Looking to enter modding

[Sezerboy]

Hello

I've been playing/modding the elder scrolls and fallout series for some time and I'm currently looking to try starting modding.

I'm hoping to start by modifying current armor sets or creating unique armors but i'm not sure how to start.

 

In fact I dont even know how to start. I don't know how the process begins and what i need so i was hoping if anyone knows a website for budding new modders or any tutorials into the technical aspects of it.

I usually just download mods so I am unsure of what i need to do backstage.

 

I'm not sure what softwares are usually used to create the 3d mesh for most of the mods but these are the ones i know.

 

-Zbrush

-3dsmax

-Marvellous Designer

-Photoshop

 

Im proficient in most of these 3d softwares except Marvelous, which im only at the basic lvl.

 

I'm hoping to create a small unique eyewear first if possible.

Any help to a tutorial site or forum would be really useful!

 

Thank you!

Edited December 6, 2017 by Sezerboy

[Ethreon]

Do you KNOW those programs, or do you KNOW OF those programs?

[ArchGaden]

I recently started modding outfits. I've found that a lot of the tutorials are terribly out of date and various tools have changed such that the process doesn't work unless you hunt down specific versions of those tools. Bethesda games are very picky about what nif mesh files they'll take. I've had to muddle through things until I've found what works as there don't seem to be any comprehensive tutorials out there, just lots of little tutorials covering pieces.

 

Texture editing with Photoshop, Gimp, Paint.net, ect is easy. There are plenty of plugins to create normal maps for any of those and the normal maps work fine in Fallout 4. Specular maps are very different and there are no good guides on that. The color channels in specular maps have meaning for Fallout 4. A google search will lead you to old forum posts talking about what the color channels do, but as far I've seen, nobody has nailed it down and there aren't any tools to help with Fallout 4's weird use of specular maps. Older black/white specular maps still work okay in Fallout 4 for most cases, but you'll probably need to play around with it to get exactly what you want. You'll need to grab the Fallout 4 material editor from the nexus to reference your textures (ie, create a material file that is basically just a tiny file that points to the loose textures).

 

For meshes, to start with, you'll want to install Body Slide (which includes Outfit Studio) even if you aren't using CBBE or a special body. It's on the nexus. Outfit Studio is necessary for working with outfits in general. There are many youtube tutorials on it's overall use. You'll also want a Bethesda achive extractor. There are a few on the nexus, I forget which I'm using right now and I'm not home or I'd check and be giving you links for things. It's easy enough to find the tools with simple searching though. You'll need an archive extractor because you'll need to use the base body and head as reference for outfits in Outfit Studio. It's also nice to be able to grab examples from the assets. NifSkope is also a useful tool for certain types of modifications to nif mesh files, although I've mainly just used it for toying modifying UV maps without going to Blender/3DSMax. Once upon a time, you needed NifSkope for the import/export process, but those features are disabled due to issues in the later versions and Outfit Studio handles importing/exporting just fine now.

 

I've heard that 3DSMax has a nif export plugin that works for Fallout 4. I don't use 3DSMax, so I can't verify. I use the much more affordable Blender instead, despite it's terrible UI. The process I use should work just fine for 3DSMax though without a plugin. You should watch a bunch of tutorials anyway, as they cover portions of this more in-depth.

 

A rough sketch of how to create a clothing item in Fallout 4

 

1. Unpack/find your reference asset (body or head mesh from Fallout 4 / CBBE / ect)
2. Open that asset in Outfit Studio
3. Export as .obj
4. Import .obj reference in 3DSMax/Blender
5. Build your clothing item (simply using the reference to fit your clothing)
6. Export your clothing item as .obj
7. Start a new project in Outfit Studio
8. Setup your reference (either during #7 or after, doesn't really matter)
9. Import your clothing item obj
10. Set the mesh's material
11. Check your mesh to make sure the 'skinned' flag is set (otherwise is invisible in-game)
12. Tweak the item if needed with Outfit Studio's tricky tools. If it's a variable body type item (like CBBE) you may need to conform meshes.
13. Select all the bones, select your outfit mesh, then copy bone weights (otherwise is invisible in-game or other crazy mess).
14. If the item is a CBBE or other variable body size item, you'll want to build it with BodySlide, if not, just export the clothing item as a .nif into the final asset location
15. Actually create an item in the Creation Kit that references your mesh (whole other can of worms, and there are lots of tutorials on this)

 

IF your item is meant to have physics (like dress/cape/ect) you need to find a vanilla asset with those physics and use that for the reference (instead of the body/head) when you're copying bone weights in Outfit Studio. This is because Fallout 4 has no cloth physics. It has animated bones that mimic it. Unless you want to set those bone weights manually, it's best to just copy from something that works.

 

Even if you're not creating a clothing item, Outfit Studio still works for translating between obj and nif mesh formats.

Edited December 6, 2017 by ArchGaden

[Sezerboy]

Do you KNOW those programs, or do you KNOW OF those programs?

 

Hi there, sorry for the confusion in my main post.

I have edited it so it becomes clearer.

 

I am proficient in all the stated 3d softwares except marvelous which is only at the basic lvl of knowledge for me.

I only use Marvelous to simulate cloth meshes.

[Sezerboy]

I recently started modding outfits. I've found that a lot of the tutorials are terribly out of date and various tools have changed such that the process doesn't work unless you hunt down specific versions of those tools. Bethesda games are very picky about what nif mesh files they'll take. I've had to muddle through things until I've found what works as there don't seem to be any comprehensive tutorials out there, just lots of little tutorials covering pieces.

 

Texture editing with Photoshop, Gimp, Paint.net, ect is easy. There are plenty of plugins to create normal maps for any of those and the normal maps work fine in Fallout 4. Specular maps are very different and there are no good guides on that. The color channels in specular maps have meaning for Fallout 4. A google search will lead you to old forum posts talking about what the color channels do, but as far I've seen, nobody has nailed it down and there aren't any tools to help with Fallout 4's weird use of specular maps. Older black/white specular maps still work okay in Fallout 4 for most cases, but you'll probably need to play around with it to get exactly what you want. You'll need to grab the Fallout 4 material editor from the nexus to reference your textures (ie, create a material file that is basically just a tiny file that points to the loose textures).

 

For meshes, to start with, you'll want to install Body Slide (which includes Outfit Studio) even if you aren't using CBBE or a special body. It's on the nexus. Outfit Studio is necessary for working with outfits in general. There are many youtube tutorials on it's overall use. You'll also want a Bethesda achive extractor. There are a few on the nexus, I forget which I'm using right now and I'm not home or I'd check and be giving you links for things. It's easy enough to find the tools with simple searching though. You'll need an archive extractor because you'll need to use the base body and head as reference for outfits in Outfit Studio. It's also nice to be able to grab examples from the assets. NifSkope is also a useful tool for certain types of modifications to nif mesh files, although I've mainly just used it for toying modifying UV maps without going to Blender/3DSMax. Once upon a time, you needed NifSkope for the import/export process, but those features are disabled due to issues in the later versions and Outfit Studio handles importing/exporting just fine now.

 

I've heard that 3DSMax has a nif export plugin that works for Fallout 4. I don't use 3DSMax, so I can't verify. I use the much more affordable Blender instead, despite it's terrible UI. The process I use should work just fine for 3DSMax though without a plugin. You should watch a bunch of tutorials anyway, as they cover portions of this more in-depth.

 

A rough sketch of how to create a clothing item in Fallout 4

 

1. Unpack/find your reference asset (body or head mesh from Fallout 4 / CBBE / ect)
2. Open that asset in Outfit Studio
3. Export as .obj
4. Import .obj reference in 3DSMax/Blender
5. Build your clothing item (simply using the reference to fit your clothing)
6. Export your clothing item as .obj
7. Start a new project in Outfit Studio
8. Setup your reference (either during #7 or after, doesn't really matter)
9. Import your clothing item obj
10. Set the mesh's material
11. Check your mesh to make sure the 'skinned' flag is set (otherwise is invisible in-game)
12. Tweak the item if needed with Outfit Studio's tricky tools. If it's a variable body type item (like CBBE) you may need to conform meshes.
13. Select all the bones, select your outfit mesh, then copy bone weights (otherwise is invisible in-game or other crazy mess).
14. If the item is a CBBE or other variable body size item, you'll want to build it with BodySlide, if not, just export the clothing item as a .nif into the final asset location
15. Actually create an item in the Creation Kit that references your mesh (whole other can of worms, and there are lots of tutorials on this)

 

IF your item is meant to have physics (like dress/cape/ect) you need to find a vanilla asset with those physics and use that for the reference (instead of the body/head) when you're copying bone weights in Outfit Studio. This is because Fallout 4 has no cloth physics. It has animated bones that mimic it. Unless you want to set those bone weights manually, it's best to just copy from something that works.

 

Even if you're not creating a clothing item, Outfit Studio still works for translating between obj and nif mesh formats.

 

Wow thank you for the detailed explanation! It did help me understand alittle about the proccess.

I don't use body slide so i guess i'll have to get used to it haha.

 

I'm looking to create something simple first haha. Most likely an eyewear with no physics or the sort.

 

May i know exactly what is the "NIF" mesh format you were saying?

[Ethreon]

If you are proficient with max, you're going to need 2013 (14 at most) to be able to create proper meshes. You'll also need the Intel/nvidia plugins for textures (I prefer intel). You can use OS, but I'd recommend MAX as the much better alternative for someone proficient.

[ArchGaden]

NIF is the mesh format used by gamebryo engines and it's what Fallout 4 requires. A mesh is just your 3D shape data and some related things like bone weights, UV maps, and texture references. You probably know that bit if you're already doing stuff in 3DSMax. Bethesda uses a highly modified Gamebryo engine for each of their games, and every time, they change the NIF format, which makes it notoriously tricky to work with. OBJ is another mesh format that is much more popular and supported by pretty much every 3D Modeling application. OBJ makes it a great intermediate, since it's well supported and Outfit Studio can import it (and export as NIF).

 

Bodyslide includes Outfit Studio, which is designed to help build outfits for Bethesda games. To get to Outfit Studio, you launch BodySlide and then click the Outfit Studio button. Silly, but that's how it is. You can ignore BodySlide otherwise unless you're building outfits for a special body type like CBBE, but you'll have to get it to use Outfit Studio at least.

 

The alternative to Outfit Studio for Fallout 4 mesh work is NifSkope. Unfortunately, it can't import since version 1.2, but only version 2+ supports Fallout 4's NIF format. If you wanted to avoid Outfit Studio, you'd have to get a plugin for 3DSMax (apparently there is a good one) that allows you to export as Fallout 4's NIF format. There would be some adjustments you'd need to make in NifSkope before it would be usable in Fallout 4. NifSkope is powerful in that you can manually set bone weights, but it lacks an easy copy bone weights tool like Outfit Studio has. Since Outfit Studio can easily import OBJs though, I don't see a reason to use NifSkope unless you need to make some specific types of edits that it's good at.