OpenMW NPC Personality - Dynamic gestures

NPC Personality (NEW PERFORMANCE UPDATE)

2. 0 — The Errand System (Experimental)

this 2. 0 update introduces something new that I'm calling the Errand System. it's off by default and you have to enable it manually because it's still experimental, but if you turn it on I'd love to know how it feels. the long term goal is to give NPCs something closer to an actual brain. not a full schedule overhaul, not new AI, just a lightweight awareness of where they are, what's around them, and where they should go.

right now that means short purposeful walks off their post and back. a shopkeeper stepping away to check stock and returning to the till, a guard swapping to a different post, tavern staff doing rounds, or a civilian running a quick errand. Even Npcs stopping to purchase snacks/items to buy from merchant stalls.

what makes it different from just wandering is that they remember. they know where they came from, they go somewhere with a reason, and they come back. even if something interrupts them mid-trip they find their way back. it's the foundation of something that over time could grow into full daily routines and persistent memory of where to be and when.

everything is visual only.

nothing is given or taken, nothing is added to their inventories. it's purely about the world looking like it has something happening underneath it. the rest of the update is a big round of fixes, the shopkeeper spinning bug, towns going dead because of uneven ground, the Consuming Animated bottle issue, and NPCs freezing mid-fight from a stuck glance. all covered below.

turn Errands on in settings, walk through a city for a while, and tell me what feels off.

Load NPC Personality below Consuming Animated, Interactions Animated, Procedural Chatter, NPC Schedule, and Night Patrol if you have any of these

Experimental releases. NPCs react to you and each other based on who they are and how they feel about you. Visual gestures only, nothing that touches gameplay. Everything is toggleable feature list below

Who they are

Every NPC gets a type based on their race, class and faction, guards, warriors, priests, mages, thieves, nobles, shopkeepers, street folk, slaves, the Great Houses, and regular civilians. Who they are decides what gestures they have. How they feel about you decides which ones they pick.

New Performance Toggle - only enable on if bad performance auto/off adjusts dynamically 

Audio Gestures are starting to be added

Ambient fidgets People scratch, scoff, glance, or wipe their face as they go about their day. Not aimed at you, one at a time, and a look or walk by cuts it off.

Rain reactions Some fidgets become a face wipe in rain or thunder. Every so often someone raises a hand to shield themselves for a few seconds. Separate toggles for each.

Resting poses Longer idles, still not aimed at you. Slaves can settle into a hunched, worn down look. Street folk and warriors take on an overheated, been outside all day look. You catch someone holding it, they are not answering you with it.

Glancing and turning NPCs ease around toward someone nearby they can actually see, so a room is not a row of statues. No look around animation, they just change facing over whatever they are already doing. Each person has their own timing so a whole street does not turn at once. Walkers are left alone so they stay on their route. They only look within an arc of the way they were originally facing, and they drift back when nobody is worth watching, so a guard on stairs does not slowly rotate until they are staring at a wall.

Mutual look reactions[/c