I looked at the file structure and it looks fine. Now for the coding which can be found http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DN61BCJR Would have just posted em all but they took up too much space on the forum. Instead I hope you don't mind that I put them into a notepad file.

How could I? It's very much appreciated. Thank you.
Now I can finally continue at least improving my scripts... until my laptop's properly working again to continue modeling and texture work and stuff.
But the scripts were badly in need of fixes and improvements anyways, so it's probably as good as if I could just go on modding full-scale.

I'm also glad to read everything appears to be in its proper place so far. Maybe I didn't mess up this time.
As always I'm again eagerly waiting for any feedback. What do you think about the new wings, or the new normalmaps? Any further suggestions/ideas, anything that needs improvement?

If you all don't mind, post some screenies of your draconic chars... you know I'm dying for screenies...
It's all about "inspiration"... I'm in need of it, always... I have a clear vision of this race in my mind of course, it's just missing a lot of details... you help me flesh out the details of my vision.
Just that I'm unable to do any serious modding right now, still doesn't mean I won't continue "developing" this race. I'm still continuing Drake's adventures every night in my thoughts... as well as I'm still refining more and more details of this Oblivion incarnation of it.

Ill problably play in a day or so. I've been playing other games and its hard to play them all in one day. :banghead:

Hey, how about that? In the last hours I made far more progress in improving and fixing my scripts than in the last months altogether!
It seems this "involuntary downtime" immensely helps in concentrating on this scripting business.

- I took apart some of the more complex scripts, for example moved the whole configuration menu away from the main race quest into its own, only triggered once during initialization of the main quest or by you whenever you want to redo the configuration again.
- The item arrays storing all already-adapted items in your game should now be safely protected from you stopping the race quest and setting "init" back to "0" prior to updating to then re-initialize the internal configs whenever I added another dragon race to the collection or changed something on the other arrays. You can't properly update a quest script when the quest is already running. So you have to stop the quest prior to updating and for changes in the internal control structures having any effect you also need to reset "init" to "0" prior to restarting the quest after updating.
The only necessity is for the first time you do this with a save you'll have to only stop the quest, leave "init" at what it is by all means, save and quit, update the plugin, load your save, set "initArrays" to "1" and only then set "init" to "0" before restarting the quest. From then on "initArrays" will stay at "1" and the item arrays will never be touched by any starting, stopping or messing around with "init" anymore.
- The replacer template approach got fully "functionized" now due to the invaluable addition of customized user functions into the latest OBSE release.
I have a function for every slot, which will later determine which replacer template to use depending on the stats of the item it is going to replace the visuals of and stuff like that. Really great invention, those user functions!
- An old and nasty bug got finally fixed, which was enabling un-adapted items to appear on dragons because there were only adapted ones present for the other gender. In this case the scripts checked gender-independently for the existance of a matching adapted item in the arrays once and then equipped it, without even remotely considering there might still be the standard visual for the second gender, as an item record is created already when only 1 gender has an adapted file present and the standard appearance is kept for the other gender.
Now there's a gender-dependent safety check to prevent automatic equipping of still-unfitting items just because there exists an adapted file for one gender.
- And while I was at it I also included full-helmets (you know, occupying slotmask 1 - head and 2 - hair at the same time) to be an exception to the combined-slot items exception, making them no longer count as a combined-slot item.

There are still some more things to do until I will post the resulting scripts here for you to check them out. But considering the short time I spent working on this now compared to the sheer number of fixes and improvements achieved already... I'm quite impressed myself, honestly. Never thought I'd get such a good run on it.


Oh well, but that's it for this night. I really need to go to bed now, past 6 AM already! :bolt: :snoring:

That's very good to hear. If you need help putting the scripts in the CS I'd be glad to help, however I cannot look over the code itself as I do not script (I can partially read simple stuff.) I tried looking at yours and its all Greek to me.

I know I've been bad. I did promise some images of the new textures and meshes you have recently uploaded and so, here they are below. Please forgive the quality. For some reason I could not really fix these to look any better. The texture for my character I modified myself, in case some of you wonder why they are different from drake's.

Enjoy!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Scales.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Action.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Defend.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Defendb.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Enguard.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Enguardb.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Fight.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Hold.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Ready.jpg (My favorite pic out of this batch.)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Readyb.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Readyc.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Waiting.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Waitingb.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Waitingc.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/lordsoulstrike/Drake%20Dragon/Attack.jpg

Thank you!
Oh, yes!
Judging by these pics the new wings really paid out so far. A few further improvements here'n'there and they should be ready to go... now if only I could...

Ah, well, on the bright side I finally managed to call Dell today. Ok, I got redirected to 2 other stations on my 1st attempt, both telling me lines like "What? no, wait. That's a different system, not my responsibility, not allowed to help you. What idiot connected you with me anyways?" But after the 7th attempt I was finally done and a second delivery to the Dell hardware labs was arranged.
Nobody could (or wanted to?) explain to me how a brand-new graphics card could have malfunctioning or defective memory blocks after only 4 weeks of nominal usage (or is playing Oblivion a couple hours per day considered "extreme usage" rather? Can't even remember it using any of the top-notch features of modern hardware to begin with)... but they all concluded "the graphics card itself must be the only issue". Isn't that an indirect confession that they put a pre-damaged graphics card which was about to break after 4 weeks inevitably into my laptop during their last repair session?... just wondering... :rolleyes:
At least they told me, if it's only the graphics card, then it's still inside my new warranty period for it and I won't have to pay for the service this time... oh, well, we will see.
On the other hand I'm quite afraid of just another period of a few weeks of working reliably... and then *bang* a 3rd time... :cold:

Alright, the good news is, things are in motion now. I'm waiting for their delivery partner to inform me about the parameters of fetching my laptop and already backed up and cleaned the drive another time.
This time however, and that's the real good news, I didn't just copy everything over to the giant backup drive of my brother, which I can't access from the netbook (stupid home edition! almost no networking supported), but this time to the netbook I'm currently working on directly. In short this means my files (well, most of them) are no longer inaccessible to me as they were last time.
I can even listen to my favourite all-inspiring music tracks again!

Also I'll see to get the whole missing dragon meshes and textures from my drive uploaded for you to play around with, especially all the TFF female stuff.
I hope at least some of you are using TFF as well. :angel:

If I remember (and assume) correctly, all of the slots are controlled (or can be) and any female modified meshes would use the TFF body. Once a full set of modified meshes are made, you should really only ever be wearing the modified versions. And if you're never getting the normal meshes anyways, it really shouldn't matter what standard body replacer you use. I mean, there would be problems if you tried it without claws or whatever, but it would be workable with another body replacer. I think.

...

In other news, I'm looking forward to getting the female set of meshes and textures. It looks like it'll be fun to mess with.

Hey, you're right of course!

Given you don't instruct my scripts to do otherwise, all slots will be under permanent control, no unfitting items will be allowed and their visuals appropriately replaced by fitting ones, and the race is using textures of its own, fitting the body meshes it uses itself. Technically I can give my female dragons every body shape I want and it wouldn't matter which body replacer you're using for your other races or even mess with it in any way.
I didn't think of this until now. Although this is the key goal of my scripting approach after all, enabling certain races to use their own custom body parts (or body shapes) without even remotely affecting others. Of course this means everybody can use the female stuff I created already. Thanks for reminding me!

In preparation of the next pre-beta release I went through this thread and summarized all releases I did until now. It really got quite confusing somewhere along the road. I myself was loosing track of which downloads you need and in which order to get a fully working complete package! Next I will unpack those archives in the order they were released and then replace every file in them with the latest version from my drive (I don't have them all, that's why I'm downloading these first to get a complete package). Then I will upload this unofficial v0.0.7 pre-beta as a complete pack, so anybody new to this can just download the 1 single archive and would be done. You who already have most of the files won't get hurt by simply installing the 0.0.7 package over them either and could at least be certain you really have all latest files then.

I'll try to do this tomorrow and then I can return to the scripting improvements I was talking about. We're coming closer to the real beta release each step.
(I know I'm writing this "a lot" and I apologize for all the delays... but is it really me to blame for my laptop regularly dying?... or the other bad thing...)

This good news Drake, I`m really looking forward to try out a beta relase. :hubbahubba:

And no, of course it`s not your fault that the PC has died on you, Dell svcks :brokencomputer: (At least that's my opinion)

And I don't mind that it takes some time, you know the saying: "Good things come to those who wait"

Appreciate your hard work Drake, this is going to be and epic mod. :mohawk:

WOW its been forever since i last came in here.
anyway good to know you're adding a big file so i don't have to hunt them down...i just reinstalled oblivion so it all got wiped clean. anyway nice to see that you're getting close to a beta release.

Alright, here's the MegaUpload link for the 0.0.7 pre-beta complete package:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=K1EKLHQH

You get all files directly from my drive in their latest state of development.
Male and female player characters and NPCs/companions are now supported.
OBSE v0018 beta 4 is highly required (I think I recompiled all scripts with beta 4 loaded before my laptop died, so they should all work with and require the latest OBSE)
Forgive my laziness in case I still missed updating the requirements check in the quest script. I can't even check or verify it right now.

Male meshes/textures are still made to fit Robert's Male Body V4 (muscular) and female meshes/textures are made fitting the TFF body.
But as I was reminded by RIF you should of course be able to use just about every body for your other races, my dragon race should still use those two, given all slots are configured to be controlled by my scripts and automatic unequipping of non-fitting items is enforced for all of them.

Updating of previous running games with my race to 0.0.7 is still bound to be error-prone unfortunately, but as soon as I finish the next script overhaul any updates from v0.0.8 on should be done easily and not cause any issues anymore. For now though expectedly-error-free usage is only given when starting a new game, or if you manage to make a clean update of your existing savegames following all safety preparations.

Now I hope everything's at its place and working flawlessly, as I have no way to check this.
If there are no obvious mistakes in this "blind" release, it's now back to improving my scripts while waiting for Dell to fetch my laptop, repair it and send it back to me... again.

I'll be starting a new character again..... Was only a few days ago since I started my last one. Oh well I guess I'll have to grind those first 5 levels again. Oh well. xD

So far, so good. I haven`t experienced any problems yet. :shifty:

My fire dragon :flame: :

- http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5306/dragon1j.jpg

- http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/2906/dragon2h.jpg

Now this is the release I was waiting for.

Drake, everything seemed fine with the scripts, with one exception. I don't know if it's something I could've done on my end, but it seemed like the chest slot wasn't controlled.

http://www.nothingmachine.com/screenshots/Oblivion_TFF_Dragon.jpg

By the way, I'm not sure if it's a function of disabling that force unequip setting, but I liked that there's a default model when an item doesn't have a converted model. It may not look like Iron Armor, but I can equip it and it'll function as iron armor until someone takes care of it. (Oh, and this is the same Ahk who messaged you a few months ago on TESNexus)

Strupekutter, that's a really fitting usage of equipment I must say. Thanks for the pics.

To you too, Ahkmos.
This malfunction of the upperbody slot is something I was working on before my laptop died. Maybe I'll get it fixed during the "offline" revision of my scripts already.
The feature you like is a key part of my scripts, the "replacer template" approach that was suggested in my Scripted Argonian Feet WIP thread a long time ago.
If everything "was" working, there would be nvde body parts to be equipped, whenever nothing's worn in a slot at all, and said replacer templates, when it's a not-yet-adapted item.
Later the scripts will select the visuals from a predefined list according to the item type, its value or whatever else could make sense. So you won't get cloth wraps when equipping a heavy armor anymore but instead would get something more fitting. However, this only being for the visuals and keeping all stats and properties of the item you equipped will still stay the key element of the approach.
You should keep all protection/effects/whatever from your items, but they won't break your draconic appearance ever.

Some good news for a change:
Apparently my laptop will be fetched from Dell's parcel service partner tomorrow morning. Then we'll see how long it will take them to replace the graphics card and give it yet another diagnostics run before finally sending it back to me (hopefully for a longer period than just 2 months this time). Things definitely are in motion now.

I somehow like it that you're at least able to equip chest items, as shown in all your pics. But I'm wondering if I should expand control to the upperbody slot as well by default, which would disable you from doing this anymore then.
On the positive side of it all slots would be in control then and it would be guaranteed to always look right and fitting.
On the negative side though you won't be able to equip anything and keep its visuals in these very early stages of development.
I also could make this depending on race, so only females would have this and males could still equip regular chest items, f.e.
I just don't know... Of course everything will be optional as usual, but still it's hard to decide on the defaults.

edit: Just remembered, all that's needed to make a chest item equippable, if it's for the proper body already, would be to make a copy of the original NIF file and make it ending on "..._dcpart.nif".

I love this mod, when the ability to fly and breath fire is added its going to be uber,super,epic,amazing,cool........ :hubbahubba:

Mighty Red Dragon :
(NB: large files)

- http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/7844/redz.png

- http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/4573/red2m.png

- http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/2930/red3.png

Glad you like it, really nice pics!

Quick question:
I've seen a screenshot of my mod with the "male" footwraps missing their textures and not being rigged to both feet properly.
Can anybody copy this or verify the opposite? Maybe I've packed an in-progress file that was not yet done into the package.

Hey drake! I've been watching this for a while now, so glad you're finally getting things wrapped up.

I will take a quick look at the male feet and footwraps if I can. I'm about to quickly test it. Are the footwraps part of a certain peice of clothing? Forgive my ignorance- I confess to not reading every single one of your posts, considering that they can be quite long.

EDIT: Hm, something went wrong on my side. I don't ahve the time to fix it at the moment- I'll try again in a few hours.

I just started a new character and indeed the footwraps seem not to be properly fitted to the feet and are not textured either.

Just gave it a shot and had a few issues. Sorry if the issues were already addressed somewhere, but if they weren't, I think it's worth bringing up.

After creating my new dragon, I selected "yes" on the first, and apparently only, option that the startquest script gave me, and that was to allow exceptions to dual-slotted equipment, or something like that. After all the initial startquests were over with from my other mods, I found that my character was locked in 'combat', and I couldn't equip or unequip anything, nor could I draw my weapon at all. Also, there was a floating foot in between the two working feet, and some other glitchiness in the feet.

This is probably a fault of mine. I don't know how to remedy it though.

I believe in the past I had the same thing happen. I think I swung my weapon around a few times and then tabbed into the inventory and out again. I believe this fixed it. It's been so long though I do not remember how I fixed it. If that does not work I'd suggest just to wait a second or two before trying anything else to see if it fixes itself.

Hm, well the thing is, I never took out my sword to begin with. Some kind of scripting issue I believe, caused the dragon to be stuck in 'swinging weapon' mode even though I never hit the draw weapon key. It may be a conflict with some of my mods, but I really don't want to disable all of them for the sole purpose of testing, but if my load order could be of use at all, I can get it.

I don't really know what conflicts with what so I myself would not know, however someone else may know if you do post it.

Damn, that's annoying. Thanks for the confirmation.

Now I wonder how that happened. I always export the full set, do all necessary fixes in NifSkope on all of them simultaneously, and then copy&paste the necessary parts into the proper individual NIF files.
So how could possibly only the foot wraps be wrong?

But a confirmation is a confirmation and this means they are and this means I messed it up. Oh, well.
Now, how could I go about fixing them quickly?... Hmm, I know I removed the faces of them which were facing inside, as they will never be seen anyways, but I can't remember anymore if I did this already before the 0.0.6 release or not.
Well, the most easy way to fix it for you would be to fetch the last working version of them from older releases and replace them with it. But I'd really like to know if this'll be the same state of the art.
Ah, well, maybe I can get Blender working on this netbook, but honestly I'd prefer not to install any programs my brother could complain about.

To further add to the bad news, Dell's parcel service partner didn't arrive today either, so the whole process is again delayed further. I really hope things will get better soon!

edit: checked my archives and it seems the last one with those meshes in it was v0.0.5, so they're definitely not at the latest state of art. They should still work regardless though. They're just missing a few mesh optimizations.