SKYRIMLE Immersive Children - child mortality and burial and animation fixes (by GarlantheGreat)

[baronaatista]

Immersive Children (by GarlantheGreat)

 

The author makes a pretty convincing argument on why to use this instead of Non-Essential Children on the mod page.

 

 

 

4. An Argument Against Using Other Killable Children Mods (Especially Non-Essential Children)

If you are still unconvinced that my mod should be used over other killable children mods, I will attempt to convince you of that here and now. Consider the mod Non-Essential Children (NEC). It is currently the most popular killable children mod on the Nexus with around 13,600 endorsements, 160,200 unique downloads, and 309,000 total downloads (as of 5/16/17). This mod is perhaps the current standard of killable children mods. I have a wish to beat out NEC for I believe that my mod does what NEC does and MORE. Why should you use my mod over NEC? Well, aside from my explanation of common issues with killable children mods in this mod page's "Aren't there already a bunch of killable children mods out there?" section (which you should read if you didn't), I have an irrefutable argument; NEC has a major child behavior issue. What kind of issue? Well, take a look at the image below:
 

If you don't get it, I'll explicitly explain it. Lucia is currently assuming a sandboxing AI. She is walking around at that moment. She will continue to do that behavior all day until she assumes a different AI package. What's missing from her behavior? The picture tells all. She's not sitting at one of the benches, something her sandboxing AI should have allowed and made her do. This is not the only case of this strange behavior. EVERY vanilla child in the game and EVERY vanilla race child added by mods such as Cutting Room Floor and Inconsequential NPCs will assume this broken sandboxing behavior. This is what happens with NEC installed. 

Why does NEC do this? To explain this, let's just use the above image as an example. You see, all furniture objects in the game, such as those benches you see, are associated with furniture records that you can take a look at in the Creation Kit. Each furniture record has something called an "Interaction Keyword"; this keyword tells the game that the associated furniture can ONLY be used by actors with the same keyword as the Interaction Keyword. This is why dragons can perch onto buildings and humans can use crafting stations and furniture, such as those benches above. By the way, those benches are associated with the bench furniture record that has the Interaction Keyword of "ActorTypeNPC;" only actors with the ActorTypeNPC keyword can use that bench. Are you following the logic? In the vanilla game, all the child races have the ActorTypeNPC keyword, allowing all actors of those races to use the bench object. However, with NEC installed, ActorTypeNPC was removed from all the child races in order to prevent child size-scaling from using objects such as crafting stations. This also prevented children from using furniture they're SUPPOSED to use, such as those benches. Whether this was unintentional or not on the part of the mod author is beyond me. What perplexes me even more however is the acceptance of this major behavior issue, seeing as how this mod is currently the most popular killable children mod.

Now take a gander at Lucia's behavior with my mod Immersive Children installed:
 

My mod restores child animations such as unique child-sitting animations by not only NOT removing the essential ActorTypeNPC keyword from child races, but it also edits the idle animation records associated with children by changing the vanilla IsChild condition to a condition checking for the actor having a keyword that I have created, "IsChildRace." The keyword was added to all the child races in order to simulate the "IsChild" condition. This is the kind of thing that was not done with the previous killable children mods; ALL those mods caused those unique and dedicated child animations to cease functioning, simply because the "IsChild" condition became obsolete as an effect of unchecking the child flag from vanilla child races. Such a simple flag controls much of vanilla child behavior, and most people don't even realize it. My mod fortunately fixes that issue, something I like to call "animation restoration."

Have I convinced you by now? Still no? Well, just go ahead and take a look at the next two pictures so that I can drive the point home:
 

 

 

However it's noted there's an issue with Immersive Citizens, which apparently adds an AI package to children that doesn't work with his fixes.

 

I'm unsure if the combination of ICAIO and NEC is a working combination?  I've been reading a fair amount about these issues with children distorting to use certain objects if their flags are set incorrectly, but I've never seen it in-game and played with ICAIO/NEC for quite a while.

Edited May 25, 2017 by Nebulous112
Added link in post and author in title

[iMACobra]

NEC prevented children from using any "adult-only" furniture. They couldn't even sit in chairs anymore because they had their ActorTypeNPC keyword removed from their races and had the new "ActorTypeChild" keyword added to prevent them from using furniture, idle markers, and crafting stations that had the RaceToScale function so they didn't unrealistically grow. The ActorTypeNPC was a critical Interaction Keyword associated with the objects children couldn't used anymore because NEC removed it from their races.

[TechAngel85]

That issue with NEC had apparently been fixed.

[Shadriss]

So this mod fixes an issue with NEC that has already been fixed? No offense meant to the author, as it's obvious he put a lot of passion and work into this, but as NEC hasn't updated in any significant way in quite some time, I have to wonder what version of it he based his write-up on and, more specifically, how long ago he acquired it.

[TechAngel85]

This is my bad guys. That issue was never fixed in NEC. It was actually this mod that I was thinking of.    Carry on. Carry on.

[iMACobra]

So this mod fixes an issue with NEC that has already been fixed? No offense meant to the author, as it's obvious he put a lot of passion and work into this, but as NEC hasn't updated in any significant way in quite some time, I have to wonder what version of it he based his write-up on and, more specifically, how long ago he acquired it.

Immersive Children fixes the problems that Non-Essential Children and past killable children mods introduced: disabling child animations that required the IsChild condition. Disabling the child flag (what the IsChild condition is dependent on) in the child races prevented unique Hearthfire child animations from playing such as girls playing with dolls, laying on the floor and kicking their feet in the back, pouting when being told to do something they don't want to do, kneeling, etc.

 

By disabling the child flag, past killable children mods allowed children to use "adult-only" furniture, idles, and crafting stations which caused them to grow because of the RaceToScale function. Non-Essential Children prevented this size-scaling by preventing them from using MOST furniture and crafting stations but also unintentionally caused them to not be able to use chairs AT ALL so if you ever played with Non-Essential Children on and watched the children during the day, say for example Lucia, she'd never sit down on the benches around the Gildergreen because the ActorTypeNPC, which furniture are dependent on as an Interaction Keyword, was removed from the child races.

 

TechAngel just didn't specify which mod they were referring to.

[Nebulous112]

I've edited the OP to add a link to the mod in the post and the author's name in the title.

[baronaatista]

Damn, apologies on the oversight with the post.

 

Sounds like this is a good replacement for NEC?  Pending perhaps a patch with ICAIO?  The author says he intends to make one, pending approval from Shurah.

[Shadriss]

This is my bad guys. That issue was never fixed in NEC. It was actually this mod that I was thinking of.    Carry on. Carry on.

TechAngel just didn't specify which mod they were referring to.

Yeah - I got that. *shrug* Mod confusion - another Skyrim psychosis we all suffer from. :)

 

 

Sounds like this is a good replacement for NEC?  Pending perhaps a patch with ICAIO?  The author says he intends to make one, pending approval from Shurah.

Based on the *revised* information (*glare at Tech*), I'd say it's worth a look once ICAIO compatibility is fixed. Until then...

Edited May 27, 2017 by Shadriss

[Shadriss]

In further news here:

 

As of yesterday, he is working on a Skyproc Patcher to take care of compatibility issues. From what I gather in the description and comments pages, the ICAIO incompatibility is more of an immersion breaker than a game breaker, in that kids using certain pieces of equipment or items in their areas will 'stretch' their heights so that they can use then. It's an odd behavior to be certain, but an understandable one based on what I've read. If the Patcher works as he hopes, we may be able to shift over to testing of this in relatively short order.

[Shadriss]

In further further news:

 

Skyproc Patcher is complete (and mostly working, though the author isn't quite satisfied with it completely).

Patch for ICAIO is now up.

 

Recommend commencing testing.

 

EDIT: Disregard - the Skyproc Patcher is trying to load up BOSS, and doesn't recognize USLEEP as a master even when present. Still a little ways to go yet, it seems.

Edited June 5, 2017 by Shadriss

[Shadriss]

In Yet More News:

 

While there is work to be done on the patcher, I can now confirm that the mod does work as advertised. There is a workaround that has to be done, but it's not too hard to do, and the results are as advertised. Not only did Lucia sit for the first time in recent memory, so did both of Balfruuf's kids up in Dragonsreach.

 

The patcher issues I listed above still apply, but he has also now posted a workaround for the second issue, one of which is specific to MO. That workaround can be found here, and the issue with the patcher looking for BOSS can be dealt with by simply not giving it a location for that file and telling it to patch anyhow.

 

Needless to say, I have this in and working (so far) and will continue to report anything I see that relates.

[iMACobra]

In Yet More News:

 

While there is work to be done on the patcher, I can now confirm that the mod does work as advertised. There is a workaround that has to be done, but it's not too hard to do, and the results are as advertised. Not only did Lucia sit for the first time in recent memory, so did both of Balfruuf's kids up in Dragonsreach.

 

The patcher issues I listed above still apply, but he has also now posted a workaround for the second issue, one of which is specific to MO. That workaround can be found here, and the issue with the patcher looking for BOSS can be dealt with by simply not giving it a location for that file and telling it to patch anyhow.

 

Needless to say, I have this in and working (so far) and will continue to report anything I see that relates.

The patcher is now fixed of the BOSS and USLEEP issues. When adding new mods with custom NPC races, the patch must be moved to the bottom or deleted in order for it to account for any new plugins.

 

Also:

[Shadriss]

Not sure what the picture is supposed to show, as everything I get from it is what he'd already talked about in his mod description. Am I missing something?

[iMACobra]

Sorry, please ignore that.