Some beginning modder's questions...

[Cthuloot]

So I want to get in on some of the mod creation action. I did at one point in time make a small mod for Morrowind called "Rott Codd's Miracle Cure!" which added a NPC and a small stand for him to Balmora, named Rott Codd as well as an NPC in the Balmora Corner Club who was suspicious of Rott Codd's cure, and set you out on a quest to find out what the Miracle cure was made off. It added a few new ingridients (No new models for them) and a small cave that you had to investigate. Morrowind was a lot simpler I'd bet, and there was also almost no voice acting. This was also a few years ago, so suffice it to say I've got little to no experience!

 

But none the less, I want in on this so I've got a few questions! Feel free to answer any you think you can, I'll number them to make it easier.

 

1) How hard would adding additional dialogue options be? For example, if I wanted to add the option to sell pelts to hunters or flowers to alchemists via dialogue (Like firewood and ores with certain NPCs), how complicated would that be? For my idea I imagine I could use some simple or generic voice response from the NPC's like a thank you or something that already exists somewhere...

 

2) How hard would it be to cut a voice line and reuse it for the above? So if an NPC said something like, "You took care of the dragon? Thank you very much for murdering that dragon, you're the coolest ever. My cousin fought a bear once... Blah blah blah" how complicated would it be to cut out just the part where they say "Thank you" and use just that?

 

3) How hard are making models and textures? How does it work? Any general knowledge here would be great. Weapons, furnitures, armors, new enemies, etc. I've got no experience at all, and at the moment would like to start small and work my way up.

 

4) How hard is it to add an item to specific enemies? If I wanted to make all the wolves in Skyrim drop a custom item or even something already in game, would this be a massively annoying task or just something simple?

 

EDITED IN) How complicated is making and adding new enchantments? Particularly I've got some shield enchantments I'd like to see. Like certain effects while the shield is raised, or while bashing, or when you successfully black an incoming attack.

 

5) What tools will I need beyond the CK? What tools do you recommend? How much do the programs you would suggest cost?

 

6) How do you test your mods? How do you select people to test mods? How many do you recommend?

 

7) How do you test mod incompatibilities? I imagine just loading them up and seeing if Skyrim explodes is enough, but is there more to this?

 

That's all I've got now! I know tutorials and such exist and I'm reading/watching lots of them, but I'd also like some input from novice and experienced modders alike. Share your knowledge, thoughts, and experiences. I'd this thread to be a good source of information and friendly discussion about modding in general.

 

Also, I've not been very active on the forums for long, but y'all are a great bunch! Cheers!

Edited September 7, 2012 by Promiser

[ghosu]

3) How hard are making models and textures? How does it work?

Check out the tutorial in my signature to get a rough idea. How hard? Depends on the person / skills. Some people create awesome models on the first attempt, some can't even follow a simple video tutorial that shows you each single mouseclick.

 

It will take a few hours to get the basics of 3D modeling, several weeks/months to "master" it. Textures can be much more work, simple ones are np but it takes a lot of time to make high detailed ones (i have no problems with models but i'm still pretty bad when it comes to textures). I would recommend to start with a simple rigid weapon like a sword, armor and bows need bones/weighting - that's another story.

 

5) What tools will I need beyond the CK? What tools do you recommend? How much do the programs you would suggest cost?

3D software: 3DsMax and Blender (free) come with NIF plugins (NIF is Skyrims file format / container when it comes to meshes), i heard that MAYA supports it as well - simple stuff that needs no weighting can be done with Cinema4D as well.

 

Texturing: Image Editor like Photoshop or Gimp (free), you can use program like Mudbox or zBrush to paint directly on the model and export the texture for post processing in your image editor.

 

Tools: Nifkskope (to edit NIF files), DDS (texture format) plugin for image editor, FO3 Archive Utility (to extract original files) - some dl links in my videos.Costs? Nothing to hundreds of dollar (even more)

 

6) How do you test your mods? How do you select people to test mods? How many do you recommend?

I just have 2 or 3 people that test 'em for me. I release simple mods without testing.

Edited September 7, 2012 by ghosu

[littleork]

As someone who started modding a few months ago and that already feel comfortable with the ck for the most part, I will try to answer some of your questions the best I can.

 

!) I use that function in a work I am doing, I was able to integrate it when I had almost no experience in the matter so it isn't that hard, I suggest that you use the quests already in the game to learn it.You need to add a function in a script that will look in your inventory to see how many flowers of a specific type you have and give you the right amount of money( that will be set in a global value). It might seems complicated but once you know how it is done, it is really easy to repeat.

 

2)If you use the voices that are already in the game, you would need to extract the bsa containing them first with a tool like bsa opt, then you would need to find the correct line and cut it with a program like audacity.

 

3)This I think is something that only some people are good at, I have never done it so I can't really tell for sure but those people are artists so obviously they have a minimum of talent.For something like that, I would just practice a lot for a while before releasing anything.

 

4)That isn't hard, for a wolf for example, you would need to go to their leveleditem list, find deathitemwolf and add your item in the windows.

 

5)This depend of what you do, a modeler could have a more specific answer but I think a lot use blender and nifskope,those are free, I heard of 3 ds max also but that one is like 3 000$.

 

6)By testing not only your quests but playing the general game, I remember encountering a bug once while I wasn't doing quests in my mod but it was obvious that it was from the mod. I suggest to make sure your papyrus logging is enabling since it will keep some of the errors in a log while you play the game.

 

I think the way you select them is more or less important, I would say that you definitely need someone who will try everything and focus their attention on the mod, if needed, give them specific quests to test so not everybody does the same ones.

 

This probably depends of how big your mod is, if it's a medium project, I would say 5 might be enough, while if it's a lot bigger, I would probably go 10 +, again, I would give them specific quests to do so the testing goes faster since everyone is doing something different.

 

7) Research, if you mod change something in particular, I would do a search to see what other mods do the same change and see by yourself if you aren't sure. One thing too is that if someone says that a mod they tried is incompatible, I had people claiming that my mod was incompatible with another mod and it works just fine for me and other people. Asking them for their load order can probably also help to find what else can be the conflict, maybe there is another mod that make that *incompatible* mod not work with yours.

 

 

 

And a word of advice from someone who started a few months ago and that is already doing a pretty big project; take your time, don't rush it, if you do something big and you release it too quick, you might not be ready for the flood of people finding issues or the demands. If your project is big, do a WIP post to give a general idea of what you are going to do, this way you might get suggestions right away and there is a chance that some of them will be good for you so it doesn't hurt to heard them

 

Best of luck to you and Welcome to modding!

[Cthuloot]

Papyrus? What? Over my head there! Not sure what that is.

 

And thank you both of you. Some reassurance that it isn't that hard is nice. At the moment I've got a few simple mod ideas in mind. I don't imagine they'd end up being more than a day or two of work, but I could be horribly wrong and end up in knee deep in backwards flying dragons! :tongue:

 

Also, I'm kicking myself in the head for not including it in the original post, but I'll ask here and edit it. What about custom enchantments? I personally think some new shield enchantments are needed. However I can't find a mod, or seem to generate enough interest in the Mod Requests forums for it.

 

To give an idea, something like the effect of the Wabbajack staff, just one of them, into a shield. SO maybe a shield bash would turn the enemy into a chicken for a small amount of time. A different shield might increase your health regen whilst blocking. Another shield might cause a lighting discharge when successfully blocking an attack.

[littleork]

Papyrus is what you are using to make your scripts,the papyrus log will give you error if there is some issues with your scripts, let say if you forgot a property or that a script used by an item is missing etc (you will know what all that is once you start ).

 

I never did custom enchant so I am not sure how it work, you could probably just duplicate the original enchant and make it so it can be applied to a shield, but after that, I am clueless the next step is probably to make the bashing do the actual effect. Someone who has been working on spell probably would have a better answer.

[jjc71]

I think a good piece of advice which I'd have appreciated when starting out would have been to 'don't try and do everything' i.e. Jack of all trades. Find a particular aspect of modding you enjoy and stick to it. Become a master of it.

[IsharaMeradin]

Be sure to not only test your mod when installed to make sure it works, but test the uninstallation process. You may find that you have left over stuff in the save file trying to run when it no longer can, you may find objects that no longer function as they should due to something stored in the save file from your mod. Some things you cannot completely remove from a save file, but you can make a reversal mod so to speak that restores the normal behavior of the object should your mod ever be removed from a player's game. --- I learned that lesson the hard way.

 

jjc71 is spot on about finding something that you enjoy about modding and sticking with it and mastering that skill. Till then, do little personal mods that you may or may not release just to get yourself into the practice of using the tools, even if you don't release them treat them as if you would. That way you can learn how to ensure that uninstalling the mod isn't going to cause issues for the player. Tho to be honest, players should test mods before letting them touch their main character and once a mod does touch their main character they should stick with that mod till finished playing said character.

[Cthuloot]

I don't intend to make massive armor packs or weapon packs or visual overhauls. I know what kinds of mods I want to make. Mostly quest things and a few small additions to the game that would weave in seamlessly and after playing with it for a while you forget that it wasn't in the vanilla game.