The Farmer’s Son

I created this character with RaceMenu and NifMerged the face into the game. I’ve done that for some of my faces to really make characters that stand out. He also wears one of Apachii’s hairstyles, which I’ve gotten kind permission from her to use for Azura’s Watch. Aschaar Newland, the Farmer’s Son, is one of my best looking characters. I’m really pleased with how he turned out. He doesn’t even have much of a neck seam.

In the morning, Aschaar goes out to do… erm… gardening (he has a collection of weird plants behind the farm), and then he goes over to the Alcoholics Guild to share gardening tips with other keen gentlemen with green fingers. During the days, he’s relaxing at the harbour as seen in the picture.

Very early in the morning here. Tonight, I’ll do Aschaar’s beautiful sister justice too by giving her a custom face as well.

I saw a Mudcrab the other day

Everyone wants an Argonian Maid

Say what you will about the mostly stupid little random conversations between NPC’s in Oblivion. You know, “I saw a mudcrab the other day” answered by “I avoid those creatures whenever I can“. NPC’s were actually talking like they knew each other in Oblivion and it was influenced by how much they liked each other, race, faction and things like that. It was awesome. When you came through the forest in my Oblivion mod Dibella’s Watch, you could hear the villagers talking in a distance. They were talking about world events and topics changed as the player progressed in the storyline. Mostly they talked about Mudcrabs. Those little conversations added A LOT of life though.

Not so in Skyrim. They’re silent. I can pack a room full of NPC’s and they still don’t even give the slightest impression of being alive or even being normal people. Bartenders will repeat “Huh?” in eternity if I stand close to them. That’s as far as conversation goes. NPC’s only stare angrily at each other or blindly into nothingness and then robotically follow their AI packages (ie walk into tables, push cups off, warp around or stand on chairs). The sentences the vanilla NPC’s constantly repeat are no better than Oblivion’s system. We all know Solitude: “Getting old is not so bad. Daughter keeps me fed blah blah” and “You should see me when you get bored, stranger.” What kind of people repeat stupidity like that to passers-by all the time? Even the bloody Mudcrab topic is better! I’d need an army of voice actors to even try and make an impression of my town being alive.

Bethesda cut them out, but they should have built upon them, the conversations. We all laughed at them in Oblivion, but Skyrim’s silence is a whole lot worse.

NPC Conversations

Seeing an NPC voice-acted by myself having a conversation in-game with an NPC voice-acted by my wife is quite a supernatural experience to say the least.

Grey-faced staring people

 

This is what meets me inside The Frontiersman pub in Anvil Nova right now. Grey-faced staring people. The grey faces are easily fixed, but the sick staring is harder to do something about. Like they’ve never seen a player character before.

NPC’s

Creating NPC’s is a lot of fun and actually one of my favourite parts. Here’s one of the city guards in Anvil Nova already. Fully uniformed and ready to serve and protect.

I might release an addition to the alpha later on when I’ve created all the NPC’s in the capital and in its surrounding areas so you’ll get to see how they really affect the atmosphere of the place.

Move along, Outlander!

The Farmer Family

It seems I’m always doing things that I shouldn’t. I planned to make the keep/fortress at Carnar today, but instead I started creating a farm. I completed this entire farm with exteriors done and the interior fully decorated as well. This will be the home of four NPC’s. the farmer and his wife, their daughter as well as the farmhand. And oh yeah, they should have a dog too.

I have all NPC’s clearly in my head already when I start creating the areas they will inhabit. The farmer is an old-fashioned gentleman who lives by the old ways and honours. He’s an old veteran (possibly of higher rank, like Legate) who fought for the Empire in the Great War, which is also why he hates the Thalmor more than anything in Tamriel. The farmer’s wife is strictly religious beyond what’s healthy. She has staring, dark  eyes and looks evil. The farmhand, this poor sod, sleeps on a bedroll out in the barn. He’s also a hunk, and the farmer’s daughter has a crush on him. She’s lazy and daydreams a lot; she’s quite attractive, but with a terrible nose that somewhat ruins her appearance. These farmers are quite well off, because they supply the entire Carnar area with their agricultural produce.

Wish I could start creating the NPC’s already.

Power to the People!

The people of Primby are all coming to life. Creating just one NPC is a lot of work though, so I am slowly adding them. Tonight, I’ve been doing the shopkeeper and his wife, as well as the tavernkeeper. With this workpace, I’ll be ready to release a first version of the mod to the public. If all goes well, I’ll give you a beta version of Primby Town in the weekend. I can iron out the stuff that bugs me later on, because they’re not game-breaking in any way.

The thing that irritates me the most is still the fact that face textures and bodies don’t match. Remember the town beauty I showed you in an earlier post? Here’s a picture of her in the CK and how she’s supposed to look. No word from Bethesda on this yet, unfortunately. Since it’s purely cosmetic, though, and not game-breaking, I’ve decided that the mod can indeed be beta-released with this bug still in place if they don’t decide to correct it before the weekend.

I have all the important NPC’s up-and-running, but I really want to create an Argonian too. I am aware that there’s another CK bug involved with creating Argonians. Obviously their faces don’t show up in the editor at all, making them impossible to edit, but I’ll give it a try anyway.

When it comes together

I love it when a plan comes together, or however the bloke in A-Team used to say. I’ve added some new NPC’s and their AI is working perfectly as I intended. I’ve added a new merchant too; the town witch, functioning as Alchemist. She looks the part and sells and buys stuff too. I have guard patrols as well and the town is coming to life overall. I really hate the Stormcloak uniform I had to equip them with, but this town is situated in Eastmarch, so I saw no choice. I think the Legion armour is sexier, but this will do for this town. Here are some screens from my recent progress, depicting some of the town’s inhabitants.

Now if you’d excuse me for a while. I think Crusader Kings II opened tonight and I need to test play it, since I pre-ordered last week.

AI Packages

Setting up AI Packages is just as fun as in Oblivion. I haven’t quite got the hang of all the new functions in Skyrim yet, but I’ve made my Lorma chop some wood and then go into the town centre to “act suspiciously”. By God. He does stuff on his own too, like stops by the barking dog to tell him “Stupid dog!” The feeling of accomplishment when you get your NPC’s to act and behave as you want and seeing your town come alive!

Lorma checking out a babe in-between the woodcutting.

I have stuff to show you

Yes. I have some pretty good stuff to show you. I worked on my Primby Town mod all yesterday and did some pretty shining stuff with it. I have done all the interiors now and decorated them to my own liking. I have also added some animals. I have cows, chicken, a goat and a dog inhabiting the town. You can’t believe the atmosphere they add, although the chicken are sometimes irritating.

I’ve also created my first NPC, the beggar Lorma, who lives in the Lower Class Quarters house just at the edge of town. Today, I’m going to give him AI packages, because right now he’s only living at home, but he already eats, drinks, sleeps and sits. He needs to chop wood outside and do some drunken show-off during the evenings. I like creating lower class areas and character, because you can go wild when creating them. There’s no need to make it pretty or appealing.

Here are some screenies of yesterday’s modding. Now I’m going to start populating the town with more NPC’s. Oh, and the Player House is also pretty much undone. I don’t really know what to put in it yet. Manequins and storage areas, for sure though.