Hey chaps, I have little to no experience modding elder scrolls games, or games in general. The furthest I've ever delved, is making a basic house mod with the morrowind construction set. I have no experience with any 3D programs or anything of that nature (past extruding a sphere on 3D studio)

So, would it be impossible for me to get my head around the skyrim construction kit from this standpoint, or would it be more wise to learn the oblivion construction set first? Are there some third party programs I should learn how to use first, like 3D studio, blender etc? Any other prerequisit knowledge?

Reason being, I have a grand idea for a skyrim overhaul mod, based on a fictional world I have been developing for about two years. It would involve creating a completely new height-map, some new assets, a reworked magicka system, new guilds, new main quest etc - Basically everything that entails an overhaul mod.

So, I know I am being ridiculously ambitious here, but I do like to aim high in my attempted creative outputs, and would love the opinion of folks who actually do this stuff!
I know that given the techinical ability I could produce a really unique interesting overhaul of skyrim, and am just gagging to realise this dream. Any words of encouragement/ pity/ absolute disdain would all be recieved willingly, as well as any encouraging or wise words.

Start small and learn whatever programs you need to. Looking at Oblivion's CS and reading some of the tutorials for it may help, just keep in mind that the CK may be different; nobody will know for certain until it's released. If you're going to be creating new objects, then learn Blender. If you're sticking with what's already available, then it's not as important. Good luck.

Not to rain on anyones parade but what your considering is vast and time consuming, even with a dedicated team of experienced modders it will take you months, even years to achieve a complete overhaul at which time either Eldar Scrolls VI will be out or you will have a small amount of players still interested in playing your mod, I would go with what Jac said and start with a small mod maybe incorporating your idea into the Skyrim lore, with enough imagination you can pretty much link anything into the world and not have it seem out of place and then expand upon it.

As with modeling, this is also time consuming in itself, while very rewarding (I built some mesh models for SecondLife) you have to start overcoming all the other technical aspects of modeling... occlusion... textures... UV Maps and the list goes on and on, suddenly that single building you have been working on has taken you the better part of a week and your planning on having hundreds of buildings and/or unique models.

Then you would have to learn the scripting language, scripts are the bread and butter of bringing your ideas to life or adding functionality. Otherwise you will just have a pretty picture.

Yeah, this is really a bad idea and you're basically guaranteeing that you will never finish it- if your project isn't released for two years and there's another one and a half to go, you'll eventually get fed up at the lack of any actual 'result' and give up, wasting all the work you've done up 'til then. At least start on small things you can release within a few weeks, move on to longer projects that take months, and so on. That also has the advantage of helping you learn what the CK will actually be able to do, so you won't end up designing your vast project around impossible features or banging your head against the wall trying to implement changes that can't be made.

Yeah, start small.

Make an NPC like a custom-built follower or house servant or something. That relies upon using the already-existing tools for making NPCs, and you can just slip them into the already-existing templates. You can't really share it with other people, as it only has meaning as far as being "your personal" follower, but it's something to get your toes wet, and actually see results.

Then, try to make a personally designed house or dungeon, or else try to make custom clothing or equipment. Start with just copying and editing an existing one.

Learning to use the modeling software is some of the hardest stuff to do, so save actually using that stuff for last, when you feel you've actually accomplished enough that you feel certain you can handle what's coming.

You can set a huge far-off goal if you want, but have smaller enjoyable release steps so that you can have a metric of accomplishment, and a half-finished project still feels satisfying.

What everyone else said. It sounds like you are really interested in modding and the community always needs more creativity. But learn to walk before you run or you'll get frustrated and we will lose another potential modding guru.

And don't forget about proper packaging and documentation for your mod - people really seem to like that. Good luck!

Interesting, I'm also looking to do that eventually, I think I have an interesting world to build, but I'm going to take it slow and make some simpler mods first to get my skills up. Right now I'm learning 3d modelling so I can do an overhaul of Dawnstar with new architecture.

If you have the ambition, go for it... Whats the worst that could happen, you become overwhelmed and give up half way? at least you learn some things along the way... and then you will be better prepared to mod TESVI

Others in this thread have given good advice. I would like to add some..
You want to create your own overhaul mod. And you state you have worked on the idea for the past 2 yrs or so. Meaning you have a rather good idea what it is you need to accomplish. You might have a complete quest line and fleshed out characters that you just need to script and put together.

I would suggest starting with a small part of the mod idea you want to and focus on that, like a well known character in YOUR story, put him and his quest line into Skyrim... Then work on another aspect, a small village form your idea, put that into Skyrim... Then over time as you release small parts you can slowly start putting them altogether...
But it will take time...

And with that said, as you progress and the community sees your dedication etc, other modders will likely find an interest and add their skills to your growing team. So you do not really have to set out to learn EVERY aspect of modding. Focus on one first, be it scripting or modelling or whatever...

Also, don't be afraid to suggest your entire idea and find out what is possible to actually do (once the CK arrives). Modders might love your idea so much they will jump on board.
Leading a mod team is different to just being a skilled member of one. I have modded other games where the leader of the team had no modding skill at all... But he knew how to lead and direct people. He knew how to get people motivated to do what needed to be done. So just because you have no modding experience does not mean you would not make a good mod leader. but knowing the limitations of the CK and the engine will greatly help...

The thing is, making big mods just isn't about your skill in modding itself, or how comfortable you are with an editor

To make a big mod that actually sees the light of day, and consistantly worked on throughout the years (yes, years - there's not a single TC/large mod that didn't take at least 1-2 years of development to reach even an alpha/beta stage) you'll also need to have these in the following order:

1. Good work ethic

2. A very organized and detailed plan, with weekly internal updates and meeting production/design deadlines

3. The skills to prove you are more than just "an ideas guy"

4. A team you bring together, because you're going to need to offload tasks on people who are better at doing something than you are. But, you can only do this if you work for several months yourself to build a pedigree, and/or have a name to you that people trust. Nobody will ever join your mod team if they don't believe in the project or think you'll have the capability to release it

5. Good leadership skills to keep everyone on task

6. Use of an SVN system and a server in which you can upload project files, while organizing all updates to the project to follow with your tickets/roadmap you developed in step 2


Only when you have ALL of these, will your mod have a chacne of seeing release. Even then, there's a lot of other factors that might botch it: time commitment, the game just turns out to be boring/not work/etc, takes too long to make and you lose momentum, etc. I've been a level designer for Mechwarrior: Living Legends for Crysis Wars for several years now, and helped out before the alpha version was released to the public. There is no way I would have stayed on the team for this long, and no way we wouldn't have attracted some top quality artists/coders/etc to contribute to the project if it wasn't for all the above going on in addtion to skill the team leaders had. The team leaders (who now work at Crytek actually) had some serious knowledge and dedication which is why the mod was able to be pulled off, and we are STILL working on it! Hell the mod was orignally for BF2142 before they decided to totally scrap what they were trying to do and instead move over to the Cryengine. Major modding projects are huge endevors, and quite frankly you pretty much need to have the same skills to develop AAA or indie games commercially to make major total conversion mods, otherwise theres a very low chance one will ever see the light of day.

I am planning to do an own large continent for Skyrim myself and fill it with my own stuff. The thing is that I am sticking to the game lore and am going to give my own continent a place within the already existing world of Tamriel. With my own twists. You will have a different experience, since you're creating something from scratch.

The way I will be doing it when the CK comes, is that I will start learning the tools by doing smaller projects. Like villages and quests for Skyrim. Then I will move on and start creating my new landmass, when I have the basic knowledge required.

I have done this before. I created an own continent for Oblivion called Dibella's Watch, with quests, history, NPC's cities and villages and dungeons and allt he stuff that goes with it, and I did it in ten months and got a good deal of attention for it. I didn't need any team at all and I indeed politely turned down people who wanted to work with me. I instead used new resources from the excellent resource banks we have in the ES community, so that's also a tip if you want to concentrate on worldbuilding and story and not do your own modelling - use the already existing resources in the vanilla game and on the Elder Scrolls websites.

I'm a lone wolf and I work the best all on my own. For Skyrim, I will do an even larger project than Dibella's Watch and I hope to have years of fun creating my own corner of Tamriel.

Go for it, man! Do make your ideas come true in the CK! Just get your bearings first, is my recommendation.