Natterforme

Be sure to leave lots of room in the lore to add new content. If and when it takes off you are going to be adding new material on a regular basis and it helps to have as much room as possible^^. I like the look of the game! I have never made a full game from start to finish but I might start looking into it if there are tools that exist for it. Any recommendations on tools friend^^. -Natterforme

Developing a plan is very important for seeing your mod through to completion. The old saying," If you fail to plan, you plan to fail," rings true here. For my planning stages, I use Notepad ++ for organizing my ideas and thoughts. I usually write down what I want the ultimate goal of the mod to be, and whether it is personal or intended for the public. If my intention is to improve an aspect of the game or fix a bug, I list down all of the problems that I can think of that fall into the relative category that the mod would cover as well as ways that the game can be improved or fixed in these areas. I use the wikis and other sources to find related bugs and known problems that others have experienced and I research if the problem has been fixed, either in a mod or in a patch. I also check the Unofficial Skyrim patch to see if it has already been addressed. If I find that the problem has not been patched, but has been fixed in a known mod, I look for that mod to see how fully that mod fixes the issue. I also look to see if other mods have already addressed my concerns and, if they have, to what extent. It can be very frustrating to lean that your mod has already been modded or patched before you even began working. Once I know that what I am doing has not already been done before and I have made a list to address my concerns, I categorize it to group the issues based on its difficulty to fix or change and tackle the small issues first. It gives me a feel for how hard the overall project will be to see through and warms me up to address the larger issues with a better understanding of what is wrong or what is it that I want to change. After I have sorted out the problems on paper, I begin to list the potential additions and improvements that I wish to add to the game. These too are sorted based on difficulty to complete. As I go into the toolsets and begin to work on the mod, I am continually marking off to-do items on the lists and making observations and making notes for when I learn something that could be useful in the future. I often use these notes on future projects and am constantly referring to them. As they are completed, I add the changes, additions, improvements, and bug fixes to a list of completed tasks. This makes it very easy to write up the readme file later, as I can have everything compiled together in notes from start to finish and I can easily say what I have or have not changed in the mod. Ultimately the goal is to complete mods by staying on track with an organized set of goals which are realistic and obtainable. It also lets me know when I am done with a mod and can safely move on to the next one :P. -Natterforme

Can there only be one type of bow length or can the game handle a bow that is longer or shorter length than what is ingame? Currently all bows are the same length (about the 5ft length of a standard bow). Will the rigging support a scaled increase in the length of a bow and still play the animation? If it could then that would mean that we could have more variety in the types of bows (shortbow, longbow, recurve, 6ft+ bow, etc.). I know Oblivion had a couple of mods that did this and I was wondering if we could do that in Skyrim. -Natterforme

Lets see what else we can add.^^ Once you have made a mod that you are comfortable with, advertise! Screenshots are a great way to get known and build up your associations with other modders. Use screenshots of your mod in action to build attention and show off its unique features. There are several quality Youtube channels dedicated to reviewing and advertising Skyrim mods. Dont be afraid to PM them and ask for a mod review. Who knows, they might have already started! Some of the larger channels might not cover your first mod, but there are several smaller channels that most certainly will. Once you begin to make a name for yourself, then people will come to you asking for their videos to be hosted on your mod page! It happens to me all of the time. When you update your mods in a meaningful way, write an article on the changes and features with a splash image. This is a handy way to let others know that your mod has been updated without adding a new file to the newest files section! -Natterforme

I would like to make a store for my own mods. I would also like to make some unique loading screens and some new weapons. Maybe over Christmas I will get the time to do that. -Natterforme

Thanks Demidekidasu! -Natterforme

This! http://static.skyrim.nexusmods.com/images/2102930-1353107297.jpg I am finally kicking myself and getting the Nordic Adventurer's armor set ready for publication. I redid the majority of the mesh work because the files were getting corrupted and I didnt like the look anymore. It felt too soft and similar to other armors so I went back to the drawing board and tried again. I think it fits into Skyrim a lot better now and is pretty much ready to go dungeon delving pretty soon! @Ironman5000- That is awesome! I wish I had my avatar ingame too^^. Maybe that will be a future project! :D -Natterforme

Hmmm. Lets see. Most of my interests involve weapons and armor so Blender and Nifskope are in continual use. -You can generalize or specialize but whatever you do, start small. It can be a simple as a retexture of a spoon( my first personal mod) or removing a pauldron from a piece of armor. Make test mods just to learn new skills which will be useful in later projects. -Dont be afraid to ask questions on the forums. The majority of modders are amiable enough and there are usually more than enough individuals willing to answer basic questions. The ones that are not are not worth talking to to begin with. -Dont expect your first mod to be a hit. -Modding takes time and there is a learning curve. My first couple of mods took a month or more. I had to learn how to use the CK and I had to learn the other programs. As you progress you will get faster. I now have several dozen WIPs and any one of them could be ready within a week if I focused on only one. -When working on a mod, be sure to take time off of it and come back to it later once in a while. It helps you to digest what you are working on and come back to it with a fresh view. -Have confidence in your own ability to learn! It seperates those who get stuff done and those who dont. -Like the others have stated: Stay away from total conversions. They dont happen over night and they should never be your first mod. -Make mods for yourself! If you like it you can share it with the rest of us. If you dont even like your mods then they can not hope to do well. Hope this helps!^^ -Natterforme

Legend of Grimrock will now have mods! Sign me up!^^ I will be picking up this title soon! -Natterforme

The only problem with this idea is that these enchantments are not worth the cost of 16 Daedric artifacts. Plus, if you could survive that many waves of daedra to forge the crown, you probably dont need the crown anyway. Alchemy and enchanting will get you effects that are usually more balanced and fair than these and some of them are even better( in terms of magic regeneration, spell reduction cost, etc.). Disease immunity can be gotten just by being a werewolf and if you have the daedric artifacts on hand you are more prepared to take on a wider range of situations that a simple set of medium level buffs. -Natterforme

Is there a problem with the Argonian and Khajit races? I have been having problems adding new hoods for them to use. I have been trying to make new hoods for some of my mods but they were not showing up in the game. I decided to use the argonian hood model from the mage apprentice folder with just a slight color change but it wont show up. I have the armor form and the armorAA form working properly, because I had this working about 3 versions before in one of my mods. Yet now when I am testing the hoods, the model refuses to show up and defaults to the human model, which clips heavily though the beast races. Orcs do not seem to be affected but they can use human models without clipping. The hoods are set up correctly with a 131 dismemberskininstance, taking up the hair and long hair slot( plus the ears for the Khajit model) and are used by the armor form. I was thinking that this was just a one time thing, but this seems to be a problem with 3 of my other mage mods that use hoods. Hood models just refuse to show up on Khajits and Argonians, even though I am using models made for them with the only changes being a texture path. If this was the problem, the model would not show up at all and it would just be a blank space where the head is supposed to be. In this case, the model switches to the human armorAA form. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you^^. -Natterforme

Hey, I dont use 3DSMax, but I think I can help. I would try duplicating the mesh piece and join the two together. Then after that I would select it and flip the normals. At least in Blender, this would cause you to have a two sided mesh that would show details of the texture map on both sides, as opposed to just one. As to your second problem, have you considered pulling the belt and the corset out a little more so that they cover the white shirt part more completely? Of course you could always delete the hidden part of the shirt and that would eliminate the problem, hopefully. Good luck^^! -Natterforme

So I am trying to get my new armor items to be recognized by the mage armor perk but I cant find a list of keywords that the perks need to recognize the perk. I have tried several but I cant seem to find the right one. Do I need the venderitemclothing keyword, the armorclothing keyword, or something else entirely? -Natterforme

Thank you very much this is exactly what I needed. I will be keeping a copy of this tutorial as well. Much appreciated! -Natterforme

I want to add new models that have new textures but I have run into a problem. When using the new normal map, I get an unrealisticly high specularity or highlight on my model, which gives an unrealistic look to the mesh. What do I have to do in order to modify or add new normal maps and not have this issue? Is it just a setting in Nifslope? I would use vanilla normal maps but the texture I am using is entirely unique and would not work with vanilla assets. Also, how do I make and add a working glow map to parts of my new model? I have the textures made I just dont know how to turn them into glow maps. Thanks in advance!^^ -Natterforme

First of all I just wanted to say that your new armor is really amazing and that I like it very much^^. I just saw your armor on the new files list and I wanted to ask a question or too regarding your process, since we both use Blender. Most of the other original armor makers I have seen either use Zbrush or 3DSMax so I cant get help from them. I have been working on several armors myself but I have been wanting to branch out and make entirely new gear and equipement. I have several new sets of gear that are at the middle stage of development and I know how to wieght paint and bone weight copy correctly to avoid skeleton and bone problems. I know how to get things into the game really quickly now through the CK but my biggest problem is textures. Could you step me through your process to get the textures made? I use Photoshop CS5 but I dont really understand how to get the mesh layout into a streamlined process and to get the large targa file (2048^2+) into a good dds file. Basically I dont know what to do once I get the UV layout into Photoshop. How to I layer on the new colours and details while still being able to see the outline? Do I just mutliply it through the layers palette? Oh and I dont know anything about specular maps or glow maps. I know that these can really make your gear pop but I do not really understand it. Any tips or information you could share with me would greatly improve my work! Thank you for your time. -Natterforme

Hello again^^! I would suggest that you add circlets to the skulls that use gemstones rather than plain gold ones. I would make the gold trim on the robe match the gild on the armor instand of the gold on the circlet. You could increase the brightness of the gold color of the circlets as well to be less dull or use a modded texture that does this already. -Natterforme

This issue has been resolved via PM. This is not a bump. -Natterforme

I know it can be done but I dont know how to do it. I could use a default vanilla gnd model but I want to only use that as a last resort. It would not look very good if the item used a vanilla mesh and would break immersion. -Natterforme

I want to have a custom mesh used as a ground model for a piece of clothing that I am working on. I added the item to the CK and put the gnd mesh into the tab where it belongs in the Armor form for it to show up in the game and represent that piece of clothing folded up. The problem is that I do not know how to add the collision data to the gnd model in nifskope to get it to interact with the world. Whenever I drop the item from my inventory with this gnd model used, it just hangs in the air and I can not interact with it. I know that I could just use a vanilla gnd model but it would not look as good and would break the immersion and believability of that item. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated^^. -Natterforme

This issue has been resolved. This is not a bump. -Natterforme

Its been a long time coming but its been well worth the wait! Wait, does this mean that there is no longer a TESNexus, but a Morrowind and Oblivion Nexus, respectively? :/ If nothing else, this means that Morrowind images will no longer be drowned out by Oblivion ones and will have their own seperate space entirely for them^^. Oh and I am loving the Morrowind site, it has a nice retro feel to it without any of the inconvienences of outdated systems. Though the only critique that I have is that the banner for the Ordinator on the Morrowind site and the Mythic Dawn assassin on the Oblivion site seem out of place. I love the Ordinators, but I am sure that there must be a better picture of them out there somewhere( they look a little silly imo) and the Mythic Dawn banner is way too close. I feel that a farther back portrait of that character( similar to the warrior on the left banner) would be more fitting to the look of the site. But again, this is just my personal opinion so do with it as you will^^. -Natterforme

Ok then I will take a look at this tomorrow( since its late right now) and see what I can do. Since all I want to do is make the clothing take advantage of the mage armor perk and have the heavy armor take advantage of the heavy armor perk, it should not be too difficult. The main problem is that until we figure out what the solutions to the problems are, we often end up swinging in the dark until we get the desired effect. If you want to look at it sooner, you can look at my Daedric mage armor mod, since that is the one with the problem, whcih can be found on my profile. Thanks for your correspondance in regards to this matter in any case^^. -Natterforme

So do I just need to remove the heavy armor key word and replace it with ArmorClothing for each of the pieces that I want to affect? Can this be used with other key words to gain the light or heavy armor perks on pieces of new armor or clothing? -Natterforme

Ok so I am working on some mage armors that I want to take advantage of the Mage Armor perk tree. I used the Daedric Armor templates for the armor and AA forms and have set the armor ratings to 0 and the armor types to NONE for every piece of the new item set. The problem is, from what my users are telling me, that trying to use the perk with the armor on does not give it the perk increase, meaning that the perk is not counting the armor as clothing. How do I go about fixing this? Is it a perk thing or is it something in the armor and AA forms that needs to be changed? -Natterforme