Mining Animation Issues

[Shadriss]

I recently pared down a number of mods from my overgrowing list, and started a new run. The only mods I have that affect animations (that I am aware of...) are from STEP recommended mods, and thus, I was surprised to find this happen three separate times now. Specifically:

 

Here I am, in Embershard Mine. Bandits lie dead around me, mute testament to how much of a bad idea it is to mess with me in the dark, and I think to myself hey, I need more iron ingots. So I step up to the mine, wield my mighty pickaxe (fine), and hit the E button... and just stand there. The game puts all my weapons away, swaps to third person, and then I stand there, doing nothing. OK... odd. I try to move around, and fine I can do this... in a full 360 degree fashion. IE, the camera stays at the same angle, and as I move around, the character itself changes angles to match my keystrokes. I cannot, however, go back to first person view... or get out my weapons... or, really, much of anything else.

 

It's fairly obvious it's hanging on an animation, though why that would be is the question. Since I only removed mods in my recent purge, and did not add any in, I find it hard to believe it to be a mod incompatibiltly issue. For reference, I have AV, EBD, and DSR as Proccer patches, run through SUM, a mostly complete STEP lineup, and a minor collection of other mods that, if really needed, I can type in here later. FNIS was run on at least three separate occasions while I was troubleshooting, so I am fairly sure that is not an issue either.

 

Thoughts on where or how to begin troubleshooting this?

[Shadriss]

OK - apparently the solution is just to get rid of OBIS and SIC. Between those two, problem seems to go away. SOLVED.

 

Now to find a way to make the interior a small migde brighter... :)

 

Thanks all for the assist.

[CovertSlinky]

Could CCO be causing a conflict somehow, I know it doesn't have it's own animations, but it does function with the vanilla animations for mining, and if I am not mistaking the MCM menu for CCO has options to tweak the mining functionality. Maybe it isn't actually an animation root cause, as maybe it's a script issue. Perhaps CCO isn't calling the proper script for the mining animation to begin. Just a thought.

[redirishlord]

Interesting, I have encountered something similar, but assumed my followers were crowding me & just mined manually. I have STEP Extended with EBD and DSR through their own skyproc patchers (EBD without face/texture replacer functions with this profile).

 

* Looking in TES5Edit I see that the CCO-SIC patch is winning all conflicts for Activator/MineOre(various) which includes MineOreScript.

Edited August 11, 2014 by redirishlord

[Shadriss]

... Didn't know there was a conflict between CCO and SIC. I'll get that patch and see if the issue vanishes...

[DoubleYou]

Press the S button to back out of the animation (or whatever your move backward button is). I've sometimes found this to be a random glitch, although I haven't experienced this recently.

[redirishlord]

I'm pretty sure it's occurring (for me) due to insufficient space &/or follower sandboxing fighting for use of the ore vein, as you said backing out of the animation & then equipping my pickaxe and striking the ore vein until it gives up the goods works every time.

[Shadriss]

Press the S button to back out of the animation (or whatever your move backward button is). I've sometimes found this to be a random glitch, although I haven't experienced this recently.

As noted earlier, I can freely move my character after attempting to mine the nodes... I just can't do anything else. No menus, no hotkeys, no nothing. I can't even move the camera angles.

 

I'm pretty sure it's occurring (for me) due to insufficient space &/or follower sandboxing fighting for use of the ore vein, as you said backing out of the animation & then equipping my pickaxe and striking the ore vein until it gives up the goods works every time.

No followers involved... I hate the things, honestly, since followers can't sneak for crap and feel a need to attack on sight, as opposed to bypassing or setting up elsewhere for a better angle. I usually play as an archer/sniper, and followers just get in the way.

 

Still evaluating the change (if any) that adding in the SIC/CCO patch made. I'm having to fight my TV/ENB settings, since I just added ELFX 2.0 into the mix instead of Relighting Skyrim, and it's now so dark that I can't see ANYTHING in the Helgen start dungeon. Like, you know... the dead mage in the cage in the torture room? Can't see him. At all. That part of the room is totally black. So until I get that done, I have to shelve this problem.

[redirishlord]

"... No followers involved... I hate the things, honestly, since followers can't sneak for crap and feel a need to attack on sight, as opposed to bypassing or setting up elsewhere for a better angle. I usually play as an archer/sniper, and followers just get in the way..."

 

Better Stealth AI by Kryptopyr which pairs nicely with the various combat styles & teachable spells from Amazing Follower Tweaks by Dheuster, just sayin'.

Add Follower Commentary Overhaul by terzaerian for more vanilla dialog, or pair with the excellent Vilja companion by Emma & team for interactive dialog between Vilja (with her awesome scandanavian acccent) and vanilla followers like Lydia and the rest.

 

As for your lighting "issue" (feature?), Starting Spell Choice by AliTheLord allows you to select 1 (or none) spell from each school (Alteration = Candlelight, instead of Oakflesh or None). It would mean a quick restart, but if you're mid Helgen escape not that big a deal.

 

>>> Re- your original issue, just had exactly what you described, no ability to leave 3rd person or open menu. I'll use my pickaxe as a weapon against ore veins until I find a proper solution to the bug/conflict.

Edited August 13, 2014 by redirishlord

[Halde]

I think this issue can happen when something script-heavy occour.

I used(and currently am using) Dragon Combat Overhaul. With this mod, dragons generate shockwaves when they land and take off, and they have a tail move that also causes it. 1 time so far, I got trapped in the "fall" animation. After I got up, I walked around with a camera similar the "cutscene" view from when I was falling. It's the same sort of view that occour when you are mining.

Not to say that this will happen at random, it's most definitely a problem with whatever the other commenters mentioned.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Halde

[redirishlord]

Good point, I should do a script latency check (thanks Convenient Horses for including that) to see if I'm taxing my papyrus resources before activating the mining animation.

[Shadriss]

Good point, I should do a script latency check (thanks Convenient Horses for including that) to see if I'm taxing my papyrus resources before activating the mining animation.

I'll have to look into this as well, but given that this didn't start until after I REMOVED items from my mod list, it's more likely an incompatibility on my end than a script load issue. ESPECIALLY in Embershard, when I've barely done anything. Heck, I removed Frostfall from my mod load order, and it's a fairly heavy script load. Never had the problem prior, as I mentioned.

 

 

"... No followers involved... I hate the things, honestly, since followers can't sneak for crap and feel a need to attack on sight, as opposed to bypassing or setting up elsewhere for a better angle. I usually play as an archer/sniper, and followers just get in the way..."

 

Better Stealth AI by Kryptopyr which pairs nicely with the various combat styles & teachable spells from Amazing Follower Tweaks by Dheuster, just sayin'.

Add Follower Commentary Overhaul by terzaerian for more vanilla dialog, or pair with the excellent Vilja companion by Emma & team for interactive dialog between Vilja (with her awesome scandanavian acccent) and vanilla followers like Lydia and the rest.

 

As for your lighting "issue" (feature?), Starting Spell Choice by AliTheLord allows you to select 1 (or none) spell from each school (Alteration = Candlelight, instead of Oakflesh or None). It would mean a quick restart, but if you're mid Helgen escape not that big a deal.

 

>>> Re- your original issue, just had exactly what you described, no ability to leave 3rd person or open menu. I'll use my pickaxe as a weapon against ore veins until I find a proper solution to the bug/conflict.

 

RE: Followers

I just have no use for them. Period. Even if all the other issues weren't there, I just don't find them useful. Unless there is a mod that keeps them from fouling my bow shots from range while they attack other NPCs, it is very unlikely that I will change my mind on this stance.

 

RE:Lighting (Or Lack Thereof)

While interesting workarounds, they are just that - workarounds. Prior to installing the 2.0 ELFX, it was dark, but I could see well enough to navigate the interior cells and dungeons. Now, it's pitch-black, and that's with in-game gamma maxed out. I'm also using Vividian - Vivid, and I think the two of them combined are what are making it overly dark. Trying to get the shader settings to 'lighten up' a little, but so far, with no ENB setting documentation that I've been able to coax out of Google so far, it's a lot of guessing and assumptions. And we all know how painful THOSE can be.

 

Appreciate the feedback so far though - just hoping I'll be in a position to start testing the actual fix soon... assuming (AGHH!) that it even is one.

 

Edit: One thing I DID add that may be an issue, or so I've heard... OBIS has a bunch of mixed reviews. I know Neo uses it in his SRLE lineup... any comments regarding that?

Edited August 13, 2014 by Shadriss

[redirishlord]

"RE: Followers

I just have no use for them. Period. Even if all the other issues weren't there, I just don't find them useful. Unless there is a mod that keeps them from fouling my bow shots from range while they attack other NPCs, it is very unlikely that I will change my mind on this stance."

Better Stealth AI keeps them from initiating combat until you do, AFT lets you set them to follow near or far and to fight as "archer", "magic only", etc. you can also teach them spells you know (which means you can more or less control their spell arsenal which informs their magic tactics, if they just know lightning bolt their attack routine should be predictable). Anyways, just suggestions, it can be fun to try new things (and entertaining to hear banter within your group & between them and other npcs in town, adds immersion).

 

"RE:Lighting (Or Lack Thereof)

... Trying to get the shader settings to 'lighten up' a little, but so far, with no ENB setting documentation that I've been able to coax out of Google so far, it's a lot of guessing and assumptions. And we all know how painful THOSE can be."

 

Consider using the in game enb gui to set interior ambient lighting values to a higher level (unfortunately the game doesn't distinguish between dungeons and urban interiors, but that's probably more an issue when decreasing illumination not increasing it). You will be able to see better, but won't draw enemies with a light source . Another approach (if you dig the realistic darkness) would be to use nightvision, I use the mod Hunterborn (without Frostfall or a Needs mod to alleviate script load) which allows me to create a nightvision necklace from animal bones, very handy.

 

Re- OBIS: I use OBIS & OBIS Redone and really enjoy the combo. Redone adds several custom themed loadouts to the OBIS spawns that I think give the bandits a lot of immersive depth. I keep the spawn settings reasonable (at least so far on a new game, just hit level 20) +1 bandit per spawn & max 3 additional bandits per cell. I think numbers wise that's where I want it, for additional difficulty at higher levels I'll probably just use Deadly Monsters to buff "humanoids" further (also allows modification of animals, creatures, undead by category with values for H/M/S, armor, magic resist, melee damage, magic damage).

[Shadriss]

I've been using the in-game UI... and the settings use the same names as in the INI file, which do little to tell me exactly what does what, and how the numbers affect it (IE This setting affects this light level, and lowering the number gives brighter results). Trial and error, as I said.

 

Have Deadly Monsters installed (mostly because it came with Deadly Overgrown Lizards) though I haven't changed any of it's settings, since I want to get a feel for what Dynamic Difficulty does for the game. All that said... yeah, we're getting wildly off topic. :)

[redirishlord]

Oh, I meant the enb gui (shift+enter), it has settings for;

[ENVIRONMENT]

AmbientLightingIntensityInteriorDay=0.52AmbientLightingIntensityInteriorNight=0.25

 

Those should allow you to brighten / darken to taste. The values save to your enbseries.ini file. The default brightness slider isn't going to help much, and affects all areas indiscrimately. You're running an enb preset with ELFX, yes?

[Shadriss]

Vividian - VIVID with the new version of ELFX, yes. FAR darker than the old one, never mind the Relighting Skyrim mod. And those are the ones I meant as well. Those may be in a different part of the box than I was looking though - I was messing around with settings that deal with, as far as I can tell, the exposure levels and eye adjustment. Only ones I've found to this point, which just makes the need for a full comprehensive guide of what settings are where even more useful.

 

EDIT: Found the ones you refer to. The ENB currently has the interior cells set to intensity .95 and a curve of 1.0... that's after I altered them slightly to see if they made any difference. With the game gamma set to mid-range, it's still darker than a Sith's soul. Any input as to how these settings actually work?

Edited August 14, 2014 by Shadriss