new to DA O modding

[thecardoctor]

I'm new to the DA O mod scene and Ive been downloading some of the mods and tools to operate them everything so far has been working properly. Now my question is some of the files that you can download off of the dragon age nexus are listed for DA2 are the files compatible between the 2?

 

I have been doing modding in the FO3, Oblivion, FONV and have the tools to do things with the files, is there a list of of tools that one would need to do modding ie. NIFscope and GIMP and a the BSA unpacker?

 

Thanks to anyone that responds.

Edited November 14, 2011 by thecardoctor

[Thandal]

Most (but not quite all) mods for the Dragon Age series are specific to the version of the basic game (DAO or DA2).

 

Among other differences between the releases, (e.g. art direction, combat style) BioWare changed several of key elements of the files and models in ways that mean mods don't transfer between the two. So that's why there's a complete set of duplicate categories for mods.

[amycus]

DA:O and DA2 files share one site, dragonagenexus, in the same way that all morrowind and oblivion mods share the tesnexus site.

 

As for modding tools, there are probably several more by now used in other areas that I havn't worked with, but the ones I know are:

The dragon age toolset (Doh!)

DATool: http://social.bioware.com/project/41/ (makes it easy to browse all the game models and see their file names. Can also do retextures easily as far as I know. Used for DA:O)

Eshmes tools: http://social.bioware.com/project/2336/ (allows import and export of meshes and animations. 3ds max and gmax only. Used for DA:O.

pygff editor: http://social.bioware.com/project/1936/ (Allows you to extract the mesh and texture files from DA2)

Import script for DA2: http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=6119 (allows you to import the meshes extracted from the pygff editor to 3ds max).