bananakillerBRO Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 Hello! I'm working on a large, DLC-sized mod that requires a new worldspace. I was going to build my own, but then I found "Dry Canyon", a world resource that's honestly exactly what I was picturing, so I figured I should just use that and edit it to fit my own needs. However, I've run into a snag, I can't seem to figure out how to port Dry Canyon into my mod. I know I need to use FNVEdit, however I am very in-experienced with the tool. I've tried finding other tutorials on how to copy and paste from esp to esp, but I haven't been able to find anything solid. How would I go about accomplishing a full copy-paste of Dry Canyon into my own esp? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubiousintent Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 Have you seen the "Copying interior or exterior cells between plugins" entry of the wiki "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article? It was originally written by madmongo, who has some experience with the process. -Dubious- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmongo Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 (edited) If you are creating a DLC sized mod with new worldspaces, you definitely need to have the GECK in networked developer mode instead of the single user mode that most people have it set up as. See the instructions here:https://geckwiki.com/index.php/Version_Control If I remember correctly there are two ini entries that are slightly wrong in that article. I'll have to go through my ini files to remember what they were though. Once you have version control set up, make sure that your mod's esm is up to date both in your local files and in your network share. Make sure that everything is checked in to version control and make sure that you have copied the network file back to your local files. Make sure that the mod with the worldspace that you want to add is an esp. This won't work if it's an esm. Make sure that this mod doesn't depend on any other masters, or else your DLC mod will end up depending on those masters as well. Now would be a really good time to back up all of your files, both local and your network share. If something screws up in the next steps, it can totally hose you mod. This is especially important because I am going from memory here and I've only done this a few times. With networked mode / version control enabled, load up the GECK with your esm mod and the esp mod that contains the worldspace that you want to add to your mod. Go into version control in the GECK and it should list all of the things that are in the worldspace esp as being changed since they are not in your esm. However, since you did not create this esp in the GECK as a dependent mod from your DLC mod, nothing is checked out. So the first thing you need to do is select everything and select check out. Once everything is checked out, you can turn around and immediately check it back in, which will remove it from the esp and will place it into the esm. You might have to exit the GECK and restart it in between the check out and check in. Since your worldspace mod wasn't created with version control in mind, there are some things that can get screwed up doing this, especially if there are any conversations or script references in the esp. But you'll get the worldspace and most things into your DLC esm properly. If something screws up, you can get the version control completely borked and the check in with the new worldspace simply will not work. If you get it into this state, there's no way to recover. Reload your original files (you did make a backup, right?) and start over. Edited October 15, 2020 by madmongo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmongo Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 Found this on a previous post I made on the nexus. This is what is wrong on the GECK wiki page for version control:[WhoCanMerge]UserAccountName=1[WhoCanForceCheckout]UserAccountName=1It needs to be:[SudoWhoCanMerge]UserAccountName=1[SudoWhoCanForceCheckout]UserAccountName=1You will also probably need to run the GECK as administrator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bananakillerBRO Posted October 19, 2020 Author Share Posted October 19, 2020 I did it lads! I just wanted to come by and detail my process, as I found an astonishingly low amount of tutorials during my search for merging .esps. Firstly, I tried the Version Control route, however to be honest, I got cold feet and was fearful that I'd end up doing more damage to my project and GECK for a result I may be unable to get to. This may sound like I'm being paranoid and overzealous. I am however instead, very stupid, and me destroying my GECK despite having written instructions is more likely than I'd care to admit... Instead, I starting looking for solutions in FNV:Edit, and while I was able to merge the plugins I needed, and get the worldspace into my mod, the plugin was still dependent on the original .esps. So that was a no go. After hours of trial and error with Edit, I took one last look at Google before wrapping it up. And...as it turns out...there's literally a program on the Nexus that automatically merges and plugins you specify! I'll post it down below. The Program- https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/69905 5 hours well spent In any case it worked! Wanted to drop back into the thread and list the solution I found, just in case anybody has the same problem in the future. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On another note, there's something I'd really like to say. MadMongo, DubiousIntent, you two are absolutely amazing individuals. For years now you've always been here for me and so many others when we've needed help creating mods. It's more than fair enough to say that, without your counsel none of my mods would have ever even made it off the ground! You two are absolute legends, on behalf me and many, many others, thank you very much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubiousintent Posted October 19, 2020 Share Posted October 19, 2020 Thank YOU for reporting back with your solution. I have been aware of (and used) Mator's MPS tool for several years now, but it had never occurred to me to use it in the manner you have to "develop" a new mod. In hindsight it is perfectly logical, though truly "necessity is the mother of invention". I've added it as a possible solution in the entry I referenced earlier, with the caution that the resulting plugin still needs to remain within the 16MB file size limit. This forum still thrives ten years after the game was released because of the enthusiasm and continuing contributions of it's members. We each help in our own way (answers are elicited from questions, mods from perceived needs), and the result is truly greater than the individual parts. But all of those individual contributions, whether few or many, are necessary to the process. -Dubious- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmongo Posted October 19, 2020 Share Posted October 19, 2020 (edited) If you are doing a DLC sized mod with a new worldspace, you are going to need to bite the bullet and learn version control. If you use the GECK in single user mode (the way most people use it) and make an esp, you are almost certain to run into the 16 MB bug. This is because the GECK in single user mode just shoves new records in at the end of the file. Once your mod gets to be larger than 16 MB (which is easy to do once you add a worldspace) the next time you add anything that is referenced by its offset into the file (anything with an ID basically, so any object, weapon, NPC, armor, etc, even any reference that you place somewhere), this will completely break your mod. The GECK will happily save your mod without giving you any errors whatsoever. However, as soon as you try to load the mod in your game, the game will crash. If you try to load your mod in the GECK to fix it, the GECK will crash. Your only way out at this point is to load up a version of your mod that you previously stashed away somewhere. Don't have a backup copy of your mod somewhere? Then you're screwed. When you run the GECK in networked mode and check things into version control, the GECK re-orders the records, and places things that are accessed via offset down lower into your esm. Things that aren't accessed via their offset into the file (landscape, landscape textures, navmeshes, quests, etc) are placed afterwards in the file. I'm sure there are limits, but I have created some large mods with multiple worldspaces that far exceed the 16 MB limit and haven't had any issues yet. Save copies of your ini files. If you totally bork your GECK installation by trying to switch to version control, all you need to do is copy back your original ini files and you'll be back where you started. I personally have my original ini files for when I want to use the GECK in single user mode and I have another copy of the ini files for networked mode so that I can easily switch back and forth between the two. Edited October 19, 2020 by madmongo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubiousintent Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Updated the "Copying interior or exterior cells between plugins" entry of the wiki "Getting started creating mods using GECK" article with madmongo's additional information. -Dubious- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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