I found out the hard way about return. It doesn't just kill the block of code its in, it kills the entire contents of the script after that. I couldn't even get a test message to display one night and was going crazy!

2.) I thought elseif didn't run unless the first IF wasn't true. So if A was 0 and it was set to 1, then why would elseifA == 1 get processed?

Ok big mod update: I got all the powers switched over to a non cast animation hokey. After the player no longer cast to activate the power, I felt it was a little lacking. So I made some custom sounds to go along with activating, deactivating, and messages to make sure you know the power is off, since active powers increase your cravings for blood faster.

I think this video came out pretty cool. Its a little hard to hear my sound effects, for some reason fraps records the music really loud, even though in my game it doesn't seem that loud in comparison to sounds.

http://downloads.4drulers.com/Oblivion_Mods/unholydarkness/Unholy%20Darkness%20vampire%20power%20hotkeys.wmv

...Be right back, I have to pick up my jaw from the floor... O_O

Would you be so kind to pick up mine too while you're at it?

Wow Thats incredible! Im so psyched for when the beta build comes out! I want to be such a creature like that.

Erm... WOW!!!

Nuff said.

Last few posters weren't lying...that video was indeed awesome

Again, this mod is REALLY coming together now!

Thanks for the comments everyone. Tonight I finally fixed a bug with feeding, feeding in dialogue and force feeding where you actually didn't get fed, and then I went on to greatly improve the seduction feeding. They actually verbally respond to your attempt which is pretty cool. Also a sixy animation is played on the player to make the seduction seem more realistic. Then there is new dialogue where you can tell them to kiss you and they will, then the player is fed in this situation, then they stop following you and they return to their normal business.

I added further code to increase your chance of a seduction based on how aged of a vampire you are, so that you have a chance to seduce without taking your clothes off. I'll probably put a bit more stuff in there yet, but its pretty cool. So much better than "go sleep so I can feed on you the lame way" . TO me this is a role players dream come true. I know a lot of people haven't really gotten excited about the sixual seduction stuff I've been working on, but after playing 20 different vampire mods in the past and the only way to feed was on sleeping people, or cast a spell to make them fall asleep... I'm happy to be able to feed that way, plus force feed on someone, coerce them to let me feed on them through charm/dialogue/ command them to give me their blood now (thralls), or seduce them into a kiss (this new power). You can also command your butler to fetch a thrall for you. I like all these features, it gets old feeding the same way over and over again, trust me.

I think tomorrow I'll be back on the vampire hunters. I got a lot done today and I'm pretty happy with how the mod is feeling right now. Much more polished! Getting a LOT closer to a release now

Yes, Return *is* fun to use (sarcasm), but the construction set talks about that in detail, the If/ElseIf they don't. The If and ElseIf commands are the only ones that skip to the next ElseIf/EndIf in the block, once the If/ElseIf becomes True, the code continues normally. When it hits the next ElseIf, it merely lets that command do it's normal thing. Thats why "A" winds up 4 after one frame. It drove me nuts trying to figure out why I was using a variable to slow the operation of the code only to find that I had it ordered as my example, and all of it was being done in 1 frame (and crashing the game). After I moved them so they went from last to first ( If A == 4.... ElseIf A== 0 ), it worked, so I did a test similar to the example I showed, got the same results as the example above. Now as for Return, it can be useful, but some functions act as a vicious Return, which can kill a script's operation. If your script is stopping completely, it's most likely because one of the functions failed and told the script "it crashed", rather than just "failed". A crashed script stops running until a game reload (load save game) happens for quests or in some cases a location move will restart it.

I've found that the engine dislikes tampering with objects that aren't loaded but are referenced (ref var has it from a save game, but it's not loaded in the current cell after a game load). Objects in another parent cell (but within the same world), tampering with them "too fast" will cause the game to crash, most of the time it's equip or unequip that causes the most problems, doing this on non-local items is sure to cause grief. Inventory control seems to also cause grief on distant items, remove and add a spell (for changing properties on it, or refreshing it's effects on cell changes) within the same frame fails, why I mark a flag to "add" items and remove them at the end of the script (end of frame code) and check for the flag and add them back at the beginning of the code. This also works for equipping and unequipping and will stop crashes of that nature (with the exception of items "not in view"). One thing I *have* done is with dialogue changes to existing quests. It *is* legal to add items onto such things for mods, but one thing I do beforehand is save the mod, back it up and then try the additions. This way if they don't work, I revert and try again.

As a suggestion/request, if you're a vampire, and not hiding it, ask the guards to all out go after you, rather than come up and say "You're under arrest!" I mean lets face it, who in their right mind would want to arrest a vampire??? I can just imagine the conversation:

Guard, "You bit too many people, you'll have to come with us, and no biting!"
Vampire, "You can take me away, but first, a snack!"
(You get what happens next.)

Just that after force feeding on a human, to have a guard run up and say "You're under arrest!" kind of doesn't play out right in the grand scheme of things, as if he saw you kill the person he should start yelling "A vampire, away everyone!" and attack you outright. Even IF you didn't attack anyone or don't have a bounty. The game will pick the most relevant response and it'll make it so guards will attack vampires on sight (which should be what happens). Now for those who like the "You're under arrest", you could put it in as an option (for attacking on sight), by using a quest variable in the dialog for enabling this. Just a thought, but I always hated the guard running up to you to blather at you about just feeding on someone, it just didn't seem right.

GuruSR.

Hey sorry I haven't posted anything up in a while, college has been kicking my ass lol. But all the new updates sound awesome and the vid looks great. Glad to hear things are getting all polished up. Keep up the amazing work

I agree. I even had this working at some point, but then things got broken. I even had people cower in fear, that got broken, and I had people fleeing, and now that code is gone too. I royally screwed up some things a couple of times and had to resort to a backup, and then lost some code. Its probably in one of my backup esp's scripts somewhere, but finding that might take longer than just recoding some things.

At any rate the whole guard/vampire hunter stuff is about all that I have left to finish, and then record some sounds, build a web page and this mod is 1.0 and ready for release. Oh and the fly script and wings, lol I have gone from alpha to beta now, and sent my testers a new build just today to play with. So things are getting closer and I'll start working on the vampire hunters and guards again here probably tonight.

There's probably another 20 little things I forgot, but it can't be anything too big.

It's so close I can taste it!

Umm.....

Data tastes funny.....

Data tastes good actually!

How so? I would think that data tastes like nerd sweat and tears, mixed in with years of romantic frustration.

/STEROTYPE'D.

(I joke)

Yes, I always *always* back up whenever I do anything with dialog, because I always know something will go horribly wrong. Another thing I usually do is copy/paste the code into a text editor and save them out as text. So if something else gets mangled, I can at least rebuild from something earlier and replace the scripts with ones that were working. I also have the text editor open with a "To Do" file for the mod, listing all the problems, etc, that I need to fix. When it's fixed, I remove it from the text file, or mark it "Finished". I know it sounds like a lot of extra work, but, you never know when a crash could take out the working version and a repair/rebuild may be the only way from a backup.

Now I have a question, have you tried your "follow" outside of a town? IE: Leave the town, does the follower follow? Most cases, it's no, unless you do some cell watching and move the follower manually. I have one that I thought was working on one mod, and I found out it's not (I may have accidentally disabled the code for testing, I forget). Leyawiin seems to be the worst for this, I think because it has one of the largest exterior areas in the game, it even is larger as a whole over Imperial City's sections.

Oh, side Q: Have you ever had a convo with an NPC and when you initiate it, you wind up staring at their feet? Any ideas how to fix that? Have you run into that? I have, no CLUE why, I think it's a problem with the skeleton of the NPC (Dremora), would LOVE to find a fix for that, since one of my mods is a proper Dremora mod that lets you "play as a real Dremora", walk into the Oblivion realm walk up to a fellow Dremora, say Hi, ask them to join you in a battle against the humans. So far, the turrets ignore you, the bombs are a slightly different problem, they sort of work and sort of don't. The monsters and other Daedra welcome you as their family. Obviously there's some stuff still to be done, but NOBODY likes you except Daedra, so accepting the ritual to be included in the "family" means the quests outside of the realm you should be living in, really won't go over too well. Humans will flea or fight you, guards just attack you on sight, any daedra out of the gate will come to fight with you. Its actually quite fun, plus the Mythic Dawn folk accept you as their better, in fact, thats where the ritual has to take place, at their shrine.

Lets hope I get as far as you have.

GuruSR.

Yes I code in microsoft visal c++ and paste my scripts into there, and save them in increments. I also have a todo list and a bug list, as well as an idea list of stuff from these forums. Anyhow, I have a question maybe you can answer here:

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1080785

As for a follower I make them moveto player if their distance is too far. I really don't like my vampire followers or my code for the turned vampires. I'd like to just somehow add the CM scripts to my vampire children, and then add the vampire specific commands in my code, but follow/stay inventory etc all handled through CM.

I've never run into that problem, but animation mods sure seem to cause camera issues. I just slapped in a sixy walk and now my avatar sometimes first person camera is about 9' in the air. I know some animations raise the player up by accident, you have to manually lower a player down because the offest of animated people is different than the default export position.

Tonight went pretty good. I was able to fix up the vampire spotting conversations. Essentially if someone who's disposition towards you is less than 70 and your showing fangs and vamp eyes, they say "die unholy monster" and a variety of other vampire greetings. Then I run a check on them that decides if they should attack you, or just say something and walk off, or take off running for their lives. So guards will now attack on site, faction members who don't really like you much will walk off muttering something, and certain high responsibility npcs might decide to fight you, etc. Its kind of funny to see a bum say "die unholy monster" then take off running, lol. So if you run around town with fangs out now, most people take off running. Its pretty easy to get a town all stirred up now.

Then I also fixed some stuff in the force feed script where if you force fed on someone in a dungeon it was reported as a crime, etc. So I restructured the force feed to consider some more criteria before it actually is reported as a crime.

I also made it so if you walk into a church and light on fire, you automatically transform into a vampire, so rumors will be started and guards attack you, etc. I figure if your on fire, its pretty much a no brainer that you are a vampire, and a vampire on fire wouldn't be able to hold up the masquerade.

What about when you're just walking outside in daylight and you start to smoke and catch fire? I suppose if you were going to do that, maybe only make it when you actually DO catch fire (which I think you said was at less than 1/4th your HP).


And speaking of showing fangs - how do you do that? I know that sounds like a dumb question, but when I was watching your newest video (the one with no cast animations), I never saw your character's fangs show, just the blue eyes and lighter skin when you were toggling mask darkness. So yeah, how/when do your fangs come out?



EDIT - can anybody tell me where blue eyes for vampires came from? I was messing around with another vampire mod the other day testing some things out (shame on me, right?) and I remembered that the default vampire eyes are pretty red-ish. It had been a while since I'd seen them. Then I remembered that vampires in Unholy Darkness have blue eyes. I just thought that was odd....surely that's got to be from something I haven't seen or don't remember.

The precedent for blue-eyed vamps was set in the Underworld series of films.

Hmm....it's been far too long since I've seen them apparently because I don't remember that at all. I thought they had normal eye colors like brown or green. Uh, well, blue is a normal color, but you know what I mean.

Thanks for the answer though. I just need to remember to see them again sometime soon.

I did respond to it, most of the time I found that doing an AddSpell on the talker made for a MUCH easier means of working code on that person.


To be honest, the code for the CM partners isn't that difficult to work with, if you're doing a distance moveto, thats pretty much all CM does, the follow you have, the wait here, is basically telling the follower to wait. One of the methods I did use was a faction, in that, I use faction levels as "commands". 1 for follow, 2 for wait, 3 for inventory, etc and 0 for go about your daily stuff. Then the token on the person merely makes sure they're doing what the command says they're to do. This method actually works better than CM, because after a load of a saved game, your CM partners go away on you if you switch cells (unless you repeat the "Follow Me" command to each of them), but my follower was right behind me, because the state of the person was tested against the command they're supposed to be doing.


I'm thinking it's in the skeleton, I'm not sure if there's anything in the skeleton to tell the game where to aim the player's face at when talking, all the Dremora seem to do that, but I've got a replacement Dremora in place, so thats what I'm thinking is the problem, as beforehand it wasn't doing that.

What the?! An Oblilvion mod about vampires that includes embracing others? How did I miss it?!
Then again, I'm glad I've noticed it so "close" to first release. Keep up the good work!

Ya it's going to be a great mod, VaeVictis. I've been watching for a while, lol and cant wait for the release.

I can probably switch the player to vampire mode when they light on fire easy enough. The eyes I have are inspired from underworld.

EDIT: fangs Fangs are shown automatically when you activate vampirism. Unfortunately, sometimes the player doesn't open their mouth immediately, and sometimes they do. I do not know why it decides to take so long sometimes. Perhaps other animation mods I have screw it up, perhaps its something to do with making face animations that I don't know about. I call the pickidle command, but maybe the player has to be still when it happens and not be running or moving at all for pickidle to work.


Yep.


They have normal eyes until they are angry or going to feed, etc then they turn an almost neon blue.


I guess everyone has different methods of coding. I'm not a fan of spells or tokens. I like quest scripts the best.

Well, I don't want to replicate the CM code in my mod is what I'm saying. I'd like to strip out all my companion code except for vampire specific commands, and then somehow apply the CM code to any NPC I embrace. All I did was replace a walk anim and now my third person camera is 8 or 9' high. Hard to say though. Its possible the camera had keys added to it in the animation by accident, and so it is moved up now, and in your case, its down.


Probably because I've just been calling it "unholy darkness" in all my threads which could be misleading... is it a vampire mod? An assassin mod? A crooked priest mod? lol... I finally called it a vampire overhaul in the topic so maybe that caught your eye.

Ok tonight went pretty decent. I worked on the vampire hunters for quite some time. Here's basically what I accomplished:

*Added tracking code for the hunters so they can follow you around from city to city. Its not just an AI follow package, but basically they have informants in all the cities, so they can get to you faster. Basically I wrote it because oblivions package tracking svcks. This allows vampire hunters to catch up to you at least once in a while.
*Created in depth respawn code if you loot their dead bodies they will respawn with new gear, removed all vampire bites from them and other influences from their previous life that the player could have affected them with.
*Created a proper script controlled respawn and reset so they actually respawn and come after you again.

TODO on the hunters:
I'm going to make it so they stop following you once your bounty is lowered.
Once the first hunter works satisfactory, I will duplicate his code for the other more advanced hunters.
Give advanced hunters garlic throw down attacks (they will just drop garlic on the ground which causes vampires discomfort.
Advanced hunters will burn your coffins
They will eat garlic so if you force feed on them you will barf, similar to feeding on dead blood.
Possible torch attack that lights you on fire for guards with torches.

I had a thought, you've already got the follow going, what exactly out of the CM did you want done? Sneak and such? As for the inventory, I have an idea, rather than doing an inventory copy to a container, how about a separate container for each embraced NPC and you can ask to look at their carrying sack. The sack would then reject stuff if you put too much into it. Unlike CM's which you can load up with 1000's of pounds of stuff and they keep moving, with this you could offer them to carry stuff for you, but not like a CM pack mule. Honestly, I don't know exactly what else you're wanting, but maybe message me with the things you're wanting.

GuruSR.