[SKY] A begginer's broad question about modding

[grandescoisa]

Hello, everyone at TES Alliance!

I'm completely new to modding, and I wanted to ask for some guidance. Yes, I know there's a lot of good tutorials for beginners here, but I believe my questions are even more broad.

Let me get to the point: there are tutorials on the creation kit, for example, but do every mod need the use of the creation kit? I understand the kit is a piece of software created by the developers themselves, but do modders always need this help from the developers? I believe not, I'm assuming people with programming skills probably learned how to modify the game. So I think what I'm asking is how to learn the data structures, where and how the data are stored, how to access it. I hope I not being too ambitious asking those things. I'm not a programmer or anything, but I know some C, and with good guidance I believe I can learn. And please don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the creation kit, I just want to know exactly what can I learn to do, so I can choose when to use the CK and when not.

(I'm really sorry if someone already asked something like this, I searched but haven't found anything)

[TigerCubofPNW]

1 hour ago, grandescoisa said:

Hello, everyone at TES Alliance!

I'm completely new to modding, and I wanted to ask for some guidance. Yes, I know there's a lot of good tutorials for beginners here, but I believe my questions are even more broad.

Let me get to the point: there are tutorials on the creation kit, for example, but do every mod need the use of the creation kit? I understand the kit is a piece of software created by the developers themselves, but do modders always need this help from the developers? I believe not, I'm assuming people with programming skills probably learned how to modify the game. So I think what I'm asking is how to learn the data structures, where and how the data are stored, how to access it. I hope I not being too ambitious asking those things. I'm not a programmer or anything, but I know some C, and with good guidance I believe I can learn. And please don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the creation kit, I just want to know exactly what can I learn to do, so I can choose when to use the CK and when not.

(I'm really sorry if someone already asked something like this, I searched but haven't found anything)

CK is the way you plug into Skyrim. You can write scripts, sure, but the only way to get them into the game is through CK. You need to create ESP (or ESM) files and for that you must use CK. Sorry, bud. As someone said, Creation Kit is a piece of crap, but it's what we have.

[grandescoisa]

1 hour ago, TigerCubofPNW said:

CK is the way you plug into Skyrim. You can write scripts, sure, but the only way to get them into the game is through CK. You need to create ESP (or ESM) files and for that you must use CK. Sorry, bud. As someone said, Creation Kit is a piece of crap, but it's what we have.

So, are you saying the only way modders ever worked was through a software given by the developers? Were counter-strike and DOTA created that way? If not, that's what really picks my interest. How did people do that? Is is too complicated for programmer newbies?

[RabidGears]

The CK is actually a pretty good tool when you consider what's available (or just not available) for modding other games. However, it's not the only tool used to create mods. There's a long list of tools created by the modding community that make it possible to do the things that you can't do with the CK. Nifskope is an example of a common tool used for working with the 3D model files (.nif) used with Bethesda games. The source code is available on github if you want to poke around in its innards. Also, if you're any good with decoding binary formats you might consider trying to help out decoding the nif format.

Edited January 20, 2016 by RabidGears
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[TigerCubofPNW]

44 minutes ago, grandescoisa said:

So, are you saying the only way modders ever worked was through a software given by the developers? Were counter-strike and DOTA created that way? If not, that's what really picks my interest. How did people do that? Is is too complicated for programmer newbies?

 

14 minutes ago, RabidGears said:

The CK is actually a pretty good tool when you consider what's available (or just not available) for modding other games. However, it's not the only tool used to create mods. There's a long list of tools created by the modding community that make it possible to do the things that you can't do with the CK. Nifskope is an example of a common tool used for working with the 3D model files (.nif) used with Bethesda games. The source code is available on github if you want to poke around in its innards. Also, if you're any good with decoding binary formats you might consider trying to help out decoding the nif format.

 

RabidGears is correct, there are programs you need for certain things, like Nifskope and Blender/3dsMax to create custom races, armor or other 3d objects. But then you pretty much have to have CK to put those objects into the game. You can simply replace vanilla objects with ones you created, but that robs users of the ability to choose to use your objects or not. Similarly, I suppose you could modify vanilla scripts without going into CK, but again that goes counter to the whole concept of mods, which is that a mod is something that alters the game but can be shut off, leaving the vanilla game in tact.

Is there some particular reason you refuse to use CK? I don't know how all modding is done in all games since the dawn of time, but I know that Skyrim has ways it interacts with scripts, how functions are called and what it needs to make things happen. Even if you wrote a script (There are Papyrus script compilers) independently, you'd HAVE to go into CK and fill the properties so the mod knew what actors to use, what places were used, what quests were used, etc.

It sounds like you're trying to find a shortcut around learning CK and AFAIK there isn't one.

[RabidGears]

39 minutes ago, TigerCubofPNW said:

...It sounds like you're trying to find a shortcut around learning CK and AFAIK there isn't one.

I think it sounds more like curiosity.

Not all games can be modded to the same extent as Skyrim or other Bethesda games. If you look at the Nexus homepage, you'll see that Bethesda games make up the top 6 most modded games, most of them dwarfing the next non-Bethesda game (Dragon Age Origins) for number of mods. Part of this may be that they have more scope for modding given that they are open world games, and maybe their popularity is another factor, but a big part is also down to the fact that the CK (or CS, GECK, etc.) makes them much easier to mod and in some cases makes some things possible which would otherwise be impossible.

Games that don't have a tool like the CK can sometimes be modded to an extent. As TigerCubofPNW said, you can sometimes replace assets like 3D models or textures. Other things like gameplay or game data can sometimes be altered if it isn't hardcoded. Or sometimes you can make minor hacks to the exe with a hex editor.

Edited January 20, 2016 by RabidGears
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[oldladyonthemoon]

The Creation Kit is the simplest way to mod Skyrim. There are around old tools that were released before the CK was made available to us but I wouldn't rely on them and if you create a mod using one of those tools you'll have to inform your users about that.

[grond]

Hey grandescoisa, welcome to TESA  

The Creation Kit is essentially the same tool Bethesda used to make Skyrim, with a lot of the original functionality removed by the Devs, most likely to preserve their core game. It's very much a game engine (or mini-engine) itself, except that it depends on the Creation Engine to actually do anything. It's buggy, and not so easy to work with, but it's still the easiest way to mod the game. And it's free - I don't know of any other developer that gives their players this kind of tool.

So my advice is to learn how to do everything in the CK, and if you think of something you want to do that can't be done with it, that's the time to figure out how to break away from it.

[grandescoisa]

Thanks guys! I think I've got a good panorama about modding from your answers. And I believe I learned that even if there are ways beyond the CK to mod, they are probably beyond my skills.

 

Can I ask another question here or should I start a new thread? It's a more concrete question, the one that was behind the question on this thread (sorry if you think I should've asked from the start..).

 

I'll write it here anyway in case it can be asked here: the things I wanna do are not retexturing objects, creating weapons, making dungeons or designing quests; I'm interested in making some tweaks to the interface/gameplay. Mods like Jaxonz Positioner, Immersive HUD and RaceMenu, for example. I'd also like to understand how spawning and despawning (both items and NPC) work, and how can I tweak it. That's the reason why I'm asking if I should really use the CK, or at least which features from CK I should learn for the purposes I want, because the tutorials I started reading/watching focused on placing objects, creating places, this kind of thing. So, where should I start and/or focus?

 

(PS: I'm not a native english speaker, so if I ever sound rude, please let me know)

[oldladyonthemoon]

Tweaks to the interface require Flash tools I think; the rest will require using the CK.

[grandescoisa]

Flash as In Adobe Flash?

[oldladyonthemoon]

I don't know, maybe: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/216/?

[IronBlockGames]

Yes, adobe flash. All those hud bits are .swf files, flash files, that have build in coding that are then called from scrips written in the CK.  Flash files also means they scale to your screen size automatically. You can even view the base swf's in a browser though depending on how there animated/set up you may only see a blank screen as they don't animate in a browser, but change 'scenes' via CK scrips calling those scenes.

Best example I could give you on it is with lockpick pro.. a 'cheaty' lockpicking mod as it's UI pops up right away.

that's the .swf in a browser, http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/219/? and you can see how it looks in game there.

Some hud bits are even done in Javascript. yes the same javascript websites use. But again there set up to have functions called to them from scrips with in the CK.

 

Either way if you want to mod skyrim, you have to go through the CK. Everything from making dungeons to npc's to spells, to ui elements to core gameplay is all through the CK. Full overhauls turning skyrim into another game (I remember the Mario mod) were done in the ck.

 

Edited January 23, 2016 by IronBlockGames

[Ulfrpsion]

In response to the other half of your mod question: spawning npcs and items is normally handled by script, list, or direct placement, depending on what you want to do.

If its random encounters, they are spawned from lists of scaling creatures placed into a spawn marker (press m in the ck, they look like a big green m). You can adjust the list or what marker is in the world to change those spawns.

If you want to change loot, there are loot lists of items which are randomly pulled from that you cam adjust. They are normally for scaled loot in chests and such. Otherwise, items are placed n the worldspace directly.

Script-based spawning and such is normally handled by an area or activation trigger with an attached script that pushes out monster spawning, and item spawning in a sequence of response events.