Rhian

Thank you Hanaisse and sorry for my late reply. Had a crazy working week I will try that getting rid of those pesky deleted files! Finally.

Greetings, I am currently working on a big Mod and I have gotten pretty far thanks to the TES Schools. Though, over the time I have created and deleted plenty of objects (or duplicates I merely renamed). If they didn't work out the way I had intended I deleted them from the database. Now, what bugs me as a tidy-freak. I want to totally remove them from my database. Right now, all deleted objects are still visible, even if they cannot be used anymore. And they are marked with a D*. I want them removed totally, that they also cannot be found anymore. I hate fragements... Then another question. When I have created two or three different mods and find that one mod contains something I want to re-use in another mod... Is there a way that I can transfer only particular objects or cells from one esp to another - without having to take all by merging the esp files? I tried the SnipIt tool, but that did not really work :-/ Rhi

I think I finished Lesson 3 I probably overdid it a bit with the trees... though, I love a lush vegetation Please let me know when you require more screenshots, not sure I covered all. The images might requite to be clicked twice for full resolution. I made certain the grass would not poke through anything. To View of my estate (also marked the cell, which I renamed) http://sta.sh/0109g9ce596w Entrance with Fence http://sta.sh/012awrt3l6ug Linked Door (incl. marked Values) and porch bench 1 http://sta.sh/020nt298vset My stable for my horsy , wood chopping marker, well with two buckets and the map marker incl. values http://sta.sh/0or34pz0nni CloseUp of my Well (I made certain the grass/ground cover is not inside the mesh. The stuff at the right side is really outside the well ;-) ) http://sta.sh/0ztax8yoel7 Lights & Work Bench, Wall Baskets Deco, Crates and respawning Barrels (there are no crates that are containers only statics) I used glowfillmed to enhance the lights, when it is dark. http://sta.sh/0aqi8wjubyu Ingame Porch http://sta.sh/0dwxy27lyxn InGame, bench in front of the porch at my little pond (bleh, need to find better water) http://sta.sh/04jvb50x54a InGame Barrels, Crates & House http://sta.sh/0xzmvzmpquq House again, to show that I was a good girl and did not clutter the side-porch http://sta.sh/01mw2kcrsoje InGame my horsy in its stable http://sta.sh/0uews8s1j8r InGame Porch at night with lights: http://sta.sh/07m01cg06lw I hope I covered all

Thanks for the tip had hoped that a one directional portal/Room would be sufficient Now I have to find out why some rooms refuse to render correctly.

I am using room-bounds only on 3 rooms out of the 7 existing rooms. They are not even really close to each other. http://sta.sh/0a0igejzhn0 <--- the red is just a marking which rooms I had wrapped in room-bounds. (and yes, I made certain that the light radius thingies were inside the room-bound - and that none of them clips with another room...) The portal was placed so that you could look from the corridor or stairs/ramp inside those rooms. It worked so far - so the room and items was in there. Just some stuff like one or two walls flicker/vanish and the banner are gone in Game.

Greetings, I am currently working on a Mod which slowly grows in size, cell by cell. My current cell is an interior - a tavern area done with DLC2 Dwemer (Skyrim Mod) Walls and Floor. It's a rather "large" area with aout 20 NPCs, 6 (Room 7 connects to the kitchen) Rooms connected to an L-Shaped corridor. The NPCs wander (sandbox idles) between certain rooms - eating, sleeping, going about their business. I was very careful with the use of lights and do most of it by ambience cell lighting. I believe I use overall 6 lights for the whole zone. And only two of them are with shadows and they are faaar apart. Well, and then all the objects you require to make the rooms look comfy and nice. Food,Furniture, Idle Marker and so on. I have placed a couple of Banner (genericbanner with my own texture) and use some resources from here. I tried to optimize the performance with those roombounds. Did everything like shown in a youtube video. It more or less worked - but had nasty side-effects I cannot explain why they happen. Walls flicker and vanish, when you walk past them or look at them from a particular angle. That even happens outside the room I wanted to wrap into a room-bound. Banner inside the room vanish when you walk toward them or look from a certain angle. Or they flicker in and out. Which I do not understand. The banner do not even touch the room-bound box. Even the "collision" box doesn't touch the room-bound-box. So what am I doing wrong? I checked the walls, if they intersect somewhere with other outside-walls. Nope. All clean. I read somewhere in the CK Wiki that this also could be a bug... and that I can test it by turning off this or that... but well, cannot find what they are mentioning there. I run a 12 GB RAM, Intel HexaCore 3,3 GHz, NVidea 480 GTX machine. (doing additionally 3D stuff and graphics) For myself I do not experience any lagg when walking through the zone without the room-bounds. But I know not everyone has a big machine at home.... and therefore would love to get those room-bounds working.

Nevermind, found something

Greetings nice to see another cat lover on board.

Oh dear... Is this too much or exactly as it should be if I want Followers and normal roaming NPCs/Critters. ( I am far from done, but this is going to be a 3 cell large "vacation/party paradise") I do not mind to thoroughly patch up everything with a NavMesh, though is it really required. Not that I tear out my arms and legs and find out it wouldn't have been necessary. The Native Landscape mesh was far from being that thorough. http://sta.sh/01qoq9r4hh43

Thank you that will help me a great deal.

Got a couple of questions regarding the NavMesh... I am currently experimenting and practicing NavMesh placing... (Indoor and Outdoor) 1) My main question... Does it matter if verticles are somewhat in the ground or in the air and parts of the entire mesh vanish below the surface? - I have those issues with shallow water (waterplane inside the mineral pools not the landscape water), where NPCs are supposed to wade through - here the navmesh floats above the water plane. - I have those issues with landscapes where I added additional objects like volcanic cliffs and mineral pools, bridges and including stairs. 2) Is there a way to move verticles or whole triangles up and down? I find the "drop" function pretty useless... - very often the verticle I try to place refuses to end up where I want it - it either won't appear or it floats in the air (I check, there was no stray verticle hiding, it just won't let me place it) - Very often, when I try the Automatic NavMesh generation, plenty of those NavMeshes end up inside the volcanic cliffs.... I used several volcanic cliffs and mineral pools which are stacked inside of each other to appear more organic or making the area bigger where I want to build on... Thank you in advance

Thank you Mysterious Mr. Bear Don't worry. The only thing that kills my enthusiasm are rude and highly arrogant people. And those I haven't seen here, so far. What you worte encouraged me and for what it's worth. I dreamed of an Oblivion 2 myself. I even dream of a TES Game, that focus mainly on Daedra - playing the other side of the mirror this time. Doesn't mean one can't be a Khajiit or so... just instead of Nirn/Mundus I would love to see Oblivion and all its realms - sort of a Planescape Torment Faction based thingy. But I guess that will never happen. And because of that I find myself more modding than gaming - would even say, for the moment it is more fun, too and also somehow a deep sitting need that requires to be taken care of. TES won me over because of its complex world, the history and Lore and stories people carried. Started with Daggerfall, increased with Morrowind and was dissapointed by Oblivion and even more so with Skyrim... I love Oblivion and Skyrim and the last DLCs made them even better. But they can't compare with the complexity of Daggerfall and Morrowind when it comes to story and characters. So my current need and desire is adding some more Lore and humor to the Game by adding some shrines and background stories. Ever since Morrowind, I am missing a great deal of the daedric influence in the Games. The quests are far too short (except for the Nightingale/Nocturnal one) . I do not like Nocturnal very much, but the quest was very well done and had more flesh on its bones than most other quests. With Dragonborn they have brought some daedric influence back (a little) by adding the daedric shrines at the dunmer temple and making ol' Hermie a center piece of the story. But the overal Game doesn't really have enough Daedra in it - Lore and Story wise. I am by far not a Lore buff like Lady M or Kirkbride (he after all wrote most of it, I assume) at the TES Imperial Library. But I am going deep into it whenever I can and grab all the snippets I can for my Mod (and ongoing FanFic that's more finger practice to keep my english skills alive) So, even if it takes me a year or two to get my Mod done... I will keep at it, until either my real-life won't allow it anymore or the sky drops on my head ^^ For now, I have divided my Mod in stages. Stage One: (Probably the easiest one aside from applying Textures to a custom mesh in Niffy) Importing custom Meshes (my own and resources) Changing Outdoor Cell Tamriel Wilderness Creating 9 Indoor Cells & Teleporter Gates Populating those Indoor Cells with Clutter/Statics and Architectures Planting Navigation Meshes & Collision Boxes to keep NPCs from running things over or getting stuck. If someone is interested about optimizing the performance - found this Link thanks to _Echo Stage Two: Creating NPCs & Dialogues Stage Three: Creating Custom Cell-Bound Sandboxes & Schedules for some of my NPCs Stage Four (if I am still up to it) Creating Quests & Spawn/Action Scripts Here I think I will have the hardest and most difficult work ahead since I want to work mainly with Vanilla tools so I won't cause custom Scripts like SKSE and FNIS having hissy fits. So all sorted out One last Question... and then I am settled. So - is it true that it is not allowed to use Meshes from Oblivion in Skyrim and some Lawyers will hunt me down and sue me to death if I dare? I would love to import some of the Oblivion Architectures and Plants/Trees to Skyrim to keep the original TES Feeling by using Items people know from the previous Games?

Thank you, that was exactly what I need had no idea they call it object palette... I really have to get used to the fact that the CK uses different terms than what I am used as 3D Software user...

I've got a question for which I have received so far very different answers from my friends... Can I group together items while modding? I mean really group, like you can do in common 3D software - making them easily moveable as one package? Like "selecting" my entire room and group it to a single set for example. Could be handy if one does multiple rooms that look almost similar (for example for creating an Inn) One of my friends says it does not work, another said it works but can't remember which option I need... So far I only can work for now with selecting each single piece and then trying to move the whole selected set. (Though I haven't found how to move multiple items at once up and down... here I only found rotation or horizontal move)

Enthusiasm it is, indeed - paired with the fierce tenacity of a grizzled badger ;-) No worries. That project is meant to be step by step - first I start with the simple plain Lego Construction. Cell by Cell... Since I have not much freetime... it's a project for the coming months. Only deadline I have to finish before my final exams begin coming year. Writing down my "shopping" lists for what I need for my mod (and even writing stories or creating 3D Scenes) is a must for me - especially when I am at work and can't take my mind off an idea. Helps me to keep my mind focused. Just two more newbie questions that are not really about Tutorials. 1) Since I am not certain what term/word to search for exactly) - marker/Idle & Sandbox compatibility. Is there anything that deals with compatibility and crossbreeding vanilla scripts/markler/idles? And if yes, under what category does that fall? Scripting? I know how to create my own marker, sandboxes and manipulate those... but nothing about compatibility. 2) Empty Eye Socket problem when modded cell has been entered. I searched the internet and only found one thread about it with a screenshot. But no one really had a decent explanation or solution. Some blame it on Antialising, some blame it on a bug connected to Invis Potions / Spells O_o Well, turning down the AA didn't help. And it only happens when I am entering my modded Tamriel Cell which consists mainly of added items and a few added custom NPCs. When I leave the Cell all is OK, when I remove the Mod and enter the cell all is OK, too. Does anyone know the reason of this weird bug and how to avoid it when doing my Mod? It must be something I added or "changed"... (graphic wise I didn't change anything... especially not eyes.)

Thank you all for the warm and friendly welcome I am really glad to be here but now I have to munch all my to gather some strength for my modding project.

Eeeeks, already posted some questions regarding my project *hides under her bed* Though most of them concern "Dos and don'ts" a beginner should heed. I tend to stuff my mods with too much "clutter/creatures/light" off all sorts. Some of the questions I never have seen being discussed or addressed anywhere (asked yes, but never answered) But I certainly will check out the classes and see what I can use for my Mod. Man, can't wait for my vacation and getting finally to modelling a few missing assets

Greetings everyone, I am currently working on a Mod which turned out to become very complex in the end. I know I know... I should start small. But that mod is nothing I want to do overnight (well, I want to, but know better and won't try) and it contains all I need to learn how to Mod ^^ in short - learning the hard way right on the project. And, since I do not want to start over and over again because I messed up my esp file... I have a few basic questions in the hope to avoid severe mistakes. So it would be great if some of the more experienced Modders could share some of their insights. (I do not expect brain-feeding here how I do what - just hope to get some pointers or suggestions. I prefer to look tutorials up myself and really learn how to use the CK.) I certainly will make use of the "Tutorials" and look into the class room it's just that some of my questions or "ideas" never have been really adressed or "answered" before in the WWW. So - if you have an pointers which Tutorial or Compendium might just be what I am looking for - that would be sweet and grand! (Already started my Mod over twice (two weeks/evenings of work) - because I messed up some sandboxes and NPCs in a way that it wasn't repairable without messing it up any further - but well, I count those mistakes toward experience) I also noticed that my mod does weird crap with NPCs eyes, no matter which race. As soon as I enter the cell/zone where the Mod is located - the eyes either turn invisible (depending which direction my NPC looks). You see the eye sockets... as if you have taken out the eyes. It's like - if the NPC looks north and I face him/her - the eyes are gone. Does he/she look south and I face them the eyes are there. And I haven't changed the races (except that dremora can wear normal clothes and use two different Nord hair-styles additionally to their hair styles) Another eye bug I noticed - the texture goes bonkers. Looks weird, as if using the wrong texture map or half of the texture becomes weirdly transparent. I even think I saw a slight whitish "bee comb" pattern in the eyes where they went slightly transparent. Important: I want my Mod to be "compatible" with other mods that contain scripts... For example the "Dance of Death" Mod, all Lover's Lab Mods basing on the Lover's Lab Framework, popular Follower Mods, Better Horses Mods, Marriage Mods and such... So even if someone uses SKSE, FNIS and any of the aforementioned Mods/Scripts they should be able to use my Mod and even have the "luxury" of having more fun with my Mod. What is my Mod about: I am currently working on a huge Daedric Shrine Mod (want to add some more Daedric Shrines - but for now I only start with one) It consists of an outdoor cell/area in Tamriel - heavily modified by me. Various custom NPCs (eventually also a custom race provided by a friend who wants to release it as Player Race.) Various Custom Items Tons of items and objects in general Tons of Idles / Markers and if I can manage it - scripts and custom sandboxes, critter spawner... And various interior cells connected by portals to one Main Hall Many custom dialogues And maybe maybe maybe - quests if I find out how that works And some sort of "Summoning Day" Easter Egg and Summoning Goodie Custom Factions (Friend & Foe - serving a daedric prince will make you an official enemy of the Vigil of Stendarr and Ebonarm) Modding inside of the CK So, are there any general "Dos and Don'ts" when starting a compex mod to make it work without crashing, lagging and messing up vanilla content? 1) For example - how much modification/modding can one cell take without becoming laggy? How many NPCs, Critters and how many Items, how many Idle markers, scripts? Do scripts added to item properties (e.g. DefaultDisableHavocOnLoad) also slow down the cell? Or only markers/idles? How much light sources and how to use them best (shadows, not shadows, FX or nomal) ? (I noticed that as soon as my Followers use torches, the vanilla zone already becomes laggy as hell - and I have a good Geforce 480 GTX... In my modded cells it became even worse.) Stacking Sandboxes and Scripts in one NPC - is there a limit, can this cause lagg or crashes? Limit of Sounds, Insect/Critter Spawners? 2) I am desperately looking for a detailed Compendium or detailed List that contains all Idle Markers and Vanilla Scrips for Skyrim. The Wiki does not really go that deep and detailed. For what exactly is XYZ Script or IdleMarker meant? (Item, Animal, NPC, Action...) What does XYZ Script or IdleMarker do? (not all really explain well what they exactly do - best example DefaultDisableHavocOnLoad sounds like - making an non-static item temporary static until the PC picks it up - well, doesn't work like that! It doesn't disable physics on that item - stuff doesn't remain in the air floating... or stuff like plates, platters, books or food go invisible when the script is used on it) Which Idles and Scripts do not mix well, and which mix well (Compatibility and Rendudancy Check) Also, I would love to know if there is a detailed List which contains all Factions and what they exactly mean - who is friend and who is foe - which factions are not compatible and which factions are needed for custom NPCs. 3) NPC Dialogues & Step by Step Tutorials for bloody beginner I am looking for five things regarding dialogues on Custom NPCs and existing NPCs. For 3 - 5 I haven't found any tutorials at all. Most tuts I found only dealt with "absolute" custom dialogues Creating a custom NPC (or copying it off an existingt NPC as template) and adding/creating custom dialogue (not voiced in this case, unless there are existing ready to use resources for that) Creating a custom NPC (or copying it off an existingt NPC as template) and cannibalzing vanilla dialogue scraps - the various voice types have many different lines in response to Player-Choices. Custom NPCs, if you are lucky, reply at least to your "Follow me" request but usually have not much more to say. Using an existing NPC - for example Farkas or Lydia .Both use a shared voice type - but their dialogues lack. I would love to add existing ovanilla lines of their voice types as responses to their overall dialogues. Making NPCs comment more often outside of dialogues (Idle Chatter?) - creating some additional responses during combat, or when moving through the city, walking in on a dungeon/cave and all that. (I love Cicero so much for that - even if he is sometimes a bit toooooooo chatty ^^) Maybe... if that is even possible - making NPCs able to chat and greet each other. 4) Creating spell effects & Actions/Scripts for Static Items (Shrines, Portals and such) 1. I need to create various Portals for my Mod. Each Portal is supposed to teleport the Player and his Followers into an "Interior" Cell and the Counter-Part Portal brings them always back to the Main-Hall Cell. You could picture the "Linked" Portals like a Star... I have 9 Cells - which means I have 18 Teleporters. One Teleporter is located at the Outside Cell in Tamriel - leads into an Interior Cell (Main Hall). That Main Hall again has 9 Teleporters - 8 of those lead to other different interior cells - and one sends people back to Tamriel. And in each of the 8 cells also there is a teleporter, leading back to the Main Hall. (Hope I did not explain it too complicated) I haven't really found any reference to check on. I tried to check on the Teleporter for Sanguine's quest A Night To Remember. But can't find that one under "DA14"... or simply as Gate or Portal or Teleporter :-/ 2. I intend to use "custom" meshes for my Mod (Statues and such) and those are supposed to become clickable. It will either execute a spell or an "action" (like summoning something or NPCs that do/say something) I think the last part (actions) will probably require some heavy scripting? 5) Creatures turned into NPCs with Dialogues I want to bring in various non "humanoid" creatures - two Dragons, one mean Bunny, a cynical Horse and so on... Also I want to bring in non-hostile Falmer, Dwemer Characters and Undeads (Skeletons, Mummies and such) Is that even possible? Anything I need to keep in Mind besides changing/removing Factions? Last Goat NPC I created was not "targetable" and couldn't have a dialogue (I made it unique and essential, added a voice type... did not work because I couldn't click the goat) 6) Creating Custom Meshes & Textures (I work with Carrara 8 Pro for 3D and Photoshop for the Textures) I mostly will do simple models - props... maybe a weapon or two. (tried once to create a simple rose bush but NifSkope crashed when I imported it) Most of what I do, will get along with simple square textures (I hope - I suck at doing UV Maps) Carrara 8 also allows me to create so called Shading Domains/Zones for an object - it's sort of a "UV Map" you define for the object/model directly so not a "template image". It even allows me to manipulate existing shading domains and take away or adding more to enhance the details. Are there any polygon limits? How complex can a mesh be as long as I use triangle polys? Can Skyrim CK handle "spline objects" or do I always have to turn them into Vertex Meshes? Do the textures have to be DDS, or can they be jpgs or pngs? What to do I need to do or keep in mind when doing crystals (transparency or at least faking it), and the shiny effect of metal or mirrors for an object?) I want to create custom "animated" water planes - in various shapes (circles, triangles...) I haven't found any vanilla waterplane I could use for example for a round fountain or a round pool.... I most likely will need some help here with the UV Maps and Normal Maps... and maybe some help with NifSkope to join Mesh with Textures and adding shader effects. I know there is an NVidea Plugin for Photoshop - but that one doesn't work with my PS version (CS4) crashes. Any free alternative anyone can recommend? Wow... loads of text for my first Mod And yes, I also made my own List of what I will need for my Mod. Question is - can I pack it all into one ESP... or do I have to make more ESPs? (And is it important to turn them into esms or are esp files ok?) PS: Could be that I cannot answer today, should someone have first hints and pointers for me (working all day and school in the evening). Just you know, I am not being rude or so ;-)

Thank you It's a very nice place here - and I already got a bunch of your resources for my mod project. Thanks for sharing those. I really hope I can share my own items soon (still new at this... NifSkope hates me)

There is quite a bunch of things missing in Skyrim. More colorful outdoor Plants - wild and gardening ones. e.G. Roses as bushes and climbing vines in yellow, red and white as classics. (haven't seen any Mods or resources that included roses for Skyrim) Another one I am missing... Lilac or maybe Apple Trees you can actually pick apples from and so on. TES compatible Statues - since we aren't allowed to use Oblivion and Morrowind Meshes in Skyrim ... having only Nord and Dwemer stuff ois boring... could use some more for the Daedra and Aedra... and some general statues of creatures and beings out of fables. More tiny Critter spawner Spawning fleeing/roaming critters - frogs/toads, grasshoppers, snakes, birds, rodents like mice or hamsters or rats... squids for the sea region Farm Animals & matching stabels/kennels that can be closed. (hate it when the chickens run off and get eaten by wolves) Pigs, Rooster, Sheep and Cats

As always... where to start without writing a whole novel ;-) Alright, here we go. I am a gamer (1977er built) at heart ever since I was old enough to hold a joystick, mouse and using a keyboard. Together with fantasy and scifi movies, books and also Pen & Paper - over the years and the older I became I always wanted to do create or join existing "Universes" with my own ideas. My first TES Game was Daggerfall (Have to play Arena & Battle Spire again... never got to finish it) - and ever since my love belonged to TES. I still like the Ultima and Faerûn universe, but the TES universe won me over. Why I am here. Probably for the same reason most come here making Mods or creating stuff for Mods. I was looking for a mature and friendly TES Modder community. A dear friend told me about TES Alliance and now I am here. I am an absolute Newbie when it comes to modding. I tried my hands long ago on Morrowind and a little with Oblivion - though now I want to do more than just creating NPCs and changing names or textures. My skills are more or less my ideas, some basic modelling (props, not rigged/animated stuff), and creating textures. So I do not come totally empty handed :3 Currently I am working on a Skyrim Mod that will grow and grow until I am done. You could say I divided the plans different stages. No point in doing all at once and having a buggy and messy Mod in the End ;-) To give an Idea: Stage 1) Manipulated Outdoor Cell with Custom NPCs and a few Custom Models/Meshes... Custom Sandboxes...(Once I messed up one and had half of Skyrim at my outdoor cell - crashing the game O_O) Stage 2) Linked Indoor Cells (reachable by portals) - more custom NPCs... custom Meshes... Friend told me that if a cell gets too big and too full with items and NPCs, it laggs... and right she is. Stage 3) Dialogues & maybe Quests if I ever get the hang of it. It's a big project, but I do not mind. I love working on it bit by bit. Though, I got some questions (which I will ask at a different section) about a few things - because the Wiki's I found so far weren't really entirely conclusive about certain Features. Maybe I find the help here, I couldn't get at the other Skyrim/TES Sites Hubs. That's so far about me. Hopefully, I also can provide some nice Resources in the near future - textures or models useable for whatever Mod Project / Game one is currently working at