[LE] A variety of questions (1st time mod maker!)

[CassandraWladyslava]

Hello!

 

I'm working on my first mod ever and had a few questions. I basically need an "Idiot's Guide" to making mods. lol.

 

First off, the mod involves a small quest that will lead to an original, uniquely voiced marriage candidate/follower. I don't want to go into the story too much on the public forums, but it will also involve two other original/uniquely voiced characters, stolen goods, and bandits.

Here's what I need to figure out:

 

1. What's the best order to tackle this? I wasn't sure if I should do the quest/marriage first and then add follower stuff or the other way around.

 

2. As a follower, I'd want her to react to certain situations/quests. How does one do that?

 

3. Also, is there a way to make a follower learn from the player? My idea with her is that she's following the player because she's heard of his/her adventures and exploits and wants to 'learn from the best'. I'd love to set something up where she either automatically levels with the player or the player can tell her what/how to level up. Is this something that can be done?

 

4. How do I make a new building (I'm thinking a farm, but not set on it)? How do I know where I can set it so it doesn't conflict with other areas?

 

5. If I want to use objects, etc... from other mods/DLCs, how do I go about doing that? Is it just a matter of ticking them off at the beginning when I open the CK?

6. How do I trigger certain events?

 

Here's the basics of the quest and what I'd need to be triggered.

 

The player comes across 2 people arguing. He/She asks what's wrong. They tell him/her something belonging to their daughter, who is away, has been stolen. The father is sick/injured so he can't go and the wife has to stay to take care of him/the farm (or whatever). So they ask the player to go fight the bandits and retrieve it.

 

Here I'm not sure if I should make a new bandit camp, or put the object in an existing one. If it's the latter, I'd have to know a way to make the object spawn after the quest is given.

 

When the player returns, the daughter has also returned. So her appearance can't be triggered until the first part of the quest is complete. After that, and some discussion, marriage/follower possibilities are open.

 

7. Finally, as I said the father is sick/injured. What's the best way to portray this? I've seen characters with bandages before, but I can't recall if those were from mods or vanilla. Ideally, I'd like a splint of some kind and/or a cane. That, or some way to make the NPC show they are ill...like a bad coughing fit or falling down.

 

 

Phew! That's a lot more than I thought I'd end up asking about. lol. And I don't know if that's even all of it!


Ideally, I'd love a partner on this tbh. I'm doing the best I can, but as a complete novice I'm struggling. This is an area I have close to no knowlege/skill in. ^^; I have watched tutorial videos, etc..., but I thought I'd see what specific answers I could get to my specific questions.

 

 

Oh! Also, if there's any extra advice you think I'd benefit from please feel free to throw it out there! I'm eager to learn! =)

Edited June 13, 2018 by CassandraWladyslava

[thumbincubation]

Most of these are beyond my skill level, but with regard to using items from other mods or dlcs, there are a couple of options. For DLCs, yes, you want to check their boxes in the data tab, when you open CK, but it is sometimes less than cooperative at first. I've had better luck with starting my mod with only skyrim and update checked, name and save it, close and then reopen the CK, check the boxes of whichever dlc and/or other mod, and then double click my new mod and set it as active. I don't know why, but it seems to accept a "vanilla" mod more easily, at first.

 

If you do this with another mod, however, you will end up making your mod dependent on that mod to run, so anyone who uses your mod will have to have installed the other first. Assuming you've already sought and received permission to use another modder's assets, you could also recreate them in your own mod, to keep it self-contained. That would involve recreating the creation kit forms, and also extracting and / or copying any meshes, textures, or custom scripts to the appropriate folders within your data folder, for reassignment in your own mod.

 

As far as the follower being able to level up on their own, or the player directing the level up, I don't know how to do that but I'm certain it can be done, as Amazing Follower Tweaks has both features. You can allow your followers to level up along with you, automatically, or you can go in and manually level them, assign their health, magicka, and stamina, and even individual skills and perks. You can also set combat style, AI, confidence and aggression, and more. You might want to take a peek at that mod, to get an idea of how it can be done.

 

For the intro to making mods, I like to start here https://www.creationkit.com/index.php?title=Category:Getting_Started

 

There's a tutorials hub link, to get you to more job-specific tutorials and a little bit about flow. There are more tutorials than are listed, so use the search box if you don't see what you need.

 

If you prefer videos, darkfox127 does good, easy to follow, tutorials on youtube.

 

And here's a tutorials thread here on nexus. You may have some luck searching "workflow" within it.

 

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/522532-skyrim-tutorials/

 

I know it's not much of an answer but hope it helps some.

[thumbincubation]

For extra advice, which I missed the first time, learn to love hitting the 1 button twice, to hide things so you can work around them. What a lifesaver.

 

Select an item, hit 1 twice and it will be hidden and unable to be accidentally selected. If you don't select anything new, hitting 1 again will make it reappear. Otherwise, you can use ALT+1 or f5 and make everything reappear. This is just for the CK, so if you close without making something visible, fear not. It will still show up in game. It's just very helpful to get things like ceilings, banners, trees, etc., out of your way, so you can work on other items within.

[CassandraWladyslava]

Thanks for the advice so far! I'll definitely research those things!

 

I'm currently kicking myself for not realizing something that should have been obvious... getting permission to use assets from other mods! Last thing I want to do is make a bad name for myself by accidentally stealing something @_@ Not that I've used anything yet... It's honestly a good thing to be made aware of/reminded of. ^^;