Modding Skills

[Mot0000]

The tools that Beth give us is great but I need help on how to understand them. I have an idea of what I want to do for my first mod but I have very little if any understanding of how the modding software works.

 

My idea is going to be from the Book of Vile Darkness which is for DnD table top RPG. It will be the sword 'Angel Killer' this will be the first of many mods that will be coming from the book. I hope insert the entire book into the game. And seeing as how we have all beaten Lord Dagon 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times over since the origonal relesee of Oblivion I also hope to put in a more super villians into Oblivion such as all the Hell Barons and Demon Princes in Oblivion. Asmodeus takes on Oblivion wouldn't that be interesting?

 

Anyhow I need help from any/everyone that knows modding cause I don't know sh-!-t.

[Vagrant0]

Oblivion modding is not something that most people can pick up without spending quite alot of time just learning, trying, and failing almost constantly. First, you need to be willing to sit down, go through a tutorial, and learn the basics.

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...Getting_Started

 

Once you have the basics down, you will need to make sure that you have them down well enough to do simple mods, like house mods without any sort of step by step instruction, you can still look back on some of the tricky stuff like packaging and scripting, but if you are having problems just defining or placing items, you really can't go much further from a world building standpoint.

 

Once you have put those basics to use, and made something following your own direction, you will need to go back to the tutorials. This time focusing more on the meat of a mod. Scripting, quests, AI, effects. Since you would probably have a house mod at that point, or can make one rather quickly, you can use this same mod again as a base for adding in other components, like a quest to gain that house, NPCs to populate that house, and scripts to maintain and tie it all together.

 

Once you've done that once, do it again in a different way, adding more complications to the quest, scripting or NPCs. Use conversations, make the NPCs have routines which change according to what else is happening in the mod. When you're done with that, start making small test mods which deal with similar concepts and systems that you were originally interested in. It is these small mods which can help you work out many of the situations without being burdened by having to setup everything else.

 

It is only after you have completed those tasks above that you should even think about considdering some grand project. There is one very good reason for this. Regardless what you want to do, there will always be some aspect which simply does not, and cannot work well within Oblivion. It is only by doing smaller mods and running into these sorts of problems in mods which "don't matter" that you can be made aware of the problems, and be willing to look for alternatives. Many times projects fail because they run into one of these kinds of problems, and become unwilling to change their vision of the mod. It is easier to dismiss an idea for a mod before you start any of the actual work than it is to realize a mod can't work how you want it, and all that time spent was wasted.

 

Just remember, in every failure there is something to be learned. If you fail to learn from your failures, The cycle will only repeat :).

[LHammonds]

and don't forget to look at the PINNED threads.

 

Here is one example: How To Make Mods

[Mot0000]

Thank you very much LHammonds, and Vagrant0 I will be keeping both of you in mind for any and all future projects that I will have. However I also work 16hr days and 6 days a week in a mine. I will be trying to pick up as much as I can but it will take quite a bit of time to learn this and work. Thanks again.