Renee's Modding Thread Options

[Renee]

Mod-making thread basically, which focuses heavily on quest-making. The first two tutorials (How to make a fetch quest and how to make a kill quest) are very hand-holdy. They are designed for those who are just starting to learn the art of quest-making. Other tutorials get more advanced, as my wacky ideas have pushed their boundaries.

Just click on any of the links below.

Tip: For Oblivion, Always use Ely's Silent Voice when making silent-text dialog. Without this utility, dialog will stay on-screen for just a fraction of a second. Of course, if recording actual voice, this utility is not needed.

For Skyrim, I use Silent Voice Generator, though somebody who records actual voice won't need this utility.

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BEGINNER SECTION

1). How to make a Fetch Quest. Game: TES IV: Oblivion. *Hand-Holdy*

2). How to make a Kill Quest, Map Markers, and X Markers. Game: TES IV: Oblivion. *Hand-Holdy*

3). Making an NPC Vendor / Repair-person. Game: Fallout 3. *Hand-Holdy*

4). Making our character's birthday show in game. Game: TES IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3 & New Vegas, TES V: Skyrim. *Hand-Holdy*

5). Making a book bump a Quest Stage

6). Light Switches and Triggers (Oblivion, Fallout 3/NV, or Skyrim)

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TES II: DAGGERFALL

1). Daggerfall Tutorial (by Boxx Mann)

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TES III: MORROWIND

1). Getting an Xbox controller to work on PC. Game: TES III: Morrowind *Adept*

2). More Dynamic NPCs. Game: TES III: Morrowind. *Easy*

3). (Re)installing Morrowind from Scratch *Advanced*

4). Breton Magic Resistance Tweak, Game: TES III: Morrowind *Easy* (Cheaty!)

5). How to fix "failed snowflake: Meshes\BM_Snow.01.nif" error *Adept*

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TES IV: OBLIVION

1). Construction Set Extended Primer, and some advice (by Turija). Game: TES IV: Oblivion

2). Repairing Bad Hair! Game: TES IV: Oblivion. *Easy*

3). Making a weather-changing item. Game: TES IV: Oblivion. *Easy*

4). Making a home rentable, or salable. Game: TES IV: Oblivion *Adept*

5). Repeatable Bounty Quests. Game: TES IV: Oblivion *Adept*

6). Adding additional Bounty Quest Locations *Adept*

7). Lizard Men! Game: TES IV: Oblivion *Easy*

8). Making an NPC Vendor Game: TES IV: Oblivion *Easy*

9). Repeatable Bounty Quests (Innkeeper involvement) Game: TES IV: Oblivion *Advanced*

10). Horse Rentals. Game: TES IV: Oblivion *Adept*

11). Getting the Take All button to work (by Lena Wolf). Game: TES IV: Oblivion

12). Skooma Dealer Game: TES IV: Oblivion *Adept*

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Fallout 3 and New Vegas

1). How to make a Fetch Quest (with multiple items). Game: Fallout 3 (should also work for Oblivion and New Vegas). *Easy*

2). Faction-changing outfits Game: Fallout 3 *Easy*

3). Making an NPC Follower. Game: Fallout 3 *Adept* (Method 1) *Easy* (Method 2)

4). Adding Songs to Radio Stations Game: Fallout 3 *Adept* (possibly breaks Lore)

5). Gun Tutorial. Game: Fallout 3 *Easy*

6). Making FOMODs through Fallout Mod Manager, Game: Fallout 3 *Adept*

7). Trigger Zones Game: Fallout 3 *Adept*

8). Adding a Jail and enhancing Fallout 3's Crime System. Game: Fallout 3 *Advanced* (heavily lore-breaking!)

9). Patrol AI Package Game: Fallout 3. *Adept*

10). Map Marker Tutorial, Game: Fallout 3 *Easy*

11). Repeatable Enemy Raids, Game: Fallout 3 *Adept*

12). Repeatable Enemy Raids; Additional Locations, Game: Fallout 3 *Adept*

13). Fixing the Sideways Glasses Bug. Game: Fallout 3 and New Vegas *Easy*

14). . CTD while saving after Startup Fix (sort of). Game: Fallout 3 *Easy*

15). Fallout 3 GECK issues with Windows 10

16). Making an NPC Vendor/Repair Person

17). Speech Challenges *Easy*

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TES V: SKYRIM

1). Making an NPC Follower, Game: TES: V Skyrim *Easy*

2). Making an NPC Vendor, Game: TES V Skyrim *Adept*

3a). Making a generic enemy. Game: TES V: Skyrim *Easy*

3b). How to add Generic NPCs via Leveled Lists Game: TES V: Skyrim *Adept*

4). Making a book bump a quest stage, Game TES V Skyrim *Hand-Holdy*

5). Skyrim Quest Tutorial (which gives the PC a horse) WIP at the moment.. do NOT follow this lesson.

6). Respawning Bounty Quests (Randomly given by Riverwood shopkeeper) Game: TES V: Skyrim *Advanced* (if entire lesson is followed. Adept, otherwise).

7). How to fix "missing flowchartx32.dll" errors. Game: TES V: Skyrim. *Advanced*

8). SEQ Files, Game: TES V: Skyrim *Easy*

9). Repeatable Bounty Quests. Game: TES V: Skyrim *Adept*

10). Adding new locations to repeatable bounty quests. Game: TES V: Skyrim. *Adept*

11). Random Console Commands. Game: TES V: Skyrim *Easy*

12). How to use ForceGreet. Game: TES V: Skyrim *Adept*

13). Using the Player-Character's face for an NPC. Game: TES V: Skyrim *Easy*

14). How to add a bounty to the PC via script. Game: TES V: Skyrim *Easy*

15). How to add the PC or NPC into a Faction via script. Game: TES V: Skyrim *Easy*

16). Get a Job! (Skyrim) *Adept*

17). Travelling with an NPC (Skyrim) *Advanced*

18). Traveling with an NPC, Additional Locations *Advanced*

19). Travelling with an NPC, Additional Followers (Skyrim) *Advanced*

20). Dialog Speech Checks, Game: TES V: Skyrim *Adept*

21). Fixing the Gray Face Bug, Game: TES V: Skyrim (lesson by SubRosa) *Easy*

22). Script Fragments. Game: TES V: Skyrim *Adept*

23). Fixing the ;CODE NOT LOADED message. Game: TES V: Skyrim *Advanced*

24). Timer Scripts, Game, TES V: Skyrim *Adept*

25). Making a Book Shelf, Game: TES V: Skyrim. *Adept*

26). Adding an AI Package to an NPC (Aliases also discussed a bit), Game: TES V: Skyrim *Adept*

27). Follower Ring Script Game: TES V: Skyrim *Adept*

28). Installing Skyrim from Scratch *Adept*

29). Removing delinquent scripts from the Creation Kit *Adept*

30). Items which bump Quest Stages (or other factors such as variables) *Easy*

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ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE

1). Setting up a gamepad controller. Game: Elder Scrolls Online *Adept*

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MULTIPLE BETHESDA GAMES, WEBSITES, and UTILITIES SECTION

1). How to transfer games from Xbox to PC Games: any Bethesda game after Morrowind.

2). Nexus Mod Manager Tips *Easy*

3). Manipulating Leveled Lists -- This works for any Bethesda game with Leveled Lists *Easy*

4). Timer Scripts Game: TES IV Oblivion or Fallout 3 *Adept*

5). Fixing the Imgur "Zoinks" error *Easy* (Doesn't always work, though you can try...)

6). Light Switches and Triggers. Games: Oblivion, Fallout 3 & NV, Skyrim *Easy*

7). Disabling Windows 10 Updates for GOOD

8). Graphics card troubleshooting (Windows 8.1)

9). Change an .esp to an .esm (or vice versa)

10). Getting an Xbox controller to work on PC

11). Getting the hair from one mod to work on an NPC from another *Easy*

12). How to fix "Netapi32.dll is missing" errors (Windows 10)

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> Some tutorials are Hand-Holdy and have been marked so, next to the links below. These tutorials include instructions for near-absolute beginners, and have steps which can be skipped by those with more experience. I've included these super-novice lessons because I remember what it was like when I was new, and needed help with some of the most basic concepts! ... Too embarrassed to bother the pros with question after question and so on. Hopefully some beginners can learn a few things here, at the safety of their own desktops. In some cases I've included video links (or written-text links from other sites) which lead to the lessons which I, myself was able to learn from.

>> Easy tutorials are short in length (typically less than an hour) or involve minimal brain-power. I may skip a few things compared to Hand-Holdy (such as how to set up an NPC) because it's assumed the reader already knows them. Any script examples are going to be minimal, and not so difficult.

>>> Adept tutorials are somewhere between Easy and Advanced. More steps are utilized during these, not everything is explained 100%, and/or just a higher level of resources and knowledge are necessary. There's more to keep track of, etc. It's recommended to keep a Notepad or some other Text-based program going for these lessons, or hand-write into an actual notebook.

>>>> Advanced tutorials may skip even more things, because it's assumed the modder already has knowledge of these things. To an extent, some experimentation is involved. New processes are being tried, by me at least, sometimes these processes have nothing to do with what's been used by Bethesda themselves. So be prepared to maybe try additional ideas, tweaks, or methods of your own if things don't work as described.

Continuing Advanced: It's recommended to keep a Notepad or some other Text-based program going for these lessons, or hand-write into an actual notebook. The ideas themselves may not always work correctly (although they do work in my game, otherwise I wouldn't post them). Conflicts may happen with other mods which go into the same territories as what's being worked on, especially overhauls. If another mod in your list makes changes to Megaton's worldspace for instance, my Megaton Jail idea might conflict. These lessons also involve many more steps, resources, utilities, and factors than Easy or Adept lessons. Hours and hours of work and/or tweaks! In some cases (when working with a utility or software issue), rare or esoteric issues may occur with the utilities themselves. Extended moments of testing and/or aggravation may occur!

>>>>> *Expert* tutorials require the very topmost skills and knowledge. So far I haven't got anything I consider difficult enough to go into this category, since I, myself, have never gone this far with quest/script studies. Even after 8 years I'm still learning, and do not consider myself an expert scripter!


For anyone who's new to using a controller for PC, rather than mouse + keyboard, here's the Xpadder Walkthrough page. Xpadder is a site which allows gaming controllers to mimic the key & mouse functions. Xpadder, or similar programs such as Joy to Keys, are absolutely crucial to get the most out of older games such as Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion, for those who prefer controllers. They can also be used for newer games (Fallout 3/NV or Skyrim) to provide alternate controlling scenarios during times when a game's native D-pad arrangement needs to be shut off.



Bethesda Units. (How distance compares in-game to real-life).

This post has been edited by Renee: May 14 2025, 03:27 PM

[Renee]

Faction-changing Armor and Clothing

Game: Fallout 3 or Oblivion

Good evening. This one is going to focus on making faction changes, which are caused by simply putting on some clothes or armor. This will work best when changing outfits just before going from one cell to another, and is much more RP-friendly than using console commands.

I got this to work in Fallout 3 last summer, in Janet Telia's game. I was able to get her into a faction which was compatible with the RaiderFaction by having her put on some specialized raider armor, waiting an hour, and then entering a cell full of raiders. Once inside that cell, these enemies were now her friends. The entire faction of raiders remained friendly to her from that point on, all across the Wasteland, as long as she was wearing her special armor.

This works also in Oblivion, but a few things are done different in this earlier game.


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1).Open up the GECK, bla bla... First thing we're going to do is to make a customized faction.

1a). MAIN toolbar > Characters > Faction
Go ahead and make a custom faction by right-clicking > New into the Editor ID window. I called Janet's special faction aaaRaiderFaction, though you can call yours whatever you'd like.


NOTE: If modding Fallout 3 DO NOT just use one of Bethesda's factions (such as RaiderFaction). It is better to make a custom faction, rather than adding the PC to one of the game's premade factions. Before I figured this out, I was using the Bethesda raider faction. When Janet put on her raider-faction armor, she was accepted by raiders just fine. Problem was, she could not 'break' out of this faction just by removing her armor. Even if she shot somebody, they would continue to be her friend. Maybe this is a 'friendly fire' sort of function, so that if one raider shoots another, he/she won't just turn around and begin fighting this other raider, when they should be coming after us.

With a custom faction, the results worked just as I wanted them to. There were some limits though, and these limits will be discussed toward the bottom-third of this post.

Oblivion: IF making a faction-changing apparel item for Oblivion don't use a custom faction. Instead use one of the game's ordinary factions such as BanditFaction. Maybe there's a way to make custom factions work but the game seems more hardcoded to only accept the vanilla factions.


1b). Give this faction a Name. You can toggle Evil on if you want to, which will temporarily influence how Karma works.

1c). Right-click > New into the Interfaction Relations window, and use the Opposing/Affiliated scroll-bar to find the faction you want to modify toward your character's custom faction.

1d). Let's say RaiderFaction got chosen during step 1c. For best results, make the Disposition Modifier 100, with Group Combat Reactions toggled to Ally.

Experiments can be tried with numbers lower than 100, and 'Friend' or 'Neutral' can also be chosen instead of Ally, if you want to make this faction-change happen with more of a question mark.

1e). Click OK (closing the Factions panel) and SAVE.


2a). OBJECT window
Go into Items. Edit an outfit (a piece of clothing or armor), and give it a unique ID. Make sure this item hasn't got a script attached. If it does, set this to NONE. Click OK. When asked if we want to save this under a new ID? Click Yes.

2b). The Script Type scroll-bar can stay as Object. Here is what to write.


scriptname aaaFactionChangingArmorScript

Begin OnEquip Player

End

Begin OnUnequip Player

End

Close/save that, click OK (closing the Armor panel). Reopen the new armor, find the script just wrote in the Script scroll-bar. Click OK again, SAVE, and reopen again. Here is the rest of the script.

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scriptname aaaFactionChangingArmorScript

Begin OnEquip Player

Player.SetFactionRank aaaFaction 1

End

Begin OnUnequip Player

Player.SetFactionRank aaaFaction -1

End

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Where it says "aaaFaction", substitute this term with the name of your actual custom faction. So for me, I'm typing aaaRaiderFaction where it says aaaFaction.

And here's one final trick which is optional. It it possible to put messages into the game as well. This is for our information only, and is a way to make sure the mod's working. Some may find it immersion-breaking.

** Adding a message into Oblivion is easy. Simply type Message "Type message content here", X into either of the script's Begin and End blocks. X = the number of seconds the message will stay onscreen for. So if I type

Begin OnEquip Player

Player.SetFactionRank aaaFaction 1

Message "I am now a bandit", 10

End

This will cause a message to flash onscreen for 10 seconds which says "I am now a bandit". For Fallout 3 or NV the process requires more steps.




Object window > Miscellaneous > Message
3a). Right-click > New into the window.

3b). For ID, I am calling it aaaRaiderArmorEquipMessage. Copy that name and paste it on a Notepad file.

Give the message a name. Use the Icon scroll-bar to add an image to the message (although sometimes, the icon doesn't work in-game).

3c). Turn Message Box off, and change the Display Time slot from 2 to whatever. I find that 2 seconds aren't long enough sometimes for the message to sink in.

3d). Message can be whatever is desired. In my game it says "Yo, checkit! I am now part of the Raider Faction, beeyatch!"

Ahem. Click OK.

3e). Return to the armor script, and add ShowMessage aaaMessage somewhere between the OnEquip and End functions, with 'aaaMessage' being the name of the message created during step 3b. A second message can be added which denotes our character moving out of the faction.

So in my game, in total, it says


scriptname aaaFactionChangingArmorScript

Begin OnEquip Player

Player.SetFactionRank aaaFaction 1

ShowMessage aaaRaiderArmorEquipMessage

End

Begin OnUnequip Player

Player.SetFactionRank aaaFaction -1

ShowMessage aaaRaiderArmorUnEquipMessage

End


There it is. 😶 This script will make sure the player-character gets added and removed from whatever faction desired, in a never-ending loop. However, there are limitations to this.

-- Make sure your character changes clothes in a cell which is separate from any enemies. Once this is done it's best to wait an hour (press the wait button), and then enter the cell which is being influenced. Over time I've gotten lazy here and there, forgotten to wait for instance, and everything might still work fine. But to make this work 100% it's best to follow that sequence. The faction-changing effect works best this way. Plus, it's more realistic that a bunch of enemies won't change their hostile minds, simply because they witness our toon changing into some outfit!

Edit 2022: I have recently discovered that we don't always need to be in a separate cell for this to work, however it helps if NPCs (if they are supposed to be hostile) don't see our character at the time of the armor/clothing change.

--I tried entering the raider-infested grocery store (the store next to Gold Ribbon Grocery, with all those raiders inside), for instance. Janet entered this store wearing ordinary clothes. The raiders inside were hostile. Then, I had her leave the building, changing into her special Faction Armor. Back inside, the raiders were now friendly. Back outside, change of clothes again, now they're hostile again.

However, after doing this several times, they eventually defaulted to friendly no matter what she was wearing.

...Of course, nobody would do any of this in the game. It's silly to change back and forth like this as we're actually playing. We only need to change into the outfit once before we enter their territory, and maybe change back out of it once, if we're going back into ordinary civilization again. I'm just highlighting that there are some limits, here. These limits won't be found though, until the gamer is doing some heavy experimentation.


--To break her friends-only status, I tried having her attack a raider. He ignored her attack at first, but eventually fought back. Once this moment was crossed, this guy was now NOT her friend anymore, and attacked every time, even if she ran outside and changed clothes from and to the Faction armor. Thing is, only that one raider attacked her. The others were still friendly to Janet.

Bottom line though: when just playing the game normally, change the character's outfit once, wait an hour, and then enter a cell with enemies in it, everything should work. Later, if the outfit gets removed, maybe your character's going back to Megaton or Rivet City (wearing outlaw armor wouldn't be appropriate) all of that should work too.

This post has been edited by Renee: May 2 2024, 10:56 PM