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About this mod
Use various NPC-only animation markers present throughout the game, for immersion or taking screenshots.
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
This mod should be considered a BETA release.
1.1 UPDATE
A few marker changes, and support for the new animation markers from Shattered Space. See the stickied comment in the posts tab for details.
1.1A is a minor update that changes a couple of marker volume sizes for better compatibility with Non-lethal Framework.
INTRODUCTION
You've probably seen NPCs in the game repairing something, working out, leaning on a desk, or performing any number of animations. Most of these use a kind of invisible furniture, usable by NPCs (even your current follower, sometimes) but not usable by the player. This mod changes that, so many of those markers can now be interacted with and used just like you would use a chair. It can make for a nice bit of added immersion, and of course can also be useful for screenshots.
This was originally planned to be part of Command NPCs until I decided to split them, as you can command your followers to use any unowned markers. As you can see in the demo video, the Incapacificator 3000 can also be useful to "encourage" NPCs to leave a marker that you want to use yourself.
Making changes like this to base game objects in the world isn't without caveats, and I'll get to those below. There are pros and cons to this approach versus (for example) using a script-based solution to spawn an animation marker, have the player use it then remove it when they're done - there are already other mods like that on this site. The approach I've gone for here is very simple. It's (almost) all base object overrides where I've changed the mesh used and added a few attributes here and there. The main benefits are that this mod can be enabled and disabled at will (again, more on that below) and that your followers can also use these markers.For advanced users, I've added an article with videos to demonstrate some console commands that can be useful: Useful console commands for UAM
USING MARKERS
This mod makes two kinds of 'furniture' usable by the player, existing furniture items that already have a visible model but weren't interactable (like surgical beds, laptops, exercise equipment, etc.) and invisible markers that might be placed anywhere. The interaction box for most invisible markers is around desk height and below, so make sure you're looking slightly downwards when looking for a marker to use. If you've used the toilet on the Frontier then you've already seen an example of such a marker, it uses one of the same invisible trigger volume meshes that I've used in this mod.
Invisible markers that are out in the open or might be mistaken for a vanilla game interaction have [Animation] appended to their name, to avoid confusion, such as Use welder [Animation]. Some will indicate that NPCs will use a different animation to the player, like Chair [Read tablet, NPC] - this is saying that the player character will treat this as a normal chair, but NPCs (inc. followers) will also read a tablet if they use it. Some rare markers that say [Player Only] can only be used by the player, NPCs cannot use them.
Below the name of the marker you'll see the usual activation button prompt. There's a special case to be aware of here: if the prompt says NOT FIRST PERSON SAFE this means that you should switch to third person view before attempting to use that marker. This is usually because there's no animated exit from that marker, and the view cannot be switched between first and third person while using it. If you use one of these while in first person, you'll be unable to switch to third person after leaving the marker. If that happens, just find any nearby chair, sit in it and then stand up again, that will fix it.
FINDING MARKERS
This is best shown in the demo video, but you can use your scanner to find the location of animation markers. They won't highlight, but the name will appear on the right and you can use that to hone in on them. I realize this isn't ideal, I was hoping to find a material that highlights in the scanner but is invisible normally, but unfortunately I was unable to, so this is what we've got.
If you're using Command NPCs to order someone to use a marker, they will be unable to use any that are marked as "owned" by another NPC or faction. These are shown in the scanner by the red stolen icon:
The player can still use these. One of the few cell edits I've made in the mod is to remove the ownership from the dance and workout markers/equipment at Paradiso (The gym on the 5th floor, and the dance markers by the stage at the rooftop bar) so you can use them with your follower. The usual Command NPCs caveats apply, pathing to certain markers may be impossible for followers, it's best to use Sarah or Barrett if you want voiced feedback for them not being able to use something.
PLUGIN VERSIONS
You'll notice that there's a variant of the mod with three plugin versions, switchable with a Windows batch file, SwitchUsableMarkers.cmd.
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The first of these ("normal") is the same as the main mod.
The second ("vanilla") is an attempt not to disrupt load orders when this mod is disabled; in this version, all invisible markers have their regular, non-interactable model. This retains the other changes the mod makes (i.e. to keywords, ownership, and any markers that have been moved) and furniture with a visible model can still be used. The idea is to switch to this version if a marker is obscuring something you need to interact with, or if you like just stay on this version until you want to use an invisible marker, if you don't want them active in your game all the time. I'll return to this in caveats below.
The third version ("red tile") makes all supported invisible animation markers visible, shown with a red tile on the floor. This is the easiest way to check where any markers are in a given area. This also allows you to pick markers by clicking on them in the console, just as you would with any other static or piece of furniture. As shown in the demo video, this is useful for disabling markers that you don't want as otherwise NPCs on your ship or at your outpost might still try to path to them. If you've disabled vanilla items on your ship like for example navigation tables, it's likely that there will be associated animation markers left behind; now you can remove them.
There is also a Shattered Space plugin; as of version 1.1 this now includes the new Shattered Space animations (like the groat knife prayer) and moves a few markers that would have obstructed things. There are multi and single plugin versions of the Shattered Space addon as with the main plugin, the SwitchUsableMarkers batch file from the main multi plugin will also switch Shattered Space plugin versions.
CAVEATS
There are two possible issues that you can run into when using this mod, both of which I've spent quite a lot of time trying to mitigate. The first is when a marker obscures something else that you want to pick up. You can see this for yourself in the vanilla game actually, drop something small like a tablet on top of the toilet seat in the Frontier and you won't be able to pick it up again as it's now within the toilet activation volume. You can try different angles, crouching etc. and often find a way to pick up whatever item it is, but sometimes it will be unavoidably obscured. That's why the vanilla version exists in optional files, and also why I split this plugin from Command NPCs in the first place. If you can't find an angle and/or use something else to knock the item you want out of an obscuring activation volume, you can switch to the other version of the mod (or just disable the mod for the time-being) and continue without any problem.
The second issue occurs as a result of adding geometry (the activation volume itself) to markers. The game designers never intended the player to be using these markers, so they may be placed too close to a wall for proper entry/exit, or too close to another marker or piece of furniture for both to be unobstructed. There are a few different ways I've fixed this in testing depending on the marker. For some I've switched to a smaller volume, for others I've had to add keywords to allow entry/exit to the marker and ignore geometry, etc. In some rare cases I've had to move markers slightly as they were too close to a crafting bench etc. and were blocking it as a result. This is likely something you'll see on modded ships that use a lot of animation markers, or on custom ships you've made yourself as you won't have been able to see where the vanilla markers were. You can use the red tile version of the mod in those situations to disable any troublesome ones, they'll stay disabled until/unless you make any structural changes to the ship.
If you're using a mod like Astrogate that includes the ability to have the player ship take off without you on it, you will experience a few seconds of low FPS during the acceleration phase of those takeoff animations. This does not affect ship landings, or the normal non-player ship takeoffs/landings that you see in the vanilla game.
TECHNICAL STUFF
If you just want to use the mod you can ignore this section, I'm just explaining why it works as it does.
There are three invisible trigger volumes in the game that were appropriate for use in a mod like this, I'll call them A, B and C. A is rectangular, and around the size of a large chest. B is the same height as A (roughly waist height) but is smaller, more like a cube shape. C is much smaller, more like thigh height, and also a cube. I made three more volumes based on these, so there was a version with the activation point on the floor or at the top for each one.
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As this mod requires the player to find markers in order to use them, having them as large as possible helps. However the larger they are the more chance of them interfering with each other or existing objects, so it's a trade off. A has been used for markers that aren't typically placed close to anything else that might get in the way, B for places where markers are a bit more densely packed, and C when the marker needs to be as small as possible. It's likely that there will future revisions of this mod where I have to change a given marker to use a smaller volume.
The FurnitureAllowEnterThroughGeometry and FurnitureAllowExitThroughGeometry keywords are something else I've used to solve problems where markers were densely clustered or placed too close to another object. It's fair to ask "why didn't you just add those to all the markers?" and the answer is I'm probably being a bit over cautious. You might also ask why I didn't add the FurnitureForce3rdPerson keyword to markers that aren't first person safe, and the answer is that it resulted in strange things happening to the camera, either it being locked in place or nauseatingly bouncing all over the place; another result of these markers not being intended for player use.
If there's a fixed location (not a dynamic POI or a ship hab) where something important is being obscured by a marker, please let me know in the comments and I'll see about correcting it. By important I mean a quest object, slate, button etc. not just regular low value loot. There are Shattered Space locations like Control Site Kappa where they've used a huge amount of animation markers, sometimes overlapping with tables, barrels and other objects so they couldn't be used by regular NPCs even without this mod, and some ammo and low value loot will be unobtainable there with the normal version of the mod active.
ABOUT/CREDITS
I've been working on this mod, on and off, for a stupid amount of time now. I think I first mentioned it back in June on discord, and showed it working in the Command NPCs demo video about 5 months ago. It's just been endless, tedious testing of markers, and occasionally fixing them when I find ones that are blocking something. I was all set to release and then Shattered Space happened... and now I have a bunch more locations that needed to be checked. That's why I've eventually decided to bite the bullet, came up with the rather ugly Windows batch file solution to temporarily disable the mod as needed, and am now releasing this as a beta. I know it's not a perfect solution, but it works.
The original plan was to release a craftable version after this, I even have an early version of it, but now mods like Ship Crew Assignments have beaten me to it, and probably with a better implementation anyway. There's of course nothing to stop you using player.placeatme and manually placing animation markers on your ship with the console if you want to, I might write an article for doing that if anyone needs pointers.
Made with NifSkope, xEdit and the Creation Kit.