Natterforme

Happy New Year Robin! And many more to come! I look forward to the Nexus meeting its goals for 2015! -Natterforme

Hey this is Natterforme here. I recently updated my Tribunal Robes and Masks mod to version 3_0 this past week. I distinctly remember uploading both the robes and the masks under separate files under the main files tab. The past few days, everything has been normal. Today, when I was checking the page, I noticed that the files seem to be corrupt or there is a problem with the page under the download section. For some reason it is saying that I now have 2 copies of the Tribunal Robes uploaded and the Masks file is no longer uploaded. I thought i might have simply uploaded the file twice but I definitely remember the Masks file taking significantly less time to upload since its file size is so much smaller than the Robes file. I remember deleting the older version (Aug. 30th) because I was told that I had some dirty edits and on Aug. 31st I deleted the Version 3 file and uploaded the Version 3_0 file that was cleaned in TES5edit. Version 3_0 of the Masks is simply gone. I dont mind deleting everything and trying again but I wanted to run it by a moderator before I took the next step. Is this possibly a server side issue? Thanks for your time! -Natterforme

I want to add some unique armor to the leveled lists. I have made all of the forms and crafting and temporing recipes. I just dont know how to add the equipment so that it will appear ingame and not just the forge list. -Natterforme

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Robin, you and the team have worked very hard this year and deserve a little ( or alot) of praise! The problems dont really bother me, as I know you guys are working hard to improve our modding experience and your hard work benefits the community as a whole! Dont let the trolls get you down! Have a great and prosperous new year! -Natterforme

I think that the only way to go past that cap is if you bring the model into another 3D program such as Blender, scale up the actual model, and then export it back out again. Scaling in nifscope can cause problems and, like you experienced, not be noticed by the CK. -Natterforme

Mod author popularity is a by-product of an author who makes quality mods. No mod author got recognized because they made terrible mods. Dont worry about trying to become popular or well known here. If your mods are good and are useful and are high quality, you will get noticed. Instead of looking for popularity, focus on these tips: -Make mods that YOU want to use. If you dont like them, then no one else will. -Make new content. The easiest way to do this is to check the search lists and see if your mod has been done before. No one needs another "Make Daedra race playable" or "Make Lydia Marriable" mod. It has already been done, so focus on making new things that interest you. -Simple is best. Tweaks and fixes often do better than complex mods to a degree. The reason your Barrow mod did well was because it fixed an issue that was not fixed and that bugged a lot of people. Mods that make peoples lives easier get noticed, especially if they are simple and unintrusive. -Focus/Intent of the mod. Is the mod intended to reach a broad audience or a narrow one? Nighteye changes fit into the narrow category because the only people who consider these changes are people who play as Khajits or Vampires frequently. A CBBE/UNP body conversion would be considered an example of a broad choice. Also, is that download history on the Skyrim Nexus are somewhat skewed. Back at the beginning of the launch, lots of mods got lots of downloads. People were trying out everything. Now, even though the audience has only grown, users have become more focused in what they download and comb through searches until they find what they want. Now that we have had the CK for a while, players have a higher expectation of what they want and are quicker to pass over some mods if it doesnt meet their criteria, even if it can improve their game. This effect is more obvious with the images section. The farther back you go, image views and endorsements go up drastically because everything was new. Now views hover in the low hundreds and endorsements dont get that high. Cases where views and endorsements are still high are ones where the user is particularly well known or liked or features a character with its own fan fiction or mod WIP that is highly anticipated. Again, people scan through looking for what they want and ignore the rest. Also, just because a mod did well in Oblivion does not mean that it would do well in Skyrim. The nighteye shader replacement did well because it improved the game play In Skyrim it became an optional thing. Many of the best mods from Oblivion got incorporated into Skyrim in some way( i.e. animated containers that display if they are empty or not). My advice would be to do some simple mods that either add small things or variety to existing things. For example, Automatic Variants adds variety to existing creatures. This improves game play simply by making things less repetitive (scripting and technical aspects aside). Find something in the game that you like and make four or five varients of it and add it to the game. Ever notice how there are only about two types of burned books or funeral urns in the game? Make it ten or fifteen. These are small things that could improve the game play and are very immersive. It would also give you practice for when you make a really big mod. These are just examples but you get the idea. -Natterforme

The reason we havent ported the Black Luster armor already is because it uses Oblivion assets. It would be too much work to try and make it out of Skyrim ones. It would be easier just to make new materials instead. -Natterforme

True. Being ably to adjust this in preferences would be nice^^. -Natterforme

Here are several suggestions that I think would streamline the sites a little for members. -Change the tracking center for mods to list tracked mods in alphabetical order as opposed to last upload date. Possibly make it so that, like the images section, order the lists based on views, upload date, downloads, endorsements, etc., in ascending or descending order. -Add a section under the user area that includes the friends list, so that we do not have to swap over to our profile pages or forum profiles just to view those lists. -The ability to categorize or sort the friends list, or, barring that, a simple alphabetical order for quick reference. The ability to lock this feature on a default setting under the user preferences would be useful but not critical. -Removal of the pending friends request link under the user areas. I personally have never needed this feature and every time I have looked at it, it seems that it has only told me information that was not already given to me through the forum messages system. Most of the users on this list have already been given friend approval and it doesnt seem to update depending on whether or not I accept them to my friends list. -Natterforme

http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/2102930-1367954093.jpg Finished the Imperial Mage Armor! Now I need to figure out which armor to work next!^^ -Natterforme

Well its official. The Nexus has achieved Ancient Rome status! Dark0ne is Emperor and we are Legion! All hail the Modded Empire! XD (But you can serve the Stormcloaks if you want^^.) -Natterforme

There is also the entirely Nifskope way of making armor mashups. It involves splicing vanilla armors together in Niskope and then changing the texture properties to create alphas out of sections of the armor to make them disappear. This has several uses and drawbacks. Its useful because it means that you can create rudimentary changes and new equipment relatively quickly. The drawbacks are that it is limited in terms of being able to make radical changes to the mesh structure on its own and certain changes can not be implemented without a proper 3D program to do it in. This is usually what Hoth does with his mashups. If you look at the files for the Dragon Knight Armor for example, it is actually a combination of several armor pieces together, mostly unchanged. The major changes are implemented in the texture file to make parts of the armor appear and disappear at will. This was faster than importing and exporting from other programs in the beginning, but now the software has caught up with the game and we have figured out the process for working in the other programs to make them viable methods. For example, on my first armor mod, the Daedric Mage armor, it took several months of trial and error in blender to figure out how to import it into the game and make it work after the changes. It meant that I could have a greater degree of flexibility in creating mashups but the tradeoff was that it took several months to make an armor whereas the previously mentioned method would take a considerably less amount of time. Now the process has been streamlined to the point where I can do the same process several times a day which previously took us months to figure out. Blender and Max are best for cheap and free solutions to creating armor mashups but if you want to create entirely new stuff then you will need to invest in Mudbox or Zbrush. They are quite expensive but if you have the skill to work in them then you can focus on making your own stuff, which is, of course, the ultimate goal for creating new content. What exactly do you wish to accomplish? -Natterforme

Just in case this has not already been noted, when going to the search tool and typing in a search query, choosing the "most downloaded" filter does not appear to give an accurate list. The order is relatively close but not exactly in the order of most downloaded. Just thought that I would point that out in case it hasnt already been mentioned^^. (this is using chrome) -Natterforme

I was wondering what you guys thought about seeing TES games on the OUYA. I know that there is a lot that we dont know about the system in terms of software and whether or not it will flop, but hypothetically, what do you think about seeing Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind on the system? The developers are supposedly going to allow some level of personal modification, which would make it one of the first consoles that you can open up without voiding your warranty. With XBox and Playstation there is so much legal red tape that it would take too long for mods to get approved by the parent companies before they would even be considered if they ever even entertained the idea. I know that there are issues in terms of hard drive space and capability, so it is entirely possible that Skyrim and Oblivion could not be playable at all on the system but surely Morrowind could at least run at a decent framerate. If we could be allowed to transfer our PC copies of these games to flash drives or portable externals, we could solve the problem of low drive space and we could potentially be able to bring a modded version of Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind to the console market. I know that you could always use an HDTV as a monitor for your PC and just play the games that way but for those of us that have an HDTV but do not have a robust computer this could be a workable alternative. In addition, Daggerfall would be a perfect candidate to test this idea, as it is old enough to run smoothly on a console system but is still moddable. Since it is now in the public sphere, I am certain that people will port it to the system and it might even generate new interest in the game. With any luck, more people might help work on DaggerfallXL and other total improvement mods. If we could bring any of these games to a console and mod them that would be a big step in bridging the gap between moddable PC versions games and locked console versions. What you think everyone? I know that there are a bunch of ifs that would have to work out but as a hypothetical scenario, is it possible? -Natterforme

I am sure that if we could upload mods for any game we wanted then Minecraft would get a massive following. Sure, the MCForums do a great job, but having an MCNexus would not be a bad thing in my opinion^^. Continue the good work Dark0ne! -Natterforme

Good point....taken care of!^^ -Natterforme

I am requesting admin access to the Tribunal Robes and Masks mod by Zairaam. He has moved on from modding and has given me permission to maintain the mod. My user page says that I have 6 mods that I have access to though none of them show up when I go to that page. I dont know what they are but I think that it has been bugged out for a while. I dont think Zairaam actually input my user id into the list of users allowed to modify the page. I have never had to ask for something like this before so I dont know about procedure for this occurance or if we even allow the transfer of mod admin access. I could always start up a new page but I think that that would be redundant. If I need written proof of transfer I can supply email conversations on the topic and the comments section of the mod has mentioned Zairaams wishes in this regard. Thank you for your time. -Natterforme

When I make armor, I usually just make it for the vanilla body and let other people do conversions if they ask for it. I don't have the time to make body morphs for 3+ bodies with weight sliders and unique CK form IDs. Someone will always want something that you didnt provide in the mod so its best to just do what you want to do and let someone else worry about making it personal for them. If a person really wants a CBBE/UNP/whatever body morph of my armors, they usually can figure it out on their own. -Natterforme

I myself will be leaving the ads on. I cant support the site directly but if the ads bring in revenue and keep the site up and running then I have nothing to complain about^^. Besides, I have ad blindness anyway XD. -Natterforme

Thank goodness! I dont upload many images but I know that those who do will get a lot out of this update. It is another example of how Dark0ne listens to what we have to say. Thank you very much! -Natterforme

Happy New Year everyone! Lets continue to mod and game together! Loling at Ironman's avatar... XD. -Natterforme

I remember talking about this with the students and professors in my design classes last year when we first heard about this happening at other schools^^. -Natterforme

The game can not support whips. -Natterforme

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15666/?tab=3&navtag=%2Fajax%2Fmodimages%2F%3Fuser%3D0%26id%3D15666 This mod came up ages ago, its already been done^^. -Natterforme

When I was thinking about it I did consider that mod added weapons and armor would not be able to enjoy this system, as each recipe would have to crafted individually and that can only be done on vanilla items. Though updates and patchs could be added that include those modded items and since many of them have been added to compilations and packs it could be done from one or two sources. I will look into it and see how long it takes. With the holiday chaos I havent had time to try any of this stuff yet^^. -Natterforme