Tutorial: Talking Activators - make things engage dialogue

Object: To be able to speak to static elements (non-Actors)

Difficulty: Quite easy

Time Needed: A couple of minutes

Things you will need:

• Creation Kit. The Creation Kit is the modding tool for Skyrim and can be downloaded for free on Steam.
• Basic knowledge in quest/dialogue creation
• Reading the additional note at the end *do read it!*

What we're going to do

If you have played Skyrim quite a bit, you probably came to meet some strange beings that could talk to you even though they weren't NPCs, but rather some floating magic orb, or just a voice talking out of nowhere. Well, that's what we're going to do here: creating one of those things that can engage dialog with the player.
The method to do it is probably not the one the developers used, but it works, so it's all that matters.

With this tutorial, you can make any static mesh seem to be able to talk: it can be a rock, a giant mushroom, a pretty light FX, or whatever floats the boat of your imagination. Just keep in mind that the activator will be static.

Creating the Talking Activator

1. Open the Creation Kit and load Skyrim.esm.
2. In the Object View window, filter "talkingactivator", then select the category ALL. You will see that there aren't many talking activators available. Duplicate one of them, rename it to your liking, and double click to edit it.

Actually, there isn't much to change here, but it's interesting to take a look. Notice the Voice Type field, and notice that the voice type of those talking activators is always a Unique voice type. Well, it'd be best that you pick one of those Unique voice types, because else, the activator is going to greet you with common racial greetings such as "How can I assist, hm?" or "Yes, sera?". It can ruin the mojo quite badly if you were going to make some badass talking rock.

When you've picked a voice, hit OK, and place your talking activator in the world. Probably in front of the rock, giant mushroom or pretty light FX of your choice.


Creating the dialogue

1. To create a dialogue, you need to create a quest. So, go to the Object Window, in Character>Quest, and create a new quest (right-click>New). If you are not familiar with quests, it would be best that you give a look to the Creation Kit wiki's tutorial on quest creation and dialogue.
2. Upon creating a new quest, the Quest window prompts. Give your quest a name, hit OK, and open it again so you can access more tabs that will be needed in the next steps.
3. Go to Quest Aliases. Right-click>New in the table. In the window that prompts, select "Specific Reference" and click on the button right to the option to select the talking activator in the Render View. Give your alias a nice name, like "Voice".

4. Now we're going to create the dialogue that this Voice will say. So go to the Dialogue View tab.

• Create a new dialogue view (right-click>new)
• Create a new dialogue branch (right-click>new)
• Name your first dialogue topic.

For the purpose of testing, I just made a simple dialogue with two possible answers to the first topic.

5. Once your dialogue is done, go the the Scenes tab.

• Create a new scene (right-click>new)
• Create a new phase at end (right-click>create new phase at end)
• Add an actor (select Voice, or whatever you named your quest alias)
• Select the phase, right-click>New action>Package

In the window that pops up, right-click in the table>new. The Package window prompts.

• In the drop-down menu called Package Template, select ForceGreet
• In the table on the left, click on the first option (Topic) and select the first topic of your dialogue in the drop-down menu, right to the table. You can filter it by typing its name.
• In the table, you may also click on the third option (Trigger Location), click on the button in the Selected Package Data area, and select your talking activator in the Render View. The radius is set to 500 by default, you might want to reduce it eventually, but it's not very important.
• Click OK on all the windows that are open to save the changes to your quest.

Now you could think that since you just created a scene, in which your talking activator is supposed to force dialogue when approached by the player, that it would be normal for it to act this way. Well, sadly, that doesn't work, and the talking activator cannot be activated by the player either. So we need to find a way to force the activator to start its scene.

Creating the Trigger or Activator

1. Now we have two options:

• Creating a trigger volume that will force the dialogue when the player enters it
• Creating a custom activator that the player can use to start the dialogue

So it's all a matter of whether you want the player to initiate the dialogue or not.

Creating a trigger

For this option, just select an item in your scene that is about the size of the player, and click on the little icon looking like a cube with a T inside, in the toolbar. A red box will appear around the item you selected. You can use the arrows pointing from its center to resize it, or press 2 and move it around to place it near your talking activator.

Creating a custom activator
For this option, go to the Object View, in WorldObjects>Activator and filter any kind of button, simple lever or pull chain as you like. I like the NorPullChain01 but that's personal taste. Duplicate the activator of your choice and rename it, then let's edit its properties.

• In the field "Name", you could put the name of the character supposed to be speaking (or anything else, we can be tricky). Here, I put "Insane Crystal" because an Azuran crystal on Tamriel is obviously insane.
• In the field "Activate Text Override", you could put something like "talk". Or it could be anything, like "annoy", "bother", etc. Be crazy if it serves your evil projects.
• Among the options on the right, you might want to tick "Is Marker". This will make the activator invisible, so it will really look like you're trying to talk to your static mesh, without having to use some device for this purpose.

Now if we leave things as they are, it's gonna be pretty useless, because neither the trigger nor the activators know what to do. For this, we're going to need a little script.


Creating the Trigger or Activator

What this script does is simply to force the activation of the talking activator, which forces it to start its scene.

• Double click on your trigger/activator in the Render View
• Go to the Scripts tab, far right in the tabs of the Reference window
• Click on Add (wait a little for scripts to load)
• Click on New Script, and give it a name. Click OK.
• Select your script in the Reference window, right-click>Edit source
• Paste the following code and save:

ObjectReference Property TalkActivator Auto 

Event OnActivate(ObjectReference akActionRef)
TalkActivator.Activate(Game.GetPlayer(), true)
EndEvent

• Double-click on your script to edit its properties.
• Select TalkActivator and click on Edit Value. Click on the button to select the talking activator in the Render View.

And that's it! Now it's time to test this out ingame!

As you can see, this insane crystal talks like a Khajiit, due to MaleKhajiit voice type.

Very important additional note
I had the very displeasing surprise to figure out that this method didn't seem to work anymore as I started to apply it to my mod. I did all the possible tests I could do to figure what wasn't working, until a friend told me of the "quest dialogue bug" that has started to occur with a recent update. This bug makes it impossible to engage dialogue with any NPC or, in this case, a talking activator ...until you save and reload the game.
Yes, the fix is as simple as this. F5, F9, and it all works smoothly again. Don't forget to add this recommendation in the description of your mod when you publish it!

Thanks to Felroki for the tip. If you like Dunmer items or want to see a more Dunmeri revamp of the Gray Quarter, do check out her mods on the Nexus or Steam! She did a fantastic job on them!

EBMv2 - New books added and placed

Here is a part of the covers I made for books from the previous ES games --you may remember some. Each book features a description its content on the backcover, I thought it would be nice and helpful for the player. As you may see I also created templates to both save my time, and give the feeling that books were published by actual editors, such as the Tribunal Temple, the Imperial College, the Order of Arkay or the School of Julianos, to name but a few.

These shots are from the CK save for the last one, obviously ingame. Note that I use doccdr's Book Covers Skyrim mod, as I intend EBM.2 to work along with it. So far it seems the book covers all fit nicely together.

As you can see there are still many holes on the shelves, which shall be filled either by books I still have to bring back or by mine in some cases. The books are sorted by categories in the library (History, Geopolitics, Religious, etc) and by themes in the shelves (War of the First Council, Daedra, epics, horror/love/thieves... stories, etc). I think it is rather convenient this way. I should also be adding bibliographies listing the books and where to find them, and I plan to retexture all the bookshelves to add little signs reading their theme, with a simple color code as well.

I thought I'd add items in the shelves as well but it seems to be more complicated to achieve than I'd thought due to physics: everything collapses beyond logic and it's all a mess. The place should still be cozy, and if I can I'll try to add some nice paintings to decorate the walls.

Tutorial: Skyrim books creation

I have recently learned how to create book covers for Skyrim books and so I thought I'd make a tutorial about it. And why not compile all I know so far about book creation so people don't have to search through scattered posts?

So here it is. It shall be uploaded to the Nexus as well in due time. Click the pic to view pdf file.

Tutorial: Adding Help Files to Skyrim's Main Menu

Object: Add Help files to Skyrim's main menu.

Difficulty: Very Easy

Time Needed: Besides the time needed to write the files, about two minutes.

What You Will Need:

• The Creation Kit. The Creation Kit is the modding tool for Skyrim, and can be downloaded from Steam.
• Some previous understanding of the Creation Kit (preferably).
• The text for the Help file that you want to add.

There are a number of ways to add guides and Help files to your mod. The most common way is to use a book or a Message Box menu system. With the addition of MCM (Mod Configuration Menu) to the SkyUI,  it is now also possible to add them to your mod's MCM. 

This tutorial focuses on adding Help files directly to Skyrim's normal main menu. When you press 'Esc' ingame, you can save, load, read your journal, review your achievements, etc. There are also Help messages for guiding the player in how to use the game. It is possible to add your own messages to this list. To do this, two things need to be done:

1) Create a new message by navigating to Miscellaneous > Messages in the Object Window, right-clicking in the right-hand panel, and clicking 'New'.

• Write or copy the text that you want to be read in the Help menu.
• Make sure that the Messagebox checkbox is checked.
• I suggest that you follow the naming scheme that the other Help Message have: "Help[Topic]Long".
• Ensure that there are no Menu Buttons or Conditions. Click 'Ok' to create the Message.

2) Navigate to "Miscellaneous > FormList" in the Object Window and find the "HelpManualPC" FormList. Double-click to edit it. Now go back to the Messages category, select your Help Message, and then drag it into the FormList.

3) Save your plugin. Start Skyrim.exe and select your plugin from the Data Files. Begin the game, load a save, and press 'Esc' to test your modification. Navigate to the 'Help' menu, and look for your message. The Help messages are categorized alphabetically by the Message's name.

There you go! Your Help files have now been added to Skyrim's Main Menu.

SkyUI 3 MCM compatability

Howdy, y'all.

I'm sorry for not releasing a new version during the past couple of months. I have been far too busy with school and work to make an update. I have not forgotten about this mod, though. If at some point I have more free time to work on it, then I will. I am not ignoring the complaints and bug reports that y'all give; rather, I simply haven't had the time to respond to you or to fix them.

That being said, with the announcement of the Mod Configuration Menu for SkyUI 3, I am going to try to take out some time from my busy schedule the next few weeks to make an MCM menu for Way of the Monk. One of the biggest complaints about this mod is the menus. They're crap. I know. Not only are they annoying to you, but they are annoying to me. To make the menus of the sort that WoM uses now often requires over 1000 lines of code, and many hours. I spent probably 100-200 hours working on the menus alone. The MCM is not only easier for the player to use, but supposedly it reduces the scripting time to a couple of hours max. Not only that, but it allows checkboxes, drop-down menus, option highlighting, sliders, and many other useful features. It is still in alpha phase, so it might change over time and y'all might not have downloaded it yet. However, once I learn the system and have taken the time to script it, I will hopefully have made Way of the Monk MCM compatable.

What does that mean for y'all? Well, first, the menus won't be so annoying. You will be able to press 'escape' to access them, rather than casting a spell or power. You will also be given more options. I will try to code into the menus new options including leveling speed. This will allow you to change how quickly you raise your Monk skills. I am not sure what the menu restriictions are, but I *might* (I stress *might*) even be able to create a menu for choosing perks. I hate the current menu system that this mod is using. It's awful. Especially when choosing perks. Many peoples' complaint is that they don't want to have to use those awful menus, and they want the process of choosing new perks to be easier. So far, that has not been possible without replacing an existing skill tree in the main leveling menu. MCM may allow me to do that.

I'm not sure exactly when I will create this menu. Likely, it will be an incremental process that may take a week or two, as I learn the MCM system and code when I get the opportunity. I may also need to wait a while for MCM to get out of alpha stage, to ensure that I don't have to rewrite part of the code. Supposedly, Gopher is going to make a tutorial on creating MCM menus, which I am also waiting for. The one downside of this is that the MCM menu will not be available for Steam Workshop users. I am going to add an optional download here on the Nexus for it. Also, I may have to change Way of the Monk to an ESM, which would make it incompatible with the Workshop.

Need Voice Actors For Your Mod?

Are you creating a quest or follower mod? Do you need voice actors? This post gives a number of tips and links to help you find voice acting talent.

Doing it yourself:
First off, you may simply be able to do it yourself. Now, there's the possibility that your voice may have a different sound or be a different gender than your mod's characters. However, if you voice does fit a character, here are some tips to recording:

1. Turn off all fans, air conditioners, and cell phones. Get rid of or turn off anything that could add background noise.
2. Place your microphone at the very least an inch (I suggest 2-3 inches) from your mouth. That is to eliminate the small staticky sounds that may come from a dry mouth or from the mic rubbing against your skin.
3. Keep a glass of water nearby to make sure that your mouth does not become dry. A dry mouth will make your produce a static-like sound in your recording.
4. Sit up or stand up. Breathe with deeply, with your stomach expanding rather than your chest. This will provide a good airflow through your vocal chords, and provide your brain with the oxygen it needs.
5. Sing for a while before recording. It doesn't matter if your singing voice is awful enough to kill cats, sing for a bit.  Doing so will loosen your vocal chords and get your lungs moving right for recording.
6. Download Audacity. It is a free audio editing and recording program that is powerful enough to be used in professional settings. If you want to you can even learn how to add effects to your voices, but that won't be neccesary for simple voice acting.
7. Along with the recordings for your lines, record a 5-6 seconds long file that is nothing but silence. Make sure that you do this with the same mic and in the same setting that you used for your line recording. This silence sample will be used later with Audacity to remove background static and noise from your audio files.
8. Record your lines in the .WAV format. This can be done with Audacity. There are only two audio formats that the Creation Kit (for Skyrim) uses, and those are the .WAV and the .XWM formats. If you have the time, I would suggest converting your files to .XWM. They are not as large as .WAV files, but they will work fine. The decreased file space means that you will be more likely to pack your mod into the 100 mb limit of the Steam Workshop. Use this guide to convert the files. As far as I know, this is the only guide in existence that teaches you how to convert .WAV files to .XWM.

Recruiting others:

1. The Voice Actors' Guild - The VA Guild is a part of the broader Engineering Guild, which is a modding community createed by the modder Giskard, who is well known for his Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Oblivion mods. I have used them before and they are a great group. Very friendly, quick, and professional. While you're there, you can also download some of the fantastic mods that they have produced.
2. Post a thread in the Skyrim Nexus, Bethesda, or Steam forums asking for a voice actor. You are less likely to get someone with voice acting experience, but they are likely to be more eager to help.
3. Take a look at the list of voice actors that helped with the Interesting NPCs mod for Skyrim. The mod author supplied links to their Nexus Pages, so you can contact them if you like their voice or are looking for any voice actor. With this specific group, I would suggest going into Skyrim and listening to their voices. That way you can choose the actor you want based upon their voice. Keep in mind, though, that they do not have to work with you if they do not want to. The likely get plenty of requests and do not have time to help everyone.

Once you have the lines:

Even once you have gone through the work to find voice actors, you will need to add them to the game. Below are a number of tutorials for adding voice files to characters in Skyrim.

1. Deck16 - Adding a Voice Follower
2. Creation Kit Wiki - Bethesda Tutorial Dialgoue
3. Voice Acting: A Complete Guide
4. Creation Kit Tutorial: Quest Dialogue [1/4]

Assets needed!

In order to improve my mod and its presentation, there are a number of assets which I want to add. I am not an artist, however, and have no skills in image-creation, modeling, or animation. So, if you would like to help, below is a list of assets that I am looking for. If you want to help out, then please contact me (Woverdude). I will credit you for your work. If you would like to create multiple assets, then we can discuss small payment options. I can't pay you much, but if I really like your work and you are dependable, then I will try to reward you with something for your skill and hard effort.

Art:

• A poster image for my mod. Something that captures the idea behind the mod and would be used as a front picture or advertisement for everywhere that I post about my mod
• A retexture of soul gems to include different colors, including magical glows.
• A new banner to be used ingame. It should have a red background with the image of a white moth in the foreground.

Models:

• New Monk-themed armor for those who want bash their enemies' teeth in, but want to be protected while doing it. I would like to have both a heavy and light version, but I am not picky. It should not be skimpy, and should fit well with the customary fantasy-genre monk class.
• New weapons. This could include brass knuckles, spiked gauntlets, katars, etc. They should fit in with the standard Monk class, and should be lore-friendly. Also, they need to function properly in the CK and have quality textures. Feel free to design it as a piece of armor that would have a weapon at the end. I can set it up so that it is a glove that adds to the amount of unarmed damage dealt.
• New robes. Any kind as long as they are lore-friendly, fit the Monk theme, and are not skimpy.
• Elemental robes. Unique robes that have the appearance of a certain element. One should look fiery, one should appear icy, and the other should seem electric.

Voice Acting:

Contact me for details. For now I only want one voice actor. You need to be male, have an adult (preferably older and deep) voice, and be easy to understand in English.

Need A Dev Blog For Your Mod?

Need a development blog for your mod? Want a place to post Creation Kit tutorials or Skyrim news?

One of the original intents when nox.fox and Woverdude created this blog was to open it up to the larger Skyrim modding community. Updates for upcoming mods, new project announcements, modding tutorials, general Elder Scrolls news, we'd like to see all of it. If you have want to write about any of those topics, and are dedicated to your work and writing, then please contact us and if we accept your request then we will give you posting privileges.

Conditions:

• Prove to us that you are dedicated to your mod. We need to know that you will complete your mod, rather than wandering off to another project. The last thing we want is for a modder to stir up excitement about their great new mod, only to disappoint by not delivering.
• Don't stay out of contact with us for more than 15 days. "contact" means anything from commenting on a post, to e-mail, to posting on a forum that we will see. We just need to make sure that you wont disappear.
• Post at least one tutorial a month.
• Be easy to work with for us and our readers. 
• Write interesting, entertaining, and informational posts. If you need help with your writing, feel free to contact one of us and we can give you tips.
• Your mod MUST be for Elder Scrolls related. No mod for a game outside of the ES series by Bethesda will be allowed.

Benefits:

• As a poster, you will be allowed to post updates or news regarding Skyrim and Skyrim modding.
• As a poster, you will be part of a larger community with an established reader base and other dedicated modders.
• As a poster, if you need help with your mod, then you can write a post on the blog asking for help from other modders.
• As a reader, you will be able to keep updated about Skyrim, as well as your favorite Skyrim mods.
• As a modder, you can find and request detailed, informational tutorials for the Creation Kit.

Advertising: 

We are also going to add advertisements to the website. They are going to be placed as unobtrusively as possible and will be restricted to gaming-related ads. So far we've managed to get between 200-300 views per day, which is pretty high for only being online for a month or two.

We understand that advertisements can be annoying. Please keep in mind, though, that we are spending many hours working on mods and this blog. All of those hours are unpayed. We are also both unemployed and in school. Any extra cash that we get means we can spend more hours working on mods, since we have to spend less time working or looking for a job. Though they may be a bit of a nuisance, they will allow us to run this website and build our mods.

Skyrim Books Update

There a number of important updates regarding the progress of Skyrim Books.

The first is that one of our team member has disappeared and we have not heard from him for weeks. Since he was the one that was building the bookstore, we are going to have to figure something else out. nox.fox has offered to build a level, and I have an old level that we could use. Whichever possibility we decide on, the project will inevitably be delayed.

Because of the loss of our team member, we have also lost a number of stories and authors which we had decided would be added to the mod. He had gathered a list of stories from authors that he contacted and was going to send them to us. If you are an author that had their work accepted by John, please shoot us an e-mail and we will include your story in the mod.

We aren't sure what happened to him. If you do know, we'd appreciate it if you could let us know. And if you're reading this John, please let us know what's going on, buddy.

Hint: Creating textures fitting in Skyrim

You have seen mods that either retexture items or add new ones in the game. And maybe you've noticed how some textures stand out like they come from outer space or whatever funky world that is NOT Tamriel. If you've never notice this then I suggest you to either look carefully the exemple or avoid doing any texturing job.

Textures are extremely important. You can screw the modeling, you can screw the level building, but do not screw the texturing! Textures are what you see all the time, if you screw them you screw the game. They are not the only thing that can screw the game of course, but we're talking about textures.

Skyrim was created with a graphic chart including a certain range of colors only to fit the rugged, cold, snowy place. It's not for nothing that we never see bright red big flowers. Even the crimson nirnroots aren't bright red:

So, which picture should be your reference for texturing a crimson nirnroot?

Skyrim uses mostly desaturated colors, almost grey for most of them. Now it's not always easy to figure if your desaturated colors will fit in the game. However note that you shouldn't just take screenshot of the game and use the colors of the screenshots as they are altered by the game engine's post process.

So how to do? Well, simple trick:

1. Find items in the games that feature the colors you want to use
2. Get their textures
3. Pick the colors directly

If you can't find items with such colors, then maybe you shouldn't use them in the first place and go for other colors. If you want to extract textures from the game you will need a specific tool (see here for info and links).

Now if you want to expand a type of items already existing in the game, such as weapons and armors, to create maybe new variations within an existing set, or a new kind of weapon like staves in exemple. I cannot smith a staff in Vanilla Skyrim, it would be cool to smith some glass, elven or ebony staff!

...Okay... But before going wild, OBSERVE the existing weapons!

1. Look their designs, see what are the smilarities between a dagger and a bow, between a sword and a mace, etc.
2. Look if they have specific patterns in their textures, specific shapes in their modeling.
3. When you're able to tell what are the graphic codes of a weapon set, you can start designing.
4. Then submit your drawing on a forum to get feedback and advice.
5. Eventually fix it before starting modeling and texturing.

It is very important to not neglect feedback. Unless you're doing a mod just for yourself you should get sure that your audience will like what you propose. Plus if people are aware of what you do you have more chances to get the audience you deserve!

Finally, here's a graphic review I made. I guess a concrete exemple speaks better.

You see the difference? Before and after?

(If not, maybe you shouldn't do any texturing for the moment)

You may also read this great post from Martigen on Bethsoft, gathering advice from Martigen and many other texturers who contributed to the thread. The main focus is texture compression and I found this post extremely interesting, both technical and professional.

Way of the Monk: Unarmed Overhaul, Mod Diary #2

Mod Diary #2

Pillars:

So, after tens of hours of studying Papyrus, posting questions on forums, and writing nearly one thousand lines of codes with around one hundred properties, I have finally completed the scripts for all of the Pillars that manage your stats in the mod. Not only that, but they all work! One of them is a tiny bit glitchy, but I aim to fix that soon. These Pillars of the Way will be used to manage and check your perks, stats, and skill inside the mod. For ease, you will also be able to use Balls of the Way (misc. items with the model of an Attunement Sphere) that have the same functions. These Pillars were vital for the work on the other mod to allow for proper testing and smooth use. They have also been added to the world and given a map marker for fast-traveling. Along with the completion of the Pillars, I have also completed every perk that the player can gain from leveling. 

There are some other Pillars that the player can find around the map (similar to the Standing Stones) that have not been completed, but they are next on my list. 

Enchantments and Focus Crystals:

They have not all been added yet, but I have decided upon them all and know for the most part how I am going to add them to the game. There is still some uncertainty on how to make Gauntlets that are both a piece of Armor and a Weapon, but I think I may have found a way to create them by mimicing the way shields work in the game.

Tutorials:

Along with all of this tedious scripting, I have learned a great deal about Papyrus and the CK. In the next few days I will post tutorials on making message box sequences, new skills, and (once I figure it out) weapons that are also categorized as armor.

Screenshots:

Pillar of Rewalking (allows you to reset your perks):

Archway to lead the player to the Pillars of the Way:

Pillars of the Way:

EBM WIP: 23 books + 4 spell tomes

News Update:

3-10-12

Despite being quite overbooked I found time to keep on writing for EBM. So far 23 books are written for the mod and 4 spell tomes have been completed as well.

EBM categories

The books can be sorted in several categories:

• General lore - more casual books expanding the lore slightly
• Scholarship - books with a scholar's point of view over a topic (magic most of the time)
• Religious - books with a faithful's point of view over religion
• Comical lore - more funny or entertaining books

General lore

• A Dish Better Served Cold
• Children of Shame
• Sakin the Smith (5-tome series)
• Telvanni Sweets
• The male witches (5-tome series)

Scholarship

• Anatomy of the Dremora
• Another Book of Daedra
• Beyond your dreams
• Interview with the Dremora
• Wild but not savage elves

Religious

• The Book of Q'amsha

Comical lore

• Dunmer tactics of guerilla
• Giant Mudcrab
• Khajiit's fleas
• Red Riding Hood

Spell tomes

For now there are 4 of them, all in the school of Destruction:

• Flames
• Sparks
• Frostbite
• Fire Rune

The Frost and Lightning Runes should come quickly as most of the text is shared. They should also feature their respective Rune staves, like the Fire staff above, as illustrations -- as the staff is also explained. Since the Daedric letters really made no sense at all I went for a slightly humorous explanation.

Also note that the Mysticism spelled that were dispatched to the other schools will be explained as Mysticism spells with an addendum saying the spell now belongs to another school. Otherwise, how could I explain that Detect Life is an Alteration spell though it has no effect on the material world, doesn't alter it in any way? Et caetera, et caetera.

The list of spell books is long and it will take time to write them all but I hope they can be appreciated XD.

[up: a few screenshots of the readable Fire Rune spell tome!]

In conclusion

So this is what you can expect for the first release of EBM. The spell tomes will require the additional Readable Spell Tomes esp to be read so you can choose to activate it or not, or activate it and deactivate it, as you wish!

You can also expect illustrations for the diaries of Sakin. Other books may get more illustrations as time comes. I also wish to try a little trick to reduce the weight of png images while preserving a nice transparency (if the compression is too high the transparent element get an ugly white outline). I'll just downscale the images and set a higher resolution in the code (while preserving a same ratio) and see if how much the distortion shows up.

Way of the Monk WIP Discussion

WIP Thread on Nexus Forums

I have started a WIP (Work in Progress) thread on the Nexus forums. More details about the progress and components of the mod has been included in this thread, along with some of the issues that I am currently facing. Feel free to come join the discussion!

Way of the Monk: Unarmed Overhaul, Mod Diary #1

Mod Diary #1

If you haven't heard about my new mod project Way of the Monk: Unarmed Overhaul, check it out, because that's what I'm going to be talking about. :-)

So, one thing I decided about making this mod was that I was going to use the opportunity to help other modders improve their mod. As I make the mod I am going to be writing a Mod Diary of what, how, and why I add or take away features from my mod. I hope that you enjoy my diary and learn from it as much as I had to learn to write it. :-D

Please keep in mind that this all takes a lot more time than it seems from reading it. For those of you trying to decide whether to get into modding, realize that it will take up a huge amount of your time. While it only takes a few minutes to write a paragraph about a step in the process, that step could have taken hours or even days to complete. Consider this both a warning to new modders, and a request to please understand why I take days to do what may it may appear should take minutes or hours. :-)

Note: This is going to be a pretty long and detailed post. Just giving you fair warning...

First steps:

The first step in any process is always the inception of the project, and the planning. I started having an idea that I wanted to make a new Unarmed mod over several weeks. During those weeks I saw that, while my Unarmed Warfare mod did improve the Unarmed gameplay, it was extremely buggy and felt too much like a workaround. So, I decided to build a new mod from scratch, following a different concept and process from the first one. 

Scripts:

One of the main desires I had was to have a scaling system for Unarmed damage, as well as having a "skill" and perks for Unarmed combat. Now, the CK does not allow the creation of new Actor Values, which is the class of object that skills are. So, that meant I was going to write a script that ran in the background as the user plays the game. Here is the basic concept of the script:

There are three main variables that the leveling-system/skill runs off of:

1. Use

2. Mod

3. Level

Use is the progress towards the next skill. Mod is the amount of XP that is gained each time the player makes a successful Unarmed attack. Level is the level of the skill. These three variables are stored as global variables.

(The entire script can be found here. The font might not be acceptable to the CK, though.) The equation :

when the player makes a hit

then Use = Use + Mod

if Use >= 100

then Use = Use -100

        Level = Level + 1

        Mod = Mod - .01

endif

So, every time you hit an enemy, your Use (level progress) increases by Mod. When this has occured enough times so that Use equal to or greater than 100, then your level increases by one. When your level increases, Mod goes down by .01 so that the speed of leveling decreases over time.

Practical application:

At Unarmed level one: It will take 100 hits to advance to level 2

At Unarmed level ten: it will take approximately 110 hits to advance to level 11

At Unarmed level 50: It will take approximately 200 hits to advance to level 51

And so on...

Now, the number of hits would get unmanageably high at higher levels, but only if you did not have any perks or items that sped up the process. If you are playing an Unarmed character, though, I expect that you would, since they are available.

The Unarmed Damage scaling is rather simple. It is multiplied by (1 + Level/20). Thus: At level 20, you would do twice Unarmed Damage, at level 40 you would do 3 times, etc. To get the script, click here.

Now this all might sound relatively simple. But it took me a lot of time to plan, balance, and translate into Papyrus syntax. I started out knowing very little about Papyrus. I still do not know a lot, but I have certainly improved my knowledge.

Perks:

Overall, I want to have 20+ new perks/enchantments. That may sound kind of bold, and maybe a bit imbalanced, but the whole goal is to build an entirely new combat style within the game. To do that, I'm going to have to add a lot of new options. As far as perks go, you will be able to choose a new perk every 5 levels. There will be both an "Unarmed" and an "Unarmored" branch that crossover on occasion. 

There will also be a number of more significant perks that you get from special Pillars. Across the landscape of Skyrim there will be a number of Pillars that are similar to the Standing Stones. You will only be able to have one active at a time, but each one can significantly change your gameplay. So far, I have ideas for several pillars, which you can read about here. Each pillar will have a perk that modifies Unarmed gameplay and a perk that modifies Unarmored gameplay.

So far I've only copied the perks from my Unarmed Warfare mod, but I will work on adding new ones as soon as I have them planned out.

Managing your stats:


Now, you might be wondering how you will be able to manage your stats. Across the road from the Guardian Stones will be a set of Pillars that perform that function. One pillar will add the perks start the scaling scripts, and will allow you to view your level, level progress, and amount of perk points.

Another Pillar will allow you to choose new Perks, and a third will let you reset your perks. If you're worried about managing your stats on the go, don't fret! You'll also get several Balls that let you do the same thing as the Pillars. Between the Pillars will be a table with a book on it that shows a tree of perks and explains the mod and its concept.

Making this and the perks functional is what I am currently working on.

Enchantments:

I will create a series of new enchantments that can be used for Unarmed combat. They can be added to any piece of armor, jewelry, or clothing. Now, I know the objection that the player will be losing an Equip Slot by doing that. Since you won't be using any weapons, you won't be able to enchant them. I am going to work around that by making new items called Focus Crystals. They will be equipable and enchantable. In the world they will look like crystals, but when you equip them they will not appear on your body.

The work on Enchantments will begin once I have finished all of the perks, scripts, and managing work.

Items:


Along with the new perks and enchantments will come Items to implement them. There will be a number of new gloves, clothing, and Focus crystals that you can find or purchase. They will not use new textures or models, but will have unique enchantments.

Items will be added once I have created the Enchantments for them.

Enemies:

Don't be surprised if you encounter enemies with the same abilities as you! I am going to create a new Combat Style for enemies that focuses entirely on Unarmed combat. I will also create varieties of the standard enemies that are Unarmored and fight with their hands. These enemies will provide a way of finding new items, as well as providing an interesting challenge and aspect to the game. Around the

The enemies will be added once all other work is completed.

Feedback is appreciated!


What I need the most is feedback. I can only come up with so many ideas for perks and enchantments. Please share with me your ideas!

Keep in mind that I won't be adding new animations (at least for the first version). So, please don't ask me to create an entirely new, awesome ninja attack. :-)

If you have any questions about the technicalities of how I am adding certain features, feel free to ask. I will answer them to the best of my abilities.

For the next Diary I am only going to share what is new since the last update. This one is only really long because I wanted to let people know my plans for the mod.

Way of the Monk: Unarmed Overhaul

Way of the Monk: Unarmed Overhaul

I am currently working on a new Unarmed mod. My Unarmed Warfare mod was mostly a workaround and was pretty buggy, as you probably found out if you played it. The one I'm creating will add a skill. It won't be visible in the levelup screen, but will scale your unarmed damage and add many new perks that you can get. It will run in the background, but will notify you when you level up. As you level up you can gain perks by visiting various 'pillars' (kind of like the Standing Stones), reading books, or gaining items. I will also add a number of new gloves that add unique effects for your unarmed. In addition to Unarmed-related perks, I am also going to add a series of Unarmored (not wearing armor) perks.

As it relates to differences with my Unarmed Warfare mod, there will be no 'Unarmed Weapon' that you have to use to raise your OneHanded; you will merely use your fists. If you want an 'enchantemt', there will be a number of new unarmed-related affects that you can add to your gloves or other armor.

The mod will be called Way of the Monk (in reference to the classic Monk-class in standard rpg's), and will be built entirely from scratch to avoid bugs. Unlike in my Unarmed Warfare mod, I am also going to take care to make sure that it has as little conflicts as possible, by not changing a great deal of content, only adding new content.

If you can think of any enchantments or perks related to Unarmed or Unarmored, please share them. I can only think of so many by myself, but the more input I get, the more that I can add to the mod. :-)

Details:

The Skill: The skill will consist of a series of scripts that scale the damage and keep track of a "level". The scaling and leveling will work approximately the same way that the normal skills do, but will work in the background. You will be notified whenever you levelup, and you will be able to choose a new perk immediately, or delay choosing a new perk until later. 

Perks: You will be given a spell that lets you choose new perks (it will use the same perk points that the other skill use), check your level and leveling progress, and reset your perks if want to (I will limit the amount of times that you can reset them). These perks will be basic perks that give you bonuses and neat features as you level up. To get the best perks, however, you are going to have to travel around Skyrim and find a series of Pillars. Each pillar will have a unique, powerful perk, and will work like Standing Stones in the way that you can only have one active at a time. There will be perks related both to Unarmed and Unarmored that you can choose from.

Enchantments: I will add a number of new enchantments to the game. These enchantments will have effects that change the way your Unarmed combat works, the amount of damage you do, add magical damage when you hit an enemy, etc. You won't be able to enchant your fists, but you can enchant gloves, other armor, rings, circlets, and other wearable items. And that brings me to items:

Items: Along with these enchantments will come items that have have them. Because I don't want to add conflicts with other mods, I will simply add these items to leveled lists to be found as loot. I may leave one or two of them around particularly hard-to-get-to Pillars, as well. For the most part, these items will use vanilla models and textures, but will have new enchantments. I am not a 3d artwork guy, so I don't have the ability to make new models. If someone wants to volunteer some, I'd be happy to add them to the mod. 

Enemies: Just as you are going to start using Unarmed attacks, so might your enemies. So don't be surprised if you run into a character with some of the same abilities and items as you!

Animations? I am not an animator, so I won't be able to add new animations. I may try to find some way to  make the right and left hand attacks somewhat different (to let you have your own playing style), but other than that I cannot add new anims. If anyone wants to make some for me, I would GREATLY appreciate it! :-D

Schedule:

Since the work on Skyrim Books is not totally complete, it may be a while before the first version of Way of the Monk is complete. I've got Spring Break this week, though, so I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my mods. Hopefully I can get a fair amount of work done on WoM (Way of the Monk).

Tutorials:

As I work on WoM, I will write tutorials on various aspects of what I do in the mod. I may even write a sort of Modding Diary that details the whole process that I took to make the mod. If I do, then I hope you will enjoy them and learn from them. :-)

Bethesda Releases New Kill Cams

Today Bethesda posted a new video on their channel and blog that reveals tons of entirely new kill cams, including magic and ranged combat cams! Check out their blog post here: http://www.bethblog.com/2012/03/15/new-features-highlight-1-5-update/

What this means for Unarmed Warfare:

Some of the kill cams that Bethesda is releasing are unarmed kill cams! Which means you will finally have more than the two standard ones! I plan on redoing my Unarmed Warfare mod from scratch (once I have the time), and building it in a more efficient, less buggy, and more useful manner. As a part of this, I will make sure that these new kill cams are added to the mod. They should be added by default, but if not than I will make sure and manually add them to the game.

Are you excited about these new kill cams? Post in the comments below what your favorite one was!

News Update: 3-10-12

News Update:

3-10-12

Skyrim Books:

New team member:

We are lucky to have been joined by John Allan, a writer and level-builder. He is building the bookstore for us, along with a printing press that will allow you to make copies of books if you have the proper materials. His contact info will be added to the Contact soon. Welcome to the team, John! :-)

New authors/books:

Due to a few threads that John posted around the Elder scrolls forums, we have gathered quite a number of new stories and authors. They are quality stories that will fit into the Skyrim world well, and will excite you as you explore the wonderful world that Bethesda has created. Once we receive as many as we want for the first edition of Skyrim Publishing, then we will publish a list of the stories for your perusal.

SP Bookstore:

The development of the Skyrim Publishing bookstore is in progress. The structure has been made, and the printing press designed. Screenshots will be posted soon.

Voice Acting:

I am in the process of writing the lines for the bookstore owner. With the help of Giskard and the Engineering Guild, I hope to find a good Voice Actor for the character.

Timeline:

In order to aid you by letting you know our plans and when they should be completed, a timeline has been created. The ultimate goal of this schedule is to finish the entirety of the first edition by the end of the month. I expect that we will actually finish quite a bit before then, but since we are real people with busy lives, stuff occasionally gets in the way. This schedule is subject to change.

1. March 17th: All books for 1st edition will be written, gathered, and added to the game.
2. March 24th: Voice acting is totally complete and added to the game.
3. March 31st: Bookstore, NPC's, will be complete, and the first edition of Skyrim Books will be released.

Unarmed Warfare:

While I have not actually completed any more development, I have finally found a way to create an Unarmed skill! It will not show up in the image of the 'heavens' along with the other skills, but will rather be upgraded through a system of 'milestones'. These milestones could be in the form of quests, achievements, reading books, or more. This would allow me to totally get rid of the 'Unarmed Weapon', and not have to make any edits to the perk trees at all. I'm looking forward to making the next version!

News Update: 2-28-12

News Update:

2-28-12

Skyrim Books: The project has been planned and organized. There will be two main parts of the mod called Extended Book Mod and Skyrim Publishing, as well as two optional sub-parts. EBM will primarily be managed by nox.fox, while Skyrim Publishing will primarily be managed by Woverdude.

• The Extended Books Mod will extend the amount of stories, poems, background data, and lore within the game by adding original books. 

1. Readable Spell tomes is an optional add-on to EBM that will make Spell Tomes readable and add actual information to them

• Skyrim Publishing will function as a magazine, accepting fanfic submissions to be added to the game on a regular basis. 

1. Skyrim Publishing Bookstore will add a bookstore to the game world that will contain the latest and previous issues of Skyrim Publishing. It will also feature a unique character with an interesting background and (hopefully) original voice acting.

Better Books will also be available for download, but as a separate mod. It will add new and improved textures to books within the game.

Progress:

• The Readable Spell Tomes script has been made and is available for download at the Nexus as a modder's resource. As a part of Skyrim Books, information will be added to the Spell Tomes that players can read ingame when they learn the spell.
• A number of original books have been collected for EBM, and several submissions for SP have been received.
• Woverdude has begun building the level for the Skyrim Publishing Bookstore.

Unarmed Warfare:

Unarmed Warfare IS still in progress, but is a bit delayed. I reached the end of my familiarity with the Elder Scrolls system during my work on Unarmed Warfare, and even delved far deeper into the code of the construction set than I ever have before. Even then, though, there were so many features that an unarmed mod needs that are either impossible to do, I do not know how to do, or the CK is too buggy to do. I will pick the work back up at some point, but it will probably be a while. I am also much busier now than I was when I began Unarmed Warfare. The work on Skyrim Books meets my time constraints and experience far more than my coding and modding for UW.

When I DO manage to pick it back up, however, expect some brand-new features, such as new fist weapons, along with original models.

Skyrim Publishing

Skyrim Publishing

or

SP

Description:

Skyrim Publishing is an e-zine that is published within the world of Bethesda's game Skyrim. Submissions are sent in and reviewed just as they are in any other magazine, but rather than being published online or on paper, they are put into the world of Skyrim for players to read, buy, find, and collect. Along with the Extended Books mod, it will be part of the larger mod called Skyrim Books.

Updates:

Skyrim Publishing will be updated on a monthly basis during its beginning. Realistically, I do not expect to receive enough submissions within the first couple of months to post an update every week. Hopefully, once we get enough publicity, we will receive enough stories to update the mod more than once a month.

Submission Process:

If you want to submit your work to Skyrim Publishing, then send an e-mail to us with your story. Make sure that you follow the Submission Guidelines. The contact page is linked to below:

Contact us

Submission Guidelines:

• Your e-mail must contain your real name, your username/Tamrielic-pen-name, your preferred e-mail address, and the word count of your story, along with the actual tale itself. Your real name will only be kept for our records of published stories, and will not be shared with anyone.
• Your story MUST be original, and based in the lore of the Elder Scrolls game. Any unoriginal work will be deleted, and none of your work will ever be accepted by Skyrim Publishing. 
• Both stories and poems are accepted, but preferably should fit the style of the ones that Bethesda written. A poem about Skyrim for instance, should fit the Nordic style. Stories can be written in a more complex, modern way, but stories written in the authentic Nordic style and mode will be more likely to be accepted. To read some real-life Nordic peoms and tales, you can try to get you hands on a copy of the Sagas of Icelanders. They are very expensive to buy, but you might be able to find them at a large library or find individual volumes online.
• Try to find a pen name to use that fits the lore of the game. The Names article on the UESP.net Elder Scrolls wiki has a list of name that you can use to base your choice upon. You can also try Tamriel Rebuilt's name generator.
• Word Limit: Stories must be under 5k words; preferably 1k-2k. If your story is longer than that, then it will need to be separated into a series. Series are not only accepted, but are preferred, because it allows us to add more books to the game, and lets players collect the volumes.
• Preferably, your work should be submitted as a plain RTF or TXT file, formatted to the Creation Kit's style requirements. That is not required, but it is very much encouraged. Doing so will increase the chance of us wanting to use your story. To learn about the Creation Kit's formatting requirements, see this post.
• Profanity, violence, and sexual content are allowed in your submissions. However, a gratuitous amount is not. Basically, PG-13 content is accepted, but R-rated content is not. If such content is necessary to tell the story, or to display the personality of the characters, then you may include it. But do not make it gratuitous. We have this rule mainly because, even though Skyrim is M-rated, quite a number of minors still play the game.

How to help:

There are a number of ways that you can help with Skyrim Publishing:

• Write well and submit your work
• Volunteer to be an editor for Skyrim Publishing (preferably with some previous experience in publishing)
• Design and create new models and artwork for our stories
• Tell your friends about Skyrim Publishing and suggest that they download the mod (once the first version is out)

Acception/Rejection:

Skyrim Publishing reserves the right to refuse to publish your writing. If we (the editors) do not believe that your story or poem is of the quality that we prefer, or that it does not follow the Submission Guidelines, then we may reject it. If we accept your writing, then we will notify you, ask you to make any changes if we believe they are necessary, and will add your story to the next version of the mod. If you do not receive any response from us within 3 weeks, or receive an e-mail in which we state that we will not publish your work, then consider your work to be rejected. A rejection does not mean, however, that we will not publish any of your writing. Feel free to submit something else. If we do choose to reject your story, then we will most likely tell you why we have chosen to do so, and suggest ways in which you could improve. If we make suggestions on how to improve a specific story, and you apply them to the best of your abilities, then feel free to submit the story again as long as you do not spam us with e-mails.

We look forward to hearing from you!