I'm hitting the 3rd year anniversary of when I started modding, and it made me think; When I got started, people really really helped me. I was clueless. Adrift in the ocean, and the people here were so helpful. They got me started, and answered the thousands of questions I've asked. So I want to do the same. Both for them, and for newer people just getting started.

I'm on the forums for a majority of every day, and while answering questions directly when I can is fun, I can't be here all the time. (And there are often periods when none of the more knowledgeable people are on) This is where tutorials come in handy. You guys can learn things on your own without us being here to directly help. I've been pondering doing video tutorials lately (I may have even posted about it before... long ago), but there's one thing I can't decide.

What kind of tutorials do you guys want to see?

Now I'm open to most suggestions, except for the following areas:

- Things outside of the CK. Not only do I know little about, but there are generally a lot of tutorials on things like photoshop, modeling programs, utilities, nifskope, etc.
- Scripting. This isn't really something you can easily do many tutorials on. You just kind of have to learn the functions, and apply them to your specific situation.

I'd love to do tutorials in the following areas, but I'm not sure if there's a demand:

- Level Design. I see soooo many mods that have 'not super awesome' level design, but nobody ever seems to ask for tips on this or tutorials. There are a lot of 'rules' you can follow to make your levels far more enjoyable for the player.
- Quest Design. Both practice and implementation. There's a lot of things you should avoid when planning and setting up a quest. Or maybe you're confused by the actual setting up of the quest. Keep in mind Beth has a lot of great tutorials on this, so I'd try not to overlap. (I.E. no basic stuff like 'basic scenes')
- Voice Acting. Getting a team and managing them. This is a big one. I seem to be one of only a few people who make mods that are voiced by professionals. It's not hard, you just need to know a few things to make it happen.
- Writing a Good Story. Writing stories in general, and stories for video games (Skyrim, more specifically) is very VERY different. I think I have a lot of helpful pointers to make people experience your story and go, "Wow, that was amazing."

I'm sure I'll add to that list as things come to mind. Let me know if you guys would like to see any tutorials. If nobody really seems to want anything from me, I'll just keep working on my mods and helping you guys when I can.

Thanks,
Alexander J. Velicky

I don't have a request, but I do have a bit of experience to share here. I find that the most useful tutorials to write, based on how often I recommend them to others, are the ones that answer the questions I find myself answering most often.

For example, when Papyrus was new one problem that I was seeing everywhere was people trying to use editorIDs directly in scripts, so I wrote my http://www.cipscis.com/skyrim/tutorials/editorids.aspx tutorial. Some months have passed since then, and I don't see so many people with this problem, and I like to think I had something to do with that.

If you pick an issue that you have a lot of experience helping people with, then you'll be picking an issue with which you have plenty of experience and which others will likely find useful, which sounds like a prime candidate for a tutorial to me.

Best of luck!

Cipscis

I sure would be looking at a level design tutorial.
My limited experience is with Oblivion - snap pieces together, drop some clutter, toss in a couple of lights and creatures and you were pretty much done.
With Skyrim it's a major difference. I get light headed just thinking about all the options...

I would definetly want to see a tut on video with step by step on how to edit actor nif files and get them working back to the game.

I would benefit with a precise step-by-step way to remove dirty edits without destroying your mod or the game.
Using, of course the CK's File> Data > details method.
I have some major corruption in Warehouse Ambushes, caused by the CK importing major statics from my exterior into this interior space.
I am scared to touch those areas now.

I think I can configure them for deletion (ignore) on the data details, but I want step1, open the CK; step2, go to File data and ... level of details so I don't eff things up somehow.

there are plenty of tutorials on the other subject but Voice acting stuff is one I couln't find and I woul have to make a lot of questions on the forums , one about that woudl be nice ...

I think your ideas sound great, especially Quest and Story design.

LOD using ck only, no third party tools, that would be awesome.

There is already ...

http://www.creationkit.com/Creating_a_Custom_Worldspace_with_LOD

Massive use of third party tools, I was asking, if possible, for one that uses only ck (if that's possible and considering the recent update).

Thanks.

A tutorial on landscaping / heightmap / world space creation would be nice.

Thanks for even considering helping out like this!

I'd be most interested in something on acquiring and managing voice acting talent (not that any of the other ideas are bad ideas). Where have you had the most success finding people, what information do you need to provide up-front before an agreement is reached, how formal/informal are agreements, what sort of timeframes should we expect each stage in the process to take, etc.

Creating new landscapes would be useful, height maps etc

As always, very sound advice. That makes a lot of sense. Though most of what I see is scripting help, I'll definitely take a closer look for ideas on commonly-asked questions that I could do tutorials on.
Since nif's cannot be edited in the CK, that would fall under the purview of 'outside of the CK'.
Well you could always make LOD with the CK only. Though land LOD was bugged, it may not be anymore. I'll have to test it. (Though it takes FOREVER to generate... )

I think my first tutorial will be on voice acting, since a lot of you seem very interested on that. Then I'll probably follow with LOD, since I haven't seen any well made video tutorials on that yet.


Is there a time limit on these you guys would prefer? I'm pretty good at thoroughly explaining things, but I don't want to make a 45 minute tutorial. Do you guys care how long they are? (Should they be as long as they 'need' to be?) I can go really into detail and make them longer, or I could cut down a bit and make them shorter. (I would say we're looking at probably 5-10 minutes for shorter, but like 15-25 for longer?)

If you're making video tutorials, could I put in a plea for transcripts?

I have a request and I have no idea if what I'm going to ask relates to the tutorials you are willing to offer. I just do basic modding.

I'd like to make a mod that would allow dragons attacking towns and people a little while after Alduin has destroyed Helgen, even if we haven't begun the Dragon Rising quest. I'd like to do this because I don't find logical that we must have killed our first dragon and officially been acknowledged as the Dragonborn so that dragons begin showing up. Is this clear?

I would love to know how to do that.

Like a document of what I said in the video? If I did that it would probably just be words, no pictures or anything. That's the point of the video tutorial.
Yeah, that's really specific. And all the tools you need are there. Look at the Beth tutorials for quests, then dig around to find what lets dragons spawn and cause that to change.

Thank you!

I'm surprised that such a mod doesn't already exist.

Voice acting? Problem isn't voice acting, problem is actors, they are few and don't share our schedules.

All I can think of is LOD, LOD, LOD, LOD....

Anyone that asks for other thing but LOD I'm pretty sure that he didn't try to make it, LOD = nightmare

Oh, I meant more like, too specific. If anything I would do a tutorial on some aspect of quests or something, not necessarily just how to do that.
Well aparantly texture LOD with an esm has been fixed, but the CK takes FOREVER to make it. So if I did a tutorial, I would still use Oscape. It's faster and easier, and it's like the least intrusive third party program that exists. (No installation, it runs entirely in itself, no strings attached)

And voice actors are plentiful, you just need to know where to look. And as long as your schedule isn't "I need this dialogue in two hours" then they make it work. You have to remember that voice actors do that because they enjoy it. They want to voice your project, so they'll make it work.

Anyway, you pointed me to the right direction. I've found the forms; made some changes, saved; now I just have to try the mod.

I still think that the issue isn't making it, all you have to do is put the voice files in the right place, problem is getting them to do it, normally I use Tes Alliance. But I'm pretty sure it's useful, but not difficult as LOD.

If you do make a LOD tutorial, PLEASE make it step by step, all others miss important steps and are confusing, it's important for the person that reads the tutorial to know EXACTLY were to place files and the such, every button and option is important, because normally everything can break your game.

Thanks.

That would be fine. Having the words means a) that deaf people can use it and b ) that the rest of us can search for things easily. Otherwise remembering which video tutorial contained just a particular thing gets difficult, particularly if the same person makes a lot of them - which I hope you will.

I really want to learn how to replace existing animations such as running with a dagger out (not sprinting), with for example another existing animation already present in Skyrim, as I wasn't able to find ANY CK tutorials on the internet doing anything involving human animations. What I'd love to see in this tutorial would be where in the CK to find these animations, how to replace an existing one and seeing a test example in game.

Cheers for the thread!

How to make a fetch quest

Other than that, other peoples suggestions are good Alex