I want to make a couple of mods with the CK, but I am a total noob. I am not asking for help, I love learning new programs. But I'm just trying to gauge the effort I will require.

If I list my ideas, could some modders tell me how easy it would be to learn the systems to create them. Keep in mind, I personally picked up Photoshop in about a week - so thats my learning speed.

1. Adding a rare animal with high HP and Damage, this animal will have a unique texture, but the same model as original skyrim (so no new meshes)

EDIT, EXAMPLE:

I should say I already know how to retexture mostly.

I just need to know how hard it will be to make say, a copy of the chicken, but only make 1, make it a differet color and put it on the top of a mountain, where it has 1000 HP and 100 DMG, lol.

Thats essentially what I want to do with the animal.

2. Adding an NPC that talks to the player and gives dialogue options

How difficult will these be for noobs?

Thanks!

Hardest part will be the dialogue. Placing objects and handling menus is really dependent on how the interface is handled.

IMO the only hard part of the old construction sets was the damn camera controls XD Hope they have a slightly better system this time around... or at least better default settings!

The ideas you want to implement are not exceptionally advanced, you could probably learn how to do what you want fairly easily with some wiki documentation, but I'd wager on it taking longer than a week to properly familiarize yourself with the ins and outs of modding with the CK.

it's actually pretty straight forward. Editing weapons, npcs, items, locations, etc... is pretty much self-explanatory. Most of the time it's just 'right click and select what you want' (if I'm not mistaken. It has been about a year or two since I used the last one) Most of the construction kits in the past have been fairly 'user-friendly', for the most part anyways.
scripting (to me) was always the funky part. I always tended to mess something up...

In all likely-hood, for what you want to do there, you shouldn't have a problem.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there was even an option (from the last construction set) in the item or character menu to pick the location of the texture you want to use.

You can learn the CK fairly quickly and easily. But it will take a long time and a lot of practice to master it.

The wild card is the dialogue. They've changed the dialogue system from Oblivion's CS significantly, so we can't tell how much easier or harder that'll be. There's also the issue of voicing it, of course.

Your cat shoudl be able to whip up an "I am the cheese" mod in under 5 min. Thats the only valid test of a creation kit.

I would say Dialog and this new scripting thing will be the hardest, however GECK was very simple to learn dialog much more so I felt then Oblivion so maybe they learned from that.

I disagree with some of the others here. In the long run you may find that your rare animal is the hardest to do. The reason I say this is that you will have to learn three programs, not just one.

Unique textures are created with graphics software such as Photo Shop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp, ect. The texture is then applied with a different graphics program that works with meshes, such as 3ds Max or NifSkope. Only after that is finished will you turn to the CK to put your animal into the gameworld.

Whether your rare animal really does turn out to be harder than your NPC depends largely on what you want your NPC to do and say. If you have something really extensive planned then the NPC might be harder than the animal. If you want to add a merchant who offers a single service or has one line of unique dialog then the NPC might be easier to pull off than the animal.

At any rate, it may be some time before the CK feels 'second nature' to you. It took me about two months to feel at home with Morrowind's Construction Set. It took my partner, Brash, about a month. We both felt pretty lost until then. It would probably be best to make a few very small test mods first to get acquainted (alter the stat of a weapon, add a bucket to an interior, ect). Take it slow in the beginning so you don't get frustrated.

Good luck!

I should say I already know how to retexture mostly.

I just need to know how hard it will be to make say, a copy of the chicken, but only make 1, make it a differet color and put it on the top of a mountain, where it has 1000 HP and 100 DMG, lol.

Thats essentially what I want to do with the animal.

ime, the world editor is incredibly easy to use. The tough stuff is 3d modeling and scripting. If all you want to do is use existing game assets in different ways/places it will be no problem.

Scripts and complex quests design.

Yeah kinda.. although it's not easy to make "good" mods. Just because you can build a house that doesn't mean it will look good. You need to have an eye for details and how to place statics, lights etc.

I'd say you would need a year or two to truly master the CK.

That's really easy, you just make a copy of the existing chicken NIF file, rename it, open the NIF file in NifSkope, change the texture paths in there to your new texture file, then save. Then you go in the CK, duplicate an existing Chicken creature form, then 'edit' it's data and change the NIF path to your NIF file with updated texture paths. Also change it's Health and Damage there, and adjust the confidence/aggression value so it can attack (I hope for you there is an attack animation for chickens). Then accept, find the mountain in the render window and drag the form into the render window to add a reference of your Chicken form to the world. Reposition it correctly, save the plugin, activate the plugin and play the game.

It's not hard at all.

That sounds great!

The only ones that can answer that are still under NDA.

We obviously wont know for ourselves til later today(or tommorow for some folks who fear the servers will get Sonic the Hedgehog'd)

Yes, it's based on previous kits.

Chicken: Pretty easy, once you have your texture done, you make a copy in the CK of the chicken, point it to your new texture, change it's properties to 1000HP 100DMG, double click the area (worldspace) for the mountain you want it on, drag and drop, use the mouse to fine tune the position.

In addition, the NPC is pretty much identical. If you plan on custom dialog that can get a little harder but nothing you shouldn't be able to master within an hour of learning. (dialogs aren't drag & drop so thats why I say it's harder. But still pretty easy if you take time to figure it out.)

Couldn't he just make an ingame texture set instead?

If I want the chicken to attack people will I need to do anything special or will agressive chickens do damage?

There are tutorials on the Wiki that will walk you through making various types of mods. Spend time with that and the CK and you will get a handle on how to do things.

If you have never modded before, check out the Wiki's on Fallout:New Vegas and Oblivion, the major steps to making a mod have not changed. That will get you familiar with the interface and structure of the program.

He's already stated that he knows how to use graphics editing programs - assuming the NifSkope export goes smoothly, changing a texture on a pre-existing model just takes a few clicks.

As someone who's previously used editors with more...arcane control schemes and workflow, such as Hammer, UDK and things for old DOS games, I'll tell you that the Elder Scrolls construction sets are actually quite straightforward. Almost WYSIWYG, even - placing objects is simply drag n' drop, you don't really "compile" anything outside of scripts, and the new CK will have even better in-editor renderings for water and lighting. It'll probably take you some time to feel at home with the camera controls, but the CK ought to be relatively easy for you to learn. It just takes time to master, as Pseron stated.

EDIT: And modelling is hell. Over the years I've seen to every role and every aspect of game design and modding, except modelling. That's the only real timesink if you're looking to produce a full-fledged mod with new content by yourself.

I loved those camera controls