Felix's Showcase

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 3:44 pm

Hey. Im Felix and I have been modding Oblivion for a while now. I have explored most of the different section (interior, exterior design, bookmaking etc) but my forte is Quest and AI programming.

My showcase is a small quest set in three different areas. The already made Cloud ruler temple, A custom interior and a custom Exterior (new Worldspace) It includes a simple script, a book and (obviously) a quest.

Now Id like to stress before i get comment about how awful my exterior looks, that i am NOT an exterior or interior designer. I am not HOPELESS at interior and i know the basics of making a small house. But obviously i needed to make one for my quest so its not the best. Apologies in advance for the simplicity of my worldspace.

Well, hope you like the quest and look forward to the replies.

(to begin the quest visit the new shack just outside the imperial city prison sewers, NE of the prison, and speak to Asak. And yes I know the name of the Shack and the person living in it are not the same. Error on my part.)

jonarus_drakus · Post by **jonarus_drakus** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 4:14 pm

Welcome to TR!

I would review your work myself but questing/scripting isnt exactly my strong suit. Coincidentaly, my strengths happen to be in interior and exterior design. Anyhow, a sutably qualified person will be along to give your stuff a look soon enough.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 3:04 pm

hey there, i will be your reviewer today

got about half way through the quest (up til Undris gives me the key), and here is what i noticed

-most of your journal entries have some sort of grammatical problems. many unnecessary words are capitalized and you overuse quotations. i also noticed a missing apostrophe. Go though all your entries and check them for spelling, grammar, and general flow. check dialog too, it has the same problems to a lesser degree.
-both NPCs used custom greetings that appeared to be the same as vanilla ones. since the greetings add nothing unique to the quest i'd just go with default spoken ones.
-quest needs an icon
-when i got to cloudruler temple, i found Martin chillin' outside the doors even though i had not yet done Kvatch. this is a major error.

on the bright side, the quest worked fine and made sense. i'll be back later today to try and finish it (oblivion crashed on me)

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:45 pm

Thanks for the reply.

Yep my grammar sucks. My spelling too but not as much. Ill comb it over.

The martin one is a real bum. But ill move the dude somewhere else i just thought that'd be a convenient place.

The quest icon was a no brainer. Cant believe I missed that one.

The greetings Ill sort out. Can I still have custom ones if I make them relevant to the quest? (i.e Have you ever tried Prayer? or something like that.)

Ill update this post with the file when its done.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:50 pm

yep, custom greetings are fine if they are quest relevant. in terms of grammar, dont capitalize anything except names and the first letter of the sentence (things like "prayer" for example can be lowercase). dont put quotations around anything, unless youre quoting an NPC directly (and even then i dont think its necessary in a journal). apostrophes go with possessives, so it should be "Asak's prayer" for example. thats just what i remember of the top of my head. Usually, typing things in word really helps, it corrects both spelling and basic grammar.

you shoudnt touch martin at all, just clean his reference out of your plugin. this will solve any and all problems.

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:56 pm

Yeah thats the funny thing... I never touched martin. Heck I don't even LOOK at the characters related to the main quest. (Well maybe Baurus for some script references... he's so damn helpful.)
Maybe its just because I messed with Cloud ruler...
Well all the same... just finishing up on the update now...
Oh and if your wondering why my guys' sentences are so short, its because they whiz by when i dont include dialogue, but I cant be bothered adding it right now.

Thanks again for the grammar tips.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:59 pm

hm, i'll check on martin, it could be a corrupted reference in my savegame or another mod i was running.

TESgecko is a handy tool for creating silent dialog files, and Elys Universal Silent Voice works on with all mods automatically. i use the former. in other words, voice files arent necessary for a quest application

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 7:11 pm

Heh yeah ive used Silent dialogue before. I don't know why i didn't add it to this one. Just wanted to get to the quest I suppose. =P

Well, Here is the updated version. I have cleared martins name but i didnt see anything unusual there. I didnt mess with him anyhow.

Hope this one is better.

Some changes:
1. Undris now resides in his own little shack just outside the IC. (Asak will mark his location for you and ive made it so you can fast travel there, just to save some unneeded hassle)
2. Ton of journal changes, making the quest feel more smooth
3. Quest icon added (still cant believe i missed that.)
4. Changed pathnodes in the prayer world to preferred (blue ones?) cause they look nicer.

EDIT void. see below post

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Tue Jul 07, 2009 9:09 pm

Sorry for the double post... (it HAS been a week =P)

I've done some editing over the last week and updated the whole thing.

* made the interiors have lower class items instead of lower class and middle class.
* Added ANOTHER quest as a conclusion to the first one. To start pick up the note in the drawer after the first quest has been completed. (the drawer at the back of Undris' house, next to the bed.)
* Added a basement to Undris' house.
* Cleaned the dialogue.

I know there was probably no point in making this list but meh. I like lists.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:14 pm

hey, sorry i forgot about this, been real busy lately. taking a look at it now, i'll edit in the review in about half an hour.

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:18 pm

Hey its cool. I cant imagine how busy it must be around here sometimes. Just a warning, the trapdoor in the basement is a real b**ch. Sometimes ti works and other times it just wint give you the message to open it.

I have no idea why...

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:32 pm

ok, problem. trying to talk to Asak crashes the game (1st try), and on the second try even getting near him sent me back to desktop.

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:43 pm

hmm... Works fine from my game. Just tried it now and it breezed through the playtests.

I dont understand what that is really, ive never had it happen before...

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:50 pm

i'll test it later (maybe tomorrow), oblivion tends to be randomly bitchy like that.

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:54 pm

Ok. Ill fire up my older PC and give it a try on that... just to eliminate the possibility that my laptop is the one being bitch and not oblivion. I hate samsung...

EDIT : Works like a dream on both my computers. Your oblivion just doesnt like me *cries.*
or maybe you have a samsung...

jonarus_drakus · Post by **jonarus_drakus** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:15 pm

I have a samsung... monitor... '22 widescreen LCD.

mmmmm, widescreen... >drools<

Its almost certainly Oblivion itself. I cant back this up, but im pretty sure its a simple matter of having a large number of mods destabilises the game.

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 5:27 pm

nice screen. Largest I ever went with samsung is 16... Everything i get with samsung breaks. Phones, computers, radio players. I have been lucky so far with this laptop...

I am relieved to hear that it is a large possibility of being oblivion rather than my mod. I really dont wanna rework it from my last backup. (Has nightmarish images of trolling over screen)

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:03 pm

i was playing with nothing but the official DLCs (i disabled everything else after 3 crashes nowhere near the modded area, anvil specifically).

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:05 pm

Anvil? ... The hell? Well that definitely doesn't make sense. Ill check that out.

EDIT : Nothing wrong with my game near Anvil. Where abouts in Anvil did the game crash?

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:11 pm

i figured it was something else i was running (such as a dialog test mod or a helm mod i was testing in the same area), so i disabled everything. if you didnt edit anything there than its probably not your fault.

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:13 pm

I touched nothing in Anvil. I cant see this being it but I might as well say it... I used a Save to playtest and the save I was using was in Anvil... But that shouldnt have any effect on it should it?

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:35 pm

do you have SI? i dont, and that would certainly explain the crash.

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:36 pm

No i dont, or KotN.

Hang on. I used to, but I havnt enabled it in a LONG time.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:39 pm

SI edits Oblivion.esm, so even if you dont have it listed as a master it leaves a dependency on your plugin. or so ive been told

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:40 pm

... great. I never even liked it. The only thing I liked in it was Haskill.

Does that mean i have to redo the mod, or is there a shortcut i can do...

jonarus_drakus · Post by **jonarus_drakus** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:45 pm

Heres a work-around: I have both SI and KoTN so any crashes caused by them wont happen for me... back soon (will edit this post).

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:15 pm

what puzzles me is that i played this fine before, which really makes me think that its not SI involved (or that you used something from there after).

anyways, i can give you a CS review.
-A01AskarRoderick - still has the factions (Chorol and Odiil family) from his old incarnation. Remove those and add appropriate ones (such as the IC faction). otherwise the reference is quite dirty (which could theoretically be causing my crash)
-several superfluous capital letters in the Stage 10. dont capitalize Prayer or God's. it should also not be capitalized in dialog (though Gem of Prayer is fine, since its a name)
-your breakup of dialog is a bit awkward in places. dont cut away at the middle of the sentence, just finish it and start a new one on the next line.
-dirty, clean it.

other than that the quest seems solid

lets wait on JDs review

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:18 pm

Embarrassed on odiil family faction... but i couldnt be bothered creating a new character from scratch, applying the bones and whatnot...

Now grammar is my downfall in everything to be fair, but not bad i thought for a second language...

Ill fix the dialogue. Thanks for the review.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:21 pm

except for those two caps it was fine, so dont worry too much

its a very easy thing to fix.

you dont have to create a new character from scratch as long as you remember to remove all the references to the old (factions and AI primarily).

what is your first language btw?

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:23 pm

German. But I moved to England a few years ago. Well me and my family.

Thats the thing... on Undris i used the same character base but I'd removed the factions from him. Sometimes my brain just stops =P

jonarus_drakus · Post by **jonarus_drakus** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:00 pm

I know i said i was going to edit my old post, but all this chatter would probably cause that to go un-noticed.

I tested in-game only! All the errors LN found in the CS are valid. Please note, i dont normaly review quests at all, so i cant be sure if I'm providing useful information in terms of fixes.

The First quest seems to work fine, and makes for a nice introduction. My only complaint would be the lack of 'silent mp3s' that would allow conversation text to remain on-screen for longer. The second quest has quite an interesting premise/story, but i was unable to finish it due to the fact that the game crashed as soon as i tried to pick up the 'Gem of Prayer' in the Second guys basement. Is there meant to be some sort of scripted event on picking up said gem during this quest? If so, that could quite likely have been the cause of the crash.

On another note, you say that your not very good with interior or exterior work, but i found the two shacks (and Asak's prayer world) to be of decent quality. They were a little on the functional/un-creative side, but thats fine. The only errors i found in any of your interiors were a floating rug and a pair of book that bled into each other in Asak's shack. In Asaks 'prayer relm' the grass was poking through the throne platform, but that was all.
Basicaly, in terms of interior work, functional is fine, especialy for non-quest NPC homes/businesses. So dont put yourself down in this area.

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:08 pm

Well thanks for the review JD. Im glad to hear you liked my interiors and I couldnt stand my exterior but at least it hadn't lost all hope. The silent mp3s is a problem which i havnt fixed purely because i cant be bothered re writing the text. I made the sentences short to, if you will, shortcut. I will hang my head in shame.

Now the gem of prayer is odd. There IS a script attached, though it worked fine in all my playtests, and that was the one bit I thought would work first off. its just a simple onadd script.

Maybe i should add a DoOnce variable...

Well ill work on those few errors over the next few days and post an update.

On a side note, if i DO include silent mp3s, do i need to upload the relevant data files too? Or will the mod remember? ( I use the term remember loosely.)

Again thanks for the reviews guys, and with putting up with all the crashes.

jonarus_drakus · Post by **jonarus_drakus** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 10:21 pm

Well, your exteriors (like your interiors) were technicaly functional. If/when you uplaod a newer version of this, i encourage you to spend a few moments to 'decorate' your settings a little more, if only for the sake of 'completeness'.

The lack of silent MP3's wasn't a biggie as far showcases go, as long as you know how to add them their absence wont stop you from being promoted as a quester.

There was one other issue i had, but i didn't mention because im unsure if it has anything to do with your mod, but I'll mention it here to fill space if nothing else:
When i was inside either (both) shack(s) if i turned and faced in certain directions, my screen would go black. The game would keep working fine, there was no 'crash' just a random direction graphical glitch. It also didn't apear in any exterior areas.
The only reason I'm telling you this at all is that while i cant prove this to be the case, the fact is that i didn't have this problem at all before i tested your mod. wether its conected or a simple coincidence im not sure...

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:10 pm

Hmmm... Well ill add some more to the interiors and maybe some mushrooms to the exterior (GASP!)

Ive had that black screen glitch with a few downloaded mods. Personally i think its something to do with the graphics of the person playing. I dont want to get techy, but what graphics card do you use?

jonarus_drakus · Post by **jonarus_drakus** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:50 pm

hmmm, i just recently upgraded from a 7600gt to a 9500gt (both Nvidia, but different brands. My old card didn't have this problem...

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Thu Jul 09, 2009 5:07 pm

right. Well, Im pretty sure its nothing to do with my mod specifically, since i've had this happen alot on my older pc. On my samsung (shudder) laptop, I haven't got this problem. Although, it only happened to me in 3rd person view mode.

EDIT : When I update this puppy, I will add more to the interiors, but in undris' shack, there is meant to be a sharp contrast between the lower class upper rooms and the middle class basement. I wanted the above rooms to be, well, unused. Run down, as it were. So should I add more to the upper rooms or just the basement?

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:40 pm

Woo, we love holidays...

Sorry for the double post, but I haven't posted anything in two weeks due to holiday.

So here is an update for my showcase, hopefully fixing the spelling mistakes and I made the interiors a bit more... full. As I mentioned above there IS meant to be a contrast in classes in Undris' house/basement.

Hope the quest plays well this time -.-

(btw, when you enter the basement, wait for the quest update to arrive, or the game may crash if you pick up the gem BEFORE that update arrives)

jonarus_drakus · Post by **jonarus_drakus** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:46 am

Im really sure whats wrong now... During your second quest i was able to pick up the Gem. But when i tried to leave the guys house it crashed then (not exiting the basement, the house itself). On a previous attempt the game crash when i tried to activate the book the gem had been sitting on, AFTER i had picked up the gem. Note that i tried activating the book before picking up the gem and it worked fine that time...

On another note, your interiors are looking better. One thing though, the various food items on the table in asak/askars house, they are all the same. As in the strawberries in the bowl and the blackberries on the plate with the beef are all on the same alighnment, you need to 'randomise' each item so they dont all look the same. Speaking of the plate with the beef plate, the cutlery seems to have gone missing. There was a knife on the floor, so I'm guessing that its a case of you lowering said cuttlery too far into the table causing the game engine to 'drop' the items through the table onto the floor. Raise them up over the place you want them and just 'F' them once only. Keep in mind this process doesn't work for 'activator' (usable) furnature such as chairs and beds, they will need to be "F-ed" several times before any gaps will be completely removed.
Other than that, your interiors are quite good, having a decently 'lived in' feel in terms of detail and decorations.
You could quite easily gain a recomomendation for interior work if you take a little time to fix these few minor things. Feel free to look at my old showcase work, i feel you have the technical ability to replicate my standards, you only the desire/inspiration to make it happen.

Look forward to seeing more of your work.

FelixAmherst · Post by **FelixAmherst** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:36 am

Thanks for the review again, and the positive comments on my interiors. I really don't understand why it crashes as I have done multiple playtests and all have worked.

Taking that as a sign, I am going to work more on interior work as appose to quests, but I will, of course, try and fix these quest errors.

(But that will be hard to do since it doesn't crash on my game -.-)

I will indeed look at your showcase work and once again, thanks for the tips.

EDIT : Ive attached an updated version, with those errors fixed and a few more I found with the basement. (damn grid snap.)
I Also finally fixed the name name of his shack, so it matches up with Asaks' actual name.

I cant really do anything with the quest since it works fine on my pc. Sods law I suppose.

RelinQ · Post by **RelinQ** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 11:47 am

FelixAmherst wrote:nice screen. Largest I ever went with samsung is 16... Everything i get with samsung breaks. Phones, computers, radio players. I have been lucky so far with this laptop...

Well thats odd, eitherway Samsung make the best TV's/Screens out of any other company im aware off, then its Sony and LG (I have an inside industry source, shh)

Eitherway, welcome to TR!