Editing my ESP?

[th3overseer]

Right, let me start this off by saying I'm absolutely, 110% tech incompetent, so if anyone here is saintly enough to help me, please use small words.

 

Right, so, I'm trying to make a mod that tweaks some NPC faces. I have the first version of it, I suppose you could say. In version one, I've made some small edits to Ranger Jackson, Janet, and Tyrone. And it worked. Hooray. But now, I want to tweak a couple of other NPCs, but I don't want to make a second ESP just to do that, because if I make a habit of that, I'll end up with 50 different ESPs all making minute changes to random characters. So how do I edit the first one? I can't believe that mods are all made in one sitting, because once you hit save, it can never be changed. That seems... very impossible.

 

Semi-related, but I tried making a face-overhaul that affects a large number of NPCs. I was saving dutifully, I spent an hour or two on it... and then I loaded it up and it seems to do nothing. So... that sucked.

 

Sorry if anything I say doesn't make sense. As I said, my skills at tech stuff are below that of a child with fetal alcohol syndrome. That's dead.

[Ethreon]

Open GECK

Go to Data

Find your plugin, double click to select it (tick mark). Click on Set active file button. Load.

[Jokerine]

Just load up the esp in the GECK and keep working on it :)

[madmongo]

Semi-related, but I tried making a face-overhaul that affects a large number of NPCs. I was saving dutifully, I spent an hour or two on it... and then I loaded it up and it seems to do nothing. So... that sucked.

 

 

Two things.

 

You need to make the mod active. When the game starts, click on Data Files and check your new esp. Or use something like FOMM and check the esp in there. Either way works. FOMM lets you sort your mod order and do other things that you can't do from the game's Data Files menu.

 

You also need to have Archive Invalidation set, or the game will only use its packed archives and will ignore your mod. If you are using FOMM, you can set Archive Invalidation using that. If you don't have FOMM, there are mods that you can download that can do it for you or you can edit the .ini file yourself. Google Fallout New Vegas Archive Invalidation for details.

 

I'll warn you in advance. The GECK is a buggy, crappy, and very un-intuitive toolset. Just about every Windows program since there have been Windows programs has used File->New and File->Open to create or re-open files. But not the GECK. As was already mentioned, you select File->Data and select the mods you want to load. You also have to tell it which file you are editing, which you do by clicking the Set As Active File button. If you load any ESM files, your mod will become dependent on those ESM files and if you delete those ESM files later, your mod won't work. The GECK will let you open up multiple ESP files, but you can't use things from one ESP in another ESP. That will just break your mod. About the only reason you should ever open multiple ESP files at once is to copy something from one mod to another, and then immediately save your mod, close the GECK, and reload it without the multiple ESPs after you've copied it or else things can get screwed up. In other words, if you are just beginning, don't do it at all. Just open your own mod and leave it at that.

 

The GECK has a built-in spellcheck, but they don't ship it with the dictionary installed, so that's broken. The LIP generator is missing. If you try to edit landscapes and basically do what seems intuitive, you'll end up crashing the GECK. There are tricks you need to know to generate heightmaps without crashing the GECK. If you edit an NPC and you go from the Inventory tab to the Face view, that tends to crash the GECK. The list goes on and on. I've often said that the GECK is really a Vault-Tec experiment designed to test modder's frustration levels. Save often because sometimes the GECK will just crash for no reason whatsoever.

 

Welcome to the world of GECK modding. :smile:

 

Like I said, the GECK is extremely un-intuitive, so feel free to post questions when you get stuck and can't figure anything out. It's not just you. Even people who aren't 110% tech incompetent have trouble figuring out the GECK.

[th3overseer]

Open GECK

Go to Data

Find your plugin, double click to select it (tick mark). Click on Set active file button. Load.

 

Just load up the esp in the GECK and keep working on it :smile:

 

Thank you both, I finally got this working. I might even release this one if I'm satisfied enough with how it turns out. Seriously, thank you.

 

 

 

Semi-related, but I tried making a face-overhaul that affects a large number of NPCs. I was saving dutifully, I spent an hour or two on it... and then I loaded it up and it seems to do nothing. So... that sucked.

 

 

Two things.

 

You need to make the mod active. When the game starts, click on Data Files and check your new esp. Or use something like FOMM and check the esp in there. Either way works. FOMM lets you sort your mod order and do other things that you can't do from the game's Data Files menu.

 

You also need to have Archive Invalidation set, or the game will only use its packed archives and will ignore your mod. If you are using FOMM, you can set Archive Invalidation using that. If you don't have FOMM, there are mods that you can download that can do it for you or you can edit the .ini file yourself. Google Fallout New Vegas Archive Invalidation for details.

 

I'll warn you in advance. The GECK is a buggy, crappy, and very un-intuitive toolset. Just about every Windows program since there have been Windows programs has used File->New and File->Open to create or re-open files. But not the GECK. As was already mentioned, you select File->Data and select the mods you want to load. You also have to tell it which file you are editing, which you do by clicking the Set As Active File button. If you load any ESM files, your mod will become dependent on those ESM files and if you delete those ESM files later, your mod won't work. The GECK will let you open up multiple ESP files, but you can't use things from one ESP in another ESP. That will just break your mod. About the only reason you should ever open multiple ESP files at once is to copy something from one mod to another, and then immediately save your mod, close the GECK, and reload it without the multiple ESPs after you've copied it or else things can get screwed up. In other words, if you are just beginning, don't do it at all. Just open your own mod and leave it at that.

 

The GECK has a built-in spellcheck, but they don't ship it with the dictionary installed, so that's broken. The LIP generator is missing. If you try to edit landscapes and basically do what seems intuitive, you'll end up crashing the GECK. There are tricks you need to know to generate heightmaps without crashing the GECK. If you edit an NPC and you go from the Inventory tab to the Face view, that tends to crash the GECK. The list goes on and on. I've often said that the GECK is really a Vault-Tec experiment designed to test modder's frustration levels. Save often because sometimes the GECK will just crash for no reason whatsoever.

 

Welcome to the world of GECK modding. :smile:

 

Like I said, the GECK is extremely un-intuitive, so feel free to post questions when you get stuck and can't figure anything out. It's not just you. Even people who aren't 110% tech incompetent have trouble figuring out the GECK.

 

 

I use Mod Organizer, and the thing was definitely checked off. I even moved it around in my load order to try and see if that would work, but for some reason, as near as I can tell, it just didn't actually save anything when I told it to.

[th3overseer]

Hey, just in case anyone of you are curious, here's the file in question now that I finished it. http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/62111/