Sorry if this question is too broad or imposing but I'm trying to get into modding Fallout 4 for the first time, mostly to make armor skins. What're the best tutorials? I've tried searching online but a lot of the tutorials are outdated. (Would also love to know how to bash existing skins together though modelling my own would be fun too). Again sorry for this ask I'm just so lost about how to get into modding lol.
Ahhh do not apologize for asking me about modding fallout. I could talk about the guts of this stupid game all day ahhh
modding grip^
Unfortunately I...don't know any good tutorials. I think a lot of Fo4 modders came over already knowing skyrim or FNV. Most of what I know is based on outdated guides, old loverslab threads, my existing graphic design knowledge, and trial-and-error. I think armour is the best place to start because there are so many tools available (thanks tittymodders!), and you don't have to worry about needing 3DS Max for collisions or animations.
This is the only modding tutorial I've ever watched. It's old, but good to show you a proper workflow and how to set up your files. They use creation kit, but if you're just making armour its way easier to use xEdit. I don't even have the ck installed, I do everything in xEdit.
This is an excellent guide to outfit conversions. It gets pretty in depth, but you really don't need to bother with the dismemberment section if it's just for you. It's for FG reduced but you can use it as a general guide for weighting anything for any body and getting your modded outfit game ready.
Texture edits and outfit conversions are where I started and are probably the easiest. The best thing to do is just poke around mods you like and see how they do it.
Some tools:
xEdit: Plugin editor for creation engine games. If you're doing any kind of modding you should learn how to use this. Esl-flagging, running complex sorter, making bashed patches and making your own compatibility patches are skills you need if you want to run a heavily modded game.
Icestorms texture toolbox: the best texture tool, i use the "batch processing" tab at the end to convert .png (no alpha) and .tga (alpha) files to .dds.
Nvidia texture tools exporter: lets you open .dds file in photoshop with the alpha channel intact. You don't need a nvidia card, I'm all team red. Don't bother using this to export unless you have to, its slow as fuck.
Sagethumbs: Gives .dds files thumbnails in windows explorer.
IrfanView: For quickly viewing texture files without launching photoshop. Also an excellent general image viewer.
Bethesda Archive Extractor: Crack open those .ba2 files and get to the goods.
Material Editor: What it says on the tin, lets you edit Fo4 and Fo76 material files. These are like containers that have the paths to all your textures and how they are to be shaded to attach to .nif files.
NifSkope: View and edit .nif files. Dev 7 is the recommended, but Dev 8 can open Fo76 meshes if you want to backport those.
Outfit Studio: Even if you don't use body replacers, this is an incredible tool for editing and weighting meshes. If you're making armour you need this. This is also where I make most of my mashups: you can pull parts from different outfits, slap them together, and export them quickly and easily.
Blender: It's free and it works. Learning to navigate this is going to be your biggest hurdle but it's worth it, trust me. Thankfully blender has a huge community and hundreds of tutorials. This is where I make my hi poly models and do all my retopo/uvs. I also prefer to use blender to edit meshes because it has more robust editing tools.
PyNifly: What I use to import/export .nif files from blender.
Fo4 is made in the 2013 version of 3DS Max and the havok content tools but i haven't bothered to pirate that yet. You don't need it for armour anyways.
I'm sorry this is so long and rambly. If you have a more specific question I might be more helpful ha.
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More multiverse things, Syn belonging to @seasidemew witnesses the horrors known as Intrusion au and he goes ooooh that's going in my basket
Au ventures
Syn observed the gateway to another dimension it shimmered and crackled like lightning, his tail swished behind him before he slowly passed through. The passageways in this area were usually only one way, not allowing the entities from in the other worlds through because they were considered too dangerous and he wanted to know how bad it really was or if it was just some weaklings over exaggerating. Besides apparently it was a point of interest involving the two mewtwo he'd become curious of.
The rain harshly bit into his skin cold and heavy as the sky rumbled fully blackened, a quick psychic shield helped shelter from the worst of it as he sneered. A blur shot past just in front of him and he vaguely made out glowing yellow, he didn't get to think long as the body was slammed back into the ground by another with a swift downwards kick. They floated in place a short stubby tailed mewtwo, could've been May but the coloring was off as though she was graying sickeningly like, large scars like a claw down her face over her eye a ghostly purple with flecks of glow and the eye itself deep gray with a frantic white pupil that flicked to look at him. The individual started to slowly turn their head to look at him, the other half of their face covered by a robotic helmet.
He readied energy in his palms to use, if they wanted a fight he'd give it they looked like they had plenty energy to take after all. A dark blue hand grabbed their ankle causing them to look before they were slammed down from the sky into the ground, he slowly lowered his hands in some disappointment following the elongated stretched arm to its owner. He smirked recognising the jagged chest crystal, so Darkness was here and mega at that. She didn't let go as her body turned swinging her arm and the person she was holding onto her arm snapping through tree trunks from the sheer speed and force of her momentum before the body of the person slammed into the side of a small rocky mountain.
Her arm retracted back to its usual size as she leapt into the air flying around to the dusty crater she'd created in the mountain hands becoming fists and upon the first sight of the other still inside of the dip her arm shot forward punching straight into their form, pulling back as the other shot out striking again and again and again the sound of bones crunching and flesh being pulverized being beyond audible as he observed with some surprise. He knew Darkness was capable of killing and she'd committed quite a few crimes from what he could gather but even he felt as though the repeated beating of this no doubt fleshy puddle of an individual was a bit excessive.
Her fists were covered in blood and hunks of flesh by the time she finally finished, her tail swaying as she watched the plumes of dust and smoke billow and shift in the gusts of wind. She winced mega form shattering as she grasped at her chest, he could make out bruising even on her dark skin amongst many wounds, clearly he'd arrived at the end of the fight. He moved to go converse to learn what was happening when he spotted the bloody mass twitch.
Their insides were blackened as their body twitched, an arm snapped back into place, repairing itself as their body began to slowly sit up before laughing.
"You think that I just get to die now," he knew that voice, the infectious positive tone now cold bitter and harsh biting with her words as the metal mask fell off of her face in chunks revealing a brown eye. "After all I've dealt with, you think you just get to tell me that's enough as though you have a moral high ground to stand on?" May stood her body still bruised but repaired from the bloody state it had been in.
She lunged forward though he barely registered her move stopped only by a protect barrier weakly formed around the other shadow Pokémon, May swung her tail slamming it into and then through the boundary once more sending Darkness hurtling through the sky right into the ground. She shot upwards as Darkness lay in the dirt with a pained groan. Before she could move May plummeted down slamming feet first into the soft flesh of her sisters stomach forcing out a choked scream as organs ruptured inside her body.
He watched in morbid curiosity as a glow saw May holding down Darkness' chest and arm under her mega evolved foot the other planting itself in the ground as a large hand wrapped the head of the dark hued mewtwo. Darkness pawed with one hand at her sisters arm, crying out in despair as she attempted to move her legs wanting to kick and shove only to find she couldn't.
Darkness started to whimper and cry her grasping becoming desperate choked struggled breaths of pleading and begging attempting to struggle to free her other arm to do anything, he only realized what was happening as he heard the sounds of cracking, Mays hand squeezed compressed and crushed the head of her begging sister an eyeball began to pop from it's socket before with a finally crack and squelch her hand closed into a fist as Darkness stopped moving.
Blood seeped out from the space between her thumb and first finger before her hand slowly opened fingers coated in blood bits of splintered bone and the muscle known as the brain before her flat palm slammed into the ground effectively splattering what was left across the mud. Her bloodied hand lifted and hovered over the crystal still glowing brightly in the chest. Psychic energy covered it and ripped it from the corpse as she stepped off of her sisters body pressing her weight into the shoulder as she shifted causing it to pop, shattering the bone as her feet stepped into the wet mud.
"I know you're in there, can you sense me?" The crystal floated in front of her dripping blood, "hm… this is goodbye." Her mouth opened slowly with black flames waving and flaring out past her lips before she exhaled, the fire flew from her mouth engulfing the synergy crystal that was Darkness, roaring and swirling into the air it reached into the world with it's locks of heat before sizzling away into the rain to nothing leaving behind in the place of the once dazzling yellow orange crystal a dull gray lump devoid of any aura or energy signature. Quietly it splintered and crumbled to dust as she turned her palm letting the last of her sister join the dirt as her body returned to its natural state.
Syn lent backwards where he hovered, processing what he had witnessed, watching the blood mix into the mud and dirt with the rain, the body of the other shadow Pokémon lying there limp and quickly cooling. He looked to May or whatever she'd become as the other looked back with direct eye contact. Hands grabbed his shoulders and he was yanked backwards.
He hit the flooring hard as he was half thrown backwards groaning at the bump which turned into a growl as he snapped his head up, "what was that for?!-" his words quickly died as he stared at the May he recognised stood in front of the gateway. She turned her head to look at him slowly, both eyes brown thankfully.
"You're not meant to go into those other universes without a tether or someone to bring you back, you could've become added to that world." Her usually bright bubbly tone was a bit quieter and more serious than usual. She moved over to him, walking and held her hand out to him. "Sorry for throwing you like that, I saw you go through and worried you might have already become too intertwined to come back without a fight." He took her hand as she helped pull him up, registering the strength and grip of her hold.
His expression melted into that of calm and confidence, "nice to know you worry about me," his eyes scanned her over seeing her expression turn unimpressed. "Thank you, for the lifeline out of there." She raised an eyebrow but seemed to accept it, sighing as she took her hand back turning towards the building and after a beat he moved to follow.
"So, have you ever been through that passageway?" He inquired, wondering what she knew of that world and what she could tell him.
"I don't need to, a version of me already exists in there, and so I know everything that she knows."
"Was that you that I saw?"
"Yes," her tone was somber, her expression falling slightly as he regarded her.
"You must hate her for what she did then? And whatever else she's done." He couldn't help but prod at the subject to see what information that she would give, after what he just witnessed he was overflowing with questions, from what he gathered of her she was very protective of her family so what changed? He needed to know. What could drive her to such brutality. His curiosity was between caution and morbid intrigue to learn how far she could be pushed. A May with such durability and coldness joined in a hivemind with him would be certainly something.
"I can't hate her, I know what she's been through, I have felt it all from the emotions to the pain. I pity her and hope one day her hurting stops even if she's done horrible things. She's me, after all," May turned her head and for a moment her eye was gray, her white pupil meeting his, "she hates herself enough." with a blink her eye was brown and she stepped into the building leaving his line of sight.
Syn hovered outside with more questions than answers, but he did know one thing, the more he learnt the more he wanted to know. He shook his head floating into the building, maybe he could learn more from Darkness.
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