Skyrim Special Edition

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Qwinn

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Qwinn

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WACCF and WACCF-JOP versions released! QUARK (Qwinn's Ultimate Amulet Restoration Kit) allows you to restore the visual appearance of equipped amulets. Easy to use FOMOD installer! Choose from restoring amulets for light armors, heavy armors, mage robes and/or clothing, or show them on everything. WACCF and/or Joy of Perspective compatible.

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Version 1.3.1 released 08/04/2018:

Not 10 minutes after finishing 1.3.0, I noticed that WACCF updated (while I was working on QUARK) by resaving WACCF in the CK to update the form # on the individual armor addon records in WACCF (guess what kind of records QUARK touches?  Sigh.)  Oh well.  I resaved all versions of the plugins in the CK, not just the WACCF ones.  Probably overkill, but, just to be super-safe, even if you didn't add WACCF, might as well update anyway.


Version 1.3.0 released 08/04/2018:

Added a version that is compatible with the newly released Weapons Armor Clothing and Clutter Fixes, AND a version compatible with *both* WACCF and Joy of Perspective.  The installer will autodetect if you have installed either/both of those mods and install the correct version for you.  If you're already using QUARK and you recently installed WACCF, just update it and run the installer, which will update the plugins with WACCF-compatible versions.

I was initially going to name the plugins for the WACCF versions differently, but realized that for folks already using QUARK, that would cause the removal of the old ESP's to generate warnings when starting up the game again, and it's best to not remove plugins midgame if it can be at all avoided.  Therefore, don't be surprised that the new WACCF plugins won't appear any different from prior versions.  They'll look the same in your plugin order, but they will actually be quite different.  If you need reassuring that the WACCF compatible versions were installed, look at the required masters on the plugins.

Note that as far as I'm aware, no one has made a WACCF-JOP patch yet.  You can use QUARK to make them compatible, as long as you don't *mind* amulets being restored all over the place.  If you do use QUARK in that way, as just a WACCF-JOP patch, you will need to either load JOP before WACCF, or use
QUARK's AmuletsShowOnEverything option.

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The Short TL/DR FAQ:

Q:  Wuts dis?!

A:  USSEP makes amulets invisible when worn with a large array of clothings and armors in game, in order to eliminate any potential clipping issues with some armor/amulet combinations.  QUARK makes the amulets visible again, with the tradeoff of reintroducing those clipping issues, most of which are pretty minor.  Install it for the categories of clothing/armor you want amulets to appear on.  Go in game.  Put the related robes/clothes/armors and then amulets on your wife/followers/etc. and say "Wow, I never knew amulets could show on that outfit, that's pretty cool!"  How it looks on your women will depend on what clothes/armor replacer you're using.  With some replacers, like Spice Gear or Tiwa's Minidresses, it should usually look pretty much perfect on all the women.  They even look pretty good on most vanilla style clothes, robes and armors.  You'll still likely have some clipping issues, especially for the men.  Try it, and evaluate the pros and cons.  I think adding an additional 9 or 10 potential different looks to each character definitely outweighs the con of some additional clipping issues (it's not like the game is completely devoid of those issues even without this, so it's something we're all used to).  If you disagree, uninstall.  There's no scripts in the mod so trying it out won't hurt your game.


The Obnoxiously Long and Detailed FAQ:

Q:  What does QUARK do?

A:  It restores visible amulets to every set of clothing and armor model in the game.  It can be applied to any and/or all of four categories:  mage robes, clothing, light armor and heavy armor.  In the FAQ below I'll just refer to robes when I'm referencing what clothes/armors are being modified (that's all I planned for the initial release so it's how I wrote it up).

Q:  Why don't my mage robes show amulets now?

A:  In a lot of cases, they do - if you don't install USSEP.  The vanilla game actually shows amulets on most models from all categories, with some odd exceptions.  The author(s) of USSEP systematically went through each armor/clothing type and made judgment calls as to whether it was suited for showing amulets or not, probably primarily based on clipping issues with vanilla outfits.  Usually USSEP hides amulets on models that vanilla shows them on, and sometimes USSEP enables them on models that vanilla did not show them on.  In the case of mage robes, USSEP disables showing amulets on pretty much all of them.  The initial release of QUARK enables all amulets to show on every model by category, whether they're disabled in vanilla or USSEP or neither or both.

Q:  Was there a good reason for USSEP to do that?  You've made a similarly comprehensive fixpack for a game, Qwinn (Dragon Age: Origins).  If you'd been faced with the same issue, would you have done what USSEP does?

A:  Yes.  The mission of a Fixpack is to fix bugs in the vanilla game.  Clipping issues with amulets on vanilla outfits certainly qualify.  There's no way to deal with those issues in a surgical manner though.  It's all or nothing on a given clothes/armor model.  If 80% of the amulets look fine on a given robe, but 20% of them clip, there's no efficient way to remove the 20% without also removing the 80% that are fine.  So, that decision had pros and cons, but from the perspective of a Fixpack author, you do what you gotta do.  If you want to create a 100% bug free game, you have to restrict to showing amulets only on models where it never ever causes clipping issues, and that's what USSEP rightly does.

Q:  So what's the point of re-enabling the amulets, if it was a good decision to disable them?

A:  Two reasons.  First, USSEP rightly takes an absolutist approach when it comes to fixing the bugs, but there is a tradeoff.  An individual player may decide that the pros of showing the 80% amulets that are fine outweighs the con of sometimes seeing 20% with minor clipping issues.  Second, there are tons of female clothes and armor replacer mods out there that can eliminate the amulet clipping problem on a wide variety of models altogether and drastically change the pros versus cons equation in a favorable direction, something USSEP really can't take into account.

Q.  Pros and cons.  Okay.  Let's say all my girls are in Spice Gear, or Minidresses.  Few to no clipping issues on most of those models, so it sounds like all upside.  What's the downside, then?

A:  Unfortunately, you can't enable the amulets on female robes without also enabling it on all the male robes.  You might have eliminated the clipping issues for all females with your clothes/armor replacer mods, but what can you do about the men wearing amulets with the same robes?  Unfortunately, pretty much nothing I'm aware of.  That's the single biggest issue you have to factor in.  Do you care if the very rare guy equipped with an amulet gets some clipping issues, if it adds lots of clothing accessory choices to all of your female followers?  There's also a lot of situational factors to take into account.

Q:  What kind of situational factor could affect my choice of using this?  

A:  Take Archmage Robes.  Amulets look TERRIBLE on vanilla male Archmage Robes.  Half of them don't even appear, and the few that do are half buried in the chest and look awful.  But... you know... the one male Archmage you meet in the game with the Robes doesn't have an amulet.  And after a certain point in the game, you have control of all available Archmage Robes.  Maybe you want your mage female follower to wear it, and she's using the Gomapero or Minidress version of that robe from TMB Vanilla Armor Replacer, in which case all amulets look perfectly fine on her.  Half your amulets would look awful on you if you're a male PC and you decided to wear them (the other half are buried and don't even show), but you don't plan to do that, and that Amulet of Mara looks awesome on Brelyna in a minidress.  In that situation, pros for showing the amulet on archmage robes - 100%.  Cons - 0%.

Q:  Are you only reversing USSEP changes then?
 
A:  Actually, no.  I make all amulets show, even if they were set to not show in vanilla and USSEP didn't change that.  A good example is Serana in the first couple of screenshots.  Amulet doesn't show in vanilla or with USSEP.  With QUARK, the amulets show, and they look great to me even on her completely vanilla default outfit with no replacer mod.

Q:  So if I install this, I'm going to see amulets clipping through chests all over the place?

A:  Not even remotely.  The vast majority of male or female NPC's don't have any amulet equipped naturally.  In fact, if you ever run into an NPC in the natural course of the game, male or female, with really bad clipping from an amulet that the vanilla game equipped them with, please let me know.  I'll eventually release a version that leaves amulets disabled on the worst offenders.

Q:  Didn't somebody else make a mod like this before?

A:  Not that I'm aware of.  Once I thought of the idea, I looked around and couldn't find anything similar except for a single old oldrim mod that just enabled amulets on five heavy armors.  It actually really surprised me that no one seems to have thought to do it before.

Q:  I enabled the Light Armor version, but I'm still not seeing an amulet on my male PC wearing dragonscale.  Your mod is broken!!!

A:  No.  This would be a 100% clipping issue, meaning, the upper part of that armor is very bulky and the entire amulet is obscured by the armor itself.  That's gonna happen on some models.  At least it doesn't make it look any worse.  And frankly, it's realistic.  With a top-bulky armor like that, I think anyone would just tuck the amulet underneath rather than try to stretch the chain over the top of the armor.

Q:  So why enable amulets to show on dragonscale at all then?

A:  Because some players will use a female replacer mod that modifies the dragonscale armor leaving a bare neck.  On that model, the amulet would show and probably look fine.

Q:  Why is this split up into four ESPs and four categories?

A:  I figure that the worst drawbacks will be for people who play in 3rd person using vanilla style semi-bulky robes or armor (which means almost all male PCs, and female PC's choosing to use vanilla armor styles).  Most NPC's in game won't come equipped with amulets, but the player will always want to wear one.  Everyone tends to focus on a single armor type, and by splitting the mod up this way, if someone is really not liking the way QUARK affects how their own character looks but like how it's affecting everyone else, they can disable the single category of the armor they wear most and still keep amulets enabled on every other category.  EDIT:  An All In One Merged version is now available as of version 1.1.

Q:  Once I've picked the categories I want to use, can I merge the ESPs?

A:  Sure, though as of version 1.1 there is an AmuletsShowOnEverything.esp available that will show amulets on all 4 categories, and as of version 1.2, if you're using MO2 and can use the ESPFE versions I've added, there's no need to merge them as they don't take up a slot in your 254 esp limit.

Q:  Don't my replacer mods change these settings to show the amulet if their replacement version can handle it?

A:  Some do, some don't.  Robton's TMB Vanilla Armors, for example, set the amulets to show on a whole bunch of clothing and armors that vanilla Skyrim hides them on (example:  Serana's default armor), but it didn't revert the cases where USLEEP or USSEP set them to not show.  And some replacer mod authors may have chosen to leave amulets turned off even though their model can handle them because of the issues it can cause with male models.  With QUARK, at least you know the tradeoffs for doing that going in.

Q:  So, long story short, this can make all your female players look great wearing amulets with the right replacers, at the cost that some rare men in some specific armors and robes might have clipping issues with the amulets, is that it?

A:  It doesn't necessarily require replacers, as you can see in the screenshots, plenty of vanilla outfits that were set not to show amulets still work fine.  There will be some clipping on some models though, it's unavoidable.... but overall.... yeah, pretty much.

Q:  What's the best place to put these ESP's in the load order?

A:  If you're using Joy of Perspective, place the AmuletsShow plugins right after the 'Joy of Perspective.esp' plugin.  If not, I recommend placing them right after USSEP.  That way, if one of your replacer mods wants to set its own amulet settings, or any other mod needs to change these Armor Addon records for any reason, they can override.

Q:  Will you make a version for oldrim?

A:  Very probably.  Let's give it some time to work out any kinks in the SSE version first though.

Q:  Will QUARK receive further development?

A:  Absolutely.  This initial release sets ALL amulets to show on ALL models.  This is going to work better on some models than others, and better with some amulets and not others.  I will release at some point a "selective" version of each category, which will leave the amulets disabled on the worst offenders with vanilla models, especially for people who like to keep a vanilla style for both males and females.  Reports from YOU indicating which models have the most problems will help the "selective" version become better for everyone.  I will still leave these complete versions up regardless, because even though amulets look awful on vanilla Archmage Robes, you'll still have lots of folks who want the amulet to show on Brelyna in her minidress version.  I also have a dream of making the amulets visible or not by use of an in-game MCM configuration menu on a model-by-model basis, but I don't know nearly enough yet to make that happen or if it's even possible.  This method should work in the meantime.  Enjoy!


CREDITS: 

hexman37 on the TMB Vanilla Armor Replacer mod posts page, for asking about amulets not showing on her minidress novice robes which led to this entire thing
rxkx22 aka Bijin, for providing the lovely models in the screenshots via Bijin Warmaidens and Seranaholic v1.52.
Robton, for providing some of the clothes and armors in the screenshots via his TMB Vanilla Armor Replacer (ported to SSE by me)



My Fallout New Vegas Mods:

Qwinn's Refined New Vegas Redesigned 3

My Skyrim Special Edition mods:

Improved Redbelly Mine Mist Fix
QUASIPC - Qwinn's Unified Automated Self Installing Patch Compendium
QUARK - Qwinn's Ultimate Amulet Restoration Kit
QUSTR - Qwinn's Universal Skin Texture Replacer
Scoped Bows Compatibility Kit
IDRS - Improved Disabled Race Scaling
Critters Ain't Snitches - Animal and Monster Crime Reporting Fix
Interesting NPCs Amalee Customizer (by frogf, port only)
Interesting NPCs Zora Customizer (by frogf, port only)
TMBE Enhanced Body for SSE (by Robton, port only)
TMB Vanilla Armors and Clothes (by Robton, port only)

My Dragon Age Origins mods:

Qwinn's Ultimate Dragon Age Origins Fixpack
Tougher Merchants