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Spell Crafting

Submitted by Nalacar on

Greetings All,

Since I'm currently working on Spell Crafting for Skyblivion, I decided it would be a good idea to create a thread where people can make suggestions for how they would like Spell Crafting to look and behave in Skyblivion. You can make suggestions, but there is no guarantee I can do what you suggest. Really I'd just like to get ideas and a feel for what the people want.

I can think of two ways for spell crafting to be accomplished in the Skyrim engine, outlined below.

Method 1 - Spell Crafting for Skyrim  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoTQHZE5Fbg
The recent update to this mod was pointed out to me. I actually like this better than what I was doing appearance wise. It appears this mod codes in every possible effect that can be used for spell creation. This makes choosing effects within the spell creation much more intuitive, but limits possible effects to whatever the creator coded into it. I don't know if Skyblivion will be allowed to use his file yet. But with what I have done already, recreating it with Oblivion spells wouldn't be that difficult.

Method 2 - My version, currently still alpha - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEJW14XaF7g&feature=youtu.be
T
hat's just a quick video I made awhile back to show what I was attempting. This only allows the user to craft spells with the current spells they know. The benefit is that this will work with just about any spell including spells added from mods, no special coding required. The downside is you can only create effects at the casting range you currently know them (i.e. if you know heal self, you can't create heal other; though there may be a workaround for this). This was meant to be similar to Oblivion where you had to know a spell with the effect you wanted to create, but you could create it at any range. It also makes choosing the effects to apply less immersive imo. 

Let me just say there is nothing I can do about the UI. It is what it is at this point, I can't create a custom one. That being said, how things are laid out and how the menu's connect is totally up in the air.

So my question to the people is, what do you want? Do you want me to recreate the Spell Crafting for Skyrim mod with the Oblivion spells hard coded in? Essentially the same mod with different spell effects? Is there a different approach you would take to the menu system? Something you noticed in either video that you love or hate?

 

Karma: 0 (0 votes)

I prefer your method.

Karma: 0 (0 votes)

I quite like your mod, it's ability to work with other modded-in spells helps to establish a "vanilla" Oblivion that other mod makers can more easily edit and tweak once we're at that stage of development. Also, only being able to work with spells you know just makes more sense to me from an in-world perspective. From your example of the "heal self" and "heal others" spells having to be learned seperately, keep in mind that entire spellbooks need to be read to learn these spells, meaning that behind the scenes, casting spells is implied to be far more complex than the player knows. The difference between casting a spell on another or keeping that magical energy around the characters may be massively complex in universe. Mages are scholars after all [External image]

Karma: 1 (1 votes)

Hi!

My name is Piotrmil, and I am the co-author of the SpellCrafting for Skyrim mod, originally created by Tai-Chi-Kid. The Brodual's video you posted is quite old, and it was made just before I made a huge update to that mod, including a spell-crafting plugin by Grimy. From what I can see the mod by Nelacar (with whom I tried to contact, up to no avail), does exactly the same thing as mine, i.e stores the spells somewhere in the scripts, and then fires them at the same time. My mod does that, and thanks to grimy's plugin, much more, since it creates a proper spell (which need to be refreshed, though).

My mod is still being updated, and I am adding more and more compatibility features so that it could be added to a mod like Skyblivion without too much hassle. 

If you'd like me to cooperate on that project, I'd be glad an honoured.

Karma: 2 (2 votes)