Modding Basics - Help me out!

[Brygelsmack]

Hey, folks!

 

I'm really new to TES modding, and I just wanted to drop by asking if any of you have any recommended tools necessary, or even essential, to modding Skyrim? I tried extracting a few textures but opening with Photoshop didn't work. Off the top of your head, can you think of anything I'm doing wrong?

 

I got over 4 years experience with CryEngine 2, and I'm really looking forward creating some environments with the upcoming Creating Kit. But until then I need the basics covered - anyone willing to help me out?

 

Thanks in advance and happy modding!

 

Cheers,

/Brygelsmack

[PaladinRider]

You can get a DDS plugin for PS for textures.

[Brygelsmack]

Well, that did not help me much...

 

I usually can open .dds files since Skyrim is not the only game utilizing that file format (Crysis does too). But now all of a sudden I can't. What's the problem?

[Xylozi]

How are you extracting the textures?

[foxkas]

I'm in the same boat as OP here. I'd like to know what to do, how to get started. I do have a lot of photoshop experience.

[GileadMaerlyn]

If you want to do a retexture, you need first to extract the desired textures with FOMM (a tool for Fallout, but it's the one who works best for skyrim as of now) from the Skyrim - Textures.bsa file, which is in you Data directory.

You can then edit the .dds files with GIMP or Photoshop, thanks to a .dds plugin. Save them with a DXT3 (if there's no alpha) or DXT5 compression.

Then, you just put your new texture in the Data/Textures directory, respecting the arborescence given in the .bsa.

 

The new texture is now used instead of the original one.

 

I hope that helps.

Edited November 19, 2011 by Gilead Maerlyn

[CampanaAliquanta]

Is there any way to use the FOMM without having Fallout installed? I tried to download it but it refused to run until I pointed it to the Fallout directory, which obviously I don't have.

 

BSA Unpacker and BSA Commander both don't work for me.

[foxkas]

If you want to do a retexture, you need first to extract the desired textures with FOMM (a tool for Fallout, but it's the one who works best for skyrim as of now) from the Skyrim - Textures.bsa file, which is in you Data directory.

You can then edit the .dds files with GIMP or Photoshop, thanks to a .dds plugin. Save them with a DXT3 (if there's no alpha) or DXT5 compression.

Then, you just put your new texture in the Data/Textures directory, respecting the arborescence given in the .bsa.

 

The new texture is now used instead of the original one.

 

I hope that helps.

 

Thanks, Kudos for you! There are nothing else to do besides re-textures until the creation kit is released right?

[Brygelsmack]

Thanks a lot, Gilead Maerlyn! I'm guessing we won't have to use FOMM in the future to extract textures? I don't have the game and if it's like what CampanaAliquanta says, then I'll just have to wait for something that works with Skyrim.

 

@ foxkas: I would say .ini edits too but that's about it. But maybe I'm missing something. I am after all very new to this.

Edited November 19, 2011 by Brygelsmack

[foxkas]

Thanks a lot, Gilead Maerlyn! I'm guessing we won't have to use FOMM in the future to extract textures? I don't have the game and if it's like what CampanaAliquanta says, then I'll just have to wait for something that works with Skyrim.

 

@ foxkas: I would say .ini edits too but that's about it. But maybe I'm missing something. I am after all very new to this.

 

 

I don't have New Vegas or Fo3 installed atm either, and I won't bother to install them just to mod another game till the creation kit is out. So I tried opening just the BSA browser, it should have its own icon. When it asks for fallout3/new vegas, just exit out that window and the BSA browser opens.