How far can I go?

[Shane096]

Long time reader first time poster and I first want to take my hats off in respect to the advanced people who take the time to help the newer folks out and help us achieve what we are looking for. I am very new to modding and the GECK and I just have some simple.....can I do this type questions. I have always been intrigued on how to mod a game and I have started checking into the processes of it works etc. I have simply fell in love with the Fallout universe and story I have been inspired to finally see what I can do for modding. I aspire to go a long distance with it. I am interested in making my own game essentially. My questions are: Is it possible to modify the Capitol Wasteland map, Aiming to remove DC landmarks and add somethings to the map to make it appear like a new location. The Capitol Wasteland is an excellent model, and I was curious to see if there is somehow I could start off by just removing and adding things to the base map to create my own universe since I am fairly new and am not advanced enough to make one from scratch. Would it be possible to maybe make a pre-war mission at the begining to make a sprint for the vault as the bombs fall.....the idea here is can I make a couple nuclear bombs go off automatically in the distance as you approach the Vault for that apocalyptic feeling and to add more to the atmosphere. Can I carry over to my new map the night and day time effects found in the regular game once you come out of vault? My goal here is to move the Fallout universe to a new location and a new time era after the bombs fell. Just asking these sorts of questions to start off, to see if this project is even possible and even worth pursuing......thank you in advance for any advice or help or answers you can maybe contribute.

[Giggsy]

Hello!

 

I am with no means a modder, but intrigued by your question I think I can retort.

Yes, I believe you can remove bigger issues out of the game f.ex The Washington Monument. You can possibly delete all contents of a cell, I suppose, as long as it's still a cell for the person to go through. Instead, you could add f.ex the seattle tower, or London's Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower of Paris and make it into a whole new game aka. Fallout Europe. Or you don't have to add anything at all if you just want to keep a long, dead waste. There is already a mod called "Fallout - Reykjaviik" which is a mod about the capitol of Iceland, namely Reykjaviik.This mod adds totally new landscapes at the look of it, though I haveb't played it myself it is worth checking out to see just exactly what can be done.

 

I guess by removing certain objects, you would also have to remove other stuff and things that are connected with these objects, but as mentioned earlier: I am no modder :p

Good luck :)

[Agnot2006]

Long time reader first time poster and I first want to take my hats off in respect to the advanced people who take the time to help the newer folks out and help us achieve what we are looking for. I am very new to modding and the GECK and I just have some simple.....can I do this type questions. I have always been intrigued on how to mod a game and I have started checking into the processes of it works etc. I have simply fell in love with the Fallout universe and story I have been inspired to finally see what I can do for modding. I aspire to go a long distance with it. I am interested in making my own game essentially. My questions are: Is it possible to modify the Capitol Wasteland map, Aiming to remove DC landmarks and add somethings to the map to make it appear like a new location. The Capitol Wasteland is an excellent model, and I was curious to see if there is somehow I could start off by just removing and adding things to the base map to create my own universe since I am fairly new and am not advanced enough to make one from scratch. Would it be possible to maybe make a pre-war mission at the begining to make a sprint for the vault as the bombs fall.....the idea here is can I make a couple nuclear bombs go off automatically in the distance as you approach the Vault for that apocalyptic feeling and to add more to the atmosphere. Can I carry over to my new map the night and day time effects found in the regular game once you come out of vault? My goal here is to move the Fallout universe to a new location and a new time era after the bombs fell. Just asking these sorts of questions to start off, to see if this project is even possible and even worth pursuing......thank you in advance for any advice or help or answers you can maybe contribute.

 

Its not good practice to Delete thing from the original game as it may cause crashes etc. You could create a duplicate world space though.

[BadPenney]

How far can you go? You can go nowhere. You can go there. You can go too far.

 

The last is the easiest. Going too far, I mean. As a novice modder you are bound to go too far before you find out how far is far enough, right? "Vanilla" territory is interlaced with more than terrain, and the opportunities for wreaking havoc when modifying Fallout 3 worldspaces are great. Although it may seem at first glance easier to copy and modify existing cells to create a new worldspace, it is not so. That is especially important to consider if you want to create a mod that is meant to be downloaded by others. If that is the case then you should strive to make it compatible with other mods. Keeping that as a goal from the planning stages of your mod will make your life easier in the end.

 

Notice that official Bethesda DLCs come with new worldspaces. Only portals to the new lands are placed in vanilla Worldspaces to minimize interference.

 

I would recommend that you study those worldspaces that you mentioned, even copy objects from them, but start with your own new, clean worldspace for building upon. Practice terrain building, placing static objects and navmeshing. You can check it out in game by just providing a single doorway to and from a vanilla worldspace.

 

It may seem harder at first, but at least you will know that nothing is in your new land that you did not put there. Copied terrain looks good in the GECK fast, but it can include data that causes conflicts if not located and cleaned out. You may be spared many possibly bizarre and inexplicable occurances in your mod that can result from rough editing, such as triggers, scripts and packages that can remain attached yet fragmented or conflicted. Conflicts that can include Crash To Desktop results.

 

Interior cells make good practice.

[GrandsonOfSam]

I have one advice, that I think is very important: Start small. As a first mod, do something small first, and consider it as "only" a learning process. After that mod is good enough in your opinion, move on to something more complicated.

 

The advice of an empty worldspace is a two-bladed sword (while it IS a good advice), as on the other hand it makes sure you don't mess with things, but on the other hand you don't have anything that you can learn from. I think downloading the smallest, most basic housing mod from Nexus (or/and going through the GECK tutorial at Here), and editing that at first is by far the best way to learn how things work in GECK. After that you can move on to more complex things. Having a goal you know you can reach in a month will make sure you won't get fed up with the project and abandon it. The big plans can wait till you know you like modding enough that you will actually finish them. :)

 

And yes, do not touch the vanilla wasteland cells, as that will get you in big trouble unless you are VERY good at it. :) (and even then it's not recommended)

[Yossarian22]

If you asking for the possibilities... they are nearly uncapped. You could do a lot of things, but the key is, that you know what you doing... GECK looks easy and it is easy at first, but the more you want to change, the more you want to mod, the more difficult it will be. So, F3 modding is easy to do, but hard to master. You want change the entire wasteland... no problem, you want create a entire new game, no problem too, but as others mentioned it before, start small. It takes a long time to learn how functions/elements/objects are linked with another and how they work. So, before you consider to do something big, create several smaller mods. Your skills will increase while doing them. And be aware, that for a big mod some basic skills with photoshop/corel/gimp/blender/3dsmax will come in handy.

 

So, G.E.C.K. is one of the most user friendly and most flexible game editors you can find and being creative to create work-arounds for things that are normally hardcoded, you really can do a lot. Browse around on nexus and you will notice, that there are a lot of mods around, that really change the game in its core or add some real new game elements to it.

 

There are of course things, that this engine just can't handle. Don't try to create Space-Fights like Wing Commander or RealtimeStrategy like Command&Conquer or Climbing Action like Tomb Raider. Just mentioned that, because I've seen similar concepts from time to time here. F3-Engine is a RPG-Engine. You could do Shooters, RPGs, Adventures and similar things with it.

 

If you interested to create something entire new, with really no limits at all to the game system, use the unreal developement tool: http://www.udk.com/

 

I already modding F3 for a while, but I still discover new tricks and secrets from time to time. So, its never the question, what the engine can do, but what are you able to do with the engine.

[pob255]

I have one advice, that I think is very important: Start small. As a first mod, do something small first, and consider it as "only" a learning process. After that mod is good enough in your opinion, move on to something more complicated.

This is one of the biggest bits of modding advice you can give anyone.

It's not just the complexity of modding, it's the shear size of the task.

 

Most modding is relatively simple, however it's lots and lots of relative simple things that all have to work together correctly and a lot of hours are involved esp in something like remaking a world.

 

have a look at the tutorial, that Grandson Of Sam linked too, compaired to the wasteland that is a very small and simple, self contained map.

Once you've looked over/followed that tutorial have a look at the main wasteland map in the geck and you'll have a better idea of the volume of work that has to go into making something that big.

 

I don't want to put you off, just my esperience from modding is many people start off with big ideas and it's when they come to start trying to make them that they discover the shear volume of work that's needed and 99% of the time they just give up/lose intrest.

 

So start small, run through that tutorial, build a small working environment, get a better idea of what's involved.

 

Next I'd say come up with a solid idea for a new world space (ie an outside map) it maybe best to try to get other poeple involved.

The best major mods tend to be teams of people with one or two key people who can organise everyone and get them working towards a goal.

I'd definately look at the DLC (download content aka the expansion packs) trying to make something like "point look out" would be a more sane goal, although still a heck of a lot of work.

[Shane096]

Thanks to everyone who gave in their two cents, I definitely am stoked about the possibilities of what I might be able to do and I know it will be hard work.....the only remaining question I have is, what is the best way to get started? How can I make like a little size map and just work with it? I have no idea where to start to get this ball rolling.

[Yossarian22]

Thanks to everyone who gave in their two cents, I definitely am stoked about the possibilities of what I might be able to do and I know it will be hard work.....the only remaining question I have is, what is the best way to get started? How can I make like a little size map and just work with it? I have no idea where to start to get this ball rolling.

 

The most important link for you: http://geck.bethsoft...x.php/Main_Page

Some Starting tutorial: http://geck.bethsoft...rial_GECK_Setup

Worldspace tutorial: http://www.fallout3n...le.php?id=11395

 

Also, check out the articles section on f3+tes4 nexus by time: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/

There are also a lot of valueable info on: http://cs.elderscrol...x.php/Main_Page

[Shane096]

Thanks again to everyone who helped me out in this reguard.....I have been going through these tutorials and learning more than I even could of hoped. I am having an issue with the Region Editor however. It has a feature that generates objects such as textures and trees etc. I cannot get this to work on my test maps as it claims it isn't generating any objects at all due to height......I have searched forum and can't find any trouble shooting on this subject. Thought maybe someone here might know what I could be doing worng. Thanks again