Cheat Engine Madness Project Nexus

[Landers Piechotka]

Ifyou have corrections or suggestions for improvement, either make them directly, post to the Getting started creating mods using GECK feedback thread in the "Fallout New Vegas Mod Troubleshooting" forum, or contact the current maintainer by Private Message (PM).

The following information is primarily taken from the Help starting out thread on the "Fallout New Vegas GECK and Modders" forum. The information is preserved here as an alternative to searching through back posts in that forum for commonly asked questions. Much of the information applies to "Fallout 3 (FO3)" as well, but the focus is on FNV.

This article provides a learning roadmap, a starting point and guide to progression; not a tutorial. Consider it a collection of suggestions and links to more detailed tutorials, articles, videos, and tools. Just from the "Table of Contents" you should get a reasonable idea of the learning curve ahead of you. Don't get discouraged. Tackle things one at a time. Just don't expect to learn everything quickly.

There is a lot of unique vocabulary related to creating mods in the following material, such as the distinction between "meshes", the 3D framework of objects (saved as Nif files); and "textures", the surface "skin" over the "mesh framework" (saved as DDS files). The Elder Scrolls Texture Guide (TESTG) site has a glossary and several pages devoted to explaining these to new mod creators and users. Rather than explaining them here, please reference that site when you need clarification. (This article does a lot of that: referral to other existing resources. Why reinvent the wheel?)

Note: You are working with a 32-bit game. It requires 32-bit FAT system compliant files and data in specific formats. 64-bit tools may not output 32-bit FAT files; they output 64-bit files which are NTFS compliant (strictly speaking about Windows). You can't read 64-bit NTFS files with standard 32-bit tools, unless they both use the exact same data format, file format, and naming restrictions. Overlooking this simple fact will cause you a lot of frustration and wasted time. Use the right versions of tools for the job. "Newest" does not always equal "most appropriate".

Basic advice is to start with the game Construction Set/Editor (this is usually a separate, free download, not included with the game installation). There is going to be a wiki page for it with tutorials to help get you started, but note that there are unspoken assumptions that you are familiar with concepts introduced on the "Construction Kit"/"game editor" wikis for earlier Bethesda games such as:

(TES5: Skyrim came after all of those (2011) and uses a different variation of the game and script engine.) So, don't neglect those older wikis as resources. Where there appears to be a conflict, assume the later wiki or the one specific to your game is correct.

In addition to the Construction Set/Editor, you'll probably want to get community created editor enhancement tools, like the GECK "Extender" or "PowerUp", "Oblivion Construction Set Extender", etc. These allow you to perform actions not included in the default editor, like edit ESM files without converting them to ESP first, and may also give you better debugging for scripts. These capabilities vary by the tool. On the negative side, such extensions may also annoy the heck out of you with error messages, many of which you don't need/understand and don't care about. But they are always worth looking into.

There are also conversion tools which are required to export the 3D models from your modeling tool into the "NIF" format that Bethesda games use. It is very important to note that the import and export tools only work with certain versions of modeling programs. For Blender, you need version 2.49, which is older than the current version of Blender. The Nexus Oblivion mod Blender linked here is a package that has Blender v2.49 plus all of the NIF tools and includes NifSkope, all of which are the correct versions to use together. You will save yourself a lot of trouble if you install everything from this one package. If you don't, you can run into version problems and things will never work right. Instructions on the correct way to install this combination of tools can be found the wiki article here. (Note where there seems to be a discrepancy in version numbers, stick with the version included in the package.)

"Script Extenders" (SEs) are plugins to the game editors that provide additional functionality features, and were created by the gaming community to overcome perceived shortcomings. Mods the use even one of those SE functions need to specify that the particular SE is now a requirement.

Item (armor, weapons, buildings, etc.) construction and customization requires learning 3D modelling, which is NOT a quick process. You are going to invest a lot of time and patience in learning your tool of choice. The three most common tools used are Blender, "3ds Max" (aka "Max"), and Maya. There is very little discussion about Maya in the forums related to Bethesda games because while it is considered the better choice for animation, "Max" is simpler to grasp and less daunting. Both "Max" and Maya are considered "industry standard" tools, and both will do the job. See these articles for more in depth comparisons if you are going to invest in learning either product:

The Nexus has the Software Programs - 3D Modelling - Blender forum, Software Programs - 3D Modelling - 3ds Max forum, Software Programs - 3D Modelling - Maya forum, and Software Programs - 3D Modelling - Miscellaneous / Other forum areas for discussion about those tools.

The "workflow" on Blender for Nif files is considered more complex than with the others because it often takes you into the Nifskope tool, but read about the Nif Exporter plugin for Max issues in that entry. It is necessary to use the correct version and tools that work with that version of any of these products.

Because it is "free" and the others are quite expensive for most people, Blender is usually at least their first choice. "Blender Noob to Pro" is a good resource for 3D modeling using Blender, and the compatible (not the latest) version is included in that package linked above under Programs and Tools. Consequently, there is a long history of tutorials on all aspects of modelling with Blender. It is well worth the time to refer often to the Blender - Read this first thread as you progress through the learning curve. It has an extensive list of tutorials from Oblivion thru Fallout 3 and more generalized topics which still apply to the basics of modelling in Blender.

For texturing your 3D models, you'll need something that can handle ".dds" files. GIMP and Paint.Net (which is not the Paint that comes with Windows) can both handle ".dds" files. Paint.Net comes with ".dds" support built-in these days. GIMP still needs a plugin. Which program you use is more a matter of personal preference than anything else. Some find GIMP a bit more difficult to use but it also can do some things that Paint.Net can't do. Paint.Net on the other hand is, in the opinion of many, more intuitive and easier to use. Although, now that Paint.Net has a proper normal map generator that actually works available as an add-on, GIMP use tends to be even less frequent now. A lot of it is personal preference, though. Some folks just like GIMP better. Both programs work fine. You can also use Photoshop, but that's not free.

Once you have the 3D model textured (UV mapped) and maybe have generated a normal map for it as well, then you need to export everything. First, read the Working with DDS/DXT Files article by Gary "Buckaroo" Neely to understand the choices in DXT codec to choose among. Blender and the NIF tools don't export a lot of things properly, so then you have to go into NifSkope (which comes with the NIF tools) and fix it. (The proper weight of "bones" in skeletons, along with "shader flags", is almost always wrong, for instance.) Be sure to check that the path given in the mesh to the texture file is in "relative" format. (See How to fix hard-coded texture paths in NIF files.) The default format of the mesh editor's paths may not be "relative".

Getting back to the GECK, there are a few things that are broken in it. It ships with a spell checker but doesn't include the dictionary, so that's just annoying. (But you can use the language resource files from Fallout 3 as the dictionary.) If you use the GECK "Extender" or "Powerup" you can uncheck the spell checker and disable all of that annoyance at least while you are editing your mod. Unfortunately it won't remember that setting and you'll have to uncheck it the next time you edit your mod as well.

Another thing that is broken is the "lip generator" for dialog. If you have Skyrim or Oblivion you can copy their lip generator from the "sound\processing" folder to GECK's. If you have all of your voice files in place and they work already, in the GECK all you need to do is bring up that dialog in the quest editor. Your WAV file should show up down near the bottom, where it says voice type: MP3, WAV, LIP, LTF, and "path". Click on that to select it, then click on the "from WAV" at the bottom. The "generate lip file" option should now become active and you can click on it. Note that the GECK will not update the information on the screen, so it will still have an N under LIP file even after you have generated it. Close that dialog option and re-open it and then you should see a Y under both the WAV and the LIP. If you record the voice files directly into the GECK (using the record button at the bottom of the dialog window) then when you press save it will automatically generate both the WAV and the LIP files.

Remember: you must run the GECK and NVSE Plugins with "Administrator" privileges. So you don't forget, see Issue: GECK crashes upon starting to have the executable itself prompt you, or create a "shortcut" link which prompts you for this.

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