First, a couple of apologies before-the-fact:

(1) I've only had Oblivion for about... a month and a half or so. I am just about to start over AGAIN on my... 10th character or so. I used to be able to mod Morrowind very well, but that was a long time ago. I am WAY behind the power curve on Oblivion modding, and I don't even have the Construction Set installed. I am TRYING to PLAY the game; I figure that if I can get at least ONE character fully developed to max level, THEN I might install the CS and play at modding. So to the anticipated answer "Why not write the mod yourself?", I have to say that I DON'T have the experience, time or resources to do so. Besides, the community WOULD benefit if a GOOD modder created the Object Placement Mod that I am proposing. This is just a SUGGESTION to the mod community, and maybe a bit of a plea.

(2) I do not mean to bash, flame or criticise existing mods or their authors... that is NOT my intent. BUT I will be honest about what I found lacking in existing mods (related to the topic). This is part of how a process improves. "Somebody builds a better mousetrap"; but FIRST someone has to say what was wrong with the FIRST mousetrap, ok?

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Okay.

*Part* of the reason that I am starting over again (and I was at level 20, Main Quest was JUST completed), was that I invoked "Decorator Assistant" for the first time in Frostcrag Spire and TRIED to bring to life the vision that I had for it. I ran into so many bugs and errors, things that I wasn't expecting, that I deleted my savegame and wiped Decorator Assistant off of my hard drive. AGAIN, that was only PART of the reason; other reasons relate to experience, having worked my way up and realizing that I could have done some things better.

THEN I found out (too late) that there are 2 mods that fix problems with Decorator Assistant. (oh well)

SIDENOTE: Even though there are 2 fixes, apparantly even with these fixes, objects that are locked into place with Decorator Assistant still sometimes "vibrate"? (I find that a little annoying. What causes it? Guess: using non-integer variables and constants in the mod? Hint? Maybe if the coordinates in the mod were ALWAYS "snapped to" integers, things might stop vibrating? Don't know, just a guess ... )

So... I read the descriptions of Decorator Assistant, and the 2 fixes more thoroughly on TESNexus. Also I checked out I think EVERY book placement mod. The Book Placement mods sound ok, but reading the comments, there are still apparantly some flaws. And the BEST looking one will only work with the "vanilla books"; not even the unique books from Shivering Isles; so again, a GENERAL object placement mod is needed.

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I think that there is a BASIC DESIGN FLAW in Oblivion's engine. It's obvious. The designers obviously intended for players to be able to place things on tables, shelves, etc., partly to decorate their own houses and places like Frostcrag Spire. BUT it's like they didn't work long enough on it. So that is why object placement is CLUMSY, and why frequently books fall off shelves, a dinner setting on a table will go flying across the room, and I have to pick up food off of the floor.

So, simply put, we need a SIMPLE mod to fix a BASIC flaw in the game.

One shouldn't have to go "buy a couple of spells" just to do this. It SHOULD'T be that complicated! Why should the player have to spend gold pieces anyway, just to be able to fulfill a BASIC requirement in order to decorate his place? Really, should the player have to hunt down some kind of item or spell, and pay for it, just to correct this flaw?

Why "Summon" a "Decorator Assistant" that looks like an "Altar" in order to do this? AND I am trying to conduct efficient leveling, and the "Decorator Assistance" pushes Alteration progress significantly (one reason I waited until level 20 to try it). (Also I always thought "Decorator Assistant" was a bit.... "corny".... un-Tamriel-like, un-roleplay-like). (Calindil: "Here - buy this DECORATOR ASSISTANT - you have to SUMMON it - it lets you put things on top of things, and arrange your bookshelves!").

Look at how options in the Unofficial Oblivion Patch (UOP) are accessed: to access the UOP menu, one only needs to click on a zero-weight "key icon" in his inventory. AND this icon is in the player's inventory from the start of the game (in the Imperial Prison). Perhaps a better object placement mod can use a similar method (AND a more "businesslike" name. How about "Object Placement"?).

A simple thing, zero-weight, a "key" is good, there from the beginning, that will let you lock items into place, move and rotate things with precision (but limited to integers, I suspect thats why some things might "vibrate" from Decorator Assistant). Not being an expert on how Oblivion mods work (yet) I assume that Decorator Assistant attached a script to a selected object (but apparantly sometimes wouldn't RELEASE or disengage the script if you picked the object up again - apparantly thats why 2 people wrote fixes for it).

A new object placement mod could perhaps work the same way or similar.

Select an object IN your inventory, then select the mods "key icon" (or vice versa). "Drop" or "Drop/Grab" the item, and it is floating in front of you, under the mods control.

OR select the mods "key", and it tells you to "Pick Something Up", and at that point when picking an object up it is instead under the mods control.

OR by invoking the key, it puts an object near the player that allows object selection (similar to the "Altar" in Decorator Assistant); BUT without casting any superfulous spells, using any magic, or pushing skills - just a menu pop-up for object movement, rotation, locking-in-place, unlocking, and *releasing from the script*.

The menu should allow changing the objects X, Y, Z coords, and to change the AMOUNT of change, 1 unit, 5 units, 10 units, etc... some experimentation is called for... one should be able to work easily enough with it so that books can be placed next to each other on shelves, a Silver Plate could be precisley positioned on a table and then stacked with meat, berries, potatoes, etc... bottles (wine etc.) positioned accurately ... ALL locked into place nice and tidy when you are done.

The menu should have similar options for rotation.

In both cases, the documentation should be CLEAR on the axis' and the "handedness" of the rotation. Is "Rotate Z-X" equivalent to... okay, how does the mod regard x, y, z, and rotations? Left / right / up / down?

Here's a thought: Instead of listing the AXIS' of rotations, how about PITCH / BANK / HEADING? Nice and intuitive. I don't have to figure out what the Z/X axis is, or "Rotate Around the Y Axis" is. Will "Move to your Left" work? "Move Up"? "Move Down"?

For both coords/movement and rotations, one should be able to toggle a negative sign (minus X, minus Pitch... ) OR better yet how about having ALL the possibilities in the menu items. "Change Movement Units" "Change Rotation Units" ... "Move -X" (or "Left"?) ... "Move Y" ("Up"?) ... "Move -Z" ("Away"?)" "Move Z" ("Close" or "Toward"?) ... "Rotate Pitch" "Rotate Minus Pitch" ... and Bank, and Heading. See?

I don't use OBSE, and can't use it (certain issues). There should at least be a NON-OBSE version (similar to Decorator Assistant).

So there it is. Ignore me, flame me, or be inspired. Or MAYBE eventually I will be able to work up to a point to write the mod myself. I just think it would be a VERY worthy project.

Sorry, didn't read the entire post, but http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11532 for Fallout 3 works great. I wonder if it would be possible to "port" it to Oblivion?

Most of the placement issues that arise when you're trying to decorate come from mixing statics with misc items. Statics have collision, but can't be picked up, and don't move once placed, whereas the misc items can be picked up, and use their collision to "settle" when dropped. In each case the collision shape is simpler than the objects visible shape to make the havok engine's job easier, and usually that means it has to be larger than the object itself.

When you place a moveable misc item next to an immovable static and their collision meshes overlap, the engine tries to resolve that by moving the misc item away from the static one. If there's another item on the other side, as with a row of books, then there's a lot of wriggling to do until all those overlaps are resolved.

To make things more complex, If you want to hang a sword on the wall, it has to be converted from a weapon to a static, and the collision box that's appropriate for one use is not always the right one for the other. So don't blame the mods like Decorator Assistant. There are some items that just won't sit still because their collision meshes won't allow it when you try to jam them into spaces they don't fit. Even without those mods, if you place some armor/clothing items into display cases, they do a great job of wriggling back out again.

This problem can only be fixed by "optimizing" all the collision meshes for the places you want to put them, which would only slow the game down for everyone else who's just picking things up to use them, because the meshes would need to be more complex and therefore slower to process.

ghastley;

Thank you for your reply.

At the very least, I think I might understand some things a little better now; WHY certain things happen. And yes, I can appreciate your comment re: " ... So don't blame the mods like Decorator Assistant. There are some items ... "; so apparantly there are some problems in the game engine itself that are very tough to solve, possibly impossible to solve in some cases.

I stand by some of the comments that I made though.

The task is simply to correct, as much as possible, a basic flaw in the game engine. I shouldn't have to go to a merchant and purchase two spells to do that. Whatever a particular mod does to deal with this problem shouldn't be pushing my Alteration skill up, and messing up my leveling program. It's a simple, basic problem and it needs a simple, basic solution without a backstory.

What is needed is something LIKE Decorator Assistant, but "optimized" I.E. there was Decorator Assistant, and then 2 people uploaded fixes for it... so maybe the scripts of those 3 files could be studied and perfected for one new mod... as far as I can tell, the problem needing the fixes is that Decorator Assistant sometimes didn't release the objects from the scripts when it was supposed to.

... and SIMPLIFIED and GIVEN to the player at the beginning of the game, with a different way of implementation. Maybe a different kind of interface, and DEFINITELY NOT something that increases skills. After all, all it has to do (as I understand it) is to attach scripts to objects when the objects are selected, and adjust coordinate and angle variables until the player is satisfied, and then finalize and close when the player is done.

Thats why I brought up the example of the UOP Menu implementation. It is simple and elegant.

Have you tried http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24498 it lets you move any item including statics through the use of spells, you can copy items that you like and create a clone wherever you want; to decorate your house and you can move them around and the increments you can move them is cutomizable through a press of a button. Theres a small learning curve for the controls for rotating items and moving them, at least for me it was a little confusing at first but it's way better than decorators assistant no offence meant to the creator of that mod but redecoration is just way more convenient.

My old Redecoration mod (see br0sk1's link) is probably the closest thing to what you want. However, it requires OBSE.



No, the problem is when you try to lock objects that use Havok physics. Let's say you're positioning a knife on a table. You lock the item in place, but where you locked it it happens to be colliding into the table. So Havok is constantly trying to push the knife up out of the table, while the locking script is constantly trying to pull it back down to the position you requested. Result = jitter.

It might be possible to get around this today, but it would definitely require OBSE.



All that stuff you said about fixing the flaws/limitations of the game engine? That's what OBSE attempts to do. It just isn't possible with the scripting language Beth gave us.

br0sk1, Speedo;

Thank you VERY much for the replys.

And thank you for the information. Understanding WHY a problem exists helps. At least it elevates one above the level of " .. tearing one's hair out, throwing his cup of coffee at the wall, and screaming WHY is it DOING that!?!??"
:)

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Anyway... OBSE... I'll be honest, I am using a NO-DVD check executable for Oblivion GOTY (latest patch level) and a No-CD check executable for Morrowind GOTY;

... both purchased recently from Bethesda, when I got interested again... I am an Elder Scrolls fan from WAY back, starting with Arena/Daggerfall. I was heavily into modding Morrowind back a few years ago, lost my computer in an accident (apartment maintenance guy knocked it over with a wet-vac after a flood), was without a computer for a few years. Recently, with my new computer, I got interested again, purchased Morrowind GOTY / Oblivion GOTY / the DLCs from Direct2Drive. Every few days (when I am not playing Oblivion) I do a little bit of work re-creating my old Morrowind personal all-inclusive plug-in. My skills with the Morrowind CS have grown a bit rusty. I lost all of my old work back when I lost that computer, BUT fortunately I documented what I was doing and *most* of what I did is on hardcopy.

ANYway... a few years ago I was playing a certain SpaceSim... basically it was mostly about jumping from "sector to sector" via "jumpgates" and making money by trading, missions, bounties... there was a CD check ** EVERY TIME ** you crossed into a new sector (and there were a LOT of sectors requiring travel between them), FREQUENTLY when you docked, and fairly frequently at random times. That game WORE OUT my CD Drive! I had to replace it. It wasn't long before I lost THAT computer (that one was just old and worn out).

I realize there is just ONE disk check when starting the game (Oblivion/Morrowind), but I'll just say I'm a little sensitive to the issue. Where I live it's dusty and hot. I keep my apartment cool (~ 68 degrees), but still, I like to avoid wear and tear on disks and drives when possible.

I realize the subject is a bit taboo, thats why I didn't mention it before, I understand the reasons, I am VERY much anti-piracy myself, but I reserve the right to protect my hardware, and do whatever it takes to preserve the DVDs / CDs.

... so that is why I am not using OBSE. The OBSE site says that OBSE ** PROBABLY ** wouldn't work if using such no-drive executables, I assume it WILL NOT work (since there is a checksum check).

In any case I am somewhat of a minimalist. I want to install as FEW mods as possible to correct flaws, and *just enhance* the gameplay experience a little. I'm not a "PlugIn Collector Guy" with "hundreds 'o mods".
:)

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Okay. So I guess I will fall back to the non-OBSE Decorator Assistant, BUT I will download & install 1 of the 2 fixes also from TESNexus (which I didn't know about before) (which one??!?? I guess I will have to examine the comments & endorsemants).

"RDs Better Book Collision" was also suggested to me in another thread, but I can't make sense out of the install / uninstall instructions.

Still, though, I think a simplified mod *based on* Decorator Assistant, NOT based on spells that push skills up, NOT based on spells that have to *purchased*, based on a simpler interface given to the player at the beginning of the game, would be a worthy project. I would think that a LOT of people would download & use it.

Discussions involving no-cd cracks are not permitted on these forums. You will get no further help with this.