Adventures in Modding!

[charwo]

Ah, after long bouts of complaining, I am finally on my way to towards knowing what the hell I'm doing, I'm getting some handle on the Geck. Not what I was hoping for, but it does represent progress. I have gotten a windfall from Bonds123's meshes and textures, and eventually want to retrofit a lot with them. As of right now, I would appreciate help with the following:

 

1. Better video tutorials.

 

This is a two fold thing: in the first place the Bethesda videos start with the thing I am least interested in: making original dungeons. I want to retrofit. For instance: if I wanted to substitute all Vault hallways version R in Vault 22 (the rusted variation) with the non-R versions (they cleaned, maintained version of say Vault 21), it there a way to make that substitution? Assembly is an important step to be sure, but retrofitting fits in with my short term goals much better, and considering the R and non-R version of Vault corridors are the same in dimensions and latching, I am hoping that a substitution could be made, much like in word where a pronoun needs to be changed , one can pop up the substitute screen and then command that "he" be replaced with "she" in the entirety of the document. Easy peezy. But this is tabled as I can't get the cell screen to work right, although potentially this setback could be done by Monday. The next issue is:

 

2. Finding pre-war and rebuilt models and textures

 

Please bear with me on this one. I apparently don't understand how to search for things via a search engine, and I need to know in order to stop pestering my fellow modders and such. With Bond's resources, I want to start making a recovered cell. So, let us start with Camp McCarran. For this thought experiment, I will be looking for four different models, which may or may not exist: rebuilt automobiles, rebuilt army trucks and clean pavement and a train depot. Now these will probably be modder's resources, and as such could be found here. So let me tell you how I search and you can tell me what I can do to improve. Here goes:

 

I am looking for a pre-war army truck that is in pre-war condition. Imagine army trucks as seen in vanilla FO3 and the army trucks in Operation Anchorage. What I want is for the green Army trucks at Camp McCarran, which are supposed to be working NCR supply trucks, to have a fresh coat of paint, a fixed grill and intact widows.

 

In google I put: Fallout New Vegas pre-war truck mod.

 

I will get the Fallout wiki for the broken truck. This is unhelpful.

 

I will then put in: Fallout New Vegas intact pre-war truck

In the hopes that a modders resource will pop up. It does not.

 

At his point I feel stuck and try my luck with the search engine at Fallout New Vegas. Anything I type produces zero, I repeat responses. I don't think I'm using either engine properly, although the modder's source I need may not exist. Still, at this point I feel the need to ask for in depth theoretical instructions on how to operate these search engines. I need to know exactly how the algorithm in each works, how words group together, phrases that get me nowhere, and alternatives to finding what I want. Search engines are stupid, and since they can't speak my language, I must learn theirs.

 

4. Modding Meshes

 

In the Geck, one can open models to see what a weapon or object will look like in game. Very good. But I want to take the next step and begin substituting one model for another. In this case, we will start with something stupidly simple: in the game files MacCready's outfit is still there, just waiting to be used. So I want to do a test run. The female model for MacCready's outfit is that of the female Vault 101 suit. I want to learn how to change it to something else, maybe Vera's outfit, maybe not, but for this test, I simply want to have the male and female versions coincide. I want to find the male MacCready model and replace the female Vault 101 suit with it, thereby making MacCready's outfit model unisex, so a female will have the same appearance from the next on down. So.....how to I substitute the model? What are the commands, and where would I find MacCready's male model to copy and paste?

 

3. Modding weapons

 

Now, mind you this might not be a final step, but an intermediary. I want to create a new weapon, as weapons have less 'moving parts' so to speak. In this case. I want to take a 45 pistol and turn it into an energy weapon Specifically, while keeping the model animations for the gun itself, give it's performance characteristics as a GRA hyperbreeder. I want to install a MF breeder, dam and DPS and fire ratios, none of which should prove hard, methinks. The thing that is ambitious is that I want the discharge animation to be the hyperbreeder's too. They don't have to sinc by any means, that's not the purpose of the exercise. All I want is to make a substitution where a shot from this modified 45 model will shoot a laser beam down the way and kill the hell out of whatever I aim at in the game. I think this can be done. I'm just not sure how to go about it, and do so in a way the ensures the game won't crash upon load.

 

I need some help here, and with help in this thread I can learn by doing, which in just starting out is the most important way for me to learn. As such, I am grateful for any help here.

[JustinDK]

Well, ctrl + F will trigger the find and replace dialogue. You can replace the selected piece/s with an object from the list that comes up. You will have to specify whether to replace ALL instances, cell instance, or just the single piece.

 

As far as vehicle models, the army truck may take nicely to some new textures. Pickings are slim for vehicles in NV though, so you may have to model the meshes yourself.

 

Weapon modding I'm not so sure about, never done it myself.

[charwo]

Well, I completely understand the new mesh thing, and considering I need to be careful with exactly how I say this, the concept of overlaying meshes has long appealed to me. In particular, when I have the moding skilling I will, with God as my winess, purge every lossened tie reference, including the hologram models in Sierra Madre and replace them with the properly fastened tie you see in the lab coat, Oliver's uniform and the Mysterious Stanger outifit. But that would be a simple overlay. The Truck would be very easy to do becauyse only the grill and windows need to be tweaked in the meshes and the deminions for those were set by the Interized Trucks of Operation Anchorage. Replacing the Corvegas post war with Covgega pre war is just a swap issue, beyond new colors. Even the rare Flea and City Liner Buses (which I'm pretty sure are in the files of New Vegas) would be fairly easy to spruce up with a resizable tire model. But the real kicker? That would be not removing the planes from Camp McCarren but retexturing them to look retrofitted and repainted with NCR logos, giving the raterh sensible impression that McCarran has limited air resupply capacity. In fact it would be better to have them decorated with either Red Cross or Followers logos as emergency air ambulances! I think it would be cool and lore friendly.

[charwo]

Good News!

 

I am on the verge of creating my own weapon....sorta. As a sort of trial run and good time, I am turning a modded 45 mesh into a recharger pistol. It's been slower than I like considering it's substituion, but I'm getting there. My big issue is that that mod uses Honest Hearts, and I can't load up info from two master files at the same time. I would like to take my mod and start it as active file with Honest Hearts and GunRunner's arsenal as contriubatories, but so far, it says cannot open two master files. This is annoying. Also, how does one load up vanilla meshes? I have to use this modded 45 mesh even if I didn't want to because I cannot use the browse option to find any vanilla meshes and textures! I can only swtich arounf the ones added by modding and that's something foa pain, but not horrible right now.

 

Also, is there a way to duplicate perk effects? In other words, in GECK I can see the effects, but i can't copy and paste them into one giant monstrosity perk, so I have to hand copy. THis is annoying. And then, I'd like to make a mod that disables or increases the number of trait one can take at character creation, but I haven't seen what controls that script. Help here would be awesome.

 

In general, I'm getting a solid handle on object mechanics, scripts, AI, meshes and cell building are left, but I'm chipping away!

[charwo]

Specific question!

 

I am making a small weapon mod. The only issue I haven't been able to figure out is the scope mods. Adding a scope mod is easy. Getting a scope effect is not. There is a targeting data part in the art and sound sub menu of the weapon. There is an input for a nit file that I have found corresponds with various scope aims. In this case I want to try adding a tells cannon like scope to a recharger pistol as a representation of advanced electronics. Well, I know what that nif file is for the rail cannon but I can neither copy and paste it nor manually input the field. I can type nothing in this box. Worse, the sunflower these files are in is hidden or something from my PC, so I cannot find them by browsing either.

 

I need to know how to transplant these targeting nif files and then I will pretty much understand the mechanics of how weapons work.

[Xaranth]

Specific question!

 

I am making a small weapon mod. The only issue I haven't been able to figure out is the scope mods. Adding a scope mod is easy. Getting a scope effect is not. There is a targeting data part in the art and sound sub menu of the weapon. There is an input for a nit file that I have found corresponds with various scope aims. In this case I want to try adding a tells cannon like scope to a recharger pistol as a representation of advanced electronics. Well, I know what that nif file is for the rail cannon but I can neither copy and paste it nor manually input the field. I can type nothing in this box. Worse, the sunflower these files are in is hidden or something from my PC, so I cannot find them by browsing either.

 

I need to know how to transplant these targeting nif files and then I will pretty much understand the mechanics of how weapons work.

 

The models and such you want to work with are packed away in BSA Files. To append/adjust them, you need to extract and work with them directly. The GECK Wiki has a page dedicated to this. I can't direct you specifically, but I THINK the BSA page will set you in the right direction for what you want to do.

[charwo]

It's worked! Thank you!

 

Thing is almost ready. But I now have a sound question. The idea of this weapon is that it's a double concealable weapon. When fired while not sneaking it is supposed to look and sound like a loud 45. When sneaking, it works like a stealth laser pistol from Project Nevada. But I don't know what is doable. I have no reason to think I can get two animations, but given the choice of of sounds for the gun, is there a way to have one attack sound when sneaking and one when standing? And is it possible to add a script for the gun so that when you shoot a dead body it desintigrates? If so I can put 45 death animations on it and then laser kills desintgrate afterwards. Basically, an assassin would kill someone with this and it would look like a gun wound, but then disintegrate aftward, the pile of ash says someone with a normal laser weapon did the deed, not someone with a standard 45 with a scope...

[charwo]

And then, I need info on money modding. As in adding more currencies that aren't effected by barter price. I know where the currencies are, but I don't know what the script effect is that frees them of barter. What I want to do is make pre war money into a currency, worth 10 caps regardless. But without IDing the script, I can't make the modification. I need help cause I really tried looking this up and Google was not my friend.

[Xaranth]

And then, I need info on money modding. As in adding more currencies that aren't effected by barter price. I know where the currencies are, but I don't know what the script effect is that frees them of barter. What I want to do is make pre war money into a currency, worth 10 caps regardless. But without IDing the script, I can't make the modification. I need help cause I really tried looking this up and Google was not my friend.

 

The Money items are a different type of form - rather than a MISC form, the ingame money - except for caps - is a CMNY form. I can't tell you where to find that form in the object databas, though, except for All and a filter.

 

What you could do is look at the NVSSCap item and mod Pre-War money with a similar script, after creating a CMNY form for your pre-war money.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Xaranth

[mj246]

charwo,

 

If you have not found it yet, there is a fix for loading multiple master files in the GECK at once. You must find the GeckCustom Configuration settings (generally in the FNV folder inside the "my games" folder, at least using Windows 7). Search for the line "bAllowMultipleMasterLoads=0" and change the "=0" to "=1". You can then load multiple master files at once and use a single .esp for all mods if desired.

 

EDIT: Disregard below question. For some reason the GRA recharger pistol doesn't have a regeneration rate listed in the GECK like the other recharger weapons. Adding a regen rate to the stats makes the new pistol work.

 

I also have a question concerning your attempt to recreate the GRA recharger pistol. I am attempting to port all the stats and beam characteristics of this weapon to a model I got from another mod. I extracted the new model from the BSA and just added that to a direct copy of the MF Hyperbreeder Alpha GRA. However, in game it will not recharge ammo like the other recharger pistols using the MF Breeder ammo. It fires one shot per MF breeder and consumes the ammo as if it was any other ammo type.

 

How did you get your recharger mod to function properly in this regard?

Edited November 6, 2012 by mj246