Where to get started making my own mods?

[FrankFamily]

3ds max is free for students: http://www.autodesk.mx/education/free-software/3ds-max

Just have to register and fill some basic info.

[drewsbrew]

 

Here is a link to a good, thorough 'how to make armor' tutorial, It's long though and I haven't finished it all yet, but so far so good!

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL38C28CE97107F8F3

 

Here's a link to a video on how to make custom weapons that I found somewhat helpful, although the author does go really fast and I think he probably should have slowed down to elaborate on some things, I was able to follow this video to make my first mod which was a sword mod.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA6A9Hy4usM

 

Here are a couple more weapon tutorial vids to help;

 

Here is a video that shows how to export things from blender and get them set up in NifSkope;

 

Also there are some tutorials posted in this form too. Hope this helps!

Thanks, but I'm going to guess that only that last link is going to be of significant help, as I don't have 3DS Max (it's really expensive, to say the least)- but, I thank you for being thoughtful, and I'll check out that last link.

 

 

I read somewhere that Blender 2.49 is only necessary for the import/export, you work with the latest and greatest and just do the IO thing with 2.49. Was a while I read this though, can't remember where.

True, that's what I meant by it being needed for the NIF plugins to work- I have the newest Blender installed for actually making the models, but I have the old 2.49 for import/export.

 

You can get the student version of 3ds max for free. The only catch is that you can't use a student license version of the software for commercial projects, you can't do freelance work with it, or basically anything else where you'll actually make money. Mods are fine though. The first few videos of the playlist I linked will go through the setup of various programs and 3ds max is covered there. It'll also cover how to extract meshes and textures from Skyrim, which is something you'll need to do.

[NexusComa]

Start simple with a few tutorials, This one will work.

Try to build a player home. Great way to get to know the kit.

All you need is the CK when you start and a few choice downloads for tools.

LOOT from the start then later, TES5Edit (yes this can be a tool also)

NifSkope (,nif editor) Notepad++ (to wright scripts with)

 

Be ready to get overwhelmed ...

Learn it bit by bit by creating test mods.

 

Look at what others have done and follow their footsteps until you can walk by yourself. :P

(takes about a year to get a pretty good idea what you're doing if you keep at it)

[ShayVizla]

Can't remember if i asked this or not but anyway, as the op mentioned the bit about permissions according to the tos

• Absolutely no copyrighted work is to be used without permission of the original creator. This includes content from other games, from DLCs, music creators or from other file authors. This also includes members from countries that do not recognise copyright laws.

Has bethesda said that this is allowed insofar as modding and if so where and how would i go about gaining permission if needed as well as crediting bethesda correctly? I tried googling this but with no success.

[Shivala]

For mods you don't need to credit Bethesda, because the original creator has the copyright to some extend. Which means if they don't give permission, you don't have it. You would have to contact them themselves. If a mod is abandoned, then you are out of luck, but the beauty of the CK is, that you could rewrite a mod from scratch, using the original as a template. That is allowed as far as I know. Just no copying of content like meshes and textures and so on.

 

Can't remember if i asked this or not but anyway, as the op mentioned the bit about permissions according to the tos

• Absolutely no copyrighted work is to be used without permission of the original creator. This includes content from other games, from DLCs, music creators or from other file authors. This also includes members from countries that do not recognise copyright laws.

Has bethesda said that this is allowed insofar as modding and if so where and how would i go about gaining permission if needed as well as crediting bethesda correctly? I tried googling this but with no success.