#why would i want that. skyrim modding tutorial authors

[weedsekatzefollowers]

First of all, an explanation.

WK Followers has been in development for six years. It’s nearly complete, but release is still some time away. Why?

I’d like to start this off by saying that I started conceptualizing this mod as soon as I got my hands on Skyrim back in ‘11. I didn’t have a computer back then (I was still playing on my XBox), so I’d write manuscripts and stories on my crappy laptop. When I got a better laptop a year later, I went straight to work. Skyrim was - just like its predecessors - a wonderful world, full of so much potential, but unfortunately it fell a little... flat... in the story department. I wanted to change that.

But I barely knew where to start. Of course, I knew what I wanted to do, but I had no idea how to implement it. And thus started my year-long journey of familiarizing myself with the Creation Kit. Even after all these years, I still find new ways of optimizing things, and this absolutely needs to be done before I can even think of clicking that “Submit mod” button on the Nexus.

Example (it gets pretty technical at this point, so feel free to skip ahead if you rather wouldn’t bother with this): 

What you see here is the dialogue view. This is were dialogue’s written, voice files added, and so on. It’s also a prime example of sloppy work. I had watched a tutorial once, followed along with it for a single quest, and then forgot everything essential about it and just went on with writing everything down all nilly willy. Every quest, with the exception of the one I mentioned, looks like this. It’s a single top-level dialogue branch with a lot of stuff cramped in there. Why’s that a problem? Well, I’m sure there’s other reasons I haven’t discovered yet. But what I realized far too late was that some dialogue choices simply would not show up. Once there were more than six choices with a higher character count than 70, you would not be able to see the last three choices in-game. So I watched the tutorial again, and lo and behold, answers are supposed to go into their own branch, like this:

... Which is obviously more overseeable and also doesn’t conjure up any more in-game errors.

(Continue here, if you skipped ahead.)

Right now, fixing this up for thousands and thousands of dialogue lines is what’s eating up most of my time. The Creation Kit is pretty unstable, and breaking up links between dialogue topics makes it crash rather often. Every time this happens, I’ll have to load up my mod again, which can take up to five (!) minutes. It’s tedious work. Also, while I’m doing this, I usually check my spelling and grammar as well. I’m multilingual, and although I’d like to think my English is pretty fluent, every now and then I stumble over the odd little error. Furthermore, I’m debugging quite a lot of my scripts these days. Things break, it happens. People have their computers set up differently, not everything’s going to run smoothly. But once these bugs break my quests or the game, I’m drawing the line. Script bloating? Not under my watch. Fortunately, those troubles are resolved fairly quickly. Then of course, there’s model and texture problems.

Six years is a long time. Popular models and textures came and went, and I constantly changed the looks of my followers. But that was never enough for me, I wanted them to look somewhat unique and true to their quirks, traits and background stories. Well, as it turns out, my laptop had other plans. When it died on me, it took the entire first version of my mod with it, the above mentioned included. I had to start from scratch again. I was heartbroken, just about ready to give up (especially because merging .nifs is a pain in the ass). But after a couple of weeks, I pieced myself back together and began anew. ... That was about the time when I explored the Nexus further and found out more about permissions and asset use. You see, I treated the Nexus like an All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet. I took whatever tickled my fancy and never even thought about asking for permission to use it. And oh boy, was it hard for me to message the mod authors about the whole permission issue. Those people had accomplished everything I was trying to do. I don’t know why, but I kept on fearing they’d reject me because I hadn’t shared anything about my plans yet. I was wrong, of course. Some of them were incredibly nice about it, others less so. But I mostly got what I wanted. That being said though... I still need to get permission for three assets I’m currently using. Two of those authors haven’t been on the Nexus in a very long time. I’ve messaged them on there, but the messages haven’t been read yet. Some time ago I heard there’s some sort of timeframe during which an author has to log into the Nexus. Once these six months have expired without them logging in, you are allowed to just freely take those assets. True or not, under no circumstances am I gonna do that. Once the mod is polished up, I’ll try to reach these authors again. If I don’t get any answers, I’ll simply replace those models and textures. Textures haven’t been optimized yet. ... Which leads to an annoying bug that prevents the facial textures from loading if you have a ton of other high-res textures installed. The entire face appears pitch black, then. Except for the eyes. And scars. And the inside of the mouth. It’s the stuff of nightmares, I tell ya. Unused world building meshes and textures haven’t been removed from the Creation Kit and data folders yet. It’s a big mod. We don’t need unnecessary resources crammed in there. Some dungeons haven’t been optimized yet. ... Mainly because I hate room bounds and portals. No matter how close I line these damn boxes up, it never works out. I’ll get to it... eventually. I want to make sure there’s absolutely no continuity errors or plot holes in my stories. ... Because I’m trying to be as lore-friendly as possible and I can’t stand bad writing. In its time, WK Followers saw three different hard drives. Some data files might be missing. Although I’ve not run into any errors regarding this, I’ll still need to check if this might cause troubles. ... And actually I’m dreading this one the most. Two of my old hard drives are entirely destroyed. Can’t access anything on these and since I was very unorganized back then, I might not be able to recover them at all.

And finally... the mod hasn’t been cleaned yet. I’m somewhat familiar with Tes5Edit. This is no big deal. I simply want to wait until I’m done changing things up in my .esp before I get to cleaning. That’s why there’s no release date for the mod yet. But I plan on giving (at the very least) weekly updates on this blog now. And if you did stick around up until now, well that’s great! Thanks so much for your interest in what I’m doing! Here, have a little sneak peek at what’s coming to your computers soon as a little welcome gift! :)

[jamesbyerj]

A soup-erb interview - ElSopa

[b]Today we are talking to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com//users/6960827?tab=user+files]ElSopa[/url] - long-time member of the site, texture artist, and creator of "[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/78537]I can't believe it's not an ENB[/url]" as well as several SkyUI themes and widget designs.[/b] [center][youtube]MA8w4yABPPQ[/youtube][/center][center]Note: features swearing/inappropriate language.[/center] [b]BigBizkit: To start this off, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?[/b] ElSopa: Well, first of all, I want to thank you guys for giving me this space, as you have given other super talented authors! About myself, well it's kind of, let's say, complex? Years ago I used to play this online game, and to make it as short as possible, some really troubled guy got obsessed with me and then I found that he even travelled to my neighbourhood to find me, it was really creepy. Some sort of dangerous stalker, since then I'm very very reluctant to talk about myself online, I hope you understand! But I can say I'm a dentist and I live in Argentina (I found some people who think I'm a woman... sorry guys!). [b]Your username translates to “The Soup”. How did you come up with this soup-erb username?[/b] LMAO When I was young (even younger than today!) I used to watch a TV show called "The Soup". In this online game I mentioned I had a different name in Spanish that sounds really controversial in English, so I changed it to "Soup". Many players were from Argentina and called me "Sopa", so that's the origin of my name.  (I wonder why that question surprises me coming from someone called Bizkit). [center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1567086818-1251225847.jpeg[/img][/center] [center][quote][b][size=3][i]"Fun fact: I don't like soup."[/i][/size][/b] [i][size=2]- ElSopa, modder named after a creamy, tasty liquid commonly known as "soup"[/size][/i][/quote][/center] [b]What kind of mods do you make mostly? How would you describe them? [/b] 90% of my modifications are textures, then there are replacers for icons and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/25417]my beloved SkyUI theme[/url] (it's not abandoned, stop asking :D ). And how would I describe them? Hmmm, I try to add some spark of creativity when possible, for example, I remember a grindstone retexture I did, I added the mark of the foot to the wooden pedal, I guess it's reasonable after so much use. [b] You’ve been a member of the site for over six years now. What got you interested in modding initially and what was your modding journey like?[/b] Oh, my first contribution was [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/38026]a SweetFX preset[/url], it's still there, it's not too nice tbh, but I tried my best to make it better, and after that, I did one called "[url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48554]I Can't Believe It's Not an ENB[/url]". I had a pretty weak PC and running ENBs was impossible for me, so I made this preset to be used in combination with [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17802]Climates of Tamriel[/url] (a weather mod, for those who don't know) trying to make it look like an ENB. It got super popular and people loved it (even Gamwich praised it, I even embedded a screenshot of that to the description page haha). It's still being downloaded years after! After that, I made 3 more ICBINEs. And never had so much fun: for each one I made [url=https://youtu.be/bEAvPB-13Wg]a short animation of a guy having bad experiences with ENBs[/url] and moving to my preset. Watch the 3rd one, it's my favourite. Watching the YouTube views counter explode after each release was so satisfying  :) After that, I realized I couldn't achieve anything better with the shader injectors and stopped for a while. I tried making one for Skyrim Special Edition but I never liked it - maybe there are better alternatives. Then I tried my luck with textures until today and I am still learning. [b]How do you usually go about creating your mods/textures? What tools do you use and how did you learn to use them? [/b] Well, I find something that I think I could improve (at least for me) then I search for textures I like and that are royalty-free, that's important since I don't want to get banned. About the tools I use: I love Paint.NET, it's super lightweight and you can add plugins for many things, I'm really used to that, I tried Photoshop once to warp some textures for a strider but never used it again. I use a program called Mindtex2 for some normals, it's a clone of Crazybump but way cheaper, and Materialize, which is better in my opinion. Then GIMP for giving the final touches on the normals, oh, and I am slowly learning Substance Painter and even more slowly I am learning Blender. That's basically it. I also use Adobe Flash for my icons and all the UI mods -  I was lucky because I got used to it from making animations, without that practice I doubt I would ever touch it, it's kinda tricky and weird. Oh! and how did I learn to use them? Trial and error AND MOTIVATION (aka fun), I get frustrated really fast so I guess those programs are easy to use. [center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1567086745-1236365862.jpeg[/img] [img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1567086748-1697701146.jpeg[/img][/center] [b]How much time passed between you realising that there are ants in Skyrim (yes, it’s a thing!) and you deciding to create [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/26715]a retexture for them[/url]? Could you even play the game without an HD ant retexture at this point?[/b] Hahahaha, well to be fair, my ants retexture must be the 3rd on the site at least. There were others before me I realized later. Yeah I can forget about retextures in-game because I haven't even played the game lately, lol. when I'm sitting in front of the computer I'm making textures, or experimenting to learn more stuff (there are some atrocious experiments that I guess will never see the light of day). [b]Have you ever collaborated with other modders on projects? What was the experience like?[/b] Yeah! Now I can't remember exactly how it was, but thing is, I ended up making some icons for the unique weapons on iEquip (be sure to find them all, there are some cool easter eggs) - it was a great experience, Dunc (the author) was nice and often gave me raw meat, and he even allowed me to go outside the basement dungeon for a bit before resuming my work on the icons. I was also force-... I mean invited to watch all the seasons of Airwolf until I liked it (chained to the wall sadly). Hi Dunc! I was contacted by the Beyond Skyrim team once, too, but I didn't feel I could contribute in a way that was fun to me, so I left. Oh, also I helped some Spanish speaking guys with translations of their modpages, and other small things. And apparently my name will be added to an easter egg for a... uhm... certain Solitude mod. [b]Do you have any favourite mods from other authors?[/b] You know what, I could name the obvious more popular mods everyone already knows, but I'll take this opportunity for naming some talented mod authors that deserve at least a peek at their profiles: [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/470953]mnelson999[/url] is an incredibly talented guy, I used his Nexus Mod Monitor since the ICBINE days until lately when the site changed and made it obsolete, check his profile now!!! [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/1892037]MrNeverLost[/url], what a guy! He helped me a lot with stuff I didn't know about modding, and he is always so kind. [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/55773412?tab=user+files]RayMaster901[/url], he's new to texturing and learning fast! Also, I want to thank [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/28794?tab=user+files]Schlangster[/url] for giving me permission to mod his incredible SkyUI!!! There are others that I'm not mentioning because they are recognized widely, like: [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/34063535?tab=user+files]Dunc001[/url], [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/13953925?tab=user+files]Kojak747[/url], [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/3447031?tab=user+files]QueenieAngel[/url], [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/92893]Cuyima[/url], [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/39335975?tab=user+files]Rallyeator[/url], [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/52194591?tab=user+files]Winedave[/url], sorry if I forgot anyone!!!! Also, [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/11835658]Nazenn[/url]! he's super cool! and we're working on something amazing! [b]What other hobbies do you have?[/b] I love playing the guitar, singing, and keeping up to date with the UFO investigation scene (which is in a sad state lately). Oh and if there's anyone from Argentina (zona sur) playing instruments I want to form a band. [b]Do you have any tips for people who are interested in getting into modding themselves? [/b] Find something you think you could do better or different, and forget about getting instant big results, start with something minimal and see it in-game, even if its some simple line on a texture or whatever. First time I edited a texture, when I saw it in-game, it was like drawing a moustache on Captain Picard's face.  Ask for help, watch a lot of youtube tutorials. [center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1567086742-915956581.jpeg[/img][/center] [b]Is there anything else you would like to say to our community? [/b] That it's great when you find good people and sad when you find the wrong people - focus on the good ones and have lots of fun! And one last message for the people in Argentina please: Aguante los Redondos, Soda, Avant Press, Spinetta y Charly papá! [line] A big thank you to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com//users/6960827?tab=user+files]ElSopa[/url] for taking the time to respond to our questions. As always, if there are any mod authors or mod projects you'd like to hear about, don't hesitate to send a message to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975]Pickysaurus[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597]BigBizkit[/url]. Published first at A soup-erb interview - ElSopa