Basic Modding Guides

[neilbaldwin23]

Hi,

I'm new to modding Skyrim and would like to replace some vanilla armours/clothes with those from other mods for my own play through. Are there any guides/tutorials on how to use the Creation Kit to do this? Is using the Creation Kit the best way to replace armours?

 

Thanks.

[scorrp10]

Yes, Creation Kit SE is the most versatile tool for working with mods. After you get CK, make sure to search Nexus for CK fixes and Multi Masters patch At least when CK for SSE was obtained from Bethsoft rather than Steam, it was a buggy, and really slow mess.

 

Other extremely useful tools for modding:

SSEEdit. Incredibly useful at determining mod conflicts and fixing things that CK does not give easy access to.

BodySlide/Outfit Studio - An absolute must for anyone trying to do anything with armors/clothes.

Bethesda Archive Extractor (BAE) - so you can extract resources from Skyrim's archives.

NifScope - Insanely useful tool for tweaking/fixing stuff in the mesh (.nif) files

If you want to edit textures, you need something that can handle the .dds format. I personally use Abobe Photoshop with Nvidia Plugin I heard GIMP works too.

Blender - though this is kinda next level

 

Far as tutorials... If I search Youtube for 'Skyrim armor creation kit tutorial', I get plenty of hits.

An important thing to remember is that a piece of armor is generally defined by two separate objects (or 'forms' in Skyrim modding terminology):

Armor - defines actual inventory item and game properties of armor (rating weight, price, flags etc) and has reference to one or more 'ArmorAddon' forms.

ArmorAddon - defines a visual wearable model of the armor, indicating mesh files for 3rd and 1st person, potential alternate texture sets and such.

[neilbaldwin23]

Thanks for your detailed reply. I'll spend some time understanding the tools you have mentioned and will also check out the YouTube videos.