How to make an ESP file?

[Kyoe]

Hello hello, I've been working on a simple eyebrow texture mod, and I would like to try to see what it looks like in-game, but I don't know how to make an ESP file for it to load. Could anyone point me in the right direction? This is my fist mod, hehe..

 

I'm planning on releasing it on nexus once everything is working correctly-IF- I can even get it working correctly, that is..

 

I'm guessing you'll need Creation Kit, I pressume? (God, I hate creation kit.. xD But I do have it)

 

If that is how you make an esp file.. please help walk me through or link me to something that would help. I've been searching around but can't find anything. Or anything that I understand.

Thanks in advance, guys!

[DrNewcenstein]

If it's only a texture, you don't need an ESP. Simply give your texture the same name as the original texture file and put it in the appropriate location (Data-Textures-Actors-Character-genderbrows (separate folder for male and female).

Edited September 28, 2014 by DrNewcenstein

[Valkasha]

To make a new .esp for eyebrows, simply load skyrim.esm and don't set an active file.

Make a new eyebrow object ( find and copy an existing eyebrow in the creationkit to work from for example) and then in the edit screen select the models you want it to use, then change the ID/name and save, it should ask you to save as a new .esp.

 

If your mod simply overwrites existing eyebrows you don't need a .esp you simply need to add them into a zip file with the correct folders inside it so that installing it with NMM will write the files to the right folders. (data/textures etc and data/meshes etc)

Of course to overwrite they need to have the names of existing eyebrows.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Valkasha

[Kyoe]

  On 9/28/2014 at 1:55 PM, Valkasha said:

To make a new .esp for eyebrows, simply load skyrim.esm and don't set an active file.

Make a new eyebrow object ( find and copy an existing eyebrow in the creationkit to work from for example) and then in the edit screen select the models you want it to use, then change the ID/name and save, it should ask you to save as a new .esp.

 

If your mod simply overwrites existing eyebrows you don't need a .esp you simply need to add them into a zip file with the correct folders inside it so that installing it with NMM will write the files to the right folders. (data/textures etc and data/meshes etc)

Of course to overwrite they need to have the names of existing eyebrows.

I'd prefer them being standalone and not replacers so there is more choices

How would I add my custom texture in the esp file, though? If I'm doing it correctly, the texture set doesn't have my brows for an option.

[Valkasha]

With creationkit you load resources to work with, these will be the master files. For a basic graphical mod you will only need skyrim.esm to load (don't make it an active file, just tick the box to have it load) so select that. Then you can make changes to the things that are loaded and add new stuff. Anything that gets changed or added will be saved into a new .esp once you click save, unless you make an existing .esp the active file, then it simply adds the changes to that existing .esp. However, .esp files do NOT save textures etc, only references to textures and meshes so if you want to make your mod available for download you have to add those custom textures along with the .esp file into a folder structure. So basically you make a new folder and call it data and then in that folder you make a folder called meshes and a folder called textures. You keep adding these folders till you have a folder called data that resembles the way your mods files are setup in your own skyrim folder. Then you pack this data folder into a zip file and voila you have a mod that can be installed with NMM. When someone installs your mod with NMM, NMM will unpack your zip folder into their data folder so they have the textures and meshes in the same location you do and have a .esp file that references these file locations with the new eyebrow instances you created in the creationkit to add new eyebrows.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Valkasha

[Kyoe]

  On 9/28/2014 at 3:25 PM, Valkasha said:

With creationkit you load resources to work with, these will be the master files. For a basic graphical mod you will only need skyrim.esm to load (don't make it an active file, just tick the box to have it load) so select that. Then you can make changes to the things that are loaded and add new stuff. Anything that gets changed or added will be saved into a new .esp once you click save, unless you make an existing .esp the active file, then it simply adds the changes to that existing .esp. However, .esp files do NOT save textures etc, only references to textures and meshes so if you want to make your mod available for download you have to add those custom textures along with the .esp file into a folder structure. So basically you make a new folder and call it data and then in that folder you make a folder called meshes and a folder called textures. You keep adding these folders till you have a folder called data that resembles the way your mods files are setup in your own skyrim folder. Then you pack this data folder into a zip file and voila you have a mod that can be installed with NMM. When someone installs your mod with NMM, NMM will unpack your zip folder into their data folder so they have the textures and meshes in the same location you do and have a .esp file that references these file locations with the new eyebrow instances you created in the creationkit to add new eyebrows.

Ah! I gotcha. Thank you! That clears up a lot. I'll work on it, if it's over my head I'll just use them as replacers.