windows
Chapter 5 - testing your mods
Chapter 5 - Saving and Testing Your Mod
You finished you mod. Your plug-in is ready to be uploaded for others to enjoy. Did you
test it? Did you clean it? What do I mean??… You got a little more work to do before
you upload your mod. This chapter I will help you figure out if your mod is dirty and
hopefully get as much testing done as possible, without causing problems for your mod.
Creating a Mod:
It’s so simple. The CS is so easy to use, right? Well, it actually is, despite how it may
seem at first (ever worked with a professional auto-cad program?). When the CS first
starts you have a blank world, almost no objects, no races, factions, etc. The pull to create
a new world is tempting for some (a Total Conversion). For others it is the chance to
tweak the game to make it easier, or more difficult. To others it is the opportunity to
expand an area of the game, basically, to make it more fun. The best thing you can do
when starting is to take your idea, or vision, and write it down. Give it some focus. If
your vision is just to create a new race, or make a house, that’s pretty simple and you
probably don’t need to write out a mission statement. But if you’re going create a mod
with new areas, NPCs, quests, items, etc. Write down the storyline, this will help you stay
on track as to what you’re doing, and why. If the idea changes, fine, go with it. But this
will also keep your idea pure. If while working on one mod you get the idea for another,
write it out and work on it separately. Unless you’ve got some experience creating mods,
try not to combine ideas. Keep them separate, and if one would work well in the other
you can always combine one with another. Keeping them separate can also help to keep
the debugging process simpler. Working on just one project at a time also keeps you on
track for completing it. If you work on three different mods at once, none will be done till
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you’ve completed all three. These are just suggestions, everyone has their own style of
doing things.
What is your base .esm(s)?
Will your mod be dependent on only Oblivion? Maybe Oblivion and KOTN? SI? What
patches do you have installed? Make sure you decide and note this in the readme.txt.
Save some grief for those who want your mod, download it, and discover they can’t play
it because you didn’t mention that you used Oblivion.esm and KOTN.esm as the
dependent files for your plug-in, but they only have SI so far. If you want to make a name
for yourself don’t make it a bad one.
Take notes, lots of notes:
Use a notebook to keep track. Write down any objects you create by ID, the changes you
made (if any), what cell you put it in, or even the grid. Created some interiors? Keep a
running tab of all objects used for that interior, scripts you’ve attached to objects (and
what objects), reason for that interior (it’s purpose). Making a quest? Write out a timeline
of events and things that have to happen (and those that could happen), especially if you
have more than one event taking place during the quest.
Test you plug-in:
Most people do this; mostly because they want to play the great mod they created. But
you have to do more than that. You have to explore every part of the mod you create. If
you place an NPC in your mod with dialog, click on every response to verify you get
every response you gave them. If you write a script, get it to activate and test every
possible condition you wrote into it. If you create objects, use them and test them under
every circumstance you can think of. This is how you find bugs, and how others will find
them if you don’t when they play your mod. This takes time too, which is why we hail
beta testers.
User created objects:
Plan on using objects created by someone else you found in a mod you liked? Did you
get permission to do so from the plug-in’s author? The information on how to contact an
author should be included with any plug-in readme.txt file. If one isn’t included, where
ever you downloaded the plug-in from should have had some kind of statement or at least
the name of who submitted the plug-in. You should always make every attempt to get
permission to use anything someone else created. If you don’t and that author takes
exception you could be sued. Plus, that’s just showing respect for the work someone else
did. Most are willing to let you ‘borrow’ their work if you just ask. Are you including
new objects personally created by someone? Do you know how to find and include the
correct
.nif
,
.kif
,
.tga
,
.dds
, or
.bmp
files in the package to upload? This could be a
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problem. If you forget to include the files that didn’t come with the game, your mod
won’t work right.
Compress the plug-in:
Always compress the plug-in and any associated files needed by it. This makes it smaller
so it is easier to upload, and also download. What utility you wish to use is up to you. The
help feature of the utility should tell you how to create a zipped file and how to add files
to it.
Beta Test it:
Send it to some friends or find someone to do a test of your plug-in at a web site’s forum.
There are always people willing to beta test a plug-in. They can let you know what bugs
and problems they find that you missed. If you just create a simple plug-in with a few
changes or things added you probably don’t need to go through all this to verify that it
works correctly and did everything right. But it won’t hurt if you do. These are things you
can do to keep your plug-in clean and bug free, and the bigger it is, the more things you
do in it, the greater the chance of problems. Why go through all the work you did only to
have people upset because it’s buggy, or unplayable. Avoid the bad karma, do the little
extra time and effort to make sure your mod is good to go.
What’s with the little * thingy?
It’s called an asterisk. What is does though is let you (or anyone) know what you have
changed in your plug-in. If you see any object’s ID name with an asterisk next to it, it
means at some point you modified or at least did something to that object. If you didn’t
make a change, but the object has an asterisk, congratulations, you have a dirty plug-in.
How to fix? Make a note of any such objects you know you don’t want any changes to,
and clean it out by using the Details button on the Data window, or use a utility if you
wish. Read on below under the Cleaning the Unclean section.
Note: Only the active plug-in will display an asterisk next to objects that have been
altered, but all objects will be listed in the Objects Window for all plug-ins loaded, active
or not.
Cleaning the Unclean:
Clean your mod. Sounds like something your mother might say. But it needs to be done.
A dirty plug-in is usually larger than necessary (as in file size). This means it takes longer
to download, and a big file may be a factor for some choosing what to download.
Someone who isn’t diligent enough to clean a plug-in most likely isn’t diligent enough to
debug either (that’s my opinion though), and we all love buggy games, don’t we
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(*cough, cough*… daggerfall… *cough*). There are several utilities that can be used to
help clean a plug-in (see Chapter 6), or you can use the CS itself.
To Clean:
Start the CS, do not load your plug-in. Open the Data window and find your plug-in,
highlight it. Do not click on any other files. Click on the ‘Details’ button at the
bottom of the window. This will bring up a new window. This window allows you to
see all the changes you’ve made to your mod. On the far left is a column that states
what the changed object is. The fourth column shows the object ID. The fifth column
is the offset, if you don’t like to hex edit files, don’t worry about it. If you see an
object you do not want in your mod, or an object you didn’t mean to make a change
too (a spec of dirt I guess you could say), highlight the object you wish to remove
from your mod. Now tap your ‘delete’ key. The CS will prompt you, stating that this
object’s change will be ignored and not loaded if you continue and load the plug-in,
effectively deleting this change. For this to work you MUST load your plug-in after
marking all objects you want purged, and then save it! This is important! This is how
you clean your mod of mistakes you’ve made by making changes to things you had
not meant to.
The first column is your clue as to what an object is. Some of these are obvious. Here
is a list and what they refer to:
ACTI – Activator.
ALCH – Potion.
AMMO – Ammunition.
ANIO - Animated object.
APPA – Apparatus.
ARMO – Armor.
BOOK – Book.
BSGN – Birthsign.
CELL – Cell.
CLAS – Class.
CLOT – Clothing.
CLMT – Climate.
CONT – Container.
CREA – Creature.
CSTY - Combat style.
DIAL – Dialog.
DOOR – Door.
EFSH - Effect shaders.
ENCH – Enchantment.
EYES – Eyes.
FACT – Faction.
FLOR – Flora.
FURN – Furniture.
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GRAS – Grass.
GLOB - Global Variable.
GMST - Game Setting.
HAIR – Hair.
IDLE - Idle animation.
INGR – Ingredient.
KEYM – Key.
LIGH – Light.
LVLC - Leveled Creature.
LVLI - Leveled Item .
LVSP - Leveled Spell.
LTEX - Land texture
MGEF - Magic effects
MISC - Miscellaneous item
NPC - Non-player character
PACK – Package
QUST – Quest
RACE – Race
REGN – Region
SBSP – Subspace
SCPT – Script
SGST - Sigil stone
SKIL – Skill
SLGM - Soul gem
SOUN – Sound
SPEL – Spell
STAT – Static
TREE – Tree
WATR – Water
WEAP – Weapon
WRLD - World space
WTHR - Weather
I believe I have listed almost all, if not all.
The second column shows objects that are part of an
.esm
file that has been deleted in
your plug-in. You can’t actually delete an object from an
.esm
file, so the object is still
present in the
.esm
, but will always be shown that you deleted it in your plug-in (deleting
objects from an
.esm
is not a good idea, deleting references is better. Try to avoid
deleting objects that are part of an
.esm
.). When your plug-in is loaded by the game it
will not load this object. Objects created within a plug-in, not part of an
.esm
, are truly
deleted and do not show up in this column.
The third column shows those that you wish to ‘ignore’ (delete). These are the objects
and changes you wish to remove from an
.esp
.
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Note: References cannot be deleted from here. You do that by loading an
.esp
, and then
opening a cell where the reference is placed, select it in the Render Window, then click
delete. Or you could just delete it from the object window (if user created, not part of an
.esm
).
Respecting things other people make:
If you wish to use something done by someone else, it’s probably ok. But show some
respect. They worked hard to make it, and want some recognition for having done so.
Don’t just add something you found in another plug-in to yours off handedly. Know who
made the plug-in, and make an effort to contact them and ask for permission to include
their work in your own. Often you will find a readme.txt file that will state that the author
of a plug-in will allow this without contacting them. Usually there are certain limitations,
such as including giving them credit for what you are including in your plug-in. Some
may want you to do more. This is important, for while many may be willing to overlook a
mod that included an object they created, some may not. There are plug-ins floating
around the net that contain objects created by professionals using expensive software. If
you don’t credit them for their work and you use it in your plug-in, they could take legal
action against you. I admit, I have yet to hear of a single case of this. But it’s also a
matter of respect. You may wonder why I included this section. Because I’ve found plug-
in readme.txt files stating they got an object from this plug-in called ‘something’ and
another object from some website they can’t remember the name of. Or they used some
scripts they liked from another mod without specifically naming the plug-in or its author.
Simply put, I think that’s bull. Show some respect, and give credit where it’s due.
Thinking of NPCs Names:
One of the worst things when making a mod, a total conversation, is thinking of names to
give to your NPCs, my recommended way is using a name generator; preferably this
which is a free and easy to use tool.
Making a ReadMe:
You know you have to include a readme in with your mod, but how do you make it? This
small template should give you an idea, you are free to use this and make a readme for
you mod; no credit needs to be given.
-----------------------------------
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
TemplateMod
-----------------------------------
Author: TemplateAuthor
Version: V1.0
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Requirements:
Requires Official Oblivion Patch 1.2.404
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Description:
---------------
TemplateMod adds a small buyable house just outside of Chorrol near the stables. The
house costs 3000 gold and can be purchased from the count of Chorrol.
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Installation:
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Extract all the files from the ZIP into your Oblivion\Data director.
Activate TemplateMod.esp file from Data Files in the Oblivion Launcher.
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Uninstalling:
---------------
Delete the following file:
TemplateMod.esp
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Version History:
-------------------
1.0
- Initial Release:
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Credits:
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Thanks to TemplatePerson for providing help about scripting.
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Contact:
----------
Contact me at:
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