First time modding. . .

[19jadem93]

The Elder Scrolls games have been my favorite series since I was seven years old. I remember getting Morrowind when I was eight and playing nonstop for the next five months. Oblivion came out when I was 13, and I was iffy about it. There wasn't as much to it as Morrowind, but I was blown away by the graphics and diversity of the races. Eventually, it all grew on to me, and about six years later, I still consider it my all time favorite video game. My opinion on Skyrim? Don't ask. You don't want to know. But, anywho, four months ago I started modding my games. My first was Ren's Beauty Pack, with the Mystic Elf race. Eventually there were more than 40 ESP files in the Data folder. Being an artist myself who knows a thing or two about scripting (because it's all like html coding to me. Yay two years of Web Design in high school) and photoshop, I broke down a month ago and installed the construction set, and played around. Making NPCs and houses/dungeons are what I do mostly, because they're simple with vanilla meshes. But now, I want to do something. . . more. I want to make something and share it with people. I know vanilla based material is something no one really wants, but I don't have photoshop on my pc (I'm poor -_-), or the proper tools to make custom stuff. As someone starting out with limited resources, what can I do to make a mod with unique qualities even though most of it will have vanilla content? Do I even need photoshop--Is there a free program out there I can use that's pretty much the same? I just need a few tips. Help would be nice. Email me if you have any pointers. Thank you ^_^

[Lanceor]

GIMP is a free alternative to Photoshop and Blender is a free alternative to 3D Studio Max. A lot of modders use both. :)

[Rennn]

In order to use Gimp to edit Oblivion textures, you either need the Gimp .dds Plugin, or you need a free image converter like Paint.NET. Paint.NET isn't just regular Paint, btw, it has a lot more features and can convert almost any image type. You'll want to convert Oblivion's textures into .png images to edit them, because that's one of the few standard image types that allow transparent textures. Make sure to always convert the images at the highest quality possible, or after multiple edits the texture will degrade noticeably.

 

You can use a free program called Nifskope to make minor edits to Oblivion meshes. For example, you could use it to change the texture path on a set of armor, so you'd be able to make a set of steel armor with a unique texture without replacing all steel armor textures. That's just an example ofc.

 

As for simple mods, there are a lot of possibilities for simple easy-to-make mods that expand the game in a meaningful way. I'm not saying you have to seriously consider these quick ideas, but even a novice modder could add "new" weapons like +2 Iron Longsword or +1 Fine Steel Dagger to levelled spawns for people who like lower-level weapons but can't use them because of the stats. Almost anyone could make it possible to enter houses through windows for thieving characters. Anyone could add exterior ruins and interesting features underwater for Argonians and people with water breathing spells or gear to explore. You could put hidden loot around the Oblivion towns on rooftops etc, to make exploring the towns and abusing the acrobatics skill more useful.

[Andy1967]

I wouldn't say that people don't want mods based on vanilla content. What I think most people want is something new and original, but that can be achieved with vanilla content and a few resource packs. For example: I would love to see more people put bathrooms into houses they make. Not big swimming pools with waterfalls and flowers or whatnot, but just simple, realistic bathrooms. I'd love a mod that does that, even if it's just vanilla building blocks, because it is something you don't find in the basic game. Adding a little bit of story to characters and settings can also help a lot, IMO, to create something interesting, And you have a lot of options to give a new look to old stuff, just inside the CS. Unique lighting can completely change the atmosphere of a room/house/cave, without using any 3rd-party resources or doing any modeling/texturing.

 

But of all that I would say having an interesting story to your mod is what's most important. Don't just copy-paste vanilla houses. Take a vanilla house that's grand on the outside, but furnish it with lower class stuff on the inside because the owner is a guy who wants to make a good impression on his neighbours, but is acutally broke, or just miserly. Give him some dialogue that fits that personality and you will have something interesting, even if you are using just vanilla stuff. Creativity and finding unique ways to assemble common building blocks is your most important tool, I would say.

 

Something else I think is important is an eye for details. An open book on a desk, not just some meat on a kitchen desk, but also a knife used to cut that meat, maybe a bucket under a table with some paper scraps thrown in to show a waste basket... Think of things you would find in a real house, things that would be there if you lived there. Some people like big and epic mods, but a lot of people out there also appreciate mods that are "real". That can be accomplished with vanilla content - if you are patient enough and put yourself into the scene.

[Harvald]

There are some real great Artists on Blender and gimp, (Stroti, Momo, MrSijka, Washington, LHammond, Gizmodian, Oblivionmonk and the modders of ore, and others(I forgot hundreds, I'm sure) and they have done a lot of objects. So take the time, to brouse the ressources here on Tesnexus and perhaps on other sites like

this. I think you will find, what you need to make your modding dreams come true. And if it's not quiet 100% you need, retexture in Nifscope. You don't have to invite the wheel second time.

 

Do your modding and have fun :thumbsup:

 

Harvald

Edited July 31, 2012 by Harvald

[theuseless]

Kudos to all who have posted on this so far.

 

Gimp just released their new 2.8! It is amazingly better than 2.6 in many ways. Gimp is a very powerful tool. You will need to get the plugin for dds and the plugin for normal mapping. The dds plugin will save in the correct format, but I find dds converter to be simplest. Paint.net is another staple tool people use. Dds stands for Direct Draw Surface. You can add things like normal maps, glow maps and gloss maps. Just to name the common ones. A normal map makes a 2-d object appear to have 3-d properties. It tells the computer to render shadow and highlight effects based upon an otherwise invisible image. Glow maps do the same effect for glow. So you can add glowing words to a weapon, etc, with the simple knowledge of these tools. Gimp is, in my opinion, a more powerful program than photoshop. It isn't quite as easy to use, but any skill you have at photoshop is translated instantly.

 

You can start to retexture items very simply. Please don't be scared off by the couple of terms supplied above. It is a cinch and we will get you started soon. To start, we will modify a vanilla mesh to have permanent blood stains. Get bsa commander and open Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa with that tool. Now extract all contents to your out folder. This is the default folder for output. We are decompressing all the textures used by oblivion. If you wish to only extract one, then grab textures/weapons/silvershortsword.dds and textures/weapons/silvershortsword_n.dds. You can click on where it says name to organize by name. Note that bsa commander takes a while to load sometimes.

 

Once you have the two files, I like to copy them to another folder, I call it project. This way I have a backup of all the original files. Right now, we will be using only one file, the silvershortsword.dds. We won't even touch the normal map (silvershortsword_n.dds, the _n.dds tells the computer this is the normal map). We will simply use the one they provided.

 

So once you have installed the Gimp (with dds and normal map plugins), load the silvershortsword.dds. You can now make any blood effect you would like. I'm sure you know how to make color/overlay/transparency/etc work for you. I like to either flatten the image and export (save as) the image into jpg, or merge all layers into one with transparency, then save as .psd photoshop document. Now you should have a renamed texture like bloodsilversword.dds, bloody.dds or whatever. It doesn't matter. Texture names don't need to be unique, the file path will do that for you. Now we need to translate the file. Use Paint.net or dds converter. If you run win7 paint.net is easier. Load the jpg you saved and convert it to dds. We use dx5 with 6-8 mipmaps. This is simple with dds converter on winXp, I haven't used paint.net. It can't be too dificult for you to figure out. I use dds converter on win7 still and it is a pain. I just don't like reliance on the cloud.

 

Go to your Data/Textures folder and make a new folder with your name on it. Copy the bloody.dds file here (or in another sub folder named silver). You will want to copy and paste silvershortsword_n.dds here as well. Now rename that file to bloody_n.dds. Use whatever name you want, but make sure it matches exactly the texture we made.

 

Ok, so what now? We should have a blood enhanced image for our texture. We now need the mesh to attatch it to. Go back to bsa commander and open Oblivion - Meshes.bsa. You want to either unpack all of them or just get Meshes/Weapons/Silver/shortsword.nif. Some people like to unpack the whole contents and then browse folders, others don't want to waste the space for it. Your choice. So now we have shortsword.nif. You are going to need another program for this, NifSkope. This tool is powerful, complicated and wonderful. Now open shortsword.nif inside NifSkope. You will get a little tiny field of render window, with lots of names and strings of variables,etc. Don't worry, we will get to where we need simply. Again, this has been painless so far, right?

 

So we have the mesh opened in Nifskope. We will click anywhere on the mesh. Note that it includes the sheath. The sheath remains displayed on the belt or back when the weapon is drawn, don't worry. Click on any part of the object. It doesn't matter if you click the sheath or the handle. All part of this object are tied together, meaning if we change one instance, all will change. So when you click there, the window on the right should expand. You will have a blue highlight on the left. If it doesn't say NiTriStrips, zoom in and click again until it does. It will have a number before it, which is irrelevant right now. Expand the NiTriStrips by clicking the arrow. Now expand NiTexturingPropery. You will see a little purple wheel. Click that to open the menu to find your texture. You can also double click the name next to it and enter it manually. Choose the file in your Data/Textures/(yourname)/ folder. Always make sure that the texture name doesn't include the full path. It should read Data/Textures/yourname/bloody.dds. We don't need to change anything else. Save it once you have added the changes. After you save it, you can right click on the sheath, then go down to block, then click remove. This will double check that the blade was changed. You don't need to save after checking. We can now place the object into the CS.

 

You will now need to download and install the latest version of the CS (construction set). There are tricks to making a new mod, you need to read a tut on that one. Or just add it to the game with any other mod. For now, I don't think you need to release a blood stained short sword, so I will use HouseMod as an example. Simply use a small house mod for now. You can learn how to make your own new esp later. When you open the CS, you need to load an esp (elder scrolls plugin). click the folder button on the top left. Now double click the HouseMod.esp and set it as active. Click ok to load. Once it has loaded, you will need to add your sword. Go to the left of the screen, where it says Items. Expand this field, then expand weapons, weapons again. Now find the area it says silver. We are going to double click where it says EnchSilverShortswordAbsMagicka. We don't have it in the render window yet. It should give you a bunch of options. You can change any of them, but the most important is its ID. The Object ID is the most important part of modding. You should ammend this with a prefix, or change it entirely. I would use theuselessBloodyShortSword for example. This ensures you don't conflict with anybody else. Now you can change anything else, such as enchantment, damage, health, etc. We now have the game recogizing a new ID, but we need to make it use our mesh. Click on where it says Mesh and browse to your project folder. Find your .nif file (mine was Bloody.nif). Click on ok, then save it. The CS will ask you if you want to make a new form, say yes. Now we need to place it in the game. Go to the bottom box, it should say Interiors. Go to AnvilChapelHall. When you double click that, it should open the render window. I double clicked on the apple and then go the render window. You can hit the "T" button to get top view. Then zoom out a little with the middle mouse wheel. Go back to the objects window on the left. Find your new short sword. Place the sword into the chapel hall. You have now added your content to a mod. You can save it. Make sure that you use a new esp if you are going to release your work to the public.

 

There are some great tutorial on the sticky above on this forum (oblivion mod talk). Once you have this simple process down, you can explore blender and all the other stuff you can do with NifSkope and Gimp.

 

theuseless

[theuseless]

Again, this process sounds daunting. You have to download at least 6 files. (Gimp, the 2 plugins for it, bsa commander, the Construction Set, and possibly dds converter). But it isn't that difficult. Don't let this daunt you. It will come like second nature to you. I had been doing NifSkope work for a few months, then my computer crashed. I got a new one almost a year later and can still do all the things I used to be able to do. There isn't much to it. You don't need to remember large volumes of script commands, variables or arrays. It is just learning how to decipher the free programs we have available.