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Skybirds - Airborne Perching Birds


Korentin

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OK, for the record, here is what the mod description page states:

 

Required Mods for full functionality:

 

SKSE

SkyUI

Birds of Skyrim

Birds and Flocks

 

 

What the mod does:

 

Many new fully animated bird actor models

MCM menu with performance options.

The birds can hop about, perch dynamically on many objects, and FLY DYNAMICALLY (no canned animations).

Each bird has custom actor sounds. They sing, chatter and call out to their flock just like real birds.

"Sound Injector" for "Birds of Skyrim". skyBirds mod adds sounds to ALL of the birds from Quasiermo's "Birds of Skyrim" mod if both mods are used together. The roosters will now crow at dusk and dawn.

Fully interactive: the birds can be killed, they will fly away from predators and they can build nests in trees.

The birds will retire to their nests at night or in foul weather.

20 new alchemy ingredients to be collected from dead birds.

Fixes various bugs related to vanilla hawks/chickens/blackbirds (includes some bugs that USKP does not fix, like fixing the clipping chicken feet problem.)

Highly optimized mod for zero performance loss. Can be further optimized using the MCM menu.

Very clean and stable mod - tested clean with TES5EDIT and tested thoroughly for savegame bloat.

BSA archive

Makes Roosters at Dawn (if Birds of Skyrim is used, too) and Invincible Hawk Fix (included in USKP anyway and in SkyBirds) redundant.

 

Compatibility:

ASIS (SkyBirds needs to be excluded)

Birds of Skyrim", "Birds and Flocks" and "SkyTEST"

101Bugs

"Static Flora"

"Climates of Tamriel - Sound"

Sounds of Skyrim.

 

For most of them SkyBirds needs to be loaded after those mods.

 

 

Known problems with the mod:

 

Q: I'm using "Birds of Skyrim" and the flying seagulls and crows are invincible. Doesn't skyBirds fix the "invincible hawk" bug?

A: skyBirds fixes the vanilla "invincible hawk" bug, but unfortunately Qasiermo intentionally made his flying seagulls and crow models permanently invincible regardless of this bug fix.

 

Q: I sometimes get errors in the Papyrus log from this mod. Are the errors safe?

A: The following sporadic errors caused by cells unloading are safe and normal:

[05/09/2013 - 11:38:10PM] Error: (FF000AD0): has no 3d and cannot have an animation played on it.

[05/12/2013 - 10:44:56PM] Error: Failed to setup moving reference because it has no parent cell or no 3D

(the stack dump of "_APBTestBirdScript01" with several lines of data usually follows these errors).

 

Q: I did x and now all the guards want to attack me. I suspect your mod caused this.

A: Use the MCM menu (Advanced page) and reset the factions.

 

Q: It's night time/raining/snowing but there are still skyBirds flying around.

A: The birds will try to hide or build nests at night or in bad weather. This feature works best if you slow down the Skyrim "timescale" so that time moves more slowly. That gives the birds more time to hide. Default is 20 but I like playing on 5 (5 game minutes take 1 real minute). Use the console then type "set timescale to x" where x is the new value. Hint: don't use a timescale lower than 5 it might cause problems.

 

Q: the birds sometimes fly into clutter and scatter it about. Can you fix this?

A: Unfortunately no. I tried changing the birds' collision layer to OL_NONCOLLIDABLE (same bugfix that USKP uses for the bees and critters) but it made no difference for collisions with clutter.

 

Q: the skyBirds sometimes fly through houses and mountains.

A: That's a game engine/programming limitation.

 

 

 

Other than that the author provides detailed upgrade and un-/installation procedures.

 

The only thing, which I find a bit wanting from this mod is the "set timescale to 5 to give birds the time to seek shelter from bad weather". Afaik there are quite a few bugs introduced by messing with the timescale... Any confirmation?

 

Also the mod author provides Papyrus tweaks for Skyrim.ini. Not sure whether we should test them since at least for me no Papyrus tweak so far has made my game run better.

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If you look in Papyrus logs you will see stuff like this:

 

[ (2300BAEB)].FXBirdFleeSCRIPT.OnCellAttach() - "FXBirdFleeSCRIPT.psc" Line 19

[05/11/2013 - 08:15:47PM] warning: Assigning None to a non-object variable named "::temp1"

stack:

[ (2300BAEB)].FXBirdFleeSCRIPT.OnCellAttach() - "FXBirdFleeSCRIPT.psc" Line 19

[05/11/2013 - 08:15:52PM] Error: Attempting to stop an invalid sound instance

stack:

.Sound.StopInstance() - "" Line ?

[ (2300BAEB)].FXBirdFleeSCRIPT.OnTriggerEnter() - "FXBirdFleeSCRIPT.psc" Line 33

 

That stuff is always in my logs, didn't actually know the errors were bad enough to cause crashes.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

OP updated for testers. Please review the OP if you are going to be testing this mod for STEP.

I have started testing this mod on a full STEP-Core install and have been collecting both general and specific testing/performance data. I am now working my way through the specific features and fixes to make sure everything is good and free of significant/malicious papyrus errors. I should have a report put together shortly. Should this be moved into the MT forum?
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i do have a question. the author describes that two other mods should be used in conjunction with his mod. they arent reqd' date=' but recommended for full experience. however, for our purposes, should I just be testing this one mod in and of itself?[/quote']

Yes, for the time being. In fact, Birds of Skyrim is still in STEP; however, many of us decided to uninstall it a while back do to immersion breaking issues (collision with ground birds that stopped you in your tracks). So you can test those features that enhance Birds of Skyrim as well. The other mod (can't remember which one it is atm) can be skipped for now.

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  • 2 weeks later...

After about 15 hours of gameplay on a full STEP-Core install, I have not found any scripting errors and have not experienced any freezing/hanging/crashing/lagging. Performance-wise, this mod has been essentially silent. I have not experienced any noticeable performance drains. Performance data that was gathered in a controlled manner with and without the mod installed revealed zero/negligible performance drain. Checking the papyrus log after most sessions has not revealed any abnormalities. In terms of stability and performance alone, this mod passes with flying colors, no pun intended.

 

So, after determining that the mod is 'safe' to use, I have to ask myself whether I feel the content of the mod is appropriate for STEP. This is something that should ultimately be left up to us as a group, but I will certainly provide my analysis. Some of my key thoughts about the mod are:

  • I do not necessarily like adding new alchemical ingredients to the game. I feel Beth has included a very expansive set of alchemical ingredients that already cover all of the game's alchemy effects.
  • I am skeptical about the lore-friendliness of adding novel animal species to the TES world -- I would prefer that the added animals were more generic instead of specific (i.e. cardinal vs. red bird).
  • During gameplay, birds will randomly fade in and out of the scene. Sometimes if you stare at a bird standing on the ground, you can watch as it slowly turns invisible and then disappears completely. Then, a moment later, the "same" bird will reappear by slowly fading back into the scene, in the exact position it was in before. This type of behavior kills immersion for me.
  • Some birds look low-quality and/or entirely out of place. The large white goose-like bird that waddles around the villlages is a perfect example of this. I dont think the bird looks very real and does not blend in well with the other game elements.
  • I do like some of the ambient bird sounds. A lot of the sounds are very realistic and not overpowering, and they do add a nice ambiance when exploring the game world. Notable sounds are the nondescript bird chirping and singing, and the wood pecker 'pecking' sounds.
  • I do like the random flocks of birds that can sometimes be seen flying in the distance. Again, this adds a nice ambiance to the game that seems to fit in well and looks a lot more integrated than some of the other features.
  • As far as I can tell, the fix for the chicken feet clipping is present and does work.
  • The birds do properly perch on various world objects and there does not seem to be any problems with this feature.
  • I have not been able to reproduce the invisible hawk bug. Whether that is a direct result of this mod, I do not know.
  • The feature of birds being able to be killed and looted for the alchemical ingredients seems to work just fine. The only problem I found is the birds disappearing and reappearing in place, which i already discussed.

In summary, I feel the main thing to consider for this mod is whether it simply enhances the game, or makes changes/additions that go beyond enhancing.

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Thanks for the detailed analysis, Michaelrw. We'll find this useful as we assess this mod for STEP:Extended (not suited to STEP:Core based on your assessment).

 

I personally agree with your nits ... maybe we could ask the author to produce a version that allows piecemeal selection of specific options?

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  • 2 weeks later...

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