Yet Another Player House Mod - Location and Other Points

[ilikecheese1337]

Hello everybody,

 

The great work of the modders of the Nexus has finally inspired me to get off my metaphorical lazy backside and make my own mod. As I have no experience I'm going with a player house mod, which shouldn't be too tricky. I do, however, have some questions. In order of importance:

 

1. Where in Skyrim should I put it? I'd rather like it to be fairly close to a city (preferably Whiterun or Solitude) for convenience, but also in an area that looks nice. The obvious location is Lake Ilinalta, but that's overdone in my opinion.

 

2. Is there anything special about building exteriors that I should know about?

 

3. How do windows that give off light depending on time of day work, especially with mods like Realistic Lighting Overhaul? The section in the Creation Kit website isn't all that informative.

 

4. What stairs, in your opinion, look best? The Solitude stairs would work best, but they're hard to fit in.

 

Thanks.

[Pentigan]

For location, there's a few interesting spots that I can think of:

 

• Windhelm: On the Windhelm side of the river, across from the farms and next to the docks
• Riften: The big area of forest on the northern side
• Whiterun: Up the mountain from Honingbrew Meadery
• Solitude: The marshes or down near the farm
• Markarth: The hill across the bridge from the main gate

[Sjogga]

2: You need to edit the navmesh surrounding your house.

 

3: Watch (or read) the official CK tutorial named Lightning (search Youtube or CK website). He covers everything you need to know about lightning.

 

4: You should never choose stair based on which one that looks the best. All architecture within a cell should follow the same theme. Nothing looks worse than a house mixing different types of architecture. If you're gonna use the solitude stair, make sure the rest of your house use Solitude architecture as well.