Posting a mod that uses outside resources

[Conspiracydawg]

I've been working on a redo of Whiterun for a while, and originally it was just for myself, but it's looking pretty shiny and I was considering posting it to Nexus. However, I used a variety of modder's resources (plants and whatnot), and I'm not sure if I can just save the mod like normal and post the esp, or if I need to do something different to ensure that the resources will show up in someone else's game. If anyone could help me out that'd be cool.

[duude98]

You can most likely just save it as-is and upload the esp to the nexus, noting the requirements on the page. The problem is that you need to get permission from the authors of those mods unless otherwise stated on their page, otherwise you can get your mod taken down and possibly banned.

[BigBizkit]

Well, that is true in essence, but you make it sound as if it was out of the ordinary to include other people's assets (with permission). The contrary is the case.

 

So, yes, you need to include all assets which are not in the vanilla game. You need to have permission from the respective authors of said assets, which usually can be obtained.

The alternative of having a bunch of required mods is less desirable but acts as a workaround on the rare occasion that permissions cannot be obtained.

[Conspiracydawg]

Well, that is true in essence, but you make it sound as if it was out of the ordinary to include other people's assets (with permission). The contrary is the case.

 

So, yes, you need to include all assets which are not in the vanilla game. You need to have permission from the respective authors of said assets, which usually can be obtained.

The alternative of having a bunch of required mods is less desirable but acts as a workaround on the rare occasion that permissions cannot be obtained.

But if I just hit save, everything will be in there? If I were to send the esp to a friend to test, someone who doesn't have the resources, the necessary textures and models and whatnot would all be included? Sorry if I'm repeating myself, I just vaguely remember reading a couple years ago that you have to create an archive or something.

[duude98]

Well, that is true in essence, but you make it sound as if it was out of the ordinary to include other people's assets (with permission). The contrary is the case.

 

So, yes, you need to include all assets which are not in the vanilla game. You need to have permission from the respective authors of said assets, which usually can be obtained.

The alternative of having a bunch of required mods is less desirable but acts as a workaround on the rare occasion that permissions cannot be obtained.

I apologize, that was not my intent. It is normal, I just wanted to make clear the consequences of doing it the wrong way. I said it like that because its much easier to do as you are making your mod instead of having to track down everything you used. But as far as required mods go, if I am reading your post correctly, you do NOT need permission from a mod author for that? I did not know this was the case. What exactly is the rule on this? I might have been mis-informed.

 

 

But if I just hit save, everything will be in there? If I were to send the esp to a friend to test, someone who doesn't have the resources, the necessary textures and models and whatnot would all be included? Sorry if I'm repeating myself, I just vaguely remember reading a couple years ago that you have to create an archive or something.

 

No, everything will not be there. The friend would also need all the mods you used.

[BigBizkit]

No need to apologize.

 

Considering required mods: You need permission from authors to use their assets (e.g. meshes and textures). If for instance, you cannot get permission to use someone's sword mesh and texture (let's call it "sword mod X"), there is nothing prohibiting you from making an esp with a sword that points to a mesh/texture path which is the same as in sword mod x and making it a required mod. You are not uploading their assets that way and people are required to get sword mod x (not required to tick the esp though) else your sword in your sword esp will be invisible.

 

Now, in terms of etiquette you should not do that if an author denies permissions, it is more of a workaround if, for instance, the author has been inactive for long without specifying permissions.

 

There is some debate about whether patches require permissions though, so keep that in mind.

[Conspiracydawg]

 

Well, that is true in essence, but you make it sound as if it was out of the ordinary to include other people's assets (with permission). The contrary is the case.

 

So, yes, you need to include all assets which are not in the vanilla game. You need to have permission from the respective authors of said assets, which usually can be obtained.

The alternative of having a bunch of required mods is less desirable but acts as a workaround on the rare occasion that permissions cannot be obtained.

I apologize, that was not my intent. It is normal, I just wanted to make clear the consequences of doing it the wrong way. I said it like that because its much easier to do as you are making your mod instead of having to track down everything you used. But as far as required mods go, if I am reading your post correctly, you do NOT need permission from a mod author for that? I did not know this was the case. What exactly is the rule on this? I might have been mis-informed.

 

 

But if I just hit save, everything will be in there? If I were to send the esp to a friend to test, someone who doesn't have the resources, the necessary textures and models and whatnot would all be included? Sorry if I'm repeating myself, I just vaguely remember reading a couple years ago that you have to create an archive or something.

 

No, everything will not be there. The friend would also need all the mods you used.

 

So, permissions aside (not disregarding the issue, I swear, just asking a different question), if the models and textures aren't included if I just save the esp, how would I go about including them in the mod? Because I want to say I've got at least ten or fifteen resource packs that I use, I don't know which specific ones I used in this mod, and I don't want to have a required mod list that long (especially considering most of these resource packs are manual install, and extra especially if I end up just sharing it with my friends).

[BigBizkit]

There are several ways to "grab" all used assets, unfortunately, none of which are 100% satisfactory.

 

1. Make a completely clean data folder BEFORE you even start making the mod. You could then just copy all the resources in, and in turn copy that new data folder. DarrenD claims he does that. I just included it for the sake of completion. Most likely, you did not do that and you cannot travel in time.

 

2. You could use the ck's inbuilt functionality to upload to steam and abort just before the actual uploading part. Supposedly, that will create a bsa with all the assets used. I've never done that and I highly doubt it would grab all assets.

 

3. Use the "assets manager" script from tes5edit. I do that, but it will also grab a lot of extra stuff you will need to delete, like skeletons and some other stuff, vanilla scripts.

 

4. Do it the hard way: manually.

 

5. A combination of 3. and 4. and also some planning ahead of time, like intelligent naming of meshes/textures/folders/scripts. That's what I do.

 

Once you have gathered all the used assets, or rather you THINK you have them all (you never do), you can create a BSA archive from them. A useful tip is to then proceed and rename your meshes/textures folder to e.g. 0meshes/0textures in order to try out your mod and verify whether some mesh/texture is missing.

[RGMage2]

The create archive option in the CK has always worked well for me, though I have read many complaints from other authors who insist it is borked. Thing is that it will not grab all file types automatically - some scripts and certain other files it will ignore but you can drag them in manually. It does work very well with meshes and textures, for me I would say it has been 100% for meshes and textures. Once the BSA is created you need to unpack it somewhere safe and examine it to make sure that everything is in there. It is important to know what files you are using, really I can't say that strongly enough, you need to be familiar with everything that is in your mod.