Conina the Hairdresser, becoming a mod Options

[ghastley]

I already built Conina as a follower, but didn't place her in the game world.

I'm considering putting her in the Sleeping Giant in Riverwood, so potential Nijels can find her early in the game.

My Nijel has just started Lakevoew Manor, and she saw the small house and thought it would be perfect as a hairdressing salon, especially as the main house behind it can have an alternative entrance from any balcony. So I'm thinking for Lakeview only, take away the Entryway option, and replace with Salon.

So what equipment would a Tamriel hairdressing salon contain? Chair for the customer with plenty of space around it Large bowl and jug for washing, but what else? Large mirrors seem to be unknown. Small ones would be rare, too, and the game engine doesn't offer a reflective surface for one.

[ghastley]

I've been making stuff

A sign for outside the Salon.

Towels and the tools of the trade - small mirror, comb, hairbrush, and some more scissors. Close up.

Now comes the tedious part of altering the scripts, making build tokens, and testing that it all works.

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And Bethesda made it just about impossible. I have managed to butcher the formlists to allow the Salon items at the alternate workbench, and replace the Room1B ref array with my own, but I can't get the Drafting Table to change the remodel item from Entryway to Salon, and I can't make the Remove Salon Workbench work.

The problem is that the design enforces the houses being identical, by having the formlists as properties of the shared building script, instead of allowing them to be properties of the individual houses. I don't think I can have the Salon for Lakeview without doing it for Windstad and Haljaaarchen as well.

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I made some progress, but having to start a new game for each test gets tiring quickly. The construction basically works, although I still have some glitches to iron out. Since the main pieces are working, I can add further clutter as enable children of those.

I'm also making a "lite" version for use after the game is started, which will simply place all the stuff in an small home/entryway if you leave it empty. No workbench, and no construction, but you get a Salon and sign when you advance the quest. My quest can test the stage of the BYOHHouseFalkreath one to know if it's reasonable to do so. That will help me test out the clutter, as I can just copy it back to the other one.

I'm also checking out alternative hairstyles for Conina, and even thinking she might get a script to change it periodically, alternating between elaborate and looser styles, maybe two or three of each. They'd all need around the same hair length to look credible. No player choice involved, probably happens when player sleeps.

Also on the to-do list: making some of the equipment into "weapons" so they can be held in the hand. That needs collision geometry, which is tricky, and usually means borrowing it from another item that's near enough the same size.

Conina now also has an alternate "armored" outfit. Any resemblance to Red Sonja's is purely coincidence, and she's not going to dye her hair. My thought is that there will be a dialog option, along the lines of "don't you think you could use some armor if we're getting into so many fights?" that will make her switch. Thereafter, maybe she switches when you go into/leave town.

That picture was taken from her own game. The "light" version of the mod lets you enable the NPC follower and the Salon furnishings independently, so hers has only the Salon. Nijel (there are several of him) uses the full version and builds the Salon piece by piece.

Stop Press!! Her armored outfit has another detail added.

This post has been edited by ghastley: May 16 2017, 02:12 PM