Thrax’s Guide to Advanced Posing and Scene Staging in Fallout 4

The following guide will mostly cover my advanced posing techniques with only a quick
rundown of the basics. If you are just getting into screen archery, I suggest looking up other
great tutorials on how to do that as there are many of them out there. Most of this is stuff I
discovered through trial and error, and a lot of it is in service to making the process of staging
scenes as streamlined as possible. Either way, if you’re staging something really elaborate, it
will take considerable time and patience. Is it worth it? Jeeze, I really don’t know, but it sure is
satisfying…

PART ONE: HOTKEY SETUP AND CONSOLE COMMANDS

First, if you’re not familiar with the essential console commands for making screen shots, or if
you need a quick refresher here they are. You will of course need FO4 Hotkeys by
Registrator2000 to assign hotkeys. I know there is a lot of functionality built into hotkeys for
MCM, but I prefer to use the Lite version which uses a simple txt file to designate hotkeys and
has a little more latitude in terms of what you can program it to do, so that is what I
recommend.

These are the following console commands that I have assigned to hotkeys:
tfc- toggle free cam

tfc 1- toggle free cam with stopped action

tm- toggle UI

player.placeatme c1aeb- spawns a workshop for building and altering scenery

tcai- toggle combat ai

tcl- toggle collision

playidle looseidlestop- stops current pose

tgm- toggle god mode

I will occasionally program hotkeys to spawn specific kinds of enemies or settlers depending on
the scene, or perhaps some of the vanilla anims and idles if they are appropriate for the scene
and I want to trigger them quickly. I tend to stay away from assigning hotkeys to the F1-F12
keys as they are utilized by Place Everywhere by TheLich, which I can’t recommend enough.
Other console commands I frequently use, but don’t assign to hotkeys include:

tai-toggle the general ai, or a specifically selected actor’s ai

set gamehour to xx- sets the time of day where xx is the specific desired hour

setscale- changes the scale of the selected item or actor in the console

tc- take direct, but limited control of the selected actor

getplayergrabbedref- displays the ref ID of whatever your character is holding in front of them.

prid xxxxxx- to manually input a ref ID without selecting it with the mouse, where xxxxxx is the
ID itself

player.setrace xxxxxx- if you want to change yan actor’s race on the fly, where xxxxxx is the
code for the race you want to change to

sexchange- if you want to change an actor’s gender on the fly

disable/markfordelete- these are useful commands for removing unwanted actors, objects and
scenery but I use a bat file that combines them.

To make work in the console quicker and easier, I recommend Console Naming Fix by
Registrator2000. It makes it so that when you click on something in the console the name of
that thing appears next to the ref ID saving a lot of time clicking around trying to find the actor
or object you’re looking for.

Finally, we come to the modpos command. Modpos is a base command for changing a model’s
position in the console. When imputing a modpos command it is followed by an x/y/z
designation corresponding to the direction you wish to move the model along with a number
corresponding to the number of units you wish to move it. Please note that it is possible to
move something by decimal increments, not just whole numbers.

Many of my poses use props. At this time, they are not built into the pose (again I apologize for
this). Some of them even use weapons as props. You will need to manipulate these things in the
console to position them into the corresponding poses using modpos commands. Now to do
this with any reasonable efficiency you’ll need AutoHotkey Object Mover by BetaVirus, Valyn81
and ad3d0, which I will refer to here on out simply as modpos. If you try to use props in your
poses without this tool, you’ll be pulling your hair out in short order…

Using the AutoHotkey Object mover can take some getting use to. You will find it extremely
useful if you do however, for not only manipulating props but actors, set pieces and more. I
highly recommend spending the necessary time to familiarize yourself with this tool.
BAT FILES:
I use a variety of bat files for manipulating scenes.
The first is a bat file for turning any actor into a companion. This is useful for a variety reasons
like being able to make an NPC non-hostile without turning off their ai, accessing inventory or
simply getting them to follow you or draw a weapon. Use with caution! This can essentially
break your vanilla companions and should only be used in an isolated save, or… if you just don’t
care.

You can acquire it here: Any NPC as a Follower by Fru17S034d

The other bat files I use come from: A Handful of Bats by calarand77
I find all these useful for one reason or another, but particularly

inv- force opens an NPCs inventory

clean- uses both the disable and markfordelete console commands in succession which is a
more thorough way of deleting objects and actors

rez- resurrects the selected actor

PART TWO: POSING WITH PROPS

As I stated previously, a lot of my poses use props that need to be modposed into place. When I
say props I mean junk items, aid items, static objects and weapons. If one of my poses requires
a prop it will be listed below the reference image for that pose. See the “Key” image at the
beginning of my visual reference guide, or on my mod page.

Most of the props are junk items, but occasionally they will be guns as well. The reason that
sometimes guns are props is because if you activate a pose with a gun, and you have the gun
drawn, the left hand will always be making the shape it would make if it was holding the gun. I
wanted to be able to make poses where one hand held the gun, and the other made a gesture
of some sort, and the only way I can currently accomplish this is by making the gun a prop, and
not drawing it before taking the pose. Here is a visual example of this:
Manipulating props would best be demonstrated with a video honestly, but I’m not a video guy,
so I won’t have a video to show you. You can, however head over to navy5465’s Pose It mod
page. He has a little tutorial vid that demonstrates using guns as props. It’s a great vid, and it
applies to non-gun props as well. Also, download his mod while you’re there, it’s my favorite
pose mod on the nexus.

It is important to note, that you will not have to do this for the melee weapon poses. Melee
weapons only utilize one of the hand nodes built into the 3dsmax rig, and therefore leave the
left hand free to gesture.

Now, guns are tricky to select in the console for whatever reason and are therefore tricky to
modpos with. This is where the getplayergrabbedref console command comes in handy.
Typically, I will get all the actors with gun props posed, then drop all the guns that are in the
poses near the corresponding actors. Then I will pick up each gun, not loot, but pick up and hold
each gun (I recommend first person view), open the console and type getplayergrabbedref.
That will give me the ID for the gun, and I’ll note it down. Then when I’m ready to modpos the
gun into the pose, I’ll open the console and type PRID xxxxxx (where the xxxxx correspond to
the previously noted ID) and then I can manipulate the gun. Once you have it in place, you will
notice that the gun (or other prop) is shaky looking. That’s because the prop is still in motion.
The easiest way to stop that shakiness is to open the console and use setscale .99 and it will
stop. If you must adjust the prop further you will have to set the scale again. The trick is to use a
scale that the prop isn’t, so I’ll use the command setscale 1, and toggle between .99 and 1 for
as many adjustments as are necessary. Most of this is covered in navy5465’s video. He does it a
little bit differently than I do, but it’s essentially the same, and will probably be much clearer if
you watch that video.
Here is a quick visual of what a shaky prop looks like:

Sometimes in leu of an actual weapon I will use an apparel weapon instead. There are many
apparel weapon mods on the nexus, and I recommend them all. If you use an apparel weapon
they are easier to select in the console and can help avoid all the above hassle, and easily be
turned into static objects (more on that later) so that you don’t have to be thinking about
collision as well.

If you have a pipboy equipped, modposing an actor will cause the shaky effect to occur on the
pipboy. Unfortunately, the setscale trick doesn’t seem to work in correcting this. What does
work is to use one of the modangle hotkeys. If you use one of these, be sure to also use it’s
opposite immediately after otherwise the actor could start walking around at a funny angle (the
first time I noticed this I ended up completely breaking the character trying to fix it, so be
careful).

*a note about collision*

When I’m ready to begin manipulating props, I turn the collision off using tcl. I do this in case I
have to exit tfc 1 in the middle of placing props or if I accidentally exit tfc 1 (which has
happened more times than I’d like to admit). If you forget to do this, all your props will fall upon
exiting tfc 1 and you can lose a bunch of work (insert hair pull pose here). Another way to avoid
this is to make all your props static objects beforehand, but more on that later.

I will often also manipulate the scale of certain props using the setscale command. If a certain
pose uses a prop with an altered scale, you will see it listed along with the prop in the “Key”.
The reason I do this is because, some of the junk and aid items look absurdly large or small
when you put them next to an actor. I’m sure you all will be repurposing these poses, and using
them with different props, but they were all designed for specific props in mind, and the scale
at which I use them is listed in each instance.
PART THREE: SETTING UP A SCENE

*Disclaimer*
Many of my techniques can screw up your save, please be careful. My way around this is to
always play the game on survival using Unlimited Survival by kassent for convenience. I know
there are other F4SE plugins that let you tweak survival, and any of them will do. Then, when
I’m ready to stage the scene, I will switch to a lower difficulty and make a hard save. The game
conveniently separates the two for you by designating one save tree for survival and one for
other difficulties. Then I know, any save in my survival tree is a game save, and any in the other
tree are scene saves. That way I’m free to toy with the game all I like without breaking my
character. I’m sure you all can come up with your own methods for this, that’s just mine.

When I set up a scene, I will first scout an appropriate location. Once I’ve found just what I’m
looking for I will find a nearby spot and either spawn a workshop with the player.placeatme
c1aeb console command, or drop a workshop through Conquest by Chesko. It depends on how
much functionality I’d like the workshop to have, where Conquest is more functional in terms of
settlers and what-not than simply dropping a workshop. I will also activate god mode with the
tgm command as that will not only make your character invulnerable, but also give you
unlimited workshop crafting resources.

Next, I’ll set up crafting stations including an OCD dispenser from the fabulous OCDecorator
mod by mcface and EbokianKnight. The dispencer will allow you to change any item into a static
object and therefore free it from the laws of physics (very hand for props that you don’t want
to fall). I will also use OCDecorator to place any junk items I’m using in a scene directly from the
build interface. That way I can get the prop, relatively close to where it needs to be, and
remove it’s built in physics at the same time.

After that, I will pick time of day with the set gamehour to command and then select the
appropriate weather with NAC by L00. If I need to supplement the lighting, I will do so at this
time through the workshop. Finally I will set the timescale to 1:1 in NAC so that the game hour
is subject to rapid change.

I will make sure to spawn and craft all the needed weapons, armor and props at this time, so
that I don’t have to think about that further. Once the scene is set and everything is built and
crafted, I’m ready for the actors

PART FOUR: ACTORS

First off, I will have prepared any custom looks for all the actors ahead of time using LooksMenu
by expired6978 (an essential mod) and made presets for every character in my scene. I hardly
ever use the player character in my scenes. Using the player character is quite limiting beacue
the PC is also your camera. The only time I find it advantageous to use the player character in a
scene is when I want a certain actor to draw a weapon, and point said weapon in a specific
direction, or when I want the actor to not automatically agro spawned enemies or something
like that.

If the scene you are creating is about your player character, I recommend plastering the look of
your character over a companion or settler, I call this technique “using a stunt double”. It may
also be useful to have multiple copies of armor and weapons on deck in case you want more
than one actor to play the same character. I’ve downloaded a variety of generic companions (of
which there are many on the nexus), whom I can use as “stunt doubles” at any given time. I also
recommend Unlimited Companion Framework by expired6978 to have multiple followers, and I
use Spawnable Unique Settlers by ArchGaden and these mods pretty much cover my needs as
far as actor are concerned.

*a note on “stunt doubles”

If you are not using the PC in the scene, be sure to enter tfc or tfc 1 from first person
perspective. Doing so will take your character out of the scene so you don’t have to worry
about them getting in the way.

Once all the necessary actors are spawned and equipped and given their appropriate looks, I’ll
go through and pose each of them relatively close to where they need to be and go through
and set their facial emotes. If you want to add emotes, you’ll need Dave’s Pose Gun found in
Dave’s Poses by the most excellent davethedrunk. While I don’t use the gun and ring formats
for posing, I do use Dave’s gun and ring to set emotes. After I set each emote, I will open the
console and toggle the ai of each actor with the tai command. Sometimes the emotes won’t
last very long, especially with the player character. I can’t tell you why this is, but it’s also why I
pose the actor first, and then set the emote. I will always pose the player character last (if I’m
even using the PC) for obvious reasons, setting the emote just before I pose and then
immediately enter tfc 1 after that, to catch the emote. Now that we’ve posed everyone, set
their emotes and entered tfc 1, I will wander around the scene and modpos everyone into
place.

*a note on facial expressions*

After you’ve set an actor’s emote, you can try talking to them to catch a more varied
expression. They won’t always hold their emote when they talk, but sometimes they do, and it
adds an extra layer of lifelike appearance to the expression. Be ready with your tfc 1 hotkey,
and as soon as they make a face you like, enter tfc 1, then open the console and turn off their ai
using tai (be sure to enter tfc 1 first when doing this, because if you just open the console and
toggle their ai, it’s likely that their expression will change slightly when you exit the console).

*a note about large scenes*

If you are staging a large scene and have to reload a save of a large scene it’s possible that any
actor in the scene who’s ai has been toggled off may appear invisible upon reload. I’ve found
this only happens to me if I have a dozen or more actor with ai toggled off when I reload. The
actors are still there, and you can find them with the console by clicking around where they
should be or entering their ref ID if you happen to know it. If you toggle their ai back on they
will reappear. Sometimes upon reappearing they can get flung across the scene, so be ready for
that. It can be a huge headache if you are trying to stage something big, so keep it in mind. My
workaround is to try and get absolutely everything else set before I start posing. I’ll use tai to
toggle the general ai off while I’m spawning, equipping and setting looks for actors. Don’t forget
that the general ai is off though because you won’t be able to set emotes or get actors to draw
weapons if it is off. Once I have absolutely everything ready, I make a hard save and be sure I’ve
set aside the time I need to complete the scene before beginning. This ensures that I don’t have
to reload while staging.

*a note about acrobatic poses and “jiggle leg”

For some of the more acrobatic poses, or any of the poses that require elaborate leg positions,
you will get what I call the “jiggle leg” glitch, or the character will simply strike the pose slightly
off. In the case of “jiggle leg”, I will toggle the collision using tcl, then modpos the actor in
question straight up in the air from their position. While the actor is up in the air, with collision
turned off the pose will magically snap into place. Be sure the character’s ai is activated before
doing this. Once they take the proper pose, I can usually toggle their ai off with tai, and move
them back into place without any further hassle, but in the case where they revert to the wrong
pose, I will leave them in the air with the collision off, finish the rest of the scene, and once I
can enter tfc 1 I can bring them back into position without any further trouble. I know this is a
finicky solution, but it works and for that reason I do the more acrobatic poses last.

Here is a quick example of what I mean:

PART FIVE: SPECIAL EFFECTS

The last thing I’ll do when staging an action sequence is add blood or explosion effects. Blood
and explosions are tricky because you can’t freeze them independent of the scene and make
take some trial and error to give you what you want.

Blood:
To affectively trigger blood effects, you will need to use my “stunt double” technique so that
the player character is free to trigger the effects for the shot.

When in the process of spawning and crafting all the weapons, armor and props I will typically
make sure I have a low damage pipe weapon on hand, if I’m going to be doing any blood.
Having a low damage weapon makes it possible to trigger blood a few times without killing the
actor in the process.

Once the scene is set with the actor shooting and the actor getting shot, position the player
character near the shooting actor and take aim at the actor getting shot (be sure you are in first
person). Now simply shoot the character and enter tfc 1 to freeze the action of the blood
splatter. Again, this will take some trial and error, and some timing to get right, so I recommend
making a quicksave in case the actor you are shooting dies before you get what you want.

In the case of the actor’s death, you can use the handy rez bat file mentioned in the bat file
section.

Explosions:
Effectively using explosions can be tricky, especially if you are using an enb with excessive
bloom, but here are some tips for making it work.

Once the scene is set and you are ready to add your effect, toss the appropriate grenade where
you want to explosion to occur (obviously tgm, and a quicksave are good when working with
explosions).

When the explosion makes the shape you are looking for, enter the console and turn off the
collision with tcl. When you leave the console the shape of the explosion will stay as is, and the
bloom will fall off. Once that happens you can enter tfc 1 and get the shot (note that you will
have a limited amount of time from when you exit the console to when you enter tfc 1, so be
ready to do so as soon as the bloom falls off). You can also turn off the bloom altogether if your
enb allows, but I like this technique because it allows me to keep all the non-explosion bloom.
PART SIX: FREEFLY CAM

Freefly Cam is F4SE plugin created by kingeric1992. It’s not available on the nexus, instead it’s
on the enb forums, available here. Freeflycam allows you to manipulate the angle of the
camera along with moving the camera more incrementally with ease. It’s a great tool, and all
the most advanced screen archers seem to employ it. Adding a bit of tilt to a shot can make the
action much more dynamic, just remember a little tilt goes a long way!

And that’s it!

Thanks again for downloading my mod, and good luck staging your scenes!