I want to get into making mods... where do I start?

[TragicTheBlathering]

Hi there... I'm interested in making my own Starfield mods.... I was wondering where start and if there are any discord communities I can hang in?

 

thanks

[FokkeTale]

There is a Nexus Mods Discord as well as, specifically, a Starfield Modding Discord (further down the page, under 'How do I get involved?'). Given that there's no Creation Kit available until some time in 2024, knowledge is limited, and as are third-party tools, so, I assume, an easier way to get started may be to look into the process of making mods for Fallout 4. It's the route I'm going to be looking into - and I expect (or hope) there'll be some transferance of skill between modding for either game.

[zanity]

If you want to mod now, you need the 'easy' type of mods, and those are things that mess with settings in control files, or alter simple data files (like textures or audio files). Otherwise (and far more logical) research as much info as possible into how the type of mods that interest you have been made for fallout or Skyrim. Pay attention to the mods that proved to be easy, vs the mods that proved to be harder (or perhaps impossible). You obviously need to match your skill level and how much work you expect to put into your project.

 

All coding is effort and experience. All art design is effort and experience. The authors of some existing mods give access to all the workings, allowing you to experiment with their mods- in other words you can mod a mod - perhaps a good place to start. If it's art design mods that interest you, the third party tools used to create the datasets for earlier games will surely end up having the same use in Starfield.

 

Modders begin either top down or bottom up. Top down means the idea first. Bottom up means the skills, experience and practice first. Bottom up is the right way, but top down is what most inexperienced modders desire. In which case take your idea and seek the closest existing mods for any game. Then look to the forms of work involved in those mods.

 

Remember to use Internet searches- and to find online sites that you can explicitly reference in your searches for better results. When the official tools for Starfield appear, there are a LOT of needed skills to start using these tools effectively. Anything you study and learn about Beth game modding in the meantime will help you.

[TragicTheBlathering]

There is a Nexus Mods Discord as well as, specifically, a Starfield Modding Discord (further down the page, under 'How do I get involved?').

 

Thanks.. I'll look into that.

 

I assume, an easier way to get started may be to look into the process of making mods for Fallout 4. It's the route I'm going to be looking into - and I expect (or hope) there'll be some transferance of skill between modding for either game.

 

I do not own any of the fallout games, and (the blasphemy!)... I also hate them lol. So I'd rather just learn on a game I like. Thanks for the advice, though.

 

 

 

Remember to use Internet searches- and to find online sites that you can explicitly reference in your searches for better results.

 

Well, the point of this thread was to ask what the active communities are for Starfield modding so I can hang and start lurking and reading.

 

[langnao]

Depend on what you wanna do ... simple texture replacement/coloring can easily be done...

 

Majority of the tools like xEdit, nifskope etc is still in development. There is a blender plugin that you can use to import and export the mesh. When Bethesda releases the proper CK toolsets then you can create proper brand new object with coliision etc instead of just mesh swapping.

 

Or just simply play around with swapping the nif. Eg I don't like the look of mantis armor, I just swap it with starborn armor. Before all these, get BAE to extract all the files u need from the BA2 achive ...

[fraquar]

Odds are if Sharlikran is working on a StarfieldxEdit, you will get that before the CK.

[skyrim76]

It's too early for new modders, you need to wait for Creation kit or you will lose your nerves too soon. My advise is to download some simple mods manually and see how they are packed so bit by bit with logic you will get it. Second I would try with Fallout 4 and Creation kit just to learn the basics and also I would find some tutorials for Nifscope and start with that too. I think that you can find plenty tutorials for Skyrim and Fallout. You don't need to like those games and you don't need to play them, but there is stable Creation kits and other plugins for 3D software like for 3Ds Max for example so you will be able to learn all that jazz until Ck for Starfield and other stable software release.

 

Other thing, you are pretty much limited in this point, you can't do much, mostly is text edits and .ini files.

 

I have 29 mods so far (many was erased) but only 3 for Starfield and I'm waiting CK as well because this 3 mods burned my nerves and time. If you want you can use all of my mods for Fallout and play with them.

 

If you don't want nothing besides Starfield then like other guys said go for textures or try what I did. I changed circle for scanner and ship but for that you will need sfw editor and BAE so you can extract files from game. So install BAE and just drop Starfield - Interface.ba2 from DATA folder and unpack file that you want to edit. After that you will need JPEXS Free Flash Decompiler so you can edit this file. In JPEX you can unpack shapes in .png and edit it in Photoshop, then import it in JPEXS again and save like new edited file. After that you need to find path for mod...the easiest way to trace path is to see it in BAE and then you need to make new folders and place it in DATA folder like the path says:

In DATA folder create folder interface (with small letters like you see in picture) and drop your file in it. If you see more folders from left to right you need to make them too (for example if you click on testdata and under you pick other file you need to make new folder named testdata and put edited file in it (DATA-interface-testdata-your file)).

 

BAE: BAE - Bethesda Archive Extractor

JPEXS: https://github.com/jindrapetrik/jpexs-decompiler

Edited October 25, 2023 by skyrim76