We’re Live!

Daltonious Sul is now available for the public!

Get him on the Skyrim Nexus!

Get him on the Steam Workshop!

 

Day 23: Bug Fixes

See that hole? In the wall? The gray gunk? That’s a bug. A filthy, rotten, no good very bad bug. It’s what I spent my day fixing.

When creating a video game, there will be problems. Fixing a problem creates even more problems, and so on. It’s frustrating, and it takes a lot of time. Wall glitches like the one shown are easy to fix, simply move the walls closer together. Then shift all the other walls as well in order to stop other holes from popping up. It’s an incredibly long process, but it’s fixable thank goodness.

Timeline:

8-3: Bug fixes

Time: 7 hours

Day 22: Goodness, I missed a day

Sunday: Yesterday I spent a great long while preparing  dialogue for a voice actor who offered to help out. I mostly spent the day attempting to learn how to complete a cut scene, a sort of mini movie in game. It… didn’t work out. Skyrim uses it’s own coding script known as Papyrus in order to program. I lack the time to master it (or even learn it) and, sadly, I need knowledge of it in order to make a cut scene. Luckily, there’s other ways to implement a voice.

Monday (Today): My voice actor read all of her lines. I found that having a separate actor is AMAZING. She was able to record her lines while I ran the computer, cutting down clicking noise in recordings. She also gave small criticisms on silly lines, making the mod that much better. I also spent time adding more dialogue for Sul to say while doing nothing. He had a bad habit of repeating the same gobbily-gook over and over again until my ears bled. I also spent some time fixing glitches.

Timeline, Sunday:

Failing horribly at cut scene lessons: 9-12

Adding lines for my wonderful voice actor: 4-7

Total: 6 Hours

Timeline, Today

Marching in parade: 8:30 – 11

Recording lines: 11-2

Adding lines for Sul: 4-6

Total time: 8 Hours

Day 20: When I Get Where I’m Going…

Or how about, “when I know where I’m going.”  It took all day, but now players may use a quest! The mod could be released as is, but there’s so much to be added…

Timeline:

8-2: Quest

6-8: Testing Sul

Total Time: 8 Hours. Eh.

Day 13: The Dungeon is Complete

Today a new race was created. Robot Argonians who lack blood and make metal clashes whenever you hit them. This is in order to keep the material in the mod PG-13. They work great, but they will forever be known as bandits due to technical limitations.

Today I had a friend run through the dungeon, a tester. The mod is presently in “alpha” meaning that there is still a ton of main features to add. The alpha test pointed out some flaws that I needed to fix. But for now, the dungeon is complete.

Timeline

7-2: Creating new race, finishing dungeon

Day 12: The Floor is No Longer Lava

See all that red stuff? That, my dear fellows, is Navmesh. Navigation mesh is, essentially, a map for computer controlled characters. It allows them to figure out where they may or may not move. Say, you don’t want a follower running into a chair. Well, when setting navigation mesh, go around the chair. By doing so, the chair is taken out of the equation. Navigation mesh also allows NPC’s to follow more specific paths, avoid walking off of mountains, etc.  It also keeps NPC’s from preforming odd maneuvers such as hiking a mountain or dancing all over a grouping of tables. The player character can do many things, but the artificial intelligence running NPC’s is limited. However, this intelligence will make a follower or companion follow the player using the same path he took. Navigation mesh keeps the NPC’s from attempting maneuvers that their little brains couldn’t actually handle.

Navmeshing takes a very, very long time. Imagine building your house, then needing to put in an EXTREMELY precise carpet that can’t be covered by any objects. NOTHING can be put on top of this carpet, unless you want your guests to run into it. So, you would get out your scissors, and start cutting away. Far more difficult than simply laying down the carpet THEN furnishing the joint.

Timeline:

7-12: Glitch fixing

12-3: Errands

3- 7: Nav meshing, more glitch fixing.

Total work time: 9 hours. Good job!

Bonus photo: My navmesh testing buddy, Stenvar!

Poor Stenvar .He crashed into tons of tables before I fixed the navmesh. His shins must be a wreck.