Hulk, A separate thread just because.. Options

[ghastley]

Since this really has nothing to do with Orc Hearthfires, I'll start a new thread for it.

Right now, I'm just exploring the option of the character being able to change into a big green muscled Hulk creature instead of into a Werewolf, or Vampire Lord. I'm still undecided whether to make it a mod that anyone can use, or just a private thing for my own use, but the discoveries I make in the process are likely to be worth sharing.

To get there, I'm playing the before and after characters as two separate games, to sort out the meshes and outfits, and check out the viability of each configuration. At some point, I'll clone the power from the base game for the transformation. I'll need a bit of back-story for how the player gets the power (probably from Malacath, since you essentially turn into a big Orc). The Orc one will also get used to test Orc Hearthfires, as that was the original intent for her!

In Oblivion, there were limits on the size range of characters beyond which they had problems. Too small, and they couldn't swim, because all characters floated at a fixed depth, and short ones had their heads under water. Too large, and they wouldn't go through doorways. You'd also see odd visual effects when sitting, as the origin of the skeleton was a point on the ground, not the seat, so short characters would sit below the seat, and tall one would hover. Skyrim seems to have fixed most of those, but I expect to find some new ones to take their place. It's not clear what side-effects size is intended to have. In OB, taller characters with longer legs ran faster, for example, and the racial bonuses for strength went along with larger size.

Although an oversized Orc could wear a variety of clothing/armor, I'd have to make that to fit, so I'm currently thinking the Hulk aspect would be a fixed outfit (like the WW and VL) with no option to change it. It would essentially be treated like a creature skin. That may be forced on me anyway when I adapt the scripts. However, I would like the base character to find herself wearing the same torn stuff when she changes back, which is different from the WW/VL scenario. She'll have everything in her inventory to change into, but the torn stuff will need special handling. It's kind of like the jail outfit in Oblivion, which is automatically equipped when the player is jailed.

The WW and VL have constraints balanced with enhancements, and it makes sense to do the same for the Hulk, probably closely matched to the werewolf ones: no spells, extra health and stamina, carrying capacity, and maybe boosted two-handed with a weapon auto-equipped to exploit it (since that is an Orc racial bonus). The weapon may be an issue, unless it's the source of the power? Like Thor's hammer in the comics - no transform unless equipped already.

I'm thinking at present that the quest that grants the power should require a character that's biased to magic, preferably with high alteration. That would make the no-magic aspect a better contrast, and add balance to the game play for a Hulker. The alteration requirement is just to help the transformation be credible.

For release as a mod, I'd need to allow both genders, and all races. Since it only requires two Hulk models, that's not a big deal, since I'm doing half of it anyway. But it would require me to put into code the restrictions that I can impose on my character without a mod.

Some questions:
Should the Hulk aspect cause an adverse reaction from the general public? Is Hulking out a crime?
What trade-offs other than spells for health/stamina should there be?
Should the transformation be controlled in both directions, or time out?

[SubRosa]

One thing you might do is tie this into the Largashbur quest and make Hulking out your reward, along with Volendrang. Perhaps Volendrang itself might be what grants the ability to Hulk?

I don't think Hulking out should count as a crime, since The Hulk is not a known menace in Tamriel like Werewolves and Vampires are. I think it should make interactions with non-Orcs more difficult though, as most folks will probably be a little leery of The Hulk. I suppose by a penalty to your Speech skill? Orcs OTOH, might like your character even more, and you might get a Speech bonus with them?

I think the no-spells sounds good. The only trouble I see with that is how is the character going to heal themselves? Werewolves can eat their victims to get back health, and I think Vampires get an absorb health. I think The Hulk needs some similar mechanism, like an Absorb Health whenever they hit, or a healing power that costs them stamina instead of magicka.

I think being able to turn the transformation on at will is a good idea. Otherwise I am not sure what would trigger a forced transformation. Perhaps taking a certain amount of damage? A limit on the duration might be a good idea too.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Mar 27 2014, 05:45 PM

[ghastley]

I wasn't actually thinking of the transform to Hulk being involuntary. It was just a question of whether the player could stay in that mode indefinitely, until they chose to revert, or if it would time-out. But then it occurred to me that something like attempt to cast a spell could revert, too. Hence my throwing it out for discussion.

I'm reluctant to make it Volendrung, as that's a specific weapon that might not suit everyone. A choice of Hammer, Axe or Greatsword would let the player pick more perks from the 2-handed tree to help their hulk mode, not just the hammer ones.

Health could be just a faster regen rate in Hulk mode (or potions!)

[Grits]

I don’t think it should be a crime to hulk out. I’m in favor of timing out eventually with an option to increase the hulking out period somehow (snapping necks?) the way eating hearts prolongs the werewolf rampage.

I am a huge fan of Berserker Rage. I’d be delighted with hulking out as a way to allow non-orcs to have Berserker Rage while they were in Hulk form. An increase to Health upon transforming combined with Berserker Rage could produce a race to kill ’em all before the Hulk’s health or timer runs out. That sounds fun. I also like the notion of “you’re making me angry.” Perhaps a Health threshold under which hulking out could be voluntarily triggered?

Other tradeoffs could be no talking in Hulk form, no looting since you can’t fit much into your torn-up clothes, and no weapons other than two-handed. Also I love the way draugr can use a two-handed weapon with one hand. That would be great for the Hulk!

[ghastley]

Naturally, things are not going quite as I expected. I have the Power doing the transformation when cast, and the timer reverts it when appropriate. The SetScale makes her bigger, as intended, and she goes back to the right size afterward. In Hulk form, she gets the Orc Berserker Rage power, and since the Hulk Form power has a longer duration, time to use it ... but she won't turn green!

The Werewolf and Vampire Lord transformations both successfully use SetRace but when I try to use it to change to Orc, it doesn't quite go as planned. The character gets the new shape - including the Orc head and the tusks - but retains her skin colour. You can see this if you use "SetRace Orc" from the console.

So I figured that it was because the body meshes used the SkinTint shader and that was why the skin colour stayed constant. So if I used a mesh with the Default shader instead, it would work. Well, it nearly does. The body changes, but the head doesn't. To see what happens try "SetRace NordRaceAstrid" and you get a Nord with a burnt body, hands and feet, but a face that has the same skin colour as the original character, even though the Astrid race has a head texture to match the skin.

I'm also getting the equipped messages for her outfit, even with the option set for silent equipping, but that's a lot less important than the lack of green. Hulks have to be green!! (You can have red ones, but only if there's a green one too).

Edit: NordRaceAstrid may have given me a misleading result. I'm not sure her head is set up correctly. Since Astrid gets completely replaced with another character of the same name (but different "race") it doesn't matter for that use. SetRace(Hulk) may still be the way to go, with non-skin textures of a fixed green shade on the Hulk race. It now looks like I'll be busy playing with SKSE's Game.GetNumTintMasks and related functions. It appears that the character skin is composed of a combination of multiple colours and textures (which I'd thought were combined statically at chargen, but it appears they're stored separately, perhaps so that vampirism etc. can change only one of the set). If I can find out which of the list is the base tint - I can haz cheezburger green!

This post has been edited by ghastley: Apr 1 2014, 02:17 PM

[ghastley]

Stop Press! Houston, we have green. Repeat, we have green. Thanks to SKSE.

Things I discovered: The basic skin colour is the first one stored, but my character had 34 more colours/textures recorded by the game, most of which had no effect on her appearance. Skin shade is type 6 (possibly that was an alphabetically order enumeration at one point, now it just appears arbitrary). Each colour/texture also has a value from 0 to 1 that controls how much it affects the result, most being saved as 0 (no freckles, no warpaint#1, etc.) That allows me to adjust those without adding to the array, as they're all already there. So I can change lip colour, add scars etc. if I wanted to do so.

I can create a Hulk race that has the human head with the Orc mouth, so she keeps her features while adding tusks. I haven't done this yet, as it also requires all body/head/clothing pieces to support the new race. That's just an update to the forms, but it needs thinking through for potential mod incompatibility issues, as I'd be changing existing forms, not just adding new ones.

Now the basic transform is working, I can start on the other pieces of the change, and the quest that adds the Power. The Werewolf change uses Abilities to give the player the fighting enhancements etc. but relies on disabling the menus to prevent anything being equipped. I'd like to allow the Hulk form to pick a weapon, but I need to trade the player's magicka for health and stamina while she's in Hulk form. So I'm thinking that the ability will damage magicka regen 100% and I'll ModAV her magicka down to zero. Using potions will put it back, but I'll ignore that for now, as it won't sustain magic combat unless the cost of spells is reduced a lot. If I save the magicka number before I zero it out, I can add half to each of the others.

I'm uncertain how to best apply a two-handed boost. There's a simple Fortify Two-handed, and also the perk bonuses to consider. I want to allow the player to train up Two-handed and benefit from that when in Hulk form, so it may get complex trying to ensure she doesn't already have the perks. I assume trying to fortify beyond 100 will do nothing, too. Preferably, the bonus to two-handed from hulking will be based on a magical skill, such as Alteration, rather than just her level, so it's possible to train for it.

When the hulk form times out, she'll be left with no magicka, but regen will turn back on with the removal of the Hulk ability. She'll still have the weapon equipped, but two-handed is unfortified. In most cases, that should mean retreat if she's still in combat when it happens.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Apr 2 2014, 03:01 PM

[ghastley]

Hulking out now works - for a female. I still need a hulk body outfit for the male, which shouldn't take too long, and I have to work out how SetScale is behaving. There may be an issue if the user has changed the scale of the player character via the console, as I'm not sure if I'm capturing the original scale of the race, or the current scale, with GetScale. The Breton does appear to return to her 0.95 after being hulked to 1.2, but using SetScale in the console keeps referring to a "base scale" that is apparently changing also.

The Hulk ability confers -100% magicka regen at all levels, and I remove all magicka and split it between health and stamina when the power is used. That is reversed when it expires, with a check to make sure her health doesn't drop too low and kill her. It also adds a leveled Fortify Two-handed. That should be useful enough as a melee switch for a mage without being overpowered. A character who's already high in health/stamina won't have much magicka to redistribute, and the temporary boost in two-handed is offset by the lack of armour, which a mage won't miss.

As a (temporary) Orc she gets the Berserk Rage power and has enough time to use it. It didn't appear to cause any issues when I tried it.

[Grits]

This sounds like tremendous fun! Temporarily swapping magicka for health and stamina is a great idea. Congrats on getting her green!

[Acadian]

What a fun idea, ghastley! 'You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.'

[ghastley]

Still making tweaks. I decided that she needed some "armor" or at least damage resistance, which is the same effect. She can't change her outfit when she's in Hulk form, so can't benefit from any armor the player has collected.

To compensate, her Hulk ability now includes the equivalent of casting the leveled Armor spell (i.e Oakflesh, Stoneflesh etc) with the same Mage Armor perks applied. This lets the character benefit from the Alteration perks they've earned even in Hulk form. My armor component is a bit more granular than the spells, having 8 levels instead of just 4 spells.

A quick test revealed that she gets an AR of 175 at level 21, while Mjoll has 218 from tempered Steel Plate. Before I added the magical effect it was just 55 from her hide-level auto-equipped gear. It will cap at 415 - 55 from the outfit, plus 360 from magical defense. That's a little higher than the 300 a mage can get from fully perked Ebonyflesh, but below the effect of Dragonhide. That's partly because the small amount of AR from her light armour equipment doesn't turn off the Mage Armor perks in this case.

Having achieved green only after a struggle, I was very annoyed when one of Gen's transformations brought her back with a green face on her Breton body. I've now fixed that, but it does confirm that Skyrim's Papyrus engine is a lot pickier about the details than the earlier games, and there are lot more places where you have to request a change and then do a "make it happen" call on top of that. It's not always clear what is immediate, and what gets deferred to later.

The SetScale issues seem to be sorted out, so all that's left is a male body (i.e hulk outfit with the muscles built-in) and a quest to bestow the Power, and I can release the mod. Beta test here soon!

This post has been edited by ghastley: Apr 9 2014, 02:53 PM

[ghastley]

If anyone wants to try it out, 0.1 - alpha test - is available here.

There's no quest yet, but the readme explains how to add the Power, so you can take it for a spin. I'd suggest starting a new game with a female Breton, or Male Wood Elf, for maximum contrast. Don't risk a character you want to keep! There are scripts to make the effect work, and I haven't experimented with uninstalling to see if it's safe. Theory says it should be, but paranoia says otherwise.

[Grits]

We have Hulkage!! Gosh this is fun. Bannor the Bosmer Restoration/Destruction mage and Ninette the Breton Summoner/Illusionist have both Hulked out successfully. Here’s Hulk Ninette vs the Scavenger, and here’s Hulk Bannor in Riverwood getting some lip from Faendal during the test. I don’t have a heroic shot for Bannor yet, but he smashed some bandits with a greatsword. Now he really wants a big axe.

Thank you very much, ghastley!

[ghastley]

Ninette has the same resemblance to her smaller self that I see in Genevieve. Even though the race changes (and the tusks come with it), a lot of the female face sliders seem to show through. My test male Wood Elf's face was almost totally lost in Hulk form, as I suspect was yours.

Genevieve just Hulked out successfully against Nahkriin, and was left with a big problem when she met Tsun. She'd run all the way from the entrance as Sjulki, but changed back just as he came in sight. So she had to run away when he started swinging his axe, and fling fireballs across the pond. Fortunately he stops before the water, and she whittled him down.

Anyhow, she didn't need Hulkage against Alduin, just heal herself and keep using Dragonrend, as the Sovngarde heroes do all the hard work, so now she's back in Skyrim with the final Dragon priest mask. Oh, and the dragon thing's over, for what that's worth.

---

It looks like at least a couple of perks into Two-handed would help in Hulk form, specifically Barbarian(1) and Champion's Stance, both of which are available at level 20. The extra damage, and less stamina drain, make 2H viable for someone who doesn't use it often. I don't think you should get them for free with the power, but I'll mention them in the readme as a strategy for using it. You'd need 5 levels of 2H to get there, and spend two level-ups on the perks, so not to much taken away from any other trees. Hulking will tend to advance 2H skill anyway, if used daily.

I really must come up with a quest to get the Power. I'd considered attaching it to a two-handed weapon, but that pre-empts the player's choice between axe, sword and hammer, so I'd rather not do that. Maybe the Old Orc encounter could be upgraded?

This post has been edited by ghastley: Apr 15 2014, 02:24 PM

[Grits]

Oh, and the dragon thing's over, for what that's worth.

I like having the character choose which weapon to use. Maybe a reward from Malacath for giving the Old Orc his good death? The game already has Malacath involved there, so it would fit in well.

Here’s Bannor in BFB before and Hulking. I think he looks very cute with his Hulk face. I’ll experiment with his hairstyle a little and see if I can find a better one. I’ve had a green face post-Hulking once so far, but a simple save-quit-load fixed it.

Bannor Hulked out and took on the draugr boss by himself since Faendal was stuck on the stairs. It was a lot of fun! Also maybe I’m imagining it but he seems much faster when he’s big. He did some joyful leaping up the rocks after he survived the fight. This is a power I will remember to use!!

[ghastley]

Yes, speed directly relates to scale, as Genevieve discovered when she was trying to run away from Tsun. He's fast! Fortunately, the water he won't enter was close enough.

I'll be attempting to hook onto the Old Orc quest, but I think that's repeatable, which might cause a problem. I also want to avoid creating dialog, with the need to add voice files, although I could possibly do something for Malacath, as he doesn't have a lot to say, and you won't hear his voice change in the middle of a conversation. Maybe the Old Orc has a spell tome as a death item, and I won't need any dialog.

Edit: The spell tome idea also solves any repeat issue, as you only get a spell from a book once.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Apr 15 2014, 11:54 PM

[Grits]

The spell tome is a great idea. It makes sense and keeps it simple.

That must have been quite a fight with Tsun.

[ghastley]

Not the first time. One swing and she died.

Then I reloaded, back in Hulk form at the entrance to Sovngarde, and ran through the mists again. This time she just turned around and ran away as soon as the conversation ended. But she didn't run to the water, and he caught up and one-hit killed her again. Next attempt ran the right way and he stopped. He still took a boatload of fireballs before he put away his axe and the quest advanced.

I just discovered I have to create a single-entry leveled list for the death item. Huh? At least it's still simple.

Edit: That was quick and easy.

New version (release candidate) here. I tested the spell tome, but haven't tried finding the Old Orc to see if he has the book when he dies. The update only changes the .esp file, as the book art is a vanilla asset.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Aug 16 2016, 07:09 PM

[Grits]

Outstanding! I'll update and start looking for the Old Orc as soon as someone hits Level 5. That should be Bannor by the time he releases the dragons. He's on the way to Whiterun with the Dragonstone now.

I'll be separated from my laptop from tomorrow until after the weekend, but then it will be an orc hunt until he finds him. It should be a tough fight!

[ghastley]

Of course, I found a bug playing tonight. I'm saving the current value of Magicka, instead of the maximum, so if the player transforms while magicka is depleted by combat, they'll never get it back. Fixed the script, and I'll create version 0.3.

Version 0.3

This post has been edited by ghastley: Apr 16 2014, 02:11 PM

[Grits]

Got it! (There's an extra 'o' in the link, but I figured it out. I must still be alert from the shock of doing taxes.)