Latest news: Last additions or updates.


Saturday 2012-09-08: MAJOR update for the excel sheet.

• Complete overhaul of the User Interface.
• Complete visual overhaul of the sheet.
• Click sortable columns (not supported in Excel viewer or Excel starter).
• Six new tabs/sheets for links, AV packages, authors, texture artists, Info and Updates.
• The 'links' tab allows for easy downloading of the AV packages, visiting Nexus profile page of packagers, texture artists
and other AV related tools and mods.
• Complete list of all NPC's including Dawnguard NPC's.
• Hopefully feature proof for the upcoming 'meshes' AV version.
• All variants are now taken into account. This has as a consequence that the number of werewolves variants has increased with 171 variants.
• Added: 258 texture variants and 6 NPC's Added: 258 texture variants and 6 NPC's

BUT who made this all possible? I was contacted by Tyfighter77 who has used my original sheet and offered assistance. Let just say he got more then he bargained for. He has turned a basic, functional and an awfull looking sheet into this marvel. He implemented all the (near) impossible things I asked him and provided better alternatives for some of my ideas. Basically all that is left from my sheet is the data and the original idea to show the power of AV and promote it.

It took Ty and myself a whole week to get this sheet up and running so we both hope you find this sheet usefull and that it allows you to enjoy AV to the fullest.

Status dated 2012-09-08:
Total number of AV-tized NPC's in public AVP's: 43
Total number of AV-tized textures in public AVP's: 675

Wolverines total number of public released AV-tized NPC's: 36
Wolverines total number of public released AV-tized textures: 159

Starting Sunday the 9th of September I have to update this mod page to reflect the current change of the excel sheet but the most important thing todo today was to release the new excel sheet. ENJOY.


I've been using Automatic Variants created by Leviathan1753 since March 2012 and got addicted to it.
Normally a certain NPC, creature, animal has only one texture which is used all the time, which can get quite boring. With Automatic Variant its possible that for example a giant has 30 textures associated with it, and every time a Giant is shown in Skyrim it randomly picks one of those 30 textures and uses it. So if for example three Giants are shown ingame its possible (depending on the dices) that they all have a different texture. The following video found on youtube and created by Sounaipr illustrates the possibilities much better.




Also this slideshow of pictures of AV-tized NPC's created by Leviathan1753 might be usefull. It shows some of the capabilities of Automatic Variants.

Automatic Variants (AV) has been released on the first of July but has been removed due to Nexus problems and other circumstances. It probably will be re-released on the Nexus in the (near) future. This is why I created this Nexus mod page now. To get a bit of experience of how to create a Nexus mod page, upload file(s) and such so when AV is going to be re-released I can create more mod pages which will contain so called Automatic Variant Packages which have to be used by AV.

I think a variant (pun intended) of Metcalfe's law is valid for Automatic Variants as well:
Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2).

I'm NOT a textures artist or graphic designer (of which this ugly homepage is a testimony) so I won't be creating any textures EVER. But as Metcalfe's law gave away I have a technical background. Hence l (have to) love 'The Big Bang theory" tv-show.

I thought I could (hopefully) help Automatic Variants a bit by doing the following things:

• AV Ports. An AV package consisting of third party textures used with the permission of the original author(s).
• (Usefull) tools for testing (new) AV packages. Example: a collection of batch files which spawns NPC's for easy testing AV.
• An Excel sheet which has an (hopefully complete/up to date) overview of NPC's, Animals, Monsters for which an AV package or AV port exists. See file section.
  

I have other things planned but these are not set in stone.

In the past months I've searched the Nexus for mods which have textures which could be used for AV packages. I''ve then asked the authors for permission. The mod authors who did respond have basically all granted me permission to use their textures, for which I'm very gratefull. The way I see it, its not up to me to decide what textures users should use. I try to supply as much AV ports as possbile. Automatic Variants has a GUI which enables users to enable/disable specific textures for a NPC. It has also a .dds file viewer builtin which shows a flattened skin of a NPC. Hence users can create the Skyrim experience they prefer.


Discussion forum

This Nexus page has to be considered as a central hub with as purpose to give an overview of AV Ports and other things I've created. This is due to the way NMM and most other installers work. I will disable the forum on the other mod pages and enable the one here. So all questions, are concentrated in one place.


Index of my releases

The order is chronological. Whenever a mod is update or a new one is created it is moved to the end of the list. At least I try. This way you can easily determine what releases exist and information about the latest release(s)

2012-07-30 Wolverines collection of batch files for spawning NPCs -- ideal for testing Automatic Variants.
2012-08-01 Excel sheet: Overiew of currently available AV Packages and AV Ports.
2012-08-02 Wolverines AV Ports -- Author is chocolambot.
2012-08-03 Wolverines AV Ports -- Author is AlienSlof.
2012-08-06 Wolverines AV Port -- Author is LatterOfTheThree.
2012-08-06 Wolverines Automatic Variants Port -- Author is Zira


Overview of released AV Ports and tools


Excel sheet(s)

Name: Excel sheet: Overiew of currently available AV Packages and AV Ports
Author: Wolverine2710
Contents: AVP info and overview for 320 different AV-tized for textures for in total 37 different NPC's
Download: Its in the file section.
Initial release: 2012-07-19 version 0.5
Latest version: 1.0
Released: 2012-08-01
Note: Support for NMM, MO and WB. Reflect state AVP's up and including the following date: 2012-08-01


Automatic Variant Ports -- Author is chocolambot

Name: Wolverines AV Ports -- Author is chocolambot
Author of the used textures: chocolambot
Number of variants: 12
Contents: Variants for DragonPriest (1) ,Hagraven (1), Rabbit (6), Falmer (1), Slaughterfish(1), Frostbitespider (2)
Homepage: Nexus mod page
Initial release: 2012-12-20 version 0.8
Latest version: 1.0
Released: 2012-08-02
Note: See Nexus page for more information.


Automatic Variant Ports -- Author is AlienSlof

Name: Wolverines AV Ports -- Author is AlienSlof
Author of the used textures: AlienSlof
Number of variants: 47
Contents: Variants for Horse(35), Zebra like horse(5), Dog(1), Sabrecat(2), Skeever(2), Wolf(2)
Homepage: Nexus mod page
Initial Release: 2012-07-21 version 0.8
Latest version: 1.0
Released: 2012-08-01
Note: See Nexus page for more information See Nexus page for more information


Automatic Variant Ports -- Author is LatterOfTheThree

Name: Wolverines AV Ports -- Author is LatterOfTheThree
Author of the used textures: LatterOfTheThree
Number of variants: 5
Contents: Variants for Frostbitespider(2), Hagraven(1), Mudcrab(2).
Homepage: Nexus mod page
Initial release: 2012-07-26 version 0.8
Latest version: 0.8
Released: 2012-07-26
Note: See Nexus page for more information See Nexus page for more information


Automatic Variant Ports -- Author is Zira

Name: Wolverines AV Ports -- Author is Zira
Author of the used textures: Zira
Number of variants: 22
Contents: Variants for Horse(22)
Homepage: Nexus mod page
Initial release: 2012-08-06 version 0.9
Latest version: 0.9
Released: 2012-08-06
Note: See Nexus page for more information See Nexus page for more information


Collection of batch files to spawn NPC's in Skyrim

Name: Wolverines collection of batch files for spawning NPCs -- ideal for testing Automatic Variants
Author: Wolverine2710
Contents: 95 batch files to spawn NPC's, including which prevents that you are attacked!
Download: Nexus mod page
Initial release: 20120721 version 0.6
Latest version: 0.9
Released: 2012-07-30
Note: See Nexus page for more information.


Voting section
The mod authors shown below have been contacted and have given me permission to use their assets (eg textures) in an AV Port. Some of them have created multiple mods and have quite a lot of textures which can be AV-tized (put together in one AVP). Others have created one or two mods with textures which can be AV-tized. Under the assumption I stay motivated AND have fun in what I do I wil create AV Ports for the mods of these mod authors. The order is not that relevant to me. Thats where you can come in. I offer you the opportunity to voice your opinion (in the forum) and tell me what AVP's you like to see first. When I don't receive feedback I will create them as I see fit.

In alphabetical order (NOT in order of size, so you have to do a wee bit of digging)

CheeseyBall
DemosthenesArk
GameNinjaPro
Humpty2Dumpty
Ironman5000
jerminator1977
Langoliar
Nexus79
Qualmeru
spiffy jim
yourenotsupposedtobeinhere


Credits

Leviathan1753. For Creating Automatic Variants (and Skyproc which AV uses) and being very patient when I was asking way too many questions in his AV thread.
StarX. For teaching me how to use Nifskope.