I haven't got to much experience with the CK as of yet compared to some but I do have a bit of experience with programming/scripting, as well as a bit of graphic experience.

I've been watching Gopher's youtube series of the Mod Sanctuary as well as his Let's Play and seeing his making of the better vampire and predator vision.

Simply for fun I thought of how it might be interesting to see a physical trail appear, leading you towards a target. My thinking was taking the clairvoyance spell and having something similar to the blue trail appear, yet be red of course, possibly a different graphic all together, and lead you to creatures. Sort of to mimic the way something like a shark might seek out prey by following a scent trail of blood.

Say as a Vampire, as you become hungry, you can gain use of the ability (could be constant effect but that might get annoying) to seek out prey through the scent trail formed by blood.

Something similar for the werewolf, (I think this is actually more applicable for the werewolf as they shouldn't really have an ability to see creatures through walls), where they can simply follow blood scent trails to reach prey.


Rather than having this be an ability you cast, have it be a toggle ability if possible that heightens your scent and reveals the trails to you. Have them be more intense as you near a target?

This was just an idea I was having and was curious how difficult it might be to implement.

Kinda easy but yet kinda hard, I think

I've never looked at clairvoyance ... but it would appear to be something you may be able to use.

I guess you would need to:

1) locate a viable target NPC (in script, or by filling aliases etc)
2) Duplicate clairvoyance and see how it's script detects a "path"
3) Amend that script (make a new one!!!) to "path" towards (the location of) the identified NPC


The question is, how easy is it to interpret the clairvoyance spell and it's scripts ... If that is easy, then all of this should be "easy" (if not, then it won't). The second question is whether you can make the fx persist for longer than clairvoyance does (I think that will be easy, though).

Changing the colour of effects is pretty straight-forward (and your gfx skills will help there if you need to edit nifs etc ... though I'm not sure you will) - Anyway, I'd worry about that after you got a blue-blood-trail working ...



and if it was a power, not a spell, then it would work all of the time ... constantly spewing trials to one or more potential victims ... kinda

A very interesting idea, Im personally considering something similar but much wider. I would like to see normal trails not just blood trails. Such trails would be invisible and allow the player to follow the prey. From this trails you should be able to receive info about the target similar to the smell I have already implemented (name if you already know the scent, race, six, whether its vampire or worewolf in human form and of course time of the trail). Check out my mod Nature of the beast II. I tried to implement something similar while proposing cooperation to the author of the footprints mod but he wasnt interested. This is such an interesting idea but Im not sure whether it wont cause some kind of performance issues.

I'm not exactly sure where to find the script for clairvoyance, if anyone could give me a hand? I've looked through the CK manager and can't find anything through there and then I looked through the script folder. I think it might be included in script involving more than just that spell so I'm not entirely sure.

This actually seems like a plausable idea that benefits gameplay.. You could use a blood-splatter decal, and edit glow-maps onto it. This would make up the trail itself.. Though I'm not sure if you can add glow maps to a decal... Just an idea off the top of my head.

A "vapor trail" like path would probably be easier and less jarring, as having gallons of blood spilt into a path is a bit... Extreme

The clairvoyance scripts should be bundled in the source folders i though?

Are you so certain the Clairvoyance spell is handled via Papyrus? I don't have access to Skyrim or the Creation Kit at the moment, so I'm afraid I can't check myself, but I'd have thought it would be handled natively. It would probably pay to have a look at it in the Creation Kit before you go looking through Skyrim's Papyrus source files for a script that may not exist.

Cipscis

I'll check on Clairvoyance later ... It may (like Invisibility) be a hard-coded type spell that helps no one ... or it may not - I'll report back later

Thank you. I looked through some of the source files and didn't find anything that looked like it would contain anything relevant.

Checking on the CK I couldn't see anything either showing how it works, any source as to how it tracks a target. Is it possible they didn't write anything separate for Clair and only used already built code?

They possibly could have just created a simple script to create the FX trail to the location of the quest marker rather than it being a dynamic script that could be changed to target a character. I dunno just a thought.

OK: there may be a way

Clairvoyance uses the Magic Effect CLAIRVOYANCEEFFECT (ignore the spell, for now, the spell points at this effect and its the effect that does the work)

The ClairvoyanceEffect has an Architype of: GUIDE (that's good )

And a Guide Architype has the following "help", here: http://www.creationkit.com/Magic_Effect#Effect_Archetypes

"Creates a trail of http://www.creationkit.com/Hazard objects from the caster to the nearest quest target. Typically used with the Clairvoyance Hazard."

See the link in the quote for what a hazard is ...



So ... if your quest can set an NPC as a "target" for your vampire (and add the location of the target as a Quest Objective) then you are golden

Thank you! I'll see what sorta things I can do with this now.