AmericanJackal

Here I was about to get rid of my ENB, cry, and then redo my entire mod list to not include an ENB. Thank you SO much for posting this. It was not an obvious fix for me.

Steam is, in my opinion, becoming corrupted. It's learned some dirty habits after its success with Greenlight. Valve makes a ton of money off Greenlight, as do the developers -- but so many of the games are flops and have no business being behind a major distributor paygate like Steam. Very, very few of them have an actual timetable set up for completion, and there are a lot of games being posted that are just 1 of many belonging to a particular 'studio' or team that has no track record for completing their gamese. Others are straight-up copy and pasted ideas from other Greenlight games, sometimes even running on the exact same engine. Paid mods are a far more difficult beast to master, in my opinion. Valve (and any major studio, Bethesda included) is tranishing their own image by allowing a marketplace where 'poor service' and 'broken gameplay' will become synonomous with paid content endorsed by them. In the end, it's all about money, and they know that there are plenty of modders out there who are either greedy (those folks who will post reskins as paid content) or just jaded and would love to see any kind of return from their work, even if it's just 25% of the posted value. What really frightens me is that this 'paid mod' system could crack open the door for Steam to become a lot more aggressive with its DRM, and get developers to agree to lock their games down so that mods can't be installed or played unless downloaded from the Workshop.

Steam could conceivably be ugly about that; it is, after all, a DRM solution. Skyrim may be difficult to work out, but future games may require mods to generate some sort of ID or license bit that Steam could check against your account before allowing you to play with it. (The thought makes me shudder -- it would deal a huge blow against free-sharing of mods like here on Nexus). You will also not have access to updates. That could be a problem on new games that frequently pump out major bug fixes and patches. The first year of every Bethesda game is always a development race against the official patches and what they break in your mods.

Point blank, I'm not using paid mods. I never will. I will never use free mods that require paid mods in order to get the 'full effect.' Some people may see it differently, but as a heavy modder with a limited 'throw away' budget, I can not be spending money on something that will have an extremely high chance of becoming incompatible with my build down the road (if not immediately). I can't even speak to the dark, ugly feelings in my gut concerning the ethical violations and drama I see in the modding community's future. But, whatever... I think the short-term greediness of offering a paid mod is going to blow up in people's faces. One of the things that tends to propel good mods into the spotlight and earn them those thousands of downloads isn't the fact that they're simply good, it's the fact that they get a lot of exposure from guides or work well with other very popular mods. An example of this would be STEP: take a look at the mods that STEP recommends, and you'll notice that all of the files they recommend often have 50k-100k more downloads than other files from the same mod page. I don't work with the folks at STEP, and I can't speak for them at all, but I find it dubious that they would include paid mods as a part of their mod collections. For one, it would make testing the 100+ mods far more difficult, because cross-mod patches for paid mods will be slow (if not plagued by drama). It would be my sincere hope that Nexus would show some support for the majority of the modding community, and not offer any kind of advertising for these mods. Mods posted here should not be able to link back to paid-only updated versions or try to redirect people to a 'better' paid mod. If people have a legal right to charge for their mods, let them do so, but let's keep up the spirit of free development HERE, in this community. I found it very bad form for some of our modders to make their -current-, widely used mods pay-only, without any warning. I am not going to point fingers, but it should go without saying that had these mods not been included in places like GEM or STEP to begin with, they would have to build a consumer base for that particular mod from scratch and wouldn't be able to strongarm players who want to keep their setups up-to-date to pay out. It's ugly, and that's all I'm going to say on that.

I decided to save Erandur, only to discover that he's a priest with no magicka. I found a mod on the Nexus that changes him quite a bit, but the only thing that immediately updated when I installed this mod was his facial appearance. The new skills or stats did not update. Not wanting such a big overhaul anyway, I jumped into the creation kit and just created a new class for him based on his old one (Priest -> PriestErandur, to prevent it messing with other NPCs with Priest as their class) and tweaked his skill and attribute weights to better suit his background story. I tested these changes with a new save game and found them to be very satisfactory. However, in my MAIN SAVE GAME, I can not get him to update, and I can't find any instructions on how to make him update. I took him back to Nightcaller Temple and left him there, and then went to the Dawnstar Inn and waited 3 days (72 hours) and that did not appear to work -- can someone give me proper instructions?

Is it normal that Atvir doesn't recognize other Dunmer? (On my dark elf character, he essentially assumed I was a 'pale skin'.) I know this is only alpha, but also that the feature for him to recognize races is planned. Just don't know if it was implemented yet.

Is it possible to place variables inside dialogue strings without writing a hundred different dialogues and then linking them all individually? If not natively supported, is there some sort of modder's framework that could allow this? I am working on a mod in which the player "barters" through dialogue for an item. However, the resulting price actually relies on a lot of different variables, including race, quest completion, favor, disease, etc. I want all of my mods to more accurately reflect racism in Skyrim. The result is that there could be a few dozen outcomes, and the only difference is the number in the string. I would prefer if I could do something like, "Yeah, I will sell that to you for {cost}." ("Cost" being a variable in the dialogue's quest.) Just looking for ways to do less work. :)

Still looking for help or suggestions. I don't want to "force start" the quest using the console or anything, I want to make sure it will trigger naturally, but I can't find any information on what makes this quest activate (Favor001).

When I use NMM, it downloads the zip or 7z files to my computer in the 'download' directory that x specified when I first installed NMM. This may or may not be the same for you. (For me, it's in the Data folder itself -- Steam/common.../Skyrim/Data) If they are not in the same folder, you can just do a search on your computer for a familiar mod name. If you have never deleted these archives, they should still be there. You can copy and paste them all into a new folder and put that folder onto a disk, thumb drive, or any other media (or even just email it all to yourself). Then dump them directly into Data folder on your laptop. You can then use NMM to re-install them all. The downside to this is that you may not have the same kind of support in NMM as you do with your desktop -- for instance, it may have trouble finding out if there's been a new version and linking to respective mods. This is a very minor issue unless you update obsessively and have 200 different mods. (Even so, I've noticed many of the most popular mods work flawlessly anyway.)

I created a simple new NPC for my game; the intention was to assign him a favor quest that when done, would allow him to become a follower and a potential marriage partner. (Fairly straight forward, I thought.) I spent the majority of the day trying to figure our how certain Favor Quests detect their items -- in this case, I was using a simple "Deliver this" quest (FavorQuest001). Now it is time for testing and suddenly I realized that I can't figure out how to actually TRIGGER the quest. The NPC is there and can be selected to talk to, but there are no dialogue options. To test if it was just the NPC, I COC'd to another NPC that uses the exact same quest and he did not have the quest either. After all the frustration I went to just to discover how the game recognizes quest items without ever actually naming the darn things, I'm hoping someone can show me some mercy and tell me how this particular quest gets activated or how the game determines you are eligible for it.

If you don't want to use consoles, you may want to use just the "Save New" option when you are done playing. It will save data with a screenshot of where you are, your character name, level, timestamp, etc. This will not allow your brother to overwrite your save unless he explicitly tells the game to do so (in which case, well, that's a discussion for you and your brother. :P). If you only rely on quick-saves and auto-saves then he could accidentally overwrite it while playing.

Many moons ago, I recall seeing a mod on the Nexus that was a resource for mod-makers who needed empty sound files for dialogue. It seems this mod has gone missing. Has it found a new home somewhere else?

Running with Tambo's last posts and doing a bit more googling, I believe I've figured out the mystery of Texture Sets. For posterity, I'm posting a tutorial going over what I did and if it survives the critique of people who actually know what they're doing, I'll add a better one to the Wiki (with pictures & video). People who know better than me! -- Please comment on what should or shouldn't be done, what isn't correct, etc. here so I can get my story straight! Creating New Texture Sets for Use on Base NIF Files Step 1: Prepare the Files If you are altering a nif or pre-existing texture in any way, you will need to unpack them both from their BSAs to get access to them. Google "BSAopt" and look for a link on Nexus. Drop the new textures that you want to use into an appropriate directory. Follow folderpath conventions found in Data/Textures. For my horses, for example, I am using Data/Textures/ModName/actors/horse/character assets/texture_file_here.dds Step 2: Create the TextureSet. Open your plugin in the CreationKit and look in the Object Window. Expand the "Miscellaneous" tree and select TextureSets. If you are altering a pre-existing texture set, you may want to search for relevent key words to find what you need. For me, I'm just going to search for "horse". Select the most appropriate texture set to edit. Change the Form ID to something specific to your mod, that you will be able to recognize and find again. I changed the Form ID to "SkinFlaxenBay" because I am creating a new texture set for a flaxen bay horse. When you go to save, make sure you allow it to create a NEW FORM. In the table below, you will have different file names that will point directly to the texture files being used. Highlight the fields that you want to change, and then click on "Edit" beneath Texture. Navigate to your brand new texture file. Rinse and repeat until you have created new texture sets for all of the files that you will need. You now have a tangible link between the Creation Kit and your textures. Step 3: Create a new ArmorAddon. In the Object Window, go to Items > ArmorAddon. Like before, search for the most relevent entries to you. For me, this again is going to be "horse." Most creatures in the game who have a basic skin will have that skin stored as an ArmorAddon. Select one and change the Form ID to something that you will recognize for your mod. Down below, you will see two sections labeled Male Model and Female Models. You can have two different kinds of looks depending on something's gender, but most animals in the game appear to be set as male (hence why animals only have male models). Under Biped Model, click the "Select" button. It will open a new window called 'Model Data'. Make sure "Model File Name" is pointing to the correct new model that you want to use, if you are using something new (you probably aren't). Below, there is a table with some various fields. You may need to play with these to get the effect you want because they will be different for each different .nif file. For horses, there's fields called Horse:3, Horse:2, Horse:1, and Horse:0. I've discovered that two of these fields relate to the horse's overall body, while one relates to the mane/tail. Just play with what you have and see what happens. Double-click the box under "New Texture" for the field that you want to change, and it will open a dialog box to select a form. Search for the TEXTURESET that you created in Step 2. Click Okay when you are done. Click Okay again to close the ArmorAddon box and make sure that it creates a new field from your new ID. Step 4: Create the Armor. Armors inherit ArmorAddons to determine their look. Don't ask me why, but the game actually treats anything ON something as an armor (in this case, horse hide). In the Object Window, open Items > Armors. Like in the first two steps, select a good starting point using the search and change the Form ID to something relating to your mod. Look in the lower, left-hand corner and you'll see a box called "Models" next to a checkbox that says "Show All." Select "Show All". Go ahead a DELETE all of the models shown in that box. Now, right-click and select New. In the new Dialog Box, search for the ArmorAddon that you want that you created earlier. Click okay. As before, make sure you create a new form and don't overwrite the one you started with. Step 5: Create the Actor base. In the Object Window, go to Actors > Actor and find the critter you want. Just like above, change that form ID and remember to save it as a new form. For horses (and probably most other animals), you will need to DECHECK "Inherit Traits" if it is already checked. This will allow you to select a new skin while keeping all the other information about that animal or thing the same. In the Traits Tab, select the Skin drop down and find the Armor you created. If you don't believe me, select "Preview" and have a look at your new creature with its fancy new textures. Save. Step 6: Create an Instance of that Actor (or Thing). Drop your new thing into the world somewhere, save the plugin, and open up a test game with it activated and go have a look at it. You should have a brand new model with a brand new texture.

I'm exploring working on a mod that adds multiple variants of horses (of different coat colors AND genders) into the same game, using Slof's wonderful work as a starting point. I started using a tutorial called "Creating a Stable" from the Creation Kit wiki, but it only seems to cover the addition of only one kind of horse. I've gone through the Creation Kit itself, trying to figure out how the base game created different horses all from the same horse.nif and I'm not able to find any answers. When modding, it appears that for each different kind of horse (say, a bay versus a black), there can only be one nif file. (I have to use NifSkope to assign the textures to it.) Yet in the base game, there is only one .nif file, and five different horse textures. (And you replace these textures freely with replacers, like Slof's, if you retain the naming structure.) How is the base game accomplishing this? (( I'm the answer must be so simple that I'm just overthinking this. )) Basically, I am looking for ways to reduce work and garbage files from my mod. If I have to create a new special nif for each individual horse type (each color I want in each gender), then I guess I will -- but it creates a significant amount of extra work and a lot of files for installing. Eventually, I will be doing the same thing to other certain types of creatures, so the less repetitive work the better. :D (Edit to Note - I do know I will have to use different .nifs for different genders because of the different meshes -- I'm only wondering about applying different textures to the same mesh.)

Thank you, David! A mastered patch is exactly what I need to do, and this at least gives me a direction to go in. I do want to clarify that I have no intention of including ANY content in my mod that is in the other -- people who will want to use it MUST use the parent mod. It's been ages since I touched Wyre Bash, but now that Skyrim has aged a bit, I guess it's time to go take another look at it.