I do think that honestly the Skyrim modding is possible only , and I say only because of talented people that dedicated their personal spare time to create some tools for Skyrim .

If we had to rely not on those tools no modding woudl be possible apart from some imple dungeonmaking.

Now The time to mod this game is ridiculy crazy for me .

Some task that I take in a blink of a second for another game engine like crysis , takes up to a week for skyrim because you have always to test, make attempts, get crashes, figure out how to do or implement stuff ingame etc ...

My time is really Wasted by 90% with continous fights against nif formats , broken exporter etc ... how fater and Better woudl be the Skyrim Modding "IF"

BETHESDA decided once and for all to RELEASE a damn proper exporter and importer and right tools to allow us a faster and more easy modding ?

WHY they like so much to publicize our works here and there and show off to people to increase the appetibility of the game ( because of mods ) but then the Support is almoust none , I see no one from their team posting on the forums or helping finding out solutions , there is no communitcation at all , and there is no interest in providing a easier approach to modding this game ... It's like talking to the wind and hope for an answer rather than an echo ...
All of the help comes usually from very talented people and dedicated hardcoe modders ... but seriously ...

Modding woudl be much much better with some help and voice from Bethesda . I am pretty tired to see and read their only posts about Disonhored , all the prizes and praises they got for their games and the publicity of some mods around the web ...

"Rant mode off "....

I wish I could disagree but I can't. It's a strange tool for sure.

I actually kinda do have to disagree with you here. Comparing game engines (Saying you could do the same thing faster in Crisis) is very silly. All game engines are different, and have focused on certain areas and doing certain things. Go make a world the size of Skyrim in Crisis at the same level of detail, wait. You can't. See my point?

And other third party tools are required because Bethesda CAN'T release their proprietary systems. Like importers, exporters, niftools, etc. Sure, a few minor areas are broken (Like Oscape shouldn't be needed, but alas it is), but it's like that with all toolsets. They fix it to work for them and are required to fix it no more. They release the tools as is to us as a favor in the hopes that we will have fun with them and do cool things. Sure, it would be cool if they fixed things that are broken for us, and they do sometimes. But frankly if they spent all their time making the CK flawless for everyone in the community, we wouldn't see anymore games from them.

Modding is frustating, but it is for any full devkit I've ever used, CK is not the only one. The only things that I've had a flawless breezy time with are toolsets. (I.e. map builders for games like JTF, Company of Heroes, Warcraft, CnC, etc) But that's because those are incredibly cutdown toolsets.

The CK is a full developement kit, so it's bound to have some issues.

In addition, project that are the sheer size and magnitude of the one you are undertaking (Issgard) take up a lot of time. I'm not sure why you would start something like that and think it would be easy or quick.

Modding takes time, to do anything. It always has, and it always will. All we can do is hope that the developers can improve on each iteration of the tools (Which by god they have done so much!), and throw us a fix every now and then.

Don't give up. It may take a while, but the reward is worth it. You end with an awesome mod that you can say you created and hopefully you had a blast making it.

Why do you act so arrogant? Yes you can make a world that size in CryEngine. You can make maps up to 32x32 km, and all terrain LOD is generated real-time. You can make very large and detailed maps MUCH faster because that game engine has much better landscaping tools and a much better LOD system. Even the largest multiplayer maps in Crysis are almost half the size of Skyrim.

Yes, the game is not designed to run an RPG as it is, but guess what? The entire game source code (The c++ code, not scripts) can be downloaded and modified however you want, so you can do it if you know how.

Guess what else? Crytek releases their 3DS max importer/exporter, and the editor is the same one that they use to make the official game. The reason this is possible is because users have to pay for a license if they're going to make a commercial game. Why can't Bethesda do that?

Please do research before making posts like this. Bethesda's modding software and "worlflow", (that they've given users, at least) is honestly terrible compared to other available tools. The only reason we use it is because the whole inventory, dialogue/quest, and actor value system is already in place, and programming that by ourselves would probably be more effort than using the Creation Kit. I don't really understand why you're trying to defend it, it's actually really bad. Try the tools of source, unreal, cryengine, or other "modding kits" (and actually learn how to use them), and I think you'll change your mind.

OP: I agree completely... well, I can't really help you with the exporter, but I'm going to start writing a program to place vegetation in large worldspaces soon, it might help you if you're having problems with that like I am.

You know what, I think I just need to stop. These discussions never go anywhere and I seem to get into them like twice a week.

Spending time to create a large open world on the Bethesda engine isn't something an "average joe" can do either, unless the quality of it is terrible. There will probably be texture creation, model cration, scripting, sound production which are all relatively specialized studies as well. I wouldn't really call that "as is"... so I don't know why programming a system to make persistant "rpg elements" is such a big step beyond that. Maybe programming knowledge is less common than 3d modeling and texturing? But even so, you have to do scripting? If you can do scripting and do it well, you can probably do some programming at least?


The users pay for both Crytek's and Bethesda's tools. They pay when they pay for the game. Crytek's tools are free for personal use and so are Bethesda's. The only difference is that Crytek's tools can be licensed for commercial use, and Bethesda's can't.

I'm saying that Bethesda could follow this model, or they could even release the tools they use still under the policy of: "You can use our tools for personal use only, not commercial use".


Yeah, I know, I agree that it takes time either way, but I don't agree that the tool is amazing just for being free. It's really not a good tool, and just simply being free doesn't make it better. If free tools are bad, they don't get a pass just because they're free. I'll use 3D software as an example... there are a lot of free 3D software (I have used a few), and the only one that I really think is good as Blender. I think that's the opinion of most other people too. And we don't give the other free 3D programs extra credit or say they're awesome just because they're free, because... they aren't. So why do it with game development tools?

Good call. Threads like this serve no purpose but to be disparaging, potentially giving new users an erroneous impression the CK is utterly unwieldy.

If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen!

I think it's a great toy.

And like many great toys it's as frustrating as those http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slinky you bought, when you were little (well, you did if you're several thousand years old, like me, anyway ). The blimmin' things would almost never make it all the way down the stairs. They got so tangled up when they failed that you had to buy a new one every week. If you put them on a slight slope they just curled up into a ball and lay there laughing at you (while you were stood miles away, at the foot of the slope).

But they were still ace, the one time they did actually do what you wanted


(and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_hopper ... don't get me started on space-hoppers!)

There are some misunderstanding here ....

I am not criticizing the CK ...

I am criticizing the lack of support by Bethesda and the lack of Working tools that can perform the true modding help like importers and exporters , proper qorking land tools , animations etc ....

Alexander the level of the moddingyou are performing so far with your island is based on CK level editing and not implementing new items ( and I mean not taking already made items by other mods ) but making them from scratch and see them working ingame .... that IS the HARD part!

It is absurdely complicated and really not only we have to rely on talented and volenterous people that luckily for us have dedicated a lot of their free time to hack the nif files but also we have no clues usually because there are no words of help to point those people in the right direction when making those tools ....

They have stated that the engine is now their own and is totally new ... then they should be able to provide us with a proper working import and export plugin or a way to import and make new animations etc ...


You are using mostly Oscape and CK ...

I am using :

Oscape , CK , TesnipV , Tesannwyn , BSAopt , Gecko, LF Generator, ifutils , mu converter, Lodgen , FO3 A utility, Nconversion , hkxcmd and above all Niftools .

every attempt to make something working in game passes from Workflow of zbrush , 3dsmax , photoshop , xnormal , crazybump etc etc but that's external stuff, the only thing that woudl be needed there is a import export plugin that could keep and preserve and help have the items directly ingame in the right and working format , instead there is a lot of dancing to make with nifscope and lot of other tools befoure to get something work ingame ... and this because : no support from Bethesda to modding community in form of help and voice, no import export tools for several tasks from animation , to morphing to else , and the CK has a lot of basic important features cut off in the released version for some whatever reason and requires people to use all the forementioned set of tools ...

seventyfour , if you are able and want to make a new tool that no one is actually focusing on and is actually really skipping , it woudl be a very very usefull a region editor for cells ingame , like a more visually helpfull system to recognize the landscape and the region to paint , to add and remove cells , expand and resize worldspaces etc .... those woudl be helpfull ...

In cryengine I made an island that is 8 x8 kms with an extremely high level of details but surely lacks the RPG features and the immense database of objects to use .... http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1412013-speed-and-quality-of-modding/... and that is not even the maximum size allowed , the actual skyrim size is 3x4 kms ... and made so to look like a larger world with a proportion of a 1.8 m for each pixel texture detail , while in cryengine you have 1 m per pixel ...

id Software's engines are built in-house and have few, if any strings. With a lot of patience, you could build an entire mod with notepad alone. Opensource 3d party level editors and plugins were very common. Just don't make any plans on doing a dynamic open world game (excluding RAGE to a point, but alas - no SDK).

If you go with an engine like Gamebryo, there are proprietary stings attached. If that's the only engine in your price range than can do what you need it to do, then what can you do. Accept it and push on or give up I guess. I'm just thankful there is a CK.

Your using TESSnipV!? Careful, there are threads on that tool, its not ready to be used yet as it needs to be fixed.

What's wrong with it? It works fine for me.


That is what I'm going to try making, but most particularly for vegetation and texture painting. Adding and removing cells from a large area doesn't sound that difficult though. Actually, I'd really like it to be a complete editor for terrain where you can import heightmaps and generate LOD too, but I won't focus on those first since other tools already exist.

And yeah, I used to make maps in CryEngine2 a few years ago, so I know all about the differences...

One thing people are overlooking, I think - Crytek licenses Cryengine to commercial developers, which means that they have to put in all the work on user support and efficient workflow - and because they don't know exactly what projects their commercial customers will use it for, it needs to be as flexible as is reasonably possible. Same with the Source engine and Hammer editor, Unreal engine, and until it was acquired by Zenimax id licensed its engine.

Bethesda doesn't license its engine. Indeed, it relies so heavily on licensed middleware that it can be argued that Bethesda don't actually have an engine to license - not a complete one anyway. So, since they have no commercial advantage in making it productive for customers to use in a wide variety of possible games... they don't.

We get the Creation Kit and that's it. They've always been very clear about that, and anyone who expected different was just fooling themselves. I don't like it, nobody likes it. But complaining about not getting a toy we were never told we would be getting is, frankly, just a waste of time and a fast road to ulcers.

Just accept that if your ambition outstrips what Bethesda has chosen to release, then you're going to have a hard time. And if it's too hard to be fun, or even to be satisfying when you achieve your vision in spite of the difficulty, then mod for another game. Modding is supposed to be fun, or fulfilling. No sense doing it if it isn't, really.

No , Crytek gives out two tools almoust identical , one for developers and one for modders. the differences lie in the structure layout and the resources available inside .

I don't understand most of it but the message is clear. There are others who know much more than I on the matter.

http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/1799-skyrim-handling-compressed-records-do-not-use-tesvsnip/

My point was that Crytek did all the work to develop the tools for developers because it was an investment in a profitable product. The tools for modders are then derived from the product that they've already developed. As you said, the tools are almost identical - I'm betting the tools for modders have had a chunk of features removed to make them unsuitable for commercial developers. But Crytek didn't invest their time and money developing tools for modders, but for paying customers.

Bethesda didn't invest time and money developing tools for modders either - and since they have no paying customers for tools, they just didn't develop them.

+1 on being a good call. These threads are nothing but depressing to see so many people bagging on the CK when their problems are not with the CK.

If you read my post better you see that my rant is not based much on CK but on lack of support , import exporters and other side much needed elements that TheCK can't do , doesn't feature or is bugged for the task .

Actually, my problems are with the CK. More to the point the bugs the engine has. And that we receive no word whatsoever is a valid complain. ATM I can only mod but not test at all.


Other people in this thread:
Sweeting up Bethesda for releasing the CK is really blind. I am sure I am not the only one who only has bought Skyrim (no dlcs yet as they don't provide anything I want to use.) to mod the bad vanilla game. So saying we can be happy that Bethesda humiliates himself to release the almighty tool is a bad viewpoint.
The point the OP is trying to convey is he has to break the workflow every minute because there are so many tools involved. A valid complaint.