I'm using a workaround to make NPCs into statues- give them a stone effect shader and use the SetIsGhost command to make them unkillable and use the CS to stick a token in their inventory to force their idle animation to be one of several poses. Works like a charm, but there's one thing I've been unable to do. Using the SetIsGhost command is great, but you can still talk to the character and others can still interact with them; is there any way to make them not do this, a la the Bruma statue that shows up after closing the Great Gate? Make them basically be a static object? Any help is much appreciated.

And yeah, this workaround is because I can't use Blender or any other such program and wouldn't have a lot of use for it beyond this one little project.

Just give the NPC the already existing "noactivationscript" to keep the player from speaking to him, and toggle the NPC AI on the statue actor.

Oh, well now I feel dumb

Thanks a lot!

Speaking of the bruma statue, did you know it is possible to bring it to life via console commands? Read that in the Oblivion wiki.

Yeah, known that one for a while

It's technically an NPC, but one with some special scripting and scaled up in size.

It's possible to do nearly everything via console commands...everything that happens in the game happens because of a console command.

Ya, good point.

Medusa?

Dun dun dun.

Oh, almost forgot: if anyone's interested in what all I'm using to do this:

Created a script with some help from others as my scripting skills do not exist:

scn StatueScript
;Makes nothing happen when you try to talk to the person
begin OnActivate
end

begin OnRun
pms EffectStone ;adds the stone shader
setisghost 1 ;makes them unkillable
end


Attach that script to a generated NPC. Then, via the CS, create an item under Miscellaneous Objects, attach the following script to it:
scn (Script Name)
begin OnLoad
pickidle
end

Then from character -> Idle Animations, created a new thing on the list (I called it "Token Animations", but it doesn't matter) and created a few children of that heading. For each one, I selected the .kf file I wanted, and clicked the "new" button down at the bottom; I selected "GetItemCount" under Condition Functions, clicked the box under Argument Parameters and selected the item I created, clicked >= in the drop down box and set the value in the last box to 1, so whenever I put the item in an NPC's inventory (which I have to do via the CS for the "statues"), they'll strike that pose or perform that animation on loop.