[Song of the Sea] Progress update - 2023/02/25 news

Song of the Sea is a siren-themed small-DLC sized expansion for the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Engage in a character-driven, lore-firendly questline featuring new locations and new worldspaces to uncover the mystery and power behind the sirens of the Sea of Ghosts.

Gain the ability to become a siren yourself - will you choose to be a nature-loving mermaid, a hardened siren warrior, a powerful hydromancer, a deadly and seductive siren, or anything in-between?

I wasn't planning on making this a once-per-year update (sorry about that). It's been a tumultuous 12 months with a lot of stuff keeping me from spending as much time on this as I'd like. Despite all that, there is still plenty of progress to report!

New siren tails & customization

KnightOfNeverwinter has been hard at work porting several new tail types into the game to allow for enhanced siren character customization. We both assumed porting existing models would be easier and save time compared to making them from scratch but several issues were discovered once they were used in-game, some of which would require the porting process to be completely restarted in order to rectify. As such, KnightOfNeverwinter is taking some time to enhance his 3D modelling skills before returning to create entirely new, custom-made tail models. However, not all was lost! KnightOfNeverwinter was able to get one of the models to work well in-game, so we now have a new tail type that no longer requires an external mod download to use! Additionally, it has a vastly improved rigging to allow for more immersive animations and also works for both sexes, unlike the previous version!

Not only does the mod now come with its own tail models that will work for any character, I have also designed a unique siren customization system that allows the user to pick a unique tail and top (if female) for themselves and NPCs on a per-actor basis. These choices are persistent and allow the player to choose exactly how they and any chosen NPC will look in siren form. Unfortunately, I don't have enough unique tail and top models to show the system in action but the framework for the customization is there once the models become available. Additionally, I have also designed the system so that modders can easily add their own new tail and top models into the mod without having to make changes to the base mod, allowing for an unlimited number of new options to be added as community-made expansions.

Two steps back, five steps forward

Early last year, I made the tough decision to switch the mod from using Dynamic Animation Replacer (DAR) to using Nemesis. For those of you who aren't familiar with these, here's a quick description:

DAR: Replaces the played animation files based on the mod author's configuration settings. For example, I replaced vanilla walking animations with crawling animations if the actor was in siren form. The game still considered the actor to be walking, it just made it look like they were crawling. DAR cannot add new behaviors, such as being able to sprint or cast magic underwater.

Nemesis: Allows you to add entirely new behaviors and states to the game. This means the game handles each new state like Bethesda added them as part of the base game. Siren land-crawling is now its own specific actor state separate from the default "human" walking state, not just a simple animation replacement. This also means entirely new behaviors can be added as well, such as an underwater sprint state.

Replacing DAR with Nemesis is no small task. I essentially replaced the entire foundation for the mod. Doing so caused a lot of things to break and required me to rebuild pretty much every aspect of the siren behaviors. Additionally, Nemesis is very technical and time consuming to work with. That being the case, you're probably wondering why I chose to do this.

DAR is a fantastic mod and modder utility. However, as it only replaces played animations, it cannot alter how the character behaves. Replacing the swim animations with mermaid swimming animations doesn't let the player swim faster or use weapons underwater. Playing a crawl animation on land doesn't slow the character down. DAR cannot let an actor do things they normally cannot do, like using furniture underwater. All the cool things I had working in the last version were all being done with script tricks. The more technical and unusual the desired behavior, the more complicated and unreliable the scripts became. Sure, I managed to make underwater combat, swim sprinting, underwater furniture use, and more function surprisingly well with scripts but there were several downside and limitations to using DAR and these complicated scripts:

• Scripts were becoming increasingly complicated and cumbersome to work with as the mod's features grew. (It took a ton of complicated scripting just to mimic the game's combat systems underwater.)
• Scripts are much more likely to conflict with other mods.
• Several scripts weren't 100% reliable and were at the mercy of the game's current workload or status.
• NPCs could not benefit from several of the mod's features, such as utilizing underwater combat.
• There were several vanilla features that could not be replicated using scripts. The most major of these was not being able to cast magic underwater or benefiting from advanced perks like being able to zoom in and slow time with a bow.
• Script functionality is vulnerable to script lag.

Using Nemesis, I can make every part of the siren experience behave like it's part of the base game. It's a lot more work, but just look at the benefits:

• Snappy, reliable behaviors that are integrated into the game just like vanilla walking, running, and jumping.
• Ability to add new and previously missing behaviors, such as underwater magic use, swimming sprint, and more.
• No longer reliant on conflict-prone scripts to control things like actor speed bonuses and penalties.
• NPCs benefit from nearly all of the same behaviors the player does.
• Vastly simplifies several aspects of the mod. For example, underwater furniture use now "just works" instead of requiring multiple interconnected scripts and effects.
• Enhanced stability and reliability.

Fortunately, I have already managed to rebuild everything I had in the previous DAR-based version and have even added several new features, such as:

Other currently functioning features not shown include new behaviors and animations for land combat, land sneaking, swimming combat, and ritual (two-hand) spell casting. It has taken me quite a lot of time and effort to get here and there's still a lot to do, but much progress has been made and the siren behaviors are quite playable at the moment.

Siren skill leveling and perks

In the last update, I mentioned how the AE update broke a dependency for the siren skill leveling and perks system and that I would need to rebuild it. Well, I have. I also built an entire perk tree system from scratch that replicates a vanilla perk tree and contains 64 playable perks across 26 perk nodes, with even more planned to be added later. I still need to work out some quirks with how experience is gained, but the system is currently functional.

Progress on other features

I have much more planned for the mod than just mermaid tails, behaviors, and perks. I also plan to add a story questline as well as several new locations featuring unique underwater locations and gameplay encounters. While most of this is still in the planning stage, I have had a new potential team member volunteer to help craft some of these new locations. There isn't much I can share yet, but I have been working on adding new enemy types to make these underwater encounters more interesting. Mudcrabs and slaughterfish are not the only threats you'll encounter in these new areas far beneath the waters of Skyrim.

That's all for now. If you are interested in this mod, be sure to check out the main mod page and previous articles for a more information, a general overview, a preview of the epic underwater player home, Siren's Rest, and ways you can support and contribute to the mod!

Thanks for reading!
-Delta 6