Yes, finally! The project I started like 2 years ago has finally borne fruit thanks to a handy tip from Da Mage. Now it's possible to create playable versions of any creature with a bit of work*, have NPC versions of creatures you can talk to (Mudcrab Merchants ahoy) and so on. *A lot of work.

So I've made a mod that lets you play as a goblin, using the correct animations and body.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXOAVDL0-4I
It's basically finished, however it does need beta testing. There's likely to be some animation priority issues I've not found and it's also an attempt to write an alternate start mod which I've not done before. Once it's properly tested I'll release a guide on how to do it. As such, I'm looking for a few brave souls to beta test Playable Goblins. Please PM me or post in the thread! It just needs a quick play to make sure no real errors crop up.

There are currently a few bugs/limitations documented, for both reference and as a request for help:

• The actual 'goblin' body has a skin texture, but a separate one structured like the regular textures is needed for items that show skin, like wrist irons or short-sleeved tops made for 'normal' bodies. Currently it's just a plain 'Goblin skin' square, but it could do with a proper version. I don't really have the skill for this, so if anyone can help I'd be grateful.
• The goblin head is currently just a helmet, and isn't set up for facegen. This has a few problems, as it means they don't wear hats properly (any hat not designed for a goblin with sit inside their head) and they have no neck in most suits of armour. I've tried to get around it by including a section of neck as a 'tail' but it's less than ideal. Again, I don't have the skill set required so if anyone can rig a head for facegen/egts I'd be grateful.

That's basically it.

That's pretty amazing stuff.

Well done TalkieToaster and crew! Very impressive!

I think I'll take down the empire as a Gobbie.

Very impressive indeed ! Looking forward for more !

Sweet! Does this mean that it is possible to make really good polymorph spells? Well done! :foodndrink:

Very cool! And a funny vid! :foodndrink:

While I don't plan on playing as a goblin, it would be awesome to be able to set up creatures as NPC's.

Haha, amazing. Nice work.

Amazing job! Playing as a goblin would be great, and I can only imagine what playing like a wolf would be like

So, anybody actually feel like betaing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo8Ow2SDXv4 I've also tested the possibility of using this system for Polymorph- it only works if you change race through the race menu. It's possible to create scripts that'll temporarily flag all other races unplayable so you open the menu->change race->it script-quits out so no bugs happen but it'll be a bit of a faff.

Awesome stuff. Playing as a goblin might be interesting but I definitely have something I could use the NPC in and would be more than willing to test that aspect of what you're doing if you've got that anywhere near ready to play around with.

At first, I was rather impressed, but when I saw the Goblin wearing blue velvet I almost fell out of my chair! This is amazing, I never thought something like this could be possible. Can this be done with other creatures as well? I would die for a Playable Minotaur or Spriggan.
Again, amazing work! When I upgrade my PC, this will definitely be one of the first mods I will check out.

wow thats amazing! i didnt think it possible for creatures like this to be playable!definitely a dl for me when its out!

Yep, that's working fine. PM sent.

Krovosos: Playable anything should work. The biggest issues are limitations- animation sets and how close the skeletons are. Some creatures are missing certain weapon sets and cast anims and don't have anything to plug the gaps with- Minotaurs don't have bow animations, for example, so they can't fire bows (they don't have any 1h weapon anims but you can copy-paste the 2h ones). Spriggans don't have any weapon animations, just hand-to-hand which are hard to alter to work. That'd quite severely limit your options. I chose Goblins was because they've got the most full animation set.

Things like Goblins, Spriggans, Spider Daedra etc have parts of their body be similar enough (and their bones have the same names) that you can put clothes rigged for humans on and they'll work fine. Some races (e.g. Minotaurs) won't really be able to equip any clothing other than a 'Minotaur Suit' thanks to that. It's got game balance issues as you can't enchant gear and it may bug some quests requiring you to wear items.

Nice! someone tell Qarl! The trigger that got him off his Underground mod, was that he couldn't have talking goblins without using the old version of the construction set.

working on a fix for that right now.

abit not texture wise but to remove the skin part from all meshes.

Unfortunately that's not going to work as the goblin body is very different from the human one and doesn't line up with clothes properly.

you never know....


though i have to say, the skin on yours does look pretty convincing (at least from the video).

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/641/errortl.jpg Red dotted lines show how human clothes are smaller than the goblin body so some pretty horrific clipping would occur :/.

eww...ouch, thats not good.

Bet i can fix it though, using a combanation of downsizing the goblin body, then applying a scaler to the bones which effect the downsized bits, hence getting around the same sized goblin, but the clothes as bigger. I havent tried it yet, but in theory it should work reasonable well.

Interesting. I guess opens some nice options for companions too.

-kwm

This is really impressive so far! I didn't think something like this would be possible any time soon.

So how exactly does it work? (well, no need to be "too" exact, just trying to get my facts straight)

Does this mean I could provide my own custom skeleton along with a bunch of custom animations for my dragon race,
players could play as a dragon, plus maybe some dragon NPCs around,
and it won't affect the rest of the game one single bit,
especially not conflicting with other special race mods delivering their own replacements for "skeleton.nif" or "skeletonbeast.nif",
because now I can place my files somewhere else entirely? oo:

pretty much, yes.

Put your skeleton and animations in another folder, then you can change a gamsetting (http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/SNPCModel, http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/SNPCModelBeast) for when the player is one of your races. For NPCs you just direct their skeleton to yours. The animations in the same folder are used, so any animations where you dont have a custom animation will have to be copied over from the normal directory.

great for compatibility and makes the mod files neater.

Ive done it for my centaurs, so much more freedom.

Ah, that's good news. I thought that'd be a good way to fix things but have no idea how to implement it model-wise.

These are just NPCs using creature skeletons with the blanks filled in, rounded out anim sets, and set to have a different skeleton directory. The only novel part of Playable Creatures is editing the animations and skeleton to fill in the blanks- we've known that changing skeleton directory changes where you animate from for a fair while now, we've just not had much use for it.

Anyway, one beta in as okay! Like any good scientist though I want repeat results. One more and I'll release.

I've continued faffing with skeletons to refine and bugtest the procedure, now there's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_y5yLKqlZI The Spider Daedra and Minotaurs aren't fully-featured mods in the same way as the Goblin one, though- you start in the same place as usual, rather than having a 'sensible' start (why is a Minotaur Lord sitting in prison?), and they're pretty imba (Minotaurs really aren't mechanically compensated for being unable to wear any clothes or armour).

Hell, this is convenient! Thanks for elaborating it to me.
I also found the setting for the 1st-person skeleton, and when I set these via script only when the player actually "is" a dragon, incompatibility be-gone!
I'll start redesigning my mod towards this approach as soon as I got my new pc to continue my modding endeavours.

I followed this discussion about present items not necessarily fitting the body meshes of the creatures.
My scripting approach I'm fleshing out and expanding since years now aims to remedy exactly this.
It exchanges the non-fitting equipment items with fitting ones (just the visuals, all stats etc. will persist) whenever it finds a NIF file with an "adapted" mesh.
When there is none, a placeholder visual matching type, class and value (or whatever else) of the original item is equipped instead for the time being, so the appearance won't be disturbed. Or maybe such non-fitting items simply can't be worn at all to begin with, that's of course also configurable. An item which is already using an adapted NIF file will simply stay equipped of course.

I admit having to create the many adapted NIF files or an item can't be worn (at least not its visuals) isn't the most ideal solution.
Using CloneForm to create said replacement items with identical stats etc. most likely isn't either.
But I couldn't yet find a more universal and reliable approach without causing other issues instead then... and a lot of these that is.

Maybe it could come in handy once I finally got the latest overhaul fully working again?
It's not designed as a modder's resource with "universal" application in mind for nothing after all.
Scripted Argonian Feet was a premature first-attempt kind of thing. My Anthro-Dragon race is a proof-of-concept showing off the real potential and the modular approach in application.

On a side-note, I'm really putting a lot of hope into NifScripts' development. As it could to a certain extent automate the adaptation process for many things, creating said adapted NIF files on-the-fly instead of someone having to do that once for just about everything.


...Oh...My...God... only now I realized what you just did by telling me all this!
I no longer need to maintain a humanoid skeleton, only able to add custom bones as new leaves or branches to the node tree, unable to "insert" any into existing structures because it would break usability of existing animations and I've sworn not to "replace" any existing ones ever for the sake of compatibility!
I can simply design my dragon skeleton exactly the way I'd like to, given I provide it with all necessary animations, which I can now!
Real digitigrade legs and feet!
The tail longer and more flexible, an elongation of the spine, not sticking out of the butt that awfully anymore!
An elongated flexible neck!
Suddenly this has all become possible! I can't believe it.
You, gentlemen, just opened a door to a whole new world of modding for me. bliviongate:

...damn, I want this pc now...

you might be interested in http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1081448-wipz-custom-mesh-races/page__p__15751603__fromsearch__1&#entry15751603 , i actually tried what you are doing with the scripts swapping in dummy items the looked/acted the same....but it was seriously buggy and I gave up in the end. so I decided to do a complete overhaul of the entire race mesh system.



I had PacifficMorrowind write a Pyffi script that clear the skin parts out of all the clothing/armor meshes so i didnt have to rely on NifScript's development.



I felt the same when I pieced it together from a heap of infomation and other mods that Koniption found and sent me, sort of mind blowing when you realise ever limitation you've had is suddenly out the window.