SSE Extending basement of Heljarchen Hall

[VulcanTourist]

There is a mod called Lakeview Extended, which has one ESP that extends the normal Lakeview Manor basement with a large bedroom. It's not a separate cell, but rather an extension of the existing basement cell (at the point where there is framing for a doorway to another room that Bethesda never added), and it includes pre-placed furniture and clutter. I'd like to be able to take that ESP and modify it to be attached to Heljarchen Hall instead of Lakeview.

 

What would that entail? Are the placement references relative to the cell to which it's being attached, or are they absolute? Could it be done with SSEEdit, since I'm merely modifying and not adding, or would it require Creation Kit? I'm trying to gauge just how far above my current pay grade such a project would be.

Edited July 21, 2020 by VulcanTourist

[cumbrianlad]

Personally, I'd do it in CK.

 

There are several steps, as to how I'd do it, so bear with me...

 

1) Open up CK and the basement, then turn on navmesh. select any triangle of mesh and hit 'F' to flood fill the whole mesh. Do the same with any red islands left out using 'Ctrl' and 'F'. drag the entire mesh way down. Do this in one go. Doing a main mesh and the islands separately will result in all meshes being edited.

2) Delete the wall piece and add one with a doorway.

3) Make the new room by hand. I do not advocate copying the original for 2 reasons. 1, it makes it less original and 2, you have to go through the faff of loading that mod up but not active, at the same time as loading your esp. Trust me, it's just faster and better to do it yourself.

4) Once you're happy with the room, re-do the navmesh whilst hiding the vanilla mesh down below, so that points don't keep trying to snap to triangles on the vanilla grid. Hide a navmesh by flood-filling it and hitting 'H'.

 

You'll have to be careful with any vanilla objects that may obstruct your new doorway. You'll also have to look out for yellow collision cubes that are set in their 'Primitive' tab to L_Navcut. You will need to decide what to do about these on an individual basis. Move them or disable them. Never delete them.

 

Hope that's a start.

[VulcanTourist]

Well, don't I feel silly... there are in fact mods that already do this:

• Hearthfire Extended
• Lakeview Extended SSE Basement in Heljarchen Hall and Windstad Manor

It's always nice when I discover that my motives aren't entirely unique.

Edited July 21, 2020 by VulcanTourist