Total Conversion - How to start

[IMorgothI]

Hey friends,

 

We are a small group of gamedesign students from Germany, developing a mod for Oblivion.

This mod consists of a total conversion and now, that we have almost all our preproduction stuff done, we're ready to set up some files to begin our modding work.

 

I've read a couple of tutorials about .esm and .esp files, but I'm not really sure about how to start something like a total conversion, that uses Oblivion assets.

Is it just about loading the Oblivion.esm, creating a new worldspace, putting Oblivion assets in it and doing all the esm mastering at the end?

 

Could someone give us a hint, how to handle the .esm and .esp files when starting a total conversion or even a link to a tutorial about this topic?

[MarkInMKUK]

The people to talk with (who have done probably the best total conversion) are the modders who produced Nehrim - and even better news for you, they are mostly German. Looking at how Nehrim works is probably an excellent starting point for a total conversion anyway. Edited July 5, 2011 by MarkInMKUK

[IMorgothI]

Thank you :) I just wrote an email to them. Let's see if they can help us out!

[David Brasher]

In general, it works best to have an .esm just contain resources. The reasoning behind this, is that modding software is geared toward editing .esps. It can be difficult and bothersome to have to keep editing an .esm. So what you might do, is place all your things like custom weapons, armor, statics, creatures and other things in the .esm. Then leave it alone and stop touching it and do the rest of your work in the .esp, such as actually placing the weapons, armor, creature spawn points, and statics into villages and dungeons in your world.

 

As long as you don't exceed maximum file size, you could just build an .esp and not have an .esm. Elsweyr Anequina does this. You could build your mod as a giant .esp and then only turn it into an .esm at the end, but once you do that, you no longer would want to edit it and there are problems with tree distant LOD if people run multiple mods with custom worldspaces in .esms.

Edited July 8, 2011 by David Brasher

[IMorgothI]

Thank you for your reply David!

So for now, It's ok, when I load the Oblivion .esm file (we want to use Oblivion assets from that file) and build the new worldspace, saving it as an esp?

And we can still add our custom resources into the .esm file at any point?

 

How to structure the files, when you have more people working on the mod, like one person is building the world, another one creates quests and so on? Create more .esm files and merge them at the end?

[Faceshifter]

1: Make an .esp, add every resource you have in that .esp and create your worldspace. Set everything up so everybody working on the mod can start working on that .esp file.

2: Now, the big trick, convert the .esp to an .esm. I can strongly advise you to use TES4Gecko. It does the trick and you'll need it later. It is tricky to install, though.

3: Share that .esm with all your modders. Just load Oblivion.esm and MyVeryOwn.esm together and work on them in an .esp.

4: When some .esps are created, use Merge to Master with TES4Gecko and merge the .esps to MyVeryOwn.esm. David wrote a handy guide for it.

5: Go to step 3.

 

Now, everyone works on almost the same file. Just try not to get in eachothers way while modding.

A few hints:

1: Never set Oblivion.esm and MyVeryOwn.esm active in OBMM or whatever, if you have modified the Tamriel worldspace. This causes (Oblivion Crisis)². Set up a playtest mod with a portal to your new worldspace.

2: If you must modify the Tamriel worldspace, do so at the last second. If that is not possible, convert your .esm to an .esp for playtesting.

3: Your custom resources will be merged with the .esps, as long as everyone has the meshes and the like.

4: I have no clue about LOD or anything.

5: You can use Oblivion assets as long as you have ticked the Oblivion.esm active in your game and construction set.

 

I hope this will help you out ;)

[IMorgothI]

Wow, thank you for your reply! I think that definitely helps us a lot!

I'll try it like this and I hope you don't mind if I'll contact you again, if there are any further questions :)

[IMorgothI]

Another quick question:

 

Wenn we split our work for example into level editing and quest scripting so that both is done simultaneously by two people, I would create one "quests.esp" and another "map.esp". Would that type of .esp seperation be ok?

[Faceshifter]

One can make the dungeon when another creates the quest, scripts, items, dialogue. You just need to merge them and place the items in the dungen and such, best before merging in the big .esm.