Difference between revisions of "A beginner's guide, lesson 6 - Quest Dialogue"

You can of course create an NPC from scratch. If you right click in the Actor section of the object menu and select NEW a new NPC interface pops up. However, I cannot see any good reason to do this, and since you will have to add every aspect of your NEW NPC, including [[animation]]s, there are many good reasons not to do this.  

It is far easier to edit an existing NPC. We want Vilanus to be an Imperial, so let's select an existing NPC who is an imperial. We don't actually have to choose an Imperial, but it saves us a job. Avoid NPCs with scripts attached. Again, you can do so but you will need to remove the script which is an extra job. I usually look for NPCs who have either a 1 or a 0, preferably a 0, in the user column. This means they are hardly used in the game. Let's chose the actor called TestORMale as our base.  

We will place our NPC in the Foyer of the Imperial Hotel in the Talos District. Again this is an arbitrary choice, based on the fact that Taverns, Inns, and hotels contain public spaces which are ideal for casual contacts. We could of course if we wished to use this NPC again build him a house or office to work from.  

First alter the NPCs ID to '''BGVilanusVilla''' and the name to '''Vilanus Villa'''.  

We tend to prefix all items added by a mod with a suitable prefix, like BG or BGM. This help avoid any conflicts, in the unlikely event that another mod adds a character called Vilanus Villa.

This character is classed as a Barbarian. The actual class of a NPC will only affect auto generated statistics and has little bearing on the interaction between PC and NPC. However, it is an easy job to change this, using the drop down list under class.

We will look at levels later in these tutorial for now leave it at level 8. The levelness of a character is only really relevant in action sequences.  

For now we want to get rid of all existing AI packages. We are deleting the whole AI because it makes initial play testing much easier. Without these AI's the guy will stay put and we don't want have to walk half way across Tamriel to find him when we test the mod.

Delete all the AI packages using right-click delete. (This actually removes from this from the list rather than delete the whole AI package from the CS).

We can also alter the inventory if we wish. Again by careful pre-selection we can save ourselves a job. Remember to scroll across the information in the object window to select suitable characters that match your requirements as closely as possible, to reduce how much work you need to do.

We want Vilanus to be a rich merchant so he should have some decent clothes, and TestORmale fit's the bill. We should also remove any weapons and armor from him as he is supposed to be a lawyer. (Note the Hammer may show up in the render window until you reload the window, but will not show up in the game.  

Finally you can play around with the face to get the look you want. For now don't spend too long. Use the Auto generator to get a rough look. You can tidy this up in the polishing phase.

Exit and create a new form by saying yes. We now have a brand new NPC. We will have to do some work on him later, but he is in the game.