So I want to do something with Packages and I think I cannot do it. But I could be wrong so I'm here to consult with those more experienced than I (that's you guys). Here's the thing, I found some info in the wiki once, I think, but I can't find it again so I might be misremembering, but I'm seeing the behavior in the game so I think it's right. Okay, down to the question.


There seems to be a hierarchy of Idles

Idle Marker
Package

If your NPC sits on a bench and the bench has only one Idle for Dynamic Sitting on your Lazy Rear End and the NPC has a package with the Idle Drinking Sitting Nuka Cola then you are outta luck and only the Dynamic Sitting on your Lazy Rear End will play while the NPC is on the bench. However, if the NPC goes and sits on a Stool that has the Drinking Sitting Nuka Cola Idle on it then it will play.

Is that right? And if that is right...

what I want to know is this. Is there any way around that without changing the Idles List on the Idle Marker?

Thanks.


llama

I don't think any of the sit markers have any idles associated with them. If drinking or eating is part of their package they will drink or eat in any seat.

Well, in fact, they do have Idles associated with them. Some Museum Benches may have the Idles where they lean forward and put there arm on their knee and even when they go into Moriaty's they have Idles on the chairs. So, for instance, if my NPC sits in a stool in Moriaty's and has a convo with me, he will use the dialogue Idles on the marker when he is talking to me instead of the Idles I've put on his dialogue. And there are Idles at Gary's in the RC Marketplace as well. So, what happens, is I put my NPC on a package to drink a beer say, with a sit and drink a beer, and he won't do it on the Museum Bench because the Idle on the bench suppresses it. I discovered this when I was trying to set up specific drinking beer idles at the end of a Find, or Travel or whatever package will let the NPC do those behaviors when they travel to the end of the package at Moriarty's or Gary's and when they got there they wouldn't do the eating, drinking behavior because the particular idles I wanted weren't on the list associated with the Idle Marker. I had to add the Idle to the Marker for it to work. I finally just switched around my AI packages to a combo of Travel/Eat and the NPC switches at the destinations. I don't want to change any Idle Markers in the game. But, now, I want to be able to have some more flexibility, and it would be great if I could get my NPC to just have a beer or grab a bit to eat sitting down wherever I tell him to, but the thing is the Markers have this suppressing power over the Packages. And what I am unclear of is if this is unavoidable.

I had always thought it was a case of "which idle plays last" that determines which one is allowed to play through.
I'd think, if you can get them to do the idle you want after they're already on the idle marker by using the PlayIdle function (even from the console as a test), then it's not a matter of priority, but timing. To me that would mean the package idle is firing before the idle markers idle animation and getting replaced. If that's the case I'd also think one could script a real short timer to make sure the idle you want is the last one played.

Yes, that all makes sense to me. I cannot locate anything in the GECK that backs up my belief that the Idle priority is hierarchical, so ya, maybe you're right, and I'm just high and totally misremembering that I had read something that said it is. I'll have to try out what you're suggesting to test it to see if I can get an Idle to play from the console as a test. Great idea. Thanks.

Bonedog!

I went and did the test with the Idles and they worked exactly as you thought they might. It appears to be a timing thing which I can try to work around. Now I just have to figure out exactly what I want. Fun! Thanks so much.

:) llama

I know that some furniture have idles associated with them, but where are they listed? For example, the computer chair will make NPCs type away on a terminal, but I do not see any idles listed in the computer chair objects. Are they defined in the Nifs, or is there some special location in the geck to see them? I see furniture idles listed under GamePlay --> Idle Animations, but again, I don't see where they are assigned to the furniture objects.

Awesome! - glad to help.
The only issue I've noticed is that not all animations will play for every marker type or NPC race, so testing the anims you want to use ingame first would be decent advice. Also, In most cases I've seen, the difference between being the first and the last animation played is very short. A real timer isn't always needed, as you can usually get by with using a small conditional GameMode block that increments a variable every frame, then plays the anim when your magic number is reached.

@pkleiss - I believe the animations are defined in the sit marker nif, and the sit marker is tied to the furniture object nif.. though I admit I'm a nif noob and that's just what I gathered from that custom sit marker/furniture tutorial that passed through here a while back.

Well that makes sense Bonedog, thanks. I shall take a peek at some of those nifs.