This mod adds a version of the VR Playroom from Skyrim VR (The Main Menu Area) as the starting area for Alternate Perspective. The original Start Room is still present and will still need to be accessed to choose your start.  This "Garden of New Beginnings" is a scenic route to the Starting Room. You can choose your starting inventory as you make your way through.

All containers in the Garden are linked to the furniture in the Room. Therefore, if you miss anything, or change your mind, you can easily switch once you get to the room without worrying about having doubles. (Note, the door from the Garden to the Room is intended to be one way. Once you enter the room, you will not see a door to head back.)

In addition, The Garden also features a golden Skyrim Emblem that spins. This is not JUST for decoration. If you activate it (it asks, "Who are you?") it will reopen showracemenu where you can change your race/gender/appearance/name. Perfect for those times when you have a lot of mods to be configured but don't want to reconfigure every time you start a new game. Just create a boilerplate character, wait for your mods to finish loading, configure them, and save again. Now all you have to do is load this boilerplate save, activate the logo and create your actual character.

There is also a logo mounted to the wall in the Room that will also pull up the showracemenu, though, sadly, it doesn't spin. Other changes to the Room include:

• Loose food and drink on the table has been removed and placed in a basket container instead.
• A cupboard has been added to store potions.
• A dresser has been added that, with the appropriate addon, will contain basic bathing supplies.
• A knapsack has been added that, with the appropriate addon, will contain necessary camping supplies.
  

Compatibility:

The following mods which make changes to the starting room are tested to be compatible:

• <Fully Compatible> Version 1.0 of Alternate Perspective - Vanity Mirror and Choose Your Sign Add-Ons by KingstonPrince7
• <Fully Compatible> Version 1.0 of Alternate Perspective - More Sensible Starting Gear Patch by Kape001
• <Compatible if loaded before my mod> Version 1.0 of Abandoned Alternate Perspective by Gnewna, bernardtp (due to edits made in an update of Alternate Perspective)
• <Compatible if loaded before my mod> Version 1.0 of ReClassified Books be Found - AP Edition by Styyx (due to edits made in an update of Alternate Perspective)
• <Compatible with provided patch> Version 1.0 of Alternate Perspective - Starting Item Roleplay Enhancement by Algeddon (Potion Shelf removed due to redundancy)
• <Not Compatible> Any version of Alternate Perspective prior to 3.0 as Scrab made changes to the starting script
  

Addons:

The knapsack added to the starting room will be empty unless one of the following addons and their requirements are installed:

• Alternate Perspective - Start Area Overhaul + Campfire Addon (Requires Campfire - Complete Camping System)
• Alternate Perspective - Start Area Overhaul + Camping CC Addon (Requires the Camping Creation Club Content)
  

Both will also enable a crate near the tent in the Garden linked to the knapsack. In the case of the CC Camping mod, there is a version of the addon requiring an ESM version for compatibility with VR. If you have merged this with other CC mods to save plugin slots, a tutorial has been posted in the comments section explaining how to convert.

The dresser added to the starting room will also be empty unless one of the following addons and their requirements are installed:

• Alternate Perspective - Start Area Overhaul + Bathing in Skyrim Addon (Requires Bathing in Skyrim Special Edition - Unofficial Conversion)
• Alternate Perspective - Start Area Overhaul + Dirt and Blood Addon (Requires Dirt and Blood - Dynamic Visual Effects)
• Alternate Perspective - Start Area Overhaul + Drink Eat Sleep Bathe Addon (Requires Drink Eat Sleep Bathe SE)
• Alternate Perspective - Start Area Overhaul + Keep it Clean Addon (Requires Keep it Clean - A Bathing Mod)
• Alternate Perspective - Start Area Overhaul + Super Simple Bathing Addon (Requires Super Simple Bathing)
  

These will also enable a basket near the "Bathing Beauty" containing basic bathing supplies. In the case of Drink Eat Sleep Bathe, it also prevents the supplies from being added automatically to the player's inventory at the start of the game.

These were all the camping and bathing mods I could find. If you know of any I missed, feel free to post a comment, and I will make an addon to include it.

Frequently Anticipated Questions:

Why do this?

• I liked Alternate Start - Live Another Life's simple approach to alternate starts as opposed to some others, but one has to jump through hoops to get it to work with VR. When Scrab released Alternate Perspective, it was in a similar vein, except "IT just works" in VR as well and has a very good approach to an alternate vanilla start that is also VR friendly. Also, with the number of mods I plan to use in Skyrim VR, I've had to disable the VR Playroom, but wanted to preserve the awe I originally felt when I first loaded up VR. It took me a while, but I finally figured out how to copy the Playroom and change it to also work in SE, and then I found the one thing I needed to change in Alternate Perspective to get the player to spawn there instead of in the room. And I wanted to share it with everyone else.
  

Can you add support for ______ mod?

• Possibly. Give me the link and I'll look into if it could benefit from added support.
  

______ mod edits the starting room too. Is it compatible?

• If all it does is edit the contents of the furniture in the room, then yes, it is compatible. If it moves things around or adds things to the room, it may or may not be compatible. I can take a look and make a patch and/or add it to the above list if necessary.
  

I don't want to go through the Garden every time I start a new game. What can I do?

• There is a button on a pillar near the spinning logo which will skip you right into the start room.
  

Will these take up slots in my load order?

• The patch(es) and addons have the ESL Flag, so in SE/AE, they will not take up a slot. In VR, they will, but they can also safely be merged together to reduce their LoadOrder footprint. The main mod will take up a slot due to limitations of the ESL flag.
  

Can I make a mod or patch for this mod?

• Yes. Why would I say no? This is a mod of a mod, so I have no problem with anyone making a mod of this mod of a mod. Just make sure to give appropriate credit where credit is due.
  

Hey! You only credited Brumbek for the textures, but you used his spinning logo, too! What gives?

• Simple, I didn't use his spinning logo. His logo is an edit of the Main Menu logo and does not spin on its own in the game world (I tried). In addition, his has no collision as it is not needed in the menu and so does not work as an activator. What I did is add collision to copy of the LoadingScreenLogo and attached a papyrus script to make it spin in game.
  

Hey! You didn't give any credit for your Bath Basket and Camping Crate! Thief!!!

• Calm down. There is a reason for this. I put these two assets together myself. Mixing collision from smallcrate02 with various items to create a couple static objects with collision to be used as activators. Originally, I was going to point to, and reference, meshes in the supported mods in my addons, but they have collisions that allow you to pick them up which has the potential for issues, so I made new ones. I only used NIFScope and just combined vanilla meshes together to get the desired aesthetic.
  

Future Plans:

This mod is technically complete as is. It does everything it needs to do, but I do have a few plans for version 2.0.
I want to add an NPC guide/caretaker to the garden to help explain things in game. To do this, I also need to make sure the NavMesh is correct as I just copied it from Skyrim VR and since it was originally meant to be the menu screen, I expect some errors. I will also have to create the character and voice her which will take some time. I also want to add a start option to the Messenger's list related to the new NPC.

In the meantime, if anyone finds any bugs/issues or has suggestions for improvements, I'm all ears, but no guarantees. (Except the bugfixes. I will take care of those)

Special Thanks:
Scrabx3 - for making the mod Alternate Perspective
thomaspan977 - for pointing out an issue with SE. Now this mod is truly SE/AE + VR compatible.
ssuamier and yndrelbosch - for reporting an issue with version 1.2.
Gardion - for finding the cause of the issue with version 1.2.