I was curious about how this is handled in Skyrim since its a new Construction Kit. Can someone give me example of Dirty edits and some examples on how to fix dirty edits? And also, how can I check if my mod made a dirty edit or not?

There are two kinds of dirty edits.

1. Harmless unintentional edits that just annoy purists, and are a general sign of an unpolished work.
That's simply done by wiggling the mouse a bit while selecting a vanilla object to examine or copy it. The object is moved in the CK and its new position is saved in your mod.

To undo those edits you need to actually find them, i.e. you have to view your mod regularly in TESVSnip (or the Details function of the File/Data menu) and keep track of what you actually changed and what not.

The FormIDs are very helpful here, in the CK it's the minimized column next to the editor-name. Sort By FormID. Everything that starts with 00 is vanilla everything that starts with 01 is from your mod. There is some vanilla data that always carries over to mods, but when you make a change in a cell you never actually wanted to edit, that's obviously an unclean entry. To delete it use the DEL button in the CK's Details menu or TESVSnip.


2. The harmful ones that can break savegames.
Do. Not. Delete. Vanilla. Objects. It's a common beginner's mistake to simply delete everything that is in the way of your mod, but those objects may still be refered to by your user's savegames, and when their game tries to respawn the contents of a chest that no longer exists, the game will crash, this could happen weeks after installing the offending mod, so it's very hard to track down.

For every deleted object, your mod contains a deletion entry. In the CK's Details menu sort by the "Deleted" column to see anything your mod is about to delete. Now select them all and press DEL to delete the deletion info. Reload your mod, and use another way to get rid of those objects, (move them far below the ground, re-use them on another place, put them in an area that is unreachable for the player etc.)

By "Do not delete vanilla objects", it's fine if you're deleting an accidentally edited vanilla object that appears in the Details window right?

I cannot seem to find the CK's Details menu. Where might one locate it?

For those who can't find it (I pulled every menu down and looked everywhere), it is at File->Data-> Highlight your mod name, there is a details button on the bottom of the window.

The deletion record is not a vanilla object


Go to File/Data, select your mod, click on Details

This is wonderful. I had thrown away a 25+ hour project, because I read later not to delete vanilla objects. Makes perfect sense, I just hadn't thought of it at the time. I deleted only a few flowers, and thought all was lost.
I am so happy to be able to continue work on this. I just performed the cleanup, and the vanilla flowers have returned!!!!! This thread was a HUGE help!!!

Well Here's a question then. I edited an NPC's inventory: specifically I changed his outfit and added a new sword. But because of a bug in the game, his outfit doesn't "update" since I met him already. So I opened up the NPC in TESVSnip, and deleted him out of my esp (well my changes to him anyway). Then I added the sword again, but without the outfit change this time. Would this end up being a dirty edit?

Edit:


Congrats!

No. That's a undone edit. And it's not a bug, it's how the game is designed. If you just want to add an object to a vanilla NPC do it by script. If you want to change his outfit, consider using a copy of that NPC. (e.g. when you want to make a Delphine-like character that can be met in adventurer's gear at some stage in your quest, use a copy of the NPC, and should something "happen" to her, just disable the original NPC.)

With "vanilla object" I mean something that is defined in Skyrim.esm. When you delete one of those in the CK, you actually create a new record that tells the CK and the Game to delete that object. This really makes only sense when you create a new world, and plan to merge your ESM and the ESP sooner or later.

With the Details menu and third party tools you can just delete stuff from your mod. So when you modify an NPC his new version will be stored in your mod, and the game tries to apply those changes (works fine in a newly started game, but may or may not work in savegames) When you delete this modified version from your mod, the game will again use the vanilla version from Skyrim.esm.

Do you know any scripting tutorials or scripting setups that can have me add items to NPCs? It svcks that I have to do it that way, but I guess I'll have to do it that way.

Thanks so much for the help by the way!

Have a look at quest FreeformWhiterunQuest04 (Recover Andur's Amulet of Arkay):

In the script of stage 200 Andur gets the amulet:

Alias_AndursAlias.GetReference().AddItem(Alias_AmuletAlias.GetReference())

Both, Alias_AndursAlias and Alias_AmuletAlias are defined in the Quest Aliases tab.

If you don't want to give the NPC a specific (unique) item (and remove it from the place it currently is) and just want to add a generic item, let's say an iron dagger, use this instead:

Alias_AndursAlias.GetReference().AddItem(IronDagger,1)

A quest tutorial is here: http://www.creationkit.com/Bethesda_Tutorial_Planning_the_Quest for your purpose it will be the easiest, as you can set the quest stage script to run automatically as soon as your mod is installed, or wait for a certain stage of your quest before you add the item.

Question: what about using Ctrl-F on a vanilla object to change it into something completely different? Instead of deleting some objects, I changed them into something else. I don't remember what all i changed, but it was only a couple of bushes I think.

'Nuther question: I adjusted the navmesh in three exterior cells, but I have navmesh changes showing in several more. Can I safely delete those records? Or are they showing changed because they are attached to cells I finalized the navmesh in?

The changed object would retain the original FormID, so it will work just like moving the object. There might be problems, though, when you change a container into a static and the game tries to respawn its contents.

Navmeshes, Landscapes, etc. are the exceptions. Adjacted cells may also need to be changed. You can alvays make a backup and try what happens if you remove them. But this is where form needs to follow functionality.

So... if I accidentally move an object slightly (for instance when trying to move around the camera), I go to File > Data > Details and remove the entry of the object that was moved by pressing Delete key?

Well, marking the navmesh changes for Ignore crashed the CK everytime, even on one small island I had marked for deletion. I had decided to change my mod's footprint from three cells to one, but since I can't undo my navmesh changes, I'm starting the whole project over from scratch.

P.S. SkyEdit is no help.

Dont "delete" the Navmesh change, Delete the Cell Change!

As I wrote above, adjacent Navmeshes may need to be changed to connect to your navmesh. It may not look very "tidy" but it has to be done. Either remove all navmeshes or none, but not just those you didn't intend to be stored in your mod.

If I wanted to edit a vanilla NPC, such as a kid, I should still make a copy and disable the original? If I do that though, wont that copy not get used by its original references?

I believe (guessing) that changing NPCs wont cause crashes in the same way as changing other objects in cells.

Changing objects will never
Of course it won't be used, that's the point. It really depends on what you want to "change". The reasons for using a copy of an NPC are:

1. Avoiding inventory problems with savegames (The NPC dons adventuring gear for the dungeon crawl)
2. Avoiding AI conflicts. (Prevent the NPC from leaving the dungeon in mid-quest to attend to his daily meeting with his pals in the tavern)

Only in this scenario do you need to disable the original NPC for consistency when the double is killed.

If you want to add an item to a NPCs inventory so that the player can pickpocket it, do it by script.

And if you want a sword-swinging child, that won't work. Children are more akin to creatures than to NPCs, using their own animation set, which for obvious reasons doesn't include running around with weapons (toy or not).



Only deleting objects will cause crashes. You can do anything else to them.

But changes may not apply to savegames where that object was already loaded. (If you change an inventory, or a moveable object's position, the change won't apply before the next respawn)

One of my methods of avoiding dirty edits, is, if I accidentally move a vanilla object(this is all possible with the mouse wheel button..) I just..reload the plugin. I save like mad after every major action I make in the "work area" of the mod, so I'm not losing much when I have to start over if I do something on accident elsewhere.

Yes, we ignored that so far. Of course the best way to treat dirty edits is to avoid making them in the first place.

For this I usually work with two CK's open: one with my WIP and one with only Skyrim.esm to look at stuff.

Weird thing I've experienced with deleting the edit from the mod...

I've edited some stuff accidentally and had saved already, so I went to delete that change in the details. But with some stuff I deleted, like e.g. the Dremora Lord, I lost my custom creature as well.

That was still much better than having to start all over again, but I just think it's weird. That only seemed to happen though if I had edited a vanilla creature and created one, not when I edited something without having created a custom item of the same kind.

Now that I think of it, it could be because I had edited the Dremora Lord (by accident), and then used the edited version to create the custom creature (change IDs and stats, then save).

Just to confirm, I deleted a couple of bushes and trees to fit a house mod into the world. Will this be a possible game breaker?

I completely understand why deleting a container would confuse things, but is it the same with statics?

Either way, I am going to un-delete (should that word be "relete" ) them just in case. I'm just asking the question because I'm curious

- Hypno

If you remove NAVM forms, also delete NAVI, then *rebuild it later.

*saving a plugin with NAVMs will automatically create a NAVI amendmentNot sure if they fixed it since the beta, but that might result in orphaned cell children.

*checks*

NM: Appears an "Ignored" parent's children will also be removed. In my test, even the cell's parent block had been aptly 'pruned'.

Okay, what I did was delete the cells themselves, and that got rid of the nasty navmesh changes. However, when I navmeshed my brand-new interior cell, the changed * showed up on the exterior cells again.

To clarify - my mod does not (now) change any border verts at all, so I don't need any navmesh changes in any other existing cell. When I finalized my exterior navmesh, it showed changes in all four connecting exterior cells. I deleted these cell records altogether, and I thought I was good. When I later finalized my new interior's navmesh, I noticed that the changed exterior cells had reappeared. Since I'm not done on the interior, I'll have to wait to delete those exterior cell changes, but that's okay - as long as I remember that they are there. I just thought it odd.