Hello all.

So I have been watching Nexus and other sites for a minute here, and with the abundance of people who are already working on mods, I was thinking I might as well start looking into it myself.

I am guessing most of the texture changes have been done using Photoshop and the bitmap/jpeg/whatever is used for textures. Some of the other stuff though, like the recipe, magic overhauls, etc. I am just assuming that that is requiring some scripting knowledge. Now if I am mistaken someone please correct me here...

That said, could someone point me to a good starting point for reading/practicing the scripting language used in Skyrim?

There are some tutorials here: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Scripting_for_beginners

However, those are for Oblivion, and it is almost guaranteed that the scripting system in Skyrim will have some changes, or might even be an entirely different scripting language. It's still, however, useful to take a look at those tutorials, as the logic behind the scripting is the same in pretty much all programming languages. For example, you can script "IF (this thing happens) THEN (do this) ELSE (do that)" in all scripting languages, but the actual syntax might differ. If you understand the logic behind the scripts, then it is relatively easy to change to another scripting language.

It might take a while before we get any tutorials for the Skyrim scripting language (we need the CK for one thing).

I haven't scripted for Oblivion myself, so I can't really help aside from this.

There are more things than just "texturing" and "scripting". There's...

• 3D modelling for new meshes or altering existing ones.
  
• texturing in an image editor and converted using a DDS converter.
  
• scripting in the game's internal languages (there are two), which is to create complex effects or semi-intelligent behaviour. In its most basic form this is used to create quests, but can also be used for complex trickery to, for example, dynamically change the placement of objects in-game that normally can't be moved.
  
• data editing (for lack of a better term) of the objects and items that appear in the game, using the Construction Kit.
  
• building, using the Construction Kit to place new objects in the game.
  
• interface modding, using Flash to rewrite how the HUD and menus appear and work.

Of all those, the two easiest to do in general are retexturing and building. Right now the things that can't be easily done are scripting, data editing, and building, because those three normally use the Construction Kit, which isn't yet released. There are some existing external tools made for Oblivion and Fallout 3 that people have been altering to work with Skyrim, and that's how non-texture/mesh/UI mods are being made right now. Using these tools takes modding experience, though, so not something that you can really use as a starting point. As far as I can tell, scripting isn't possible at all right now without some really arcane knowledge about injecting machine code and such.

The starting point is really the CK, and we're all waiting for it.

Happily showing my ignorance here lol.

Thanks guys. Either way I guess I should start looking all this up so I can do something when the CK gets released. Cheers.