Amature coder wondering how to get into modding CP.

[Mike0rr]

TLDR: Where is a good starting off point, in learning to mod games, specifically CyberPunk here? For someone who has a base knowledge of coding, understanding how syntax and code structure generally works, but still likely considered a relative noob, or at least noob-ish.

So, I am by no means a great or even good coder. I do a bit with Arduinos and Rasberry Pis using Python and C++ish.
More important than the specific language though, I've (as all coders have) learned how to generally code, problem solve and work with syntax. So I have a small question, and a more open ended question here:
1. With this general knowledge base, would learning to mod still be very hard, or is this base knowledge usable in a meaningful way? (Is this dumb to pursue unless you are already knee deep in video game coding know how already)?
2. And more to the point, where is a good starting off point, to learn how to mod CyberPunk?

I have gotten pretty good at editing and Frankenstein-ing other peoples code together into working applications, (regardless of language generally). If there is a file to parse though, I can generally navigate it and figure out how it works, at least enough to take it apart and rearrange its variables and call outs and fill in the small gaps you create in patching it all together. But I've never taken apart video game code. And most of my code effects hardware not software, making robots move and interact, and very little on screen interaction (but I have done some). What a good step one to start off on?

For a bit more context, if it helps. I'm very interesting in some of these body tattoo mods coming out and I want to look more into working on removing head slot items appearances, or understanding why it is hard if not impossible to do right now.
I know a few items in game that don't have an appearance and I thought I could possibly move their "invisible" appearance to a normally visible item. (Making a working head slot item with a mod socket or 3 take on an invisible appearance). This may be harder than it seems to me, but not knowing how to get to this discovery and understanding stage, I crave being able to explore this myself.
The second thing I want to do at the moment also "seems" easy compared to my normal shallow programming work. Some of the NPCs in game have some bad ass body tattoos. (I saw some koi fish tattoo or something along those lines that I loved a ton). It seems from my surface level programming that this could likely be easily copied over to our main character models variable options outside of not knowing how visuals are applied to models. Like, replace "Body tattoo 2" with "NPC body tattoo 7" or simply saving over the model for V's tattoos with the NPCs tattoo, like a copy and replace.
Both of these seem so simple though, that I assume they would have already been done if they were as simple as I'm thinking they are in my head. So I am either stuck till we get better tools or explore more of what is left to uncover from CDPR, or the amount of mod creators here is well below demand, and it would actually be great to get more people into the mod creation side of things here.
With this game being so new, it would be a great time to get into modding with so much green pasture left to explore and contribute to. But me, and likely others, could use being pointed in the right direction here. Or maybe there are plenty of people screaming, "So many of us are pointing already stupid"!
And in that case, I'm sorry. But help a well intended fool out here please. And thank you <3

 

Some hopefully helpful questions people might have: How do we open and edit files? (Notepad opens the text as symbols and some of my other programs like Code Blocks give me like one line of code.
Are there a few general folders we will be working under specifically for the most part? Where do I even find where appearances would be saved assuming they aren't in some proprietary editor.
Do any specific languages help to be proficient in here?
Is it that hard to do edits to the game? Not looking to add anything fancy like an interface or new feature to the game, just edit over existing models in my cases here.

Hope this is worded well enough. Kind of in "no mans land" here knowing some terminology, but maybe not enough to understand how complicated of a question I am possibly asking in reality here. Either way, thanks for reading! <3

Edited January 15, 2021 by Mike0rr