Furniture

Furniture objects, broadly, are those objects which lock actors into a position and an animation when they're interacted with. A furniture object can have multiple "markers," which are akin to seats, and each marker supports either sitting, sleeping, or leaning. Each marker can be occupied by one actor at a time.

Examples of furniture include:

• Chairs.
• Benches.
• Beds.
• Tables with attached benches, because Bethesda typically implements table-and-bench arrangements as a single combined model. Tables without benches are not furniture.
• Workbenches. When an actor uses one, they're "sitting" on it, but they use different animations for sitting based on the furniture's keywords.
• The Altar of Molag Bal, and Boethiah's pillar. As with workbenches, a victim imprisoned by these fixtures is "sitting" in them.
• Various invisible markers that NPCs can activate to enter specific animations, such as kneeling at shrines.

Furniture Dialog

• ID: Unique identifier for this form.
• Name: Display name.
• Model: Displays the 3D model for this object.
• Marker Model: In the Creation Kit, this model will be displayed in place of the default models used to indicate furniture markers.
  • Edit: Chooses the model for this object.
• Add Destruction Data: Sets the damage states if an object is destructable.
• Flags:
  • Random Anim Start: If checked, this object kicks off its idle animation at a random start time. This is so you can put a couple of the same animated activators in a scene and they won't be animating in synch.
  • Must Exit To Talk: NPC cannot talk from this object and will leave it when greeted by player
  • Child Can Use: Can be used by child NPCs
  • Is Perch: Can be used as a perch marker for dragons
  • Is Marker: Determines whether or not the 3D for the object is loaded in game.
  • Ignored By Sandbox: NPCs on sandbox packages will not use this furniture
  • Disables Activation: ( function unknown )
  • Interaction Keyword: Determines who can use this based on keywords
• Workbench Data
  • Bench Type: The type of crafting menu to open
  • Uses Skill: The type of skill used in the crafting
• Associated Spell: Spell or effect to put on actors in the furniture

Markers

The markers available on a given furniture are defined by the FRN data in the furniture's NIF file. These markers are listed in the "Active Markers" list pane, where you can toggle which markers are enabled. If you select one of those markers, then you can assign a keyword to the marker ("Marker Keyword"), and you can control what directions the marker can be entered from ("Marker Entry Points").

When looking through Skyrim's furniture objects, you may notice that a lot of them have variants based on entry points, e.g. CommonWritingChair01L, CommonWritingChair01R, and CommonWritingChair01LR. This is because the game doesn't use collision checks to block access to furniture markers: if a furniture is placed flush against an obstacle, actors can still enter and exit the furniture through the obstacle by interacting with it. Bethesda's solution to this problem is to create variants on each furniture object, with different entry directions enabled. If you're placing a "common writing chair" such that there's a solid object just to its right, then use the CommonWritingChair01L variant, which can only be entered from and exited to the left.