LE Combining mods question

[Merscil]

I've been in search for some authentic looking Viking armor and weapon set and to my disappointment I have found no mod that added such a set at all.

So after looking at many mods I have compiled what I find to be the best looking armor, helm, weapon and shield combo.

However I'm not necessarily interested in all the other content these mods provide and would like to combine the individual parts of the mods into a mod of my own (for my personal use afcourse) and make an armor set the game will recognize as such so perks will work.

I want it to be a light armor set on par with glass armor in defense rating. Now I have messed around with the creation kit before but tbh I have no idea how I should go about extracting parts from different mods or compile a bsa file. Can you guys please guide me to the right tutorials or give me some tips of your own? Help would be much appreciated.

 

Here is a screenshot of the combo I would like to make.

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/pt2tN2e.jpg

 

I realize this is an extreme noob question btw. :P

Edited October 5, 2016 by Merscil

[thumbincubation]

Hi,

 

I'm not one in the know about merging mods, but here are a few you might like to take a look at, if you haven't already, before making your merge.

 

 

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=441537497

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/61720/?

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3947/?

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=373934224

 

 

I know there is a way to merge mods, though I see people talking about using TES5edit and some kind of mod combining tool, and I don't know which (or if both are needed.) I'd suggest searching the forums for "merge mod," and you

should get several discussions to scroll through.

 

If you're looking to create your own mod, by manually extracting pieces from several mods and assigning them to yours, you can. It's tedious, and I'd probably give the mod merge methods a shot first. This tutorial is meant for

retextures, but it will show you how to manipulate meshes and textures. From there, you put them into your meshes and textures folders (may have to create them) inside your data folder, make your mod with them as normal.

Essentially, you'd find a piece of armor in ck that has similar stats, duplicate and rename, then use the edit function to change the model in both the world model (on the armor form) and the worn model (on the armor addon form.)

You will need (usually, not always) 1 world model, and 4 worn models for each piece. (A full model, for each size _0 and _1, and a 1st person model, for each size _0 and _1) In some cases, helmets for example, there is no

1st person model. Generally you can take tips from the vanilla setup, but there may be times you'd need to add one that didn't exist in vanilla.

 

 

I see that you've stipulated for personal use only, already, and that's something I would have said for anyone else's benefit, who might see this. Never want to use others' mods for release, without their permission.

 

http://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Retexture_Tutorial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Merscil]

Thanks for the reply that was very h

 

Hi,

 

I'm not one in the know about merging mods, but here are a few you might like to take a look at, if you haven't already, before making your merge.

 

 

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=441537497

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/61720/?

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3947/?

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=373934224

 

 

I know there is a way to merge mods, though I see people talking about using TES5edit and some kind of mod combining tool, and I don't know which (or if both are needed.) I'd suggest searching the forums for "merge mod," and you

should get several discussions to scroll through.

 

If you're looking to create your own mod, by manually extracting pieces from several mods and assigning them to yours, you can. It's tedious, and I'd probably give the mod merge methods a shot first. This tutorial is meant for

retextures, but it will show you how to manipulate meshes and textures. From there, you put them into your meshes and textures folders (may have to create them) inside your data folder, make your mod with them as normal.

Essentially, you'd find a piece of armor in ck that has similar stats, duplicate and rename, then use the edit function to change the model in both the world model (on the armor form) and the worn model (on the armor addon form.)

You will need (usually, not always) 1 world model, and 4 worn models for each piece. (A full model, for each size _0 and _1, and a 1st person model, for each size _0 and _1) In some cases, helmets for example, there is no

1st person model. Generally you can take tips from the vanilla setup, but there may be times you'd need to add one that didn't exist in vanilla.

 

 

I see that you've stipulated for personal use only, already, and that's something I would have said for anyone else's benefit, who might see this. Never want to use others' mods for release, without their permission.

 

http://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Retexture_Tutorial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thx for the reply that was very helpfull, I would idd like to do the tedious thing and make a mod of my own composed out of the already existing ones. How to extract the parts from the different mods is still a bit confusing to me, but I'll probably be able to figure it out.

[moriador]

It's not rocket science, but a bit tedious.

 

First question: Do the mods you want to take the pieces from use loose files for textures and meshes or do they come with bsa's?

 

If they are loose files, then all you need are the textures and meshes that pertain to the particular pieces that you want. If they are packed in bsa form, you'll need to get BSAopt from Nexus so you can unpack them and get those assets.

 

There are two ways to do what you want. Which way you choose is a matter of preference. It also depends on whether you already have the mods installed.

 

1. Do as described by poster above, especially if you don't ever want to or haven't installed the mods whose assets you're using.

 

Or

 

2. Assuming you've unpacked any bsa's if necessary, if the mods are already installed, then fire up the CK and check (include) those mods' plugins to load. Then look for the following files in the object window:

 

Every piece of craftable armor needs 4 files associated with it:

 

a. The Armor Addon, which tells the CK which meshes to use and which races to fit them to, etc. (Found under Items>ArmorAddon)

b. The Armor, which tells the CK the stats and properties of the armor and links to the ArmorAddon. (Found under Items)

c. The Recipe that indicates how and where the armor is created and what perks/items are needed to create it. This file links to the Armor file. (Found in Items>Constructible Object)

d. The Tempering recipe that indicates how and where the armor can be tempered and what perks/items are needed to temper it. This file links to the Armor file. (Also found in Items>Constructible Object)

 

If the mods you've loaded permit the armor to be crafted, then these 4 files will already exist. If the mods don't allow crafting, then you will need to create the Recipe if you want to craft the armor (Most mods should at least include Tempering recipes.) You should be able to find a tutorial that explains this. But once you've looked at some Recipe files, they should be pretty self-explanatory. Just pick a vanilla one and duplicate it for any pieces that are missing a crafting recipe. Then treat the vanilla duplicated file as though it were added by one of the mods you're using.

 

Locate the 4 files for each piece that you want and duplicate each one.* You will need to change the ID on every Constructible Object file otherwise they will not link to each other. The easiest way to keep things organized, I think, is to rename all 4 files by simply adding a prefix to the ID that isn't already being used, but which puts those files close to the top of the list. Something like: 000MyMod, or AAAMyMod. (If you add a prefix like this, you can get rid of the DUPLICATE001, etc that gets added when you duplicate a file). But you can name them whatever you want, as long as you can keep track of which is which.

 

Note: Since you've already duplicated these files, when the CK asks you if you want to create a new form after you've renamed them, say NO. It will then ask you to confirm that decision. Say YES.*

 

*You don't actually have to duplicate files if you plan to rename them. You can just change the ID name and the CK will ask you if you want to create a new form. In this case, say YES!. However, I find that this can become messy if I'm doing a lot of files from different sources. Duplicating a file generally puts it right underneath the original in the list, and therefore makes it easier to find. Or if I can't find the files I need to work on, I can just search for "duplicate".

 

If you haven't saved already, now is a good time to save your file and give your mod a nice unique name.

 

Now you need to link the renamed Recipes and Tempering recipes to their respective renamed Armor. When you edit the Recipes/Temper recipes, there's a dropdown menu in the top right that refers to the Armor being created/tempered. Search the list in that dropdown for the renamed Armor that goes with the Recipe (Do the same for the tempering recipe) and save your changes. Repeat for all four pieces of armor.

 

You also need to link each renamed Armor file to its renamed ArmorAddon. When you edit an Armor, there's a box in the bottom center (just above the "cancel" button) that should have something in it such as: DaedricBootsAA. That's the ID of the ArmorAddon which pertains to this armor. Delete the old one and right click in the box, choose "new" and add the renamed ArmorAddon.

 

Save your mod.

 

Exit the CK and reload just your mod. You should find that you've only added the 16 files that you duplicated and nothing else. If that's the case, right now the mod is usable as is. But if you want to change the armors so that they benefit from the Matching Set perk, you'll need to edit the Armor files so that each piece is made from the same material. In the Armor files, on the right, there's a box that contains info such as: ArmorBoots, ArmorHeavy, ArmorMaterialDaedric, VendorItemArmor. If you need to change the Armor Material, just delete the old one, right click inside the box and choose "Add", then search for the correct ArmorMaterial from the very long list of options. (I type the material name or begin with the words ArmorMat, to get the list a lot shorter).

 

Once you've done that to all four pieces, you're good to go. But if you want to adjust the stats, price, or add/remove an enchantment, you can do that in the Armor files as well. So if you want these pieces to be Light Armor, you need to change "ArmorHeavy" in the list already mentioned to "ArmorLight". And on the far left, next to "Weight", you should have the choice of "Heavy", "Light", and "None." You might also want to adjust the actual weight and ratings of the Armor pieces to be more appropriate for Light Armor.

 

To find the appropriate settings for Light Armor, you can look at some vanilla examples by finding the Armor file and doubleclicking it to edit (or right click, choose "edit"). But remember, even if you do not make any changes, you must exit from the edit box by clicking CANCEL -- NOT OK. If you click OK, even though you made no changes, I believe the CK will consider this to be a change to the vanilla status, and if you have any other mods that change this, their changes will be overwritten by yours. You can fix these things in TES5Edit pretty easily. But it's best to avoid them altogether.

 

Or if you don't want to mess with clicking on a whole bunch of light armors in the CK to see their stats, you can just go to UESP and search for Skyrim light armor (Google: UESP Skyrim light armor). You'll find info on weight, rating, etc there. Might not be a bad idea to go there before you even load up the CK and decide what stats, etc, you want each piece to have.

 

That's it.

 

If I've missed anything or got something wrong, please correct me. I'm working from memory while waiting for coffee to brew! Mistakes are too easy to make in this state. :D :D

 

Edit: Oh, and if you're not going to keep the original mods installed, then you'll want to find the meshes and textures that pertain only to the four pieces you are using and makes sure you don't remove those. (You will find that info in the ArmorAddons and Armor for each piece). Or copy them before you uninstall those mods, and then paste them back in -- using the exact same file and folder names as the original -- into the exact same locations in the data folder.

Edited October 5, 2016 by moriador