed electrician. The day after tomorrow: still unemployed, looking into heating/air conditioning repair.

Until then, I got the K1 race in there. The first preset:

The second, with a variation AND a three-quarters view to show off the cheek structure:

I had to use a custom head mesh for the K1 race. There's more to it, but right now I'm gonna take a nap.

[Silver Sorrow]

So screwed.

It turns out that there's a lot more involved with custom races. Besides the infuriating process to actually get a race working, you also have to consider werewolf and vampire angles. If you don't want to be one and therefore never become one, there's no problem. But if you want to be one...

As a side trip, I'd like to point out that I am now so far behind the knowledge curve necessary for the CK that I might as well beg for others to do this shit for me, or just give up and forget about modding. Granted, my mods are mostly recolors and other low-level crap, but I'm not feeling as competent as I was with the MW and OB editors.

Back on subject: a great deal of what I am facing is scripting; you need to tell the game that your race is a valid one and all these conditions have to be met and so on and so on and...I suppose it wouldn't be as much of a bummer if my teeth weren't hurting like hell, but I somehow doubt that.

This means that I have a lot of work ahead of me if I'm to play a custom race that can turn into a vampire/werewolf (I accidentally typed "campfire" there...,wouldn't *that* be a great mod!) AND back to the custom race without things going horribly, horribly wrong.

Or maybe I'll swallow a handful of aspirin, take a nap, and focus on creating a better Shepard in time for ME3.

Scripting. Ye gods. 

[OrlopRat]

 I want to play as a campfire. Then all I'd have to do to level up would be to get someone to throw more wood on me. 

[Silver Sorrow]

I find a likely spot. I transform into what I consider now to be my true form. I wait. A lonely traveler stops and warms his hands over my cheery flames. He grows drowsy and lays down beside my comforting warmth. He drifts off into blissful slumber. And then I pounce.



I still haven't worked out how a campfire can pounce, though. Details, details.

Wood and flaming marshmallows keep me vital.

Moment of confession: at the Nexus, I kept seeing references to "werepyres," and I wondered why someone would want to morph into a pyre. "So someone would place dead Vikings on me so I could burn them up?" Then I remembered that you could be a vampire and a werewolf, but not both at the same time, and I realized that's what those people wanted: a vampire who was also a werewolf. A "werepyre." And I think I could come up with a better -- and less confusing, to those of us who suffered repeated head trauma in our youth -- name than "werepyre". Try these:

Vampwolf.

Wolfvamp.

Lycanbat.

Wamp.

Volf.

Loser.

And so on. Oh, and I just remembered, as I was flailing around for the funny and finding nothing: I've successfully created a race that will be able to experience vampirism and lycanthropy without crashing like a bastard. (But not at the same time. I'm not *that* ambitious.) All it took was following a slightly advanced tutorial closely, installing and editing scripts, duplicating all of the work I'd done before in my initial race mod, and...actually, it wasn't that bad or overly difficult, just tedious. And CK's a bit screwy, so there was some unintentional fun to be had.

So far I have the Khovian1 race...now called "Xi'an"...and I'll be adding the PVA race tomorrow. I have yet to figure out how to get pointy ears working without involving elf morphs (elves are so friggin' ugly in this game) for the various Khmer races, but I think adding the Xiangshi will be a relatively easy task (he typed while cringing). Spells are something that will need to be addressed at some point, and after I managed to screw up Aura Whisper in an unrelated case, I am...concerned...about screwing around with spells.

Btw, the Xi'an can now breathe underwater. BECAUSE THEY CAN.

I just need to test it out, which I will do tomorrow. Or later today, as it's 3AM.

The one thing that confounds me is the hair tint formlist. I don't want to modify any of the vanilla content, so I've been working around it all...which has gone well so far, but not so with the hair tints. I'll figure it out, I just need sleep first.

[Silver Sorrow]

Hell's tinklling little bells. Well, turning into a vampire doesn't work for my new race, no matter what I did. But switching back to human from werewolf does. So I guess the only solution is to make the race immune to disease. You can still become a werewolf via the Companions questline, which was really my goddamn point for doing this in the first place (I hate shutting out an entire faction), but no vampire thing...which is fine by me, as I hate the limitations of vampirism. I've said before that if I want to play a vampire, I'll load up VTMB.

Still, it infuriates me when something cannot be done without an in-depth knowledge of scripting and all that other crap. The hell of it is that I know...I know...that it's something *I've* done wrong, but the whole thing (the CK included) is such a mess that I have no idea what I did. What controls this? What controls that? Where can I change this to make that happen? Maddening!

Update:
Funny. I wondered if my first stab at a race -- which had no scripts whatsoever -- would crash when turning into a vampire. It didn't. She looked the same (that is, no signs of being a vampire), but she had all of the powers and spells. So I went back to my new scripted race and removed all traces of vampire race/headparts/scripts/etc., loaded up a save, and--

-- I should point out here that I installed a mod that gives a master vampirism potion, just to test this thing out --

--I was a Redguard vampire.

Holy shit.

I consoled the cure, and I was again a Xi'an with all my parts intact.

Again, holy shit.

I don't know why it made me a Redguard in particular, but I wonder if...nah. I'll start a new game and see what happens. I'm still making them 100% resistant to disease, but I'm just happy that the game doesn't crash.

And Yet...Another Update:
Started a new game, got to the Keep, gave myself the potion. Zap! I'm not a Redguard vampire. I'm still the same race and look the same, but I have vampire powers. That's good enough for me. Now even though I'm immune to disease, the game (probably) won't crash if by some miracle I turn into a vampire.

I also figured out how to increase my running speed without affecting NPCs: I added a fortify SpeedMult effect, then added it to the racial ability spell. I had quite a fun (read: wearisome) time trying out different magnitudes (turns out that 500 is pretty much Ludicrous Speed), and finally settled on 75. Not too fast.

Let's see...oh, right. Got the PVA race recreated and all scripted up. I'm messing with race heights tomorrow: Xi'an (formerly known as "K1") are about .95 in height, which is a couple inches shorter than average height in-game. (Using the Dimonized UNP body with the weight slider set to 0, the ladies do a pretty good Grace Park impression...although if accuracy is sought, they'd be just as tall as the Imperials, perhaps.) The PVA males, however, are a towering folk, being bigger than Altmer. Still testing. Wouldn't want to get my helmet horns stuck in the doorframe.

Still trying to fogure out spells and such, like Force Push and the like (the huge-ass fireball from OB would be great).

Ah. It must be three hours past bedcheck. They'll never catch me.

[Silver Sorrow]

After screwing around extensively with new skin tints, eyes, eyebrows, hair, face textures, head meshes, etc., I think I finally settled on the fundamentals of the X1 race. I called her Qinnad, for some reason. I tend to freeze when I'm put on the spot about naming my characters. 

This is a preset, by the way.

Next up is figuring out some nifty magic, the hell of hair tints and warpaint, ad nauseum.

EDIT:

Force Push works. All I had to do was plunder Midas for Skyrim.    I also got a version of the flaming holocaust thing, but it doesn't make me happy yet.

[The Rogue Wolf]

I also got a version of the flaming holocaust thing, but it doesn't make me happy yet.

I'll take "Things You'd Only Hear Silver Sorrow Say" for $800, Alex.

[Silver Sorrow]

 

And now for an excerpt from the unexpurgated version of Charles Dickens' A Child's Dream Of A Star:

Thus the child came to be a bitter old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent and ached like...well...like the dickens. And one night as he lay upon his bed frustrated beyond all measure at the intransigence of the CK, his children standing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago:

'I see the inferno!'

They whispered one another, 'He is dying. Good. Who gets his monitor?'

And he said, 'I am. My age is falling from me like a garment, and I with a flick of my wrist I shall ROCKET towards the Hereafter as a child. A child on fire and screaming. And O, my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me with barely-disguised contempt!'

And the holocaust of fire was pleasing to his eye; and it obviated the need for a grave. Because he was little more than ash. You got that, right? Good. I was beginning to wonder about you people.

[With all apologies to Dickens and everyone else who loves literature.]

So I got the Xiangshi race working. Still thinking about spells and stuff, but I may just recommend that the player pick up Midas Magic in addition to some of the things I intend to do. Screenshots of presets? Screenshots:

The hair should be bright gray, but it isn't. I'll have to look into that. The Coolsims hairs have this bizarre purple tint to them, and I think I can fix it. I have before, I think. Also, the warpaint works. I wasn't expecting it to.

I really liked this one. So hooray for me.

Still trying to figure out how to make an elf race that isn't ugly as a profoundly ugly thing.

[bobdog]

I didn't know the members of KISS were part of Skyrim -- that's handy info, right there! 

[Silver Sorrow]

And that's why I usually don't like warpaint. 

Reminds me: when death and black metal bands started wearing makeup, I wondered if the Kiss Army had repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"...

...they might as well drop the B.C. Rich, put on a war bonnet and start telling people it's fun to stay at the