Tutorial: making new paintings and other material swaps for FO4

[Moraelin]

I wrote this in response to a question by user Shadowrogue2006, about making his Vigo painting non-replacer, hence the name used, but I thought other people can use it too. Especially since it also takes very little deviation from here to make material swaps for armour, or outfits, or even buildings. You might just want to use my ShadowedSynthArmor mod instead of the Museum Paintings as a template if you make an armour material, or the Silver Machinegun Receiver as a template for weapon materials, but otherwise it's largely the same process. Or you can do it without my templates, but this is less steps to explain:

 

Okay, well, I just did that with different paintings, so let me write a short tutorial, so to speak.

 

First of all, you'll need both a material for each painting and a texture. Obviously you already have the texture, but we'll have to make a material.

 

Unpack all the textures in the BA2 files, and the materials too somewhere, if you haven't already. I'm guessing you already unpacked at least the textures, though, if you edited that picture.

 

Now comes the kick in ye olde family jewels. Brace yourself. The materials files are binary. I've seen some people use text files for them, but, well, I don't fully understand that, and messing with technology we don't understand is what got us into the whole nuclear war mess, to paraphrase the BOS. So I'm going to edit binary files, with a hex editor. It sounds scarier than it really is, since really we'll just be editing text inside it, and not really in hex. But you need to be extra careful, or you might crash or corrupt the game. Basically pay attention to what you're doing.

 

I'm using MX Hex Editor just because it was a free download, but basically anything else will do just fine as long as it can edit a binary file.

 

Ok, so now we'll need a new directory to put our textures and materials in. The Beth ones are in Textures/SetDressing/PaintingsGeneric and respectively Materials/SetDressing/PaintingsGeneric, but I wouldn't really recommend putting your stuff in there. It would just conflict with stuff from other people who also put their stuff in there, and possibly with stuff from future Beth expansions too. So better make a new directory.

 

NOW, since we're editing hex, there's one thing we can't do, and that is: change string lengths. So whatever directory you put your files in, it must add up to exactly the same number of letters as "SetDressing/PaintingsGeneric". That's important.

 

I put mine in "SetDressing/MoraNewPaintings", because "PaintingsGeneric" and "MoraNewPaintings" have the exact same number of letters. In your case you could go with something like, say, "ShadowroguePaint" or ""ShadowroguePics1"". That would have the right number of letters.

 

Ok, anyway, now you made the directories. Let's say they are Textures/SetDressing/ShadowroguePics1 and respectively Materials/SetDressing/ShadowroguePics1, just for example sake.

 

First you copy that Vigo painting texture into Textures/SetDressing/ShadowroguePics1 as PaintingPortraits01_d.dds. So far, so good. Then you copy the PaintingPortraits01.BGSM file you just unpacked from the BA2 under Materials/SetDressing/ShadowroguePics1.

 

Now you load PaintingPortraits01.BGSM into the text editor and look for the only path that goes like "SetDressing/PaintingsGeneric/PaintingPortraits01_d.dds" and change the "PaintingsGeneric" part to your own directory. In our example, it will now read, " SetDressing/ShadowroguePics1/PaintingPortraits01_d.dds". Be sure you're in overwrite mode, basically, and that you don't go past the string end. That's really all you need to pay attention to, but again, do pay attention, because malformed binary files can crash or corrupt the game. But if you paid attention it's as safe as bunkers (houses weren't very safe in FO4;))

 

Ok, now we're done with the files part. Now we want to build the plugin.

 

So now we'll make all the records needed, by copying and editing existing records. Being lazy is good :wink:

 

And since I'm too lazy, I'll just tell you to use one of my files as a template, because it already contains exactly the records you need. You just need to edit the paths (and plugin name) to yours.

 

So download the new paintings from my Museum Paintings mod. You only need the .esp, since the rest you'll provide yourself. Rename it to your own name.

 

Now open FO4Edit, right click that list, "Select None", select only that plugin, and let it load.

 

The template has 8 paintings, but you can delete some records if you have less than 8 or duplicate some, if you're including the whole Louvre. But you can do that at the end. For now let's just change the first picture, so you can see something working.

 

We'll take it in the order of what files are referenced from what other files, so you can do it in one go, without going back and forth between records.

 

First is the material swap. Find Painting_CanvasSwapToNewPortrait01 under "Material Swap", edit the SNAM to the path to YOUR BMST file we just hex-edited. In our example, to "setdressing\ShadowroguePics1\PaintingPortraits01.BGSM".

 

And that's actually all you need to edit. Save, activate the mod, go place it in game to see it works.

 

Now if you have more than 8 pics, the next step is the Static. A static object is, well, a piece of decor or furniture. So you'd duplicate MuseumNewPortrait01 under a new name (say, MuseumNewPortrait09 if you're editing a 9'th pic), edit the MODS record to the id of the material swap you just created for it.

 

The MODL record says what 3d mesh to plaster it on. For paintings that affects the size and frame. For portrait it goes from SetDressing\ConcMuseum\PictureFramePortrait01.nif to SetDressing\ConcMuseum\PictureFramePortrait07.nif, or if you use some square or landscape format, well, just look at what else is used by the existing pictures under Static in the Fallout4.esm.

 

If you have more than 8 pics, the next step is to tell the game that they're constructible.

 

A constructible object is already included, and it takes a list as parameter, and it's already set to take our own list. So you don't need to make a new one, you just need to edit the list to include all your pictures.

 

The list is the lone record under "FormID List", surprisingly enough. It currently already has 8 entries, so you'll have to delete some from the end if you have less than 8, or add some more records if you have more than 8, and set the new IDs to the ID of your new paintings.

 

And that's all.

[moviestarplanet43]

Although the mod size is relatively small, it’s actually bloated with redundant mesh and material files as I cannot get material swaps to work, which is how the vanilla game manages the textures for paintings. If anyone knows how they work, please PM me, I’d love to learn how to implement them.

moviestarplanet