Let me start by saying i'm new to the whole modding scene but my limited knowledge may be useful. Skyedit is a handy little tool, still in it's alpha stage but soon to be outdated by the official creation kit. It works a lot like the CS of tes 4 but with limited functionality. You can find it here http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes5Mod:SkyEdit For this tutorial i'm going to assume you have the mesh and texture all ready (nifs in Data\meshes\weapons, texture dds' in Data\textures\weapons) to be imported. There are other tutorials out there for help with this sort of thing. When it comes to the mesh folder you'll need two copies of your nif. One named 'yourname.nif' and '1stpersonyourname.nif'. The 1stperson is used for 'static' models which we'll cover later. So let's get started. The first thing you'll want to do apon loading skyedit is load a master plugin. So go to file and click open. The next box that pops up will have all the plugins currently installed to your data folder. We're gonna need to load up a master file (though it is possible to create plugins without loading a master file with the right know how) so double click the Skyrim.esm (a little tick in the box confirms your selection) and click okay. A progress bar should then pop up load. It's okay if it takes a while, it's loading quite a bit of data. Once that's done you should have a window within the main window named 'noname1'. Max out the main window and drag the little window down so you can see what your doing a little better then we can start to think about making your weapon work. The only items in the list (in the box on the left) that we're really interested in at this stage are the 'recipes', 'statics' and weapons. So let's start with the 'weapons' Apon clicking the 'weapons' tab the box to the right should fill with all the weapons in the vanilla game. What i did from here was just make a copy of a default weapon, we'll use the steel sword for this example. So search in the box to the right for SteelSword or use the filter box on the left to search for it. Now right click that and 'create copy'. A box should pop up prompting you for a new Editor Id. Put the name of your weapon in here, the box should turn green meaning your weapon has a 'unique editor id' if it stays red it means that something else already has that id so change the name, and click okay. So now your weapon has a unique id with the steelsword properties we'll leave that there for a minute and load in a 'static'. Go to the 'statics' tab and in the right box right click and select 'new'. A box should pop up asking for another unique id. This is where that 1stperson model comes in. So type in the editor id box 1stpersonyourname and set the scale to 90. In the models box type in the location of your 1stpersonyourname.nif eg weapon\meshes\yourname\1stpersonyourname.nif. As the program is still just in it's alpha stage, if you use the > search box it'll say unrecognised file type so you'll have to type all locations manually. Click save and we can go back to the 'weapons' tab. Click 'weapon' and search for yourname (use filter and search) and in the right box, right click yourname and click edit. A new box should pop up with quite a bit of information in it. This box has all the properties of your weapon and your free to change up and experiment with different thing but for now we just need 'name', 'model' and 'static model'. Change the 'name' to yourname (This is how it will be written in game) and go down to 'model'. Like with the static you'll have to manually type in the location of your nif so type in weapons\meshes\yourname\yourname.nif. Now go down to 'static model' and click the little > Type in or search for your 1stpersonyourname id and click okay. If your happy with your changes click save (apply saves your work but leaves the dialog box open). Now we can create a smithing recipe for your new weapon.So click on 'recipes' in the hand box and the right hand box should pop up with all the recipes for the stuff in game. Again, for this i just created a copy of the Steelsword so just search for SteelSword and you'll find 2 recipes for it. One named recipeweaponsteelsword and one called temperweaponsteelsword. These are both for creating at a smithy and upgradeding on the wheel. We'll start with recipeweaponsteelsword. Right click and select create copy. A dialog box should pop up asking for another editor id so put in recipeweaponyourname and the box should turn green and click okay. Search for your new id, right click it and select edit. This box will let you change the componants of the recipe and is adjustable to your liking but with this tutorial i'll just leave it how it is with one exception. In the box named result item click the little > and another box should pop up. Type in yourname in the dialog box and it should turn green and click okay. Now back to the recipes and look for temperweaponsteelsword. Right click this and create copy. In the new dialog box type in temperweaponyourname and the box should turn green. Hit okay. Find the temperweaponyourname and right click edit. Another box should pop up and again these variables can be changed but we'll just stick to result item. Click the little > and search for yourname id and click okay. Now it's time to save your new plugin. At the top of the screen you'll have a file, open and save icon. Click save, type in the name of your esp and save. The default location of saves is the data folder of your skyrim install but this along with a few other things can be changed in the skyedit config file. This tutorial is just a ...basic..? one i put together with the knowledge i have but everything is adjustable and you can figure out what works and stuff. This can tyde you over till the official kit is released if you really can't wait. Hope this really helps as i know it would've helped me.
