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Guest Workshop: Using Modders Resources - By: InsanitySorrow


InsanitySorrow
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Using External Resources: The Basics

Welcome to my CS guest workshop 01, this tutorial will walk you through the use of external files. External files are files that are new to Oblivion, so they are files that are not already included in the Oblivion.esm. These external files are commonly modder's resources or new content the modder has made themselves, it does not matter who made the external files because they all get added into the Construction Set in the same way.

This tutorial will be split up into multiple parts, this is because adding say a New Weapon is different than adding a new piece of clothing or armor. So to make things a lot easier for you I have broken the tutorial up into separate sections for different types of external resources.

Currently it covers:

New Weapon

New Clothing Item

Part 1: New Weapons

For this part I am going to use StarX's Heron Katana as an example of a external weapon, you can get it Here.

Now before I start I assume you have gone through the other Construction Set classes to learn the basics of how it works. If not I suggest reading those first :)

Step 1: The first step is a simple one, here we must place all the external files we are going to use in our Oblivion Data folder. If you are following the tutorial using StarX's Katana then extract the Meshes and Textures folders from the Zip archive into your Oblivion Data Directory.

ImportTut02.jpg

Step 2: Second step is to click in the Object Window on the weapons section, this is where all weapons are kept, so its where we are going to be working,

Left-Click and select New to make a new weapon, here a new dialogue box will pop up for us to perform our weapon creation magic. Before we move on lets give it a unique ID, mine will be aaStarXHeronKatana.

Ok so before we add a new weapon we need to get to grips with what we will be editing, I have shown that here:

ImportTut01.jpg

Our main focus for this step is highlighted in Red, but I also highlighted our secondary work in Green because without a good set of stats the weapon is useless, not what we want.

  • Add Nif File: This is the weapon mesh, without this all you will see is the WTF Exclamation mark Icon come up in game.
  • Add Icon Image: This is the icon you see in your HUD and also in your inventory, not really needed but its always nice to have one, makes things a lot nicer.


Step 3: So next step is to add a Mesh, since we actually want something we can wield :), Click the Add Nif File button, this will open up a browse for file box and will open up in your Meshes folder in the data directory. Navigate through the folders and find the Model to use. StarX has two models in the folder, so I picked the WBNormal mesh, either one will do for the tutorial.

Once you have it highlighted click the OK button and your new weapon dialogue box should look like this:

ImportTut03.jpg

Step 4: The next step would usually be adding in a new Icon, but since there is not one included with StarX's weapon we cannnot add one so I will describe it.

The process is almost identical to the Mesh adding we done in Step 3 except the Browse Window starts in the Textures\Menus\Icons folder path and you will be pointing to a texture file (.dds).

Since we cannot add one directly in this tutorial, I will show you an example of how the icon addition would look:

ImportTut04.jpg

Step 5: The last step is to adjust the weapon's stats and give it a name, quite a simple and quick step this part, I have set my copy of the weapon up like this:



  • Name: Heron Katana
  • Weight: 20.0000
  • Health: 300
  • Reach: 1.0000
  • Value: 500
  • Speed: 1.0000
  • Damage: 15

ImportTut05.jpg

You can adjust yours anyway you like, its all upto you :). After this step has been completed click the Ok button and the new weapon is now in the CS and using our new external resources. Next step is for you to place it in-game, either by placing it directly in the game world, a shop or in a levelled list. Choice again is yours.

Congratulations on adding your first item with external resources and completing part 1 of this workshop :wave:

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Part 2: New item of Clothing

For this part I am going to use DarkRider's Male Sweater Mod as an example of a external clothing item, you can get it Here.

Now before I start I assume you have gone through the other Construction Set classes to learn the basics of how it works. If not I suggest reading those first

Step 1: The first step is a simple one, here we must place all the external files we are going to use in our Oblivion Data folder. If you are following the tutorial using DarkRider's Male Sweater Mod then extract the Meshes and Textures folders from the Zip archive into your Oblivion Data Directory.

ImportTut06.jpg

Step 2: Second step is to click in the Object Window on the clothing section, this is where all clothing is kept, so its where we are going to be working,

Left-Click and select New to make a new clothing, here a new dialogue box will pop up for us to perform our clothing creation magic. Before we move on lets give it a unique ID, mine will be aaDarkRiderBlueSweater.

Ok so before we add a new clothing item we need to get to grips with what we will be editing, I have shown that here:

ImportTut07.jpg

Our main focus for this step is highlighted in Red, but I also highlighted our secondary work in Green because we need to make sure the clothing item has proper weight and worth values.

  • Biped Model: This is the model that displays the clothing item on the player.
  • World Model: When a clothing item is dropped it gets shown as a folded version of itself, this is the world object, basically this version is set up so you can place it and move it in the game world.
  • Icon Image: This is the icon you see in your inventory, not really needed but its always nice to have one, makes things a lot nicer.
  • Biped Object: This is the place on the player where the clothing item will be shown, since we are working with sweaters our biped object will be Upperbody.

Step 3: Next step for us is to select our Biped Object, we'll get this out of the way first to prevent us from forgetting later :)

In the biped Object box you can see a whole list of Objects such as UpperBody, LowerBody etc, the one we need to select for this tutorial is UpperBody.

Note: The Biped Object you select all depends on the type of clothing item to what to place into the CS.

ImportTut08.jpg

Step 4: So next step is to add our two new Meshes and our icon, since we actually want something we can wear , Click the Add Nif File button under the Biped Model, this will open up a browse for file box and will open up in your Meshes folder in the data directory. Navigate through the folders and find the Model to use. We have multiple meshes in the folder so here are the ones want to add:

  • Biped Model: DRSweaterBlueM
  • World Model: DRSweaterBlueM_gnd

Now for the Biped Model pick the DRSweaterBlueM.nif file and click the open button. This will add the nif file path to the clothing item in the CS, which will also be used in-game.

Repeat this process for the World model and you will have a clothing item that now looks like this:

ImportTut09.jpg

Step 5: Our final major step here is to repeat our process above to add a new icon to our new sweater, click the Add Icon Image button for the Icon Image. You will notice it now opens up in the textures folder where the icons are located, Navigate DarkRider's folders and select the DRSweaterBlueMICON.dds image file, then select open to have it added to our clothing item.

This is what your new clothing item should look like at this point, more specifically if you have been following the tutorial using DarkRider's sweater mod as an example:

ImportTut10.jpg

Step 6: Our last step is to adjust the few stats the clothing item has, this is to make it fit in more with the other clothing items and it always a good idea to add them.

  • Name: Blue Sweater
  • Weight: 5.0000
  • Value: 300

ImportTut11.jpg

You can adjust yours anyway you like, its all upto you :) . After this step has been completed click the Ok button and the new clothing item is now in the CS and using our new external resources. Next step is for you to place it in-game, either by placing it directly in the game world, a shop or in a levelled list. Choice again is yours.

Congratulations on adding your first clothing item with external resources and completing part 2 of this workshop :wave:

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Handsome looking blade! :)

Great to see a tutorial about this as lot's of folks out there are a bit puzzled on how to use the many resources that are available.

For larger resourcepacks that come with an ESP I switch to TES4Gecko so I can easily filter out what parts I want to use so I just have to change their editor ID's later on, without going through the proces of selecting the mesh, icon and other options. Maybe I'll make a tutorial about that sometime! :wave:

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Handsome looking blade! :)

Great to see a tutorial about this as lot's of folks out there are a bit puzzled on how to use the many resources that are available.

For larger resourcepacks that come with an ESP I switch to TES4Gecko so I can easily filter out what parts I want to use so I just have to change their editor ID's later on, without going through the proces of selecting the mesh, icon and other options. Maybe I'll make a tutorial about that sometime! :wave:

Yup, perfect for this demonstration :)

There were a couple of modders here that needed some help with this, so I made this tutorial. It only covers the basics so I won't be going through using TES4 Gecko, but it would be nice to see one, hint hint :)

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Handsome looking blade! :)

Great to see a tutorial about this as lot's of folks out there are a bit puzzled on how to use the many resources that are available.

For larger resourcepacks that come with an ESP I switch to TES4Gecko so I can easily filter out what parts I want to use so I just have to change their editor ID's later on, without going through the proces of selecting the mesh, icon and other options. Maybe I'll make a tutorial about that sometime! :)

That would be great because I can't figure out anything in it. :wave:

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I take it if I wanted to put several weapons or cloths etc into a container I would do it the dame way as in the CS workshop? Or do I have to do something else.

Yup use the other class for that, placing all items into chests works the same way. If you couple that with this tutorial then you can work with both vanilla and custom content.

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A useful addition to this workshop would be a tutorial of how to package resources you have used in a mod so they can be can be included in a downloadable mod,eg.if you use a chest of drawers from a resource pack in a house mod you are making,how do you make it available to people that download your mod

Hope that request is clear enough. :lmao:

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If I am working with a piece of cloting or armor and its a top and pants but is put on as one item what do I do in the biped object box please.

Also if I put several items in a chest for example do I only need to load the esp for the chest or will I still need the other items esps in my LO also?

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A useful addition to this workshop would be a tutorial of how to package resources you have used in a mod so they can be can be included in a downloadable mod,eg.if you use a chest of drawers from a resource pack in a house mod you are making,how do you make it available to people that download your mod

Hope that request is clear enough. :lmao:

Might be a good addition, will think on it :D

Also if I put several items in a chest for example do I only need to load the esp for the chest or will I still need the other items esps in my LO also?

If all the items have been imported into your own ESP like the workshop shows then its only that ESP that you will need to load.

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Ok I have another question most of my cloths and armors come in several colors or two bits a top and pants how do I do those please? :lmao:

1) For the seperate colours make seperate items using the different meshes, its the only way, so for example:

aaDRSweaterBlue

aaDRSweaterRed

2) Tops and pants are also seperate items, set up them up like I explained in the workshop, just use the correct meshes and Biped Object for each of them.

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1) For the seperate colours make seperate items using the different meshes, its the only way, so for example:

aaDRSweaterBlue

aaDRSweaterRed

2) Tops and pants are also separate items, set up them up like I explained in the workshop, just use the correct meshes and Biped Object for each of them.

Another question, with most of my clothing and armor mods they not only come in several colors but they only have one _gnd file for all the colors. And does it matter if I have a dress and only use the upperbody biped slot?

I know I have a lot o questions, but I have never been afraid to ask in fear of looking stupid, its the only way to learn.

Once again thank you for all your help.

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Another question, with most of my clothing and armor mods they not only come in several colors but they only have one _gnd file for all the colors. And does it matter if I have a dress and only use the upperbody biped slot?

I know I have a lot o questions, but I have never been afraid to ask in fear of looking stupid, its the only way to learn.

Once again thank you for all your help.

Hmmm 1 _gnd file for multiple colours is odd, you can happily use it for all colours, but do note that that _gnd will be tied to a specific colour so all clothing will show this colour when dropped.

For a dress I would say both UpperBody and LowerBody, but play around a little and see which works best. I have never used a dress for any of my characters.

Don't be afraid of asking questions, its one of the best ways to learn :shrug:

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