Renee's Modding Thread Options

[Renee]

Mod-making thread basically, which focuses heavily on quest-making. The first two tutorials (How to make a fetch quest and how to make a kill quest) are very hand-holdy. They are designed for those who are just starting to learn the art of quest-making. Other tutorials get more advanced, as my wacky ideas have pushed their boundaries.

Just click on any of the links in the post below this one.


Bethesda Units. (How distance compares in-game to real-life).

Xpadder Walkthrough page. Xpadder is a site which allows gaming controllers to mimic the key & mouse functions. Xpadder, or similar programs such as Joy to Keys, are absolutely crucial to get the most out of older games such as Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion, for those who prefer controllers. They can also be used for newer games (Fallout 3/NV or Skyrim) to provide alternate controlling scenarios during times when a game's native D-pad arrangement needs to be shut off.




This post has been edited by Renee: Apr 16 2024, 06:27 PM

[Renee]

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Making an NPC follower Game: TES V: Skyrim

Firstly this video shows how to make an NPC, it goes through all the different features of the NPC panel, Stats tab, Factions tab, etc. Bethesda also has their own text-based tutorial too.

Second, I use Amazing Follower Tweaks for the quest component of my followers. What I am about to describe below is merely how to make an NPC follower with basic commands available (Follow, Wait, etc.) and AFT can extend these commands and options. I have found that AFT does the job just the way I'd like. AFT also has a feature (a spell, basically) which can automatically make a lot of NPCs into followers. So all the stuff below is just for gamers who want to custom-make an NPC follower from scratch.

Additional NPC Follower Voices is also recommended. Helps them say more things. I have found that not all the voices listed in this mod work, but I have listed the ones that do below.


1). OBJECT window > Actors
Make a New NPC in Object window. Type an ID, a name, and a short name.

2). Make this NPC Unique. This is the most important button for now, on this first page. You might want to make him/her Essential as well, but the Respawn toggle is optional.

I made several generic followers for Sir Vyvoor for instance (a warrior, archer, and spellsword). These followers begin their lives in Windhelm's palace, and in case any one of them gets pwned, another one will eventually respawn in this palace.

Note: sometimes it helps to click OK (closing this new character window) and then reopen it. Otherwise, "Unique" and other selections will keep getting toggled off.

3a). Traits tab: Choose Race, Sex, etc.

3b). Give the NPC a voice in the Voice Type scroll bar. This will make them speak when we tell them to "wait" or "follow", etc. I have found that most voices do not work in the base Creation Kit, even that voice mod linked above. There are two ways to figure out which voices will work, and which do not. The first way is rather blind. Experiment by choosing a voice type, and then going back in-game to see if it works.

The second way to do this is much more specific. In the Object Window, find the Miscellaneous section, then choose FormList. Type "voice" in the Filter slot, and scroll down to VoicesFollowersAll. There are a total of seventeen voices that are guaranteed to work for followers.

MaleEvenTonedAccented
FemaleSultry
MaleDrunk
FemaleDarkElf
MaleDarkEfl
MaleNord
FemaleCommander
MaleBrute
MaleArgonian
MaleKhajiit
FemaleOrc
FemaleCondescending
MaleEvenToned
FemaleEvenToned
MaleYoungEager
FemaleYoungEager

3c). Raise Disposition Base from 35 to anywhere above 50, unless for some reason that follower is supposed to hate our character.


4a). Stats tab: Click PC Level Multiplier if you want somebody who will level with player, or Auto Calc Stats (ACS) for soembody who is outside these bounds. ACS will cause the person's skills to match whatever their Class is. Clicking both of these OFF is the best way to make the most unique person, with skills as high or as low.

4b). Choose their Class. This is a scroll bar at the very bottom.


5a). Factions tab: very important. Right-click on this window and choose New. Filter the word "follower" and choose Current Follower Faction and Potential Follower Factionn

5b). Current Follower Faction will need to be -1, meaning the NPC is not a follower yet. Change this from 0 by left-clicking under Rank, and pressing F2. Highlight 0 and type in -1.

Tip: when making multiple followers of the same type (soldiers or guards, for instance), it is possible to set a bunch of factions for one NPC, and then copy all these factions for the next one. Just right-click > Copy Stack from the first NPC, and Paste Stack to any others. Done.


6). AI Data tab: Make the NPC Aggressive if we want him / her to fight. Very Aggressive is only recommended for somebody who can possibly be an enemy to citizens. Also, choose Help Allies. We can go back to the Faction tab to see everyone this person has in his / her Faction.

Note: "Help Friends and Allies" may make the NPC jump into too many battles.


7a). Inventory Tab: we can give them a Default Outfit. Click on the Preview > Full button to see this in real-time. Amazing Follower Tweaks has a neat feature which also allows us to select an outfit which the NPC will wear when he/she is relaxing, which is a way to get them out of an armor suit.

7b). To give the NPC a weapon, click in the middle window > New, and then scroll down whatever object(s) you want. IronDagger or whatever.

... also visit the Spells tab, if the NPC is to be a magic-user.


8). Click OK to save the NPC to the Object window. NOW THE NPC IS MADE, however, it is NOT yet a Follower


9a). In the Object window, go to Character > Relationship. Right-click on the window and select New. It helps to create a Relationship ID with a similar name as the NPC ID, just for convenience. We cannot make this ID exactly the same as the NPC's ID though.

9b). Under Parent NPC, find the name of the NPC, and choose this. This does not mean we are the NPC's parent, ha ha. It merely means we are the one who calls the shots for this NPC, when he/she is following.

-- Child NPC: Find "Player" for this.

-- Relationship Level: select "Ally". This is needed to make sure recruiting dialog shows up for the NPC.

-- Association Type can be left to NONE in most cases, unless we want to further define the NPC somehow.

DONE. To double-check all work, go back to the NPC just created, and look under the Relationship tab. It should have a Player reference here. Now, simply place the NPC where he/she is to begin.


Troubleshooting: if there is no dialog option when the NPC is spoken to in-game, make sure Additional Follower Voices is toggled on in your mod manager. Again, not all this mod's voices work! The NPCs will also not actually speak 100% of the time. I have found that sometimes they speak HELLOs, and sometimes Topic dialog added by AFV, but lots of times they won't.


some Amazing Follower Tweak options:

-- To enable outfit management: Once you're back in-game, talk to the NPC, select Tweak Options > Gear > then scroll all the way down. Toggle Enable Outfit Management on (if it's not already on) and then there are some different choices for City Outfit and Home Outfit. "Home Outfit" might just be them not wearing much at all, and I'm sure there's a way to change this. Basically, there are dozens of options AFT offers, too many to list here!

--There are also ways to get ALL followers to do something at once, manually or remotely. To manually do this, talk to the NPC, select Tweak Options > Actions > then scroll down to the ALL Followers section. We can make all of them follow us, wait, sandbox (relax) and so on.

--To command all followers remotely, got into your character's MAGIC menu, select POWERS, then scroll down to Tweak Commands. Hotkey this. When we're back in game mode, that hotkey toggle will work via the Shout button by default. All followers can be told to Wait, Follow, Relax, etc. Neato!

This post has been edited by Renee: Apr 21 2023, 03:12 PM