Works great with Oblivion Reloaded's third person dialogue camera. Makes the NPC's feel alive. I set the dialogue camera to look over my left shoulder so the dialogue options menu is on the left... seems more fitting. My OblivionReloaded.ini setting for dialogue if anyone's interested (Camera Mode must be enabled ofc): [CameraMode] Enable = 1 DialogOffsetX = -50 DialogOffsetY = -20 DialogOffsetZ = 10
First, I'd like to thank you for this and all your other great mods, and for your work on the Unofficial Patches. If I had a hat, I would tip it to you, sir.
Now, I have a potentially strange question: do you foresee any problems if this mod's idles are moved further down the Idle Manager tree? For example, if they are moved to have lower priority than AnimObjectAnims at the top level of the tree, rather than being a child to UniqueIdleAnims.
Since this mod's idles only play in MenuMode, I assume conflicts would be scarce, and I've run it like this for a little while without any issues, but I thought I'd better ask the expert, just to make sure.
If you're wondering why I'd ever want to do this, it's because it seems like Kaizit's New Animations for NPCs can potentially block NPCs from activating objects, such as opening doors and chests, when they're supposed to do so during quests, unless that mod's idles are moved to lower priority than AnimObjectAnims. That obviously doesn't happen with this mod, since it's all in MenuMode, but if I move Kaizit's, I then have to move this mod's idles too, or Kaizit's idles won't play in the Dialogue Menu. If Kaizit's has higher priority, its idles are played most of the time, but when they're not, this mod's hand animations play instead. I find that they complement each other nicely that way.
For anyone interested, more details and solutions about the potential problem with Kaizit's can be found in and around this post in Kaizit's comments thread.
This mod's idles are actually positioned where they are to prevent bleedthrough from some poorly-conditioned Shivering Isles and Thieves Guild animations that would still play in MenuMode.
Since GetIsUsedItem always returns 0 in MenuMode, my mod uses a script that searches the NPC's current package for its target and plays an idle based on that. Then there's a small countdown before the NPC actually does the idle, both to ensure that the NPC only continues if left alone (i.e., when they're not talking, so you've sat on the dialogue menu without choosing anything) and to prevent certain idles from playing constantly (like eating or yawning). This is accomplished by calling PickIdle on the NPC.
The only problems with moving the position of this mod's idles are that any other badly-conditioned UniqueIdleAnims idles will play over any of this mod's or Kaizit's mod's idles and that PickIdle can cause the anim object to duplicate if called on an NPC performing the idle.
It sounds like I only need to worry if I'm in the Shivering Isles or doing Thieves Guild quests then, and that those problems can be largely avoided by making sure not to talk to people while they're performing certain animations. Even then, your scripted PickIdle could possibly be avoided by not letting the NPC stop talking for too long, I guess? That seems like a fair trade-off versus risking Kaizit's causing NPCs getting stuck.
Looking at your mod in CSE, however, it seems like your idles are already positioned below SEAnims and TG in the UniqueIdleAnims branch, so unless I've misunderstood the order in which the Idle Manager does its picking, I don't see how you're preventing bleedthrough. Moving your idles further down the tree should make no difference, in that case.
Could the problematic SE and TG idles be identified and their conditions patched, perhaps, as an alternative solution?
Also, I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by PickIdle causing the anim object to duplicate. I can't find many details on how it works. Any chance you could elaborate, please?
Now that you mention it, I'm not sure, in retrospect, why I put the idle tree so high up. I last worked on this mod about two years ago.
If PickIdle is called in the dialogue menu (I forget if it's only with certain idles or with all idles that use anim objects), the anim object duplicates in place, causing Z-fighting issues. My scripted PickIdle call could potentially cause anim objects from Kaizit's mod to duplicate, if the NPC was performing a package my mod adds an idle for but Kaizit's idle is playing instead.
The Shivering Isles and Thieves Guild quest idles don't actually cause problems, they just look weird, particularly in vanilla where no NPCs do idles in dialogue.
Right, so the anim object duplicating is just a visual issue. Good. I was afraid that the NPC might end up with extra copies of items in their inventory. :-)
I've played with both your mod and Kaizit's for a while now, and haven't noticed any Z-fighting so far, so either I've been lucky or the issue is quite rare. Besides, Kaizit's idles already have higher priority than this mod's by default, so if there was an issue, I would have thought that someone would have noticed by now. I just moved both mods' idles further down the tree, so any new PickIdle item duplicating occurrences would be from problematic vanilla idles.
Also good to know about the SE and TG idles just being weird visually. I'll just not worry about them for now then. I can investigate further if I ever notice anything out of place.
In short, it sounds like there's not much to worry about. Thanks! :-)
Since it looks like Personality Idles also adds menu mode idles, it would depend on where those idles are positioned and how they're conditioned. Most likely, you'll either won't see this mod's idles or you'll see only this mod's menu mode idles.
30 comments
hmmm I think i will use it, because even if "Personalities Idles" is more advanced, it also put a lot of things that i don't need
So, good mod, endorsed OwO
I set the dialogue camera to look over my left shoulder so the dialogue options menu is on the left... seems more fitting.
My OblivionReloaded.ini setting for dialogue if anyone's interested (Camera Mode must be enabled ofc):
[CameraMode]
Enable = 1
DialogOffsetX = -50
DialogOffsetY = -20
DialogOffsetZ = 10
Does this work well with "Talk with your hands"?
First, I'd like to thank you for this and all your other great mods, and for your work on the Unofficial Patches. If I had a hat, I would tip it to you, sir.
Now, I have a potentially strange question: do you foresee any problems if this mod's idles are moved further down the Idle Manager tree? For example, if they are moved to have lower priority than AnimObjectAnims at the top level of the tree, rather than being a child to UniqueIdleAnims.
Since this mod's idles only play in MenuMode, I assume conflicts would be scarce, and I've run it like this for a little while without any issues, but I thought I'd better ask the expert, just to make sure.
If you're wondering why I'd ever want to do this, it's because it seems like Kaizit's New Animations for NPCs can potentially block NPCs from activating objects, such as opening doors and chests, when they're supposed to do so during quests, unless that mod's idles are moved to lower priority than AnimObjectAnims. That obviously doesn't happen with this mod, since it's all in MenuMode, but if I move Kaizit's, I then have to move this mod's idles too, or Kaizit's idles won't play in the Dialogue Menu. If Kaizit's has higher priority, its idles are played most of the time, but when they're not, this mod's hand animations play instead. I find that they complement each other nicely that way.
For anyone interested, more details and solutions about the potential problem with Kaizit's can be found in and around this post in Kaizit's comments thread.
Thanks for your time, and keep up the good work.
Since GetIsUsedItem always returns 0 in MenuMode, my mod uses a script that searches the NPC's current package for its target and plays an idle based on that. Then there's a small countdown before the NPC actually does the idle, both to ensure that the NPC only continues if left alone (i.e., when they're not talking, so you've sat on the dialogue menu without choosing anything) and to prevent certain idles from playing constantly (like eating or yawning). This is accomplished by calling PickIdle on the NPC.
The only problems with moving the position of this mod's idles are that any other badly-conditioned UniqueIdleAnims idles will play over any of this mod's or Kaizit's mod's idles and that PickIdle can cause the anim object to duplicate if called on an NPC performing the idle.
It sounds like I only need to worry if I'm in the Shivering Isles or doing Thieves Guild quests then, and that those problems can be largely avoided by making sure not to talk to people while they're performing certain animations. Even then, your scripted PickIdle could possibly be avoided by not letting the NPC stop talking for too long, I guess? That seems like a fair trade-off versus risking Kaizit's causing NPCs getting stuck.
Looking at your mod in CSE, however, it seems like your idles are already positioned below SEAnims and TG in the UniqueIdleAnims branch, so unless I've misunderstood the order in which the Idle Manager does its picking, I don't see how you're preventing bleedthrough. Moving your idles further down the tree should make no difference, in that case.
Could the problematic SE and TG idles be identified and their conditions patched, perhaps, as an alternative solution?
Also, I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by PickIdle causing the anim object to duplicate. I can't find many details on how it works. Any chance you could elaborate, please?
If PickIdle is called in the dialogue menu (I forget if it's only with certain idles or with all idles that use anim objects), the anim object duplicates in place, causing Z-fighting issues. My scripted PickIdle call could potentially cause anim objects from Kaizit's mod to duplicate, if the NPC was performing a package my mod adds an idle for but Kaizit's idle is playing instead.
The Shivering Isles and Thieves Guild quest idles don't actually cause problems, they just look weird, particularly in vanilla where no NPCs do idles in dialogue.
I've played with both your mod and Kaizit's for a while now, and haven't noticed any Z-fighting so far, so either I've been lucky or the issue is quite rare. Besides, Kaizit's idles already have higher priority than this mod's by default, so if there was an issue, I would have thought that someone would have noticed by now. I just moved both mods' idles further down the tree, so any new PickIdle item duplicating occurrences would be from problematic vanilla idles.
Also good to know about the SE and TG idles just being weird visually. I'll just not worry about them for now then. I can investigate further if I ever notice anything out of place.
In short, it sounds like there's not much to worry about. Thanks! :-)