Creating a mod. Help to put it into prospective

[Nephillium]

Hey everyone, just need a little help with putting the mod Id like to do into some real prospective. First lets get this out of the way. I'm new to modding. I understand what I want to do will be a lot for me but I'm fine with that. Learning as I go and learning all aspects of modding is my plan. So after really sitting down for a few hours and thinking about it, doing research doing what I want is pretty viable. I just want to clear some things up before I spend hours working on it and it cant actually be done. So here it goes.

 

I want to build a large city, much like Whiterun or Solitude. I want to have it on the map somewhere and not hinder any other locations. I want the town to load like another town. Where the town is visible from Skyrim, but you have to load into it via gate doors. I want guards/patrolling, and a crime system like any other town. To build custom quests within the town, give the player a home within the city, and try to give the npcs I make there daily routines like the others in Skyrim. I understand this is a big undertaking for someone like me but I intend to start small and work my way into it by following BBens46's advice to another user.

 

So what I want to know is... is there anything in what I want to do that's just not possible? Basically look at it like I want to build Whiterun. Big city, visible on the map, but have to load into it, guards with patrolling paths, quests, npcs, player home... thats all I can think of now anyway.. I'll try and keep this thread updated as to what Im doing.

 

Thanks, Nephillium

[SinderionsBones]

Nothing impossible, or even terribly difficult there *by itself*. I'm sure you can get where I'm going here.

 

If someone made a mod that added a blacksmith shop like the one on the right as you enter whiterun, they would have made a really good mod that lots of people would download.

 

If someone made a small town with four buildings, three of which were generic houses with nothing interesting. They would have made a good to impressive mod depending on if there were patrolling guards, a functioning inn, and maybe a quest or two.

 

If someone made a place like dragons reach with a few quests. They would have made an awesome, download for the eye candy if nothing else type mod.

 

The bottom two would take, depending on your schedule, and the complexity, several weeks or months to bring to a finished version under normal circumstances. Especially if you were including any quests, unique effects, and dialog.

 

 

You are considering at least four or five of the second type, and probably one or two of the third type. This is a goal most would consider not attainable without a team with a highly defined, inspiring goal, and most importantly reliable, dedicated, and consistent leadership. When it comes to mods for games... this just isn't very reasonable and is the exception rather than the norm.

 

You wanted some -perspective- thar ye go :D Whatever you decide, do *something*. Makin' mods iz fun.

[chaospearl]

The only thing that I'm not entirely sure about is a crime system. Did you mean that you want the city to have its own city-specific system that isn't tied into the rest of Skyrim? That sounds a bit difficult. I'm sure it's do-able, but it would require technical scripting ability and knowledge of how the crime system works (from a scripting perspective). All the rest is easy to do simply building things and creating quests via the CK. The sheer scope of a whole city would be so vastly time-consuming I can't imagine why you'd want to, but it wouldn't be difficult by any means, just hellishly tedious.

[Nephillium]

@Sinder, so what you're saying is its not impossible to do, but rather... slightly impossible to do alone? My goal first is to just get the city built somewhere, and get it working. Even if I could just get the city space working.

 

So, just to wet my pallet, how would I go about creating the empty world space that I will slowly fill in with houses and shops? So example, you will see the "town" off in the distance and go up to it, open the gates and load in, and your now standing on some flat big empty area where I will add the houses and shops..

 

@Chaospearl, Nah, just to have it work like the rest of Skyrims, you hit someone, people attack you, you kill someone you get a bounty and guards chase you, ect. As for *why* id like to put myself through this is just something personal, and will hold some fun but sentimental value in myself and another. (to much to explain on that end).

Edited March 22, 2012 by Nephillium

[SinderionsBones]

I may be wrong, but it seems like making new world spaces is a huge huge pain. At least from all the crap some people are having to go through to do it. Some stuff about heightmaps and whatever else. What I would do is take on of these mods that has it's own worldspace, Lost Forest is one that comes to mind (A promising mod itself, check it out), and just kinda.... remove all the stuff but the bare land... and make your city in there. This may be unnecessary, but you would be sure to have everything covered. Credit the author with ... the base world space work if there's enough left over to have required much work.

 

a lot of cities have major parts of their landscape represented by unique models created just for that spot. The actual landscape for whiterun, for example, is waaaaay below the city, the cities ground is actually made of static pieces. Don't expect to have the same quality landscaping in your city using only the landscape tools.

 

The part about seeing it from a distance is a matter of building the basic cities structure, again, using LOD(load on demand, low quality textures designed to be seen from far away) statics for the buildings you use in the city, and arranging them in the tamriel worldspace. Go to the exterior of whiterun (in the tamriel worldspace) and this should become clearer.

 

Have fun.

[Khazaad]

I give the OP a lot of credit for making this sort of inquiry even if his goals are grandiose and unrealistic. Following a thread that details the learning process of an inexperienced modder who's skills progress into something substantial could be very interesting. For me, the more I learn about modding, the harder I realize it is when it comes to actual execution.

 

It seems like your undertaking crosses over many different areas of expertise and this would explain the need for a team of people (as mentioned above) to be attainable. Perhaps someone could offer insight on simply where you should begin. IOW: "In order to comprehend THIS aspect of your goal, you're going to need to understand THAT before it will make sense."

 

If I can elaborate on the OP's initial request, could anyone give a brief list of specific skills that are needed for this project? What do people who create successful, innovative, and functional mods do for a living?

[Nephillium]

@Sinder I see your point, Ive found a few tuts on creating world spaces and such. But, now I'm wondering if creating this city much like Riverwood or Rorikstead might be easier? If anyone can give me some pros on either. I just thought if I did manage to create this large city with npcs would it affect load times/the game at all if I had it in its on separate world space you load into, or as a open city right in Skyrim.

 

@Khazaad Thanks for the support, and I just figured I couldn't have been the only ambitious fool to attempt to do something like I'm doing, and is having a hard time/cant do it/impossible so they can stop me before I start. If I somehow accomplish this even on a small scale I hope I can make it work, be successful, and share it. I don't intend to share it until I have a substantial amount ready, such as the area built, or at least some of it, some NPCs working. Last I'll do is quests.

 

And on a personal note, what I do for a living is I'm a 3d artist. Maya is my weapon of choice. So I'm not new to that aspect of things. You need a sword? I can make a sword. Getting said sword into skyrim? *crys*.

[SinderionsBones]

... if you're a 3d modeler why on earth are you bothering with a town mod? lol No, I guess that's not quite right, but 3D modelers are the scarce resource here. People with grand ideas and general modders are aplenty. Even people who could take created models and textures, and get them into game are not at all hard to find. The people that craft the models and make/map the textures are the real thing people treasure around here. I'm guessing it's partly about not wanting to do what you do for work as a hobby? I can understand that for sure.

 

There are no particular skills needed for this project other than messing with the CK and knowing how to search online for tips and references for it. The CK is designed to be, and is, so easy to get a grasp on, I wouldn't consider anything inside the CK, aside from maybe scripting, an individual skill. Scripting only because it is greatly helped by a previous knowledge of programming.

 

A city like Rorikstead is absolutely more reasonabe. And who says you can't expand on it without limits. Have you tried the .. I think it's called Open Cities mod? It makes the cities out in the world just like the little towns. Many many people have, or do use it, with minimal graphic or lag issues. I'm talking whiterun, windhelm and solitude, put out in tamriel worldspace. You'd have to do some pretty crazy stuff to cause *that* much graphics issues.

 

I myself have made a town ... almost the size of falkreath or dawnstar. It didn't take too terribly long. Made walls around it, put copied interiors inside and a few pieces of whiterun landscape stuck in and disguised a bit to make it look nice. Every once in a while I'll open it up and customize some of the interiors, work on the exterior etc... Perfectly reasonable idea.

[Nephillium]

As Ive said before, the town mod is something more on a personal level with a friend and myself. And I do realize people need some 3d artists, and a bit of it is stepping outside of my shell and trying other things. Maybe even try and so something drastic in the CK and get some attention from Bethesda for a job might even be a plus, lol.

 

(The only thing that drives me is they modeled everything in tris, and I generally model for movies and tv so I do everything in quads. This is a personal pet peeve, lol.)

 

I think I'm likely to attempt a open world city like Rorikstead. I'm still in the Research and Development stage, and figuring out what exactly I want there, where, and why.