Variation Framework - OpenMW

Variation Framework lets one mesh come in several versions, and picks which one each individual object gets.

Two bushes standing next to each other can come out different. Two crates in the same room, two banners on the same wall. The choice is made per object rather than per cell, so a plantation can hold three variants at once instead of being uniformly one thing.

It is pluginless: no ESP, no load order, no patches.

For players

Install it, tick variationFramework.omwscripts in your content list, and install whatever modules you want. That is the whole setup. A module is just a mod that drops a YAML file into the framework's folders, and the framework picks it up on its own, so there is no second box to tick and nothing to keep in the right order.

On its own the framework does nothing. It needs modules.

For mod creators

A module is one YAML file. You name an existing mesh, list the meshes that may replace it, and give weights saying how often each should appear. Weights can be set:

• by region, for example "Ascadian Isles Region: 75% original, 25% variant"

• by individual cell, interior or exterior

• as a north-south or east-west gradient interpolated across the map, including gradients that slide each other, so a climate band can sit further north the further east you go

• by climate, read live from each region's own weather record, which means Tamriel Rebuilt, Project Cyrodiil, Skyrim: Home of the Nords, Lyithdonea and anything released later are understood without a patch

Variants clump rather than scattering, so you get groves and clusters instead of static. How tightly they clump is a dial you set.

Modules live in one of four categories: Plants, Containers, Clutter and Banners. These set sensible defaults for which record types to touch, whether to move a container's contents into its replacement, and how tightly things clump. Any module can override any of those, so the category is a convenience rather than a limit.

Every category ships an EXAMPLE.yaml documenting every field, and the installer offers an optional modder's guide covering the lot.

Notes

Everything is deterministic. The same object gets the same variant every time, derived from its own position, so nothing drifts between loads.

As with SSS, replacing an object changes its record ID, so anything referenced by ID from an external script should be listed in the module's ignore_records.

Requires OpenMW 0. 51 or later. Runtime creation of Container, Static and Activator records landed in 0. 51, and nothing else is needed.

Why not Static Switching System

SSS swaps every matching object in a cell for one alternative, which is exactly right for making a town white or matching a landscape overhaul, and it can uninstall itself in-game. Use it for that.

This does a different job. It picks per object from a weighted set, it replaces Containers as well as Statics and Activators (every vanilla harvestable plant is a Container), and it can match on region and climate rather than cell name. The two coexist happily. Just do not point both at the same mesh in the same place.

Licence

Public domain, CC0. Use it, change it, ship it inside your own mod, sell it. No permission needed and no credit needed, though credit is always welcome.

The replacement technique, creating an override record, spawning a copy and disabling the original, follows the approach taken by S3ctor's Static Switching System. This is an independent implementation written from scratch, not derived from its source.