In the mod I've been working on, reading a letter activates the quest, adds the journal entry and adds the location marker to the map.

But I cannot get it to show a compass marker pointing the way when the quest is selected as active in the journal.

The relevant part of the script is this:

;BEGIN FRAGMENT Fragment_1
Function Fragment_1()
;BEGIN CODE
SetObjectiveCompleted (10, 1)
_shb_DungeonMarker01
;END CODE
EndFunction
;END FRAGMENT
;END FRAGMENT CODE - Do not edit anything between this and the begin comment
ObjectReference Property _shb_DungeonMarker01 Auto


This updates the map, but I don't get a compass marker.

What am I missing?


Cheers!

~

IIRC (havn't done this sort of thing in ages) you need to make an alias in your quest, fill it with what you want the compass to point to, then in the objectives tab in your quest, add this alias in there for the relevant stage

All that was from the top of my head so i might be remembering wrong. I'm sure this is covered in the tutorials on www.creationkit.com, might be worth having a look over there...

- Hypno

Well that's it, there's a little bit buried away in the Thief quest tutorial for adding the map loaction (Update Map message pops up) but I've been Googling for days and there is NOTHING on adding a quest marker arrow to the compass showing you where the place is on the map.

At least, I can't find it.

I thought it just happened when the quest is active.


Cheers

~

http://www.creationkit.com/Bethesda_Tutorial_Quest_Objectives#Creating_Objectives

Well, I have that page downloaded, amongst many others, but it doesnt have the words "Marker", "Compass" or "HUD" on it at all and only has the word "Map" once.

You'd think a series of tutorials would be a bit more bloody straightforward and show people how to do things they want to do. How likely is it that a Quest mod won't want a Quest Location Compass/HUD Marker?

Cheers, more reading to do..

~

I've had a guts full!

This is still not working and I can't work out why.

All you do is go to the Blacksmith's in Riverwood and read a letter that's lying there.
This activates the quest, adds a journal entry and updates the map with the location.
Then you go there, find the book and read it. That ends the quest and adds the dummy perk so you can use the recipes for the new weapons etc because HASPERK MyDummyPerk is a condition in the recipes. So even if you have ALL the perks in the game, you can't make the weapons until you find and read the book.

That's IT. That's all it is. I made dozens of textures and other things in a few days and I've been nearly two weeks trying to add a HUD pointer. Everything works except that, when you click on the quest, you don't get an arrow pointing to the book and when you type M it doesn't go to the location on the overland map. I have the alias for the book in quest objective target for stage 10, but it's a no show for the HUD arrows.

You'd think there'd be a simple tutorial for something as lamebrain as this.

This has to be the simplest quest mod in the World EVER, but there's nothing to tell you how to fix this. All Google has is people bleating about quest markers in the first place and how to turn them off.

I think I am going insane....


~

As Hypno88 as said, you have to make an alias, in your case, it would be the book. Once you have that as an alias, in the Quest Objectives Tab, you can then fill in the "Quest Target Data" with your book. It is this which generates the HUD marker. Once it is filled correctly, the HUD marker will appear.

Well that's it, I have done all that and it doesn't work.

The Thief Tutorial in the CK has actors and an amulet, but I have just a book, so I have given that an alias and it doesn't activate the HUD marker and when I look at the quest in journal and press M, it doesn't go to the map location.

So there must be some way to use an item as a quest target and I have just done it wrong? How should I define a unique item as a quest destination once I have given it an alias? It doesn't appear in an actor's inventory, it is just lying on the ground.


The map location updates because I have:

SetObjectiveDisplayed(10)
_shb_DungeonMarker.AddToMap()

and

ObjectReference Property _shb_DungeonMarker Auto



But the HUD arrows do not.


Many, many thanks for your help.


~

Your book can work the exact same was as the amulet, or you can have it refer to a specific one on the ground somewhere, honestly does not matter since it will treat it very similar (just make sure if it spawns in a different alias, that it is after the other alias). In your quest, there is an important tab that is required for marking the objective target. The tab's name is Quest Objectives. In this tab you will see three different tables, the first with a list of quest stages with objective text, the second is the target reference with associated conditions.

Lets say you want the objective to pick up the book. In the first table, have your quest id and the text "Pick up book". The next table, you will make the Target Ref be MyBookRef (or whatever you named it), by right clicking and New. This should show you the updated markers, although I keep getting reports these can bug.

I can understand your issues with the tutorial Shadey, i found that it explained what to do with an object if you wanted to put it into a container or an actor, but doesn't really explain about placing an object on a table.

Given that the wiki says this about Specific References

A specific reference is assigned to this alias. Note that this makes that reference permanently persistent (always loaded in memory), even when this quest is not running. This can eventually cause performance issues, particularly with actors.

It made me cautious about using specific references, i have where possible always tried to use the following
Create a Location Alias - The wiki makes no mention of making this permanently persistent
Create a Location Alias Reference, and lastly
Create Reference to Object.

DISCLAIMER
I'm not saying this is the best way of doing this, if anyone has a better/easier way feel free to correct.

Step 1 - Create a Location Alias
Go to the Quest Alias tab.
Right click in the window and click on "New Location Alias". Name your alias, for the sake of this, i will name it BookLocation.
Fill type is Specific Location, in the drop down box search for your location where your book is. As a failsafe you may want to check the following boxes, Optional, Allow Reserved & Allow Cleared.

Step 2 - Create a Location Alias Reference
In the Object Window, under World Data, highlight Location Ref Type, create a new Location Ref Type, for the sake of this i will name this as NewLCRT.
Go back to your quest, and the Quest Alias Tab, create a new Reference Alias, name it BookLocationMarker.
Fill type is Location Alias Reference, in the drop down box you should see your new Location Alias, BookLocation.
To the right of that box is Ref Type. In this drop down box, locate the Location Ref Type you created (NewLCRT).
Again as a failsafe you may want to check the following boxes, Optional, Allow Reuse in Quest, Allow Reserved.

Step 3 - Create Reference to Object
In the Quest Alias Tab, create a new Reference Alias, name it Book.
Fill type is Create Reference to Object. In the first drop down box, locate the name of your book, the drop down named level, set to none. By Create, check "at", and in the drop down box, locate BookLocationMarker.
Again as a failsafe, you may want to check the following boxes, Optional.

That should be all the alias's set up. The last step involves placing the Location Ref Type on an object within the cell that your book should appear. If the book is placed for example, on a table, locate that table. You can either do this through the Render Window, or through the Cell View window.
Once you have found the table, if in the Cell View Window, right click (double left click if using the Render Window), and click edit. You should see a row of tabs, Teleport, 3D data, Onwership etc.
Use the right arrows located to the right of these tabs, to cycle through the tabs until you see a tab named Location Ref Type. If the drop down box, is filled already, you may need to find another table or desk for your book to be placed. If the drop down box has "NONE", you can fill this with NewLCRT (created in step 2).

Some issues i have encountered using this method, is that sometimes the object (book) is found on the floor beside the table, or if created at a bench, the object is created inside the bench with no way of retrieving it. However you can attach your "NewLCRT" to any object within the cell as long as it is not filled. So you could attach it to a candlestick on a table.

With this method, you don't place your book in the cell, the quest creates a reference to it when the quest starts. You can then attach a script to the alias, rather than the book itself.

I hope this helps, rather than confuse. I have tried to go through each step, as if i would be creating each alias.

A word of warning, a quest needs alias's in a certain order. Always create/place a Location Alias higher in the list than any alias's which depend on this location.
If you were to place your Location Alias last, your alias's would fail to create. The 2 arrows, to the bottom left of the Quest Alias Tab, [<<] [>>] allows you to move your alias's up and down in the list.

Thank you very much for the help, I'll try and go through all that in my mod and check it out.

I only have one alias defined, though, for the book, so maybe that is the problem? For the location reference I used the tutorial method to make the destination marker appear on the map, and that appears when the letter is read, but I didn't make an alias for it as I remember.

But then I haven't had much seep! I have 103 objects in this mod (AMMO, BOOK, COBJ, CONT, KYWD, LVLI, MISC, PERK, QUST, STAT, WEAP) and everything works perfectly except the HUD arrows. I tested it with characters at level 1, 21, 31, 41 and 64, from no perks to all the perks needed, and the level 64 character has all the perks but cannot see the new recipes for forging and tempering until she reads the book and learns the "ancient knowledge".

That was the most important thing, but the HUD arrows not appearing is really irritating me as there is something wrong and I don't know what.

Cheers!

~

Once you have the alias's done, you should be able to go to the Quest Objectives Tab and fill in the Quest Target Data.

The target ref is then one of your alias's

Link to wiki page
http://www.creationkit.com/Quest_Objectives_Tab

Thanks, I have that page downloaded. I've read about 70 pages and a bunch of tutorials over the past couple of weeks, I made 30-odd textures and recipes etc in a few days and about a week or more has been on trying to get the HUD arrows to appear. I've either done it wrong or the Wiki has it wrong or it's bugged in some way.


Cheers

~

Thanks to everyone who helped, I merged and rewrote my scripts into two for Start and Stop the quest (it's a very simple quest) and created the aliases again and now it works perfectly. I am not entirely sure yet what I had done wrong or why it now works, but at least I'm learning something as I'll do it the same way next time!


Cheers!
~