Modding Guidance/Help and Introduction

[XAzuryonX]

Hi there! My name's Jeremi and I'm an aspiring Modder, been following the modding scene since FO3 and Skyrim and been dying to get my hands on the GECK to make stuff for FO4. I was curious to know if anyone has any suggestions for where to go to post questions and work with other modders to find more information to do the things I desire to do?

I plan on taking it a step at a time, Weapon mods > Armor mods > Companions > etc and slowly move to bigger better things, but as a 3d modeler and animator this is as close to working on a game as I can get due to life events that kept me from getting my degree for Animation/Media Arts back when I pursued it. Any suggestions or recommendations would be great so that I can start adding stuff to the game and I have a lot of ideas. I have background in how to model and animate for game engines like Unreal and such, but don't have the time nor the money/resources to do it full time on my own game. So I'm looking to FO4 to pursue that aspect of my life.

I know a lot of the modders do things on their own and probably aren't looking for "students" or to be a mentor but I'd really appreciate any help I can get so that I can start working on my Faction related stuff. I have a lot of plans for something based more on space age-y/Atompunk things and would love to see them come to fruition, but I don't want to make a bunch of stuff that's either A.) Badly optimized or B.) Not compatible with anything.

If all goes well I'd love to work with other modders after I get started to help with texturing/3dmodeling/etc for any one else's mods out there. My old portfolio is very limited and I'm hoping to update with a lot of new texture work and get better at this while also making things for a game I enjoy playing. :)

-Jeremi

[email protected]
Open to Skype and FB for conversation!

[XAzuryonX]

And right after I posted this I saw there was a noobs section so I'll post there as well. Sorry to bug. If this needs to be deleted feel free.

[XAzuryonX]

To kind of give another idea instead of a vague description of "I want to learn mods" I figure I might as well add a few more details as to what I want to do. I have always loved writing and always love vintage retro stuff. Now even though Fallout might be more Dieselpunk than Atompunk it's got some space age-y style in there for the Nuka cola and cars and art deco pieces I'd love to elaborate on. What I plan on doing is building up a Faction slowly by adding mods growing in complexity as I learn the engine.

For example I plan on doing weapons first, all styled after the faction I'm working on and also mods to existing weapons. I plan on mostly working with energy based weapons (lasers, plasma, alien) because they're my favorite first. So at that point my needs would be:

1. How to import a custom mesh into FO4 using GECK to make custom modeled weapons
2. The polycount limit or texture limits/recommendations for props in engine. (For example how many polys is too many polys for the engine), or do we have any polycounts of the existing weapons listed anywhere?
3. How to create the different 2k/4k compression in a way that's optimized for the game engine. I don't know what this means other than the size of the textures, so does this mean the textures are instead of 1024x1024 they're 4000x4000? I feel stupid for not knowing this.
4. How have the modders been working with mods so far? I have broken down the modular sets/pieces that FO4 uses for their mods but for all the custom ones out there like standalone weapons and alien assault blaster if I were to start building custom meshes for those is there a specific system/reference to use?
5. My understanding so far is that we can't add new reload animations into the game so we would want to work off of already existing animations, I'm pretty sure at the moment the laser gun and plasma guns reloads are what I plan on working with, so would I use those guns as frames of reference for anchor points?
6. Ammo - How hard/extravagant is it to make an energy based or any kind of standalone ammo? Based on what I've looked at in FO4 so far it seems this might be the easiest part but I don't want to ignore it.
7. I mostly model in 3DS max and texture using Photoshop and Marmoset engine for previewing, so are there any specific scripts/exporting tools/etc that I'll need to make that pipeline as streamlined as possible?
8. How is your day?

Sorry I had to ask at least one more without being more selfish. I really appreciate any and all guidance I can get on this subject. I really look forward to working with you modders!

[EmissaryOfWind]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxgCxpBZ3XGgVgiqiOEwdomtsKOVvUauI

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCW8BYqMR7Ei21WahZciSqRATOEfjw8H6

 

This should give you a good enough start.

I believe vanilla items range from 10K to 50K polys, you can probably go up to 80K for very big/detailed objects, but weaker systems will start slowing down. Regarding the textures, they're generally in powers of 2, so 2K would be 2048 and 4K 4096. I'm not sure it's absolutely necessary, but in doubt I stick to these.

 

And my day was alright, thanks for asking ;)

[radiumskull]

Regarding the textures, they're generally in powers of 2, so 2K would be 2048 and 4K 4096. I'm not sure it's absolutely necessary, but in doubt I stick to these.

I think there are very few exceptions to the power of 2 rule for textures, and I've heard that some video cards require it. So just stick to those, and soon your brain will be locked into 128, 256, 512, 1024...

[XAzuryonX]

Right I worked with Game Engines prior (Mostly just Unreal and Crytek) for texture mods and stuff I never worked on to release before but now I want to make sure I'm doing everything properly optimized. good to know I'm not that out of touch yet haha. I know the 128 etc rule also applies to the units/modular sets for building environments in the engine too if I recall correctly?

Edited May 17, 2016 by XAzuryonX

[XAzuryonX]

And thanks Emissary those links look EXACTLY like what I need to get started with thank you tons!

[xgamer468]

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Creating_an_armour_for_Fallout_4._Part_3#Add_the_armour_to_the_game

You should check out this tutorial, its about adding armors and quite useful imo

[xgamer468]

Here is a guide from someone that helped me a while ago on texture exporting and saving, in my case it was for Substance painter but im sure it can help you:

Simple answer first: bgsm/bgem files control your textures. You don't want them to look like shæt, find an in game asset with the type of texture scheme you want and look at the settings.

Still simple: Next, go to the substance share website and download the spec/gloss shader and stick it in the shelf folder in the documents folder subfolder somewhere in Allegorithmic land. This way you can preview the less than PBR that's gonna render in Gambryo duck tape and spit, with metal hacks, 1980s music and big hair game engine.

Finally: Before you select the export settings in SP, make a copy of the spec/gloss preset, name it xgamerSpec_gloss and scroll down and select it in the options.

Now:

I usually use Substance Designer to combine the height and normal maps cause I don't rebake the normal in SP idk,y.

Then you need the nVidia PS DDS plugin and choose:

DXT5 interpolated alpha for the _d.dds

3Dc for the _n.dds

and I use the Intel Texture works color BC7 (another mostly broke beta plugin) for the specular, but ppl say to use the 3Dc also for that map _s.dds but, when I reimport the map, I don't like what I get back. The color no alpha BC7 color Texture works gives me identical stuff back.

To make the specular map:

You take the gloss map and NOT but it in the g for green channel for gloss. Green channel is Specular.

You take the gloss map and but it in the red channel.

If you have problems sticking the grey scale channels into channels, I just export the diffuse map, paint it black, then import the gloss in red and spec in green and viola.

That's it. You ain't gonna get the outputs we get in SP in game, but it's close enough.

Oh, btw, as I was told, it's a spec/gloss workspace, I suspended disbelief and tested it. That guy was right. Ty, that guy!

You didn't check the NifToolsTeam forums and read they're still trying to figure out what's up with the spec map? I told them, it ain't the map, it's the bgsm/bgem files. REMEMBER the bgsm files have to be set correctly for your type of asset, period. Or your armor will look like a dress.

I know you can work with transparency in PBR metal/rough/transp either alpha or blend, but good luck with that. There are some ppl that can get transparency like glass in game but, I counted only 4 ppl. The transparency is bgem files and that's another hack but I don't see it yet.

[XAzuryonX]

Thanks I'll definitely keep an eye out.