A Noob...

[Pariah72]

So yeah, Im a noob at this

 

 

And i would like help. I know almost nothing about coding (learned some very minor basic coding for Lua code (GMod) from a useless webpage that i could do nothing with) however I am very eager to learn. Reasons I want to learn include:

 

-I plan on going to college to become a video game designer

-I want to be able to mod awesome things

 

 

I want to learn any form of coding possible. HOwever seeing as i ma very interested in skyrim at the moment i feel this would be a good place to start. I would appreciate direct help seeing as web pages generally are useless. They teach you basics of coding but leave you not knowing how to use it. However i will still be greatly appreciative of any web pages. If you want to teach something thats easier than skyrim be my guest, im down with any form of coding you can teach me. Whether its for another game such as minecraft or its for something else. Thank you for your time.

[PaladinRider]

IMO I don't think a poll was necessary. For what it's worth, coding isn't absolutely necessary to mod Skyrim or any BGE game - although it is undoubtedly an asset.

 

If you want direct help because seeing websites are useless, you have a long and very difficult path ahead of you as a coder.

 

Not many people will be able to help you code for skyrim yet because the CK is not out and there are unanswered questions. Rumors are though (they may be confirmed) that the skyrim language is Java based and is OOP (object oriented programming). This, to me, seems like it will be a little more daunting than past games but MUCH more capable. Java isn't the hardest language to learn but nowadays most people start off with Python because it is the most forgiving.

 

Nobody is going to be able to turn you into a coder and not many people are going to tutor you for free.

[Pariah72]

IMO I don't think a poll was necessary. For what it's worth, coding isn't absolutely necessary to mod Skyrim or any BGE game - although it is undoubtedly an asset.

 

If you want direct help because seeing websites are useless, you have a long and very difficult path ahead of you as a coder.

 

Not many people will be able to help you code for skyrim yet because the CK is not out and there are unanswered questions. Rumors are though (they may be confirmed) that the skyrim language is Java based and is OOP (object oriented programming). This, to me, seems like it will be a little more daunting than past games but MUCH more capable. Java isn't the hardest language to learn but nowadays most people start off with Python because it is the most forgiving.

 

Nobody is going to be able to turn you into a coder and not many people are going to tutor you for free.

Well would anybody be willing to at least help me learn how to mod skyrim

[SkjoldBjorn]

There are tons of tutorials you can read on this forum if you search a little, most of them should have been stickied, but they have not.

Here is a few of them:

 

Tutorial 1. making an esp - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/475361-tutorial-adding-objects-in-cells-for-skyrim/ - making .esp and placing objects in skyrim by modifying hexadecimal values - no need for this one when the CK is out.

 

Tutorial 2 - Console modding - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/477049-renovate-your-house-with-console/ - if you want to start modding ingame by console. Note!: these changes are only made to your game, if you want to make a mod with your changes you need to consult tutorial nr.1

 

Tutorial 3 - 3D studiomax and nifskope - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/478312-tutorial-3ds-max-skinned-meshes-into-game/

 

There are more tutorials on various ways to mod skyrim, search the forums if none of these seems interesting.

[bben46]

We are not going to give this to you on a platter. Coding is work, and you will have to learn how yourself. No matter how many people try to help, YOU will ultimately have to do the work. It can be extremely frustrating, and also extremely rewarding - both at the same time. :whistling:

 

There is no magic way of learning that makes it easy - dive in and start doing it. There are already many tutorials available. pick one that looks like it fits your style of learning and go to it. when you get stuck - and you will. Then ask specific questions and someone will help.

 

Question like "I can't make this work' Aren't going to get you much help. You have to let us know exactly what you can't get to work and what you have tried already.

 

IMHO: Going to college to get a degree in computer gaming is a waste of your parents money. Having a degree in something is no guarantee that you will get a job in that field. There are only so many slots available for game designers, and currently most of those go to either general purpose programers who can do that kind of work or self taught programmers who don't have a degree at all. - Instead study Computer Science, and take some classes in game design. That way, if there are no open jobs in game design, maybe you can get one in some other programming field. Programming of any kind is math heavy so be prepared to take as many math courses as you can.

[Pariah72]

We are not going to give this to you on a platter. Coding is work, and you will have to learn how yourself. No matter how many people try to help, YOU will ultimately have to do the work. It can be extremely frustrating, and also extremely rewarding - both at the same time. :whistling:

 

There is no magic way of learning that makes it easy - dive in and start doing it. There are already many tutorials available. pick one that looks like it fits your style of learning and go to it. when you get stuck - and you will. Then ask specific questions and someone will help.

 

Question like "I can't make this work' Aren't going to get you much help. You have to let us know exactly what you can't get to work and what you have tried already.

 

IMHO: Going to college to get a degree in computer gaming is a waste of your parents money. Having a degree in something is no guarantee that you will get a job in that field. There are only so many slots available for game designers, and currently most of those go to either general purpose programers who can do that kind of work or self taught programmers who don't have a degree at all. - Instead study Computer Science, and take some classes in game design. That way, if there are no open jobs in game design, maybe you can get one in some other programming field. Programming of any kind is math heavy so be prepared to take as many math courses as you can.

I understand that your not going to magically make me understand. But i cant start coding when the entire language looks like a bunch of random words compiled togethor and makes no sense, I need a place to start

 

With your other thing about it being a waste of their money, First of all im smart enough to go to college for free. Im already going for free so its not their money. I am going for Computer Science not Specifically game design so that way if i cannot find a job as a game designer theres other options under computer science. However my main focus is game design because thats the field i want to be in. I am 2 grades ahead in math so thats no problem for me.

[PaladinRider]

The place to start is tutorials. That is in fact their purpose, to teach you how to do something. Basically what you're asking is akin to asking someone to help you replace a timing belt on your car. You can't expect someone to come by and do it for you while you're there - you won't really learn what to do.

You have to start small, and understand what you're doing. In my case, I first joined Bethesda's forums in 04 when I was 14. I was lurking around the nexus sites and I attempted my own mod for Oblivion. The map editor you'll get the hang of quickly - it's really cannot be simpler. Basically you're a 'modder' by doing that. When it came to scripting I had to look up tutorials - one was called "My first script" or something like that.

I had a simple mod going where you would bring certain things to an activator and it would remove them from your inventory and give you the finished product - in my case - grapes and a bucket of water gave you wine.

 

I then went to university (I'm in 3rd year) of a computer science + business major. That's when I learned how to program and to be honest Computer science course teaches you way more than you actually need to mod. Although this time around Skyrim is object-oriented so that more of what you learn in a computer science course is applicable.

 

If you're "smart enough to go to college for free" and you're already taking computer science then there is nothing stopping you from reading the tutorials and picking it up quickly - I don't even think you'll need anyone's help.

 

EDIT: I definitely had to come to the forums and I started more than my fair share of threads asking for help. But the key was I didn't ask "How do I mod?" I basically asked - "Okay - here's what I want to do, here's the script I have so far. Logically it looks to me that this script should work, but it doesn't. This is what does." And see if I was lucky enough to gett someone to chime in.

Edited December 22, 2011 by PaladinRider

[GeminiContractor]

This isn't exactly a helpful post, but...

 

Mostly, the only benefit from modding Bethesda games will be the experience you get from creating/editing models and textures.

However, I think that using and learning the script editors(SKSE, OBSE, NVSE, FOSE) might be beneficial to what your wanting.

 

Aside from that, you can try to find free first person game source code online and experiment with that(I haven't really found any).

Edited December 22, 2011 by GeminiContractor

[JohannMohr]

chose "hahahahahaha, no" since i know nothing about modding myself xD

[SparrowhawkXY]

I'm in the exact same position as you, this helped me a TON:

 

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php/Category:Getting_Started

 

Just go down the list and start absorbing everything it's saying pretty much, just keep in mind that Skyrim has a separate and new scripting language (possibly java based?) that people are talking about but it doesn't matter the fundamentals and data structures work in the same way.

 

Also this forum already has a ton of threads, many from November and buried that detail a lot of the file types for Skyrim and show hex editting/other tricks to mod without the CS for the time being (only for those wanting to tinker a bit with basic modding stuff like textures, models, adding items) probably wouldn't hurt to take a look at those as well just to get a feel for how things work and how Skyrim handles data.

 

If you're feeling adventurous you can try script dragon which has source code examples to give you some breadcrumbs to get your head around how scripting for Skyrim actually comes together. If you don't have a C++ editor you can download VC++ express of Microsoft's site for free in order to mess around with the script dragon stuff.