Need help to start off modding

[emieri00]

Hello there, guys!

I had some simple ideas that I'm almost sure I could do myself.

I want to edit some armors for skyrim. What do I need? I know that there is a version of Blender available here in the Nexus that works for creating stuff for Oblivion, but how have people been working?

 

I have maya 2012, 4 versions of Blender [need to replece my older one with the one that have plugins for Oblivion. I'm being lazy] and... Dunno, some patience? Anyway, I have the right to download anything by Autodesk for free, so if I need 3Dmax, I can get it. [student pass and all that stuff]

[tonicmole]

I use 3ds max. Mainly because you can get a plugin here on the Nexus so you can import and export Skyrim nif files. Blender still has a hell of a time and I could never figure out the importing process. I guess it depends what you know and don't know.

 

Basics:

 

Gimp 2 has a DDS plugin so you can edit textures easily. 3ds max is fairly well supported by the modding community, so it's setting pretty for nif editing. You'll also want Nifscope, so you can edit various attributes of Nif files, and quickly check out nifs instead of loading 3ds max just to take a peak.

 

That;ll get you ready. Armors are trickier then they look. I definitly suggest looking at some tutorials to save you some heartache. Lining up vertices for the slider can suck. It's best to pick one mesh edit it for your _1 mesh and save, then use the same original mesh and downscale it for your _0. Any ways......thats a start.

Edited March 13, 2012 by tonicmole

[Matth85]

3ds max cost quite a lot unless you are a student and get older versions for free/newer versions cheaper. Maya is an alternative, if you want to pay, though I do not recommend it.

If you can afford 3ds max you can afford Photoshop instead of GIMP.

If you can afford thoose you can afford Zbrush as a sculpting software, or mudbox.

 

Blender is free, and got what you need. A few scripts and it's solid.

GIMP is free and quite good as well. I prefer Photoshop, but that's me.

Sculptris is the little brother of Zbrush, and it's free.

 

So since you are a student, get 3ds max. Get the version that got the right plugins -- newer versions rarely got plugins up to date.

Then I would recommend getting Photoshop and Zbrush, just because they are quite solid.

 

Now:

 

Editting armors are easy. You get the required plugins, you import the armor and you tweak it. If you do too much, you might need to re-rig it. Some googling is all you need.

Making new armor froms cratch is very hard. It's about 70% of character creation, and requries both knowledge of hard surface and organic modelling. It also require you having a sense of right and wrong within 3d space and anatomy in general.

 

I'd recommend you start with simpler stuff. I like to tell people to start making full models, which means textured and everything. My first real model was a crate, followed by a barrel. Very easy models, but gives you the technique you need. Then comes the split:

 

A) Hard Surface

B) Organic.

 

If you simply want to doodle with armors in-game, then simply import a set of armor and start messing around. Just remember the UVW and texture streches that comes with changes!

 

Cheers,

Matth