ES4 Oblivion Modding beginner's tutorial


How to edit/make your own 3d models and textures using 3D Studio Max, and Photoshop, and inserting them into the Elder Scrolls Oblivion. - v1.0 by psychoticworm

Ok so you want to be able to put your own made stuff into oblivion right? Well to tell you the truth, the programs that are out now don't support putting in EVERY kind of object. There are a few things that do work tho: You can make/insert/use your own made weapons, make/insert/use your own made armor, and even insert unusable structures that just make the game look cool(statues, clutter, etc..) The game itself was made with various different file types then we're used to. NIF(GameBryo Format File) file types for 3d models(everything from houses, items, horses, trees, people); and DDS(Direct Draw Surface) file types for all the textures in the game.


This tutorial will basically guide you through just getting a simple Cube with textures into the game, that is unusable, so that you can see it in the game while you are playing with a plugin file enabled. I'll be using 3D Studio Max, but you can use any other 3d program you wish. If your not going to be using 3ds max, or if you would like to know how to make more complex objects, search the net for some handy tutorials.



--------GETTING THE FILES YOU WILL NEED AND PUTTING THEM ALL IN THE RIGHT PLACE--------

Now before you get all excited here are a few programs/files you will need to begin with:



-Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion(the game itself *duh*)

-TES Construction Set for Oblivion(this program DOES NOT come with the game, you have to download it from the elder scrolls website

http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/updates_utilities.htm)

-3D Studio Max 8.0(This program allows you to make 3d models you will use in the game)

-Adobe Photoshop(This is the program you use to create your own images and textures)

-TES4BSA(This program unpacks .bsa files

-CivilizationIV-MaxTools-v7+(This allows the user to create stuff in 3d Studio Max and export them to .nif file types)



Then go here: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html and download these 3 things and save them to your desktop:

-DDS Utilities

-3ds max .dds Plug-ins

-Adobe Photoshop Normal Map and DDS Authoring Plug-ins

These 3 install files make it so that .dds image types are supported in Photoshop and 3DSMax. If you do a google search, you should be able to find how to get all of those programs.


First off, you want to install 3d Studio Max and install Adobe photoshop. Make sure they are not just trial versions(not sure if any of this will work if they are)

Then you need to run the 3 install packages: DDS Utilities, 3ds max .dds Plug-ins, and Adobe Photoshop Normal Map and DDS Authoring Plug-ins.


Next, you need to extract the CivilizationIV-MaxTools-v7+.zip into its own folder(put it on the desktop just to make things easier). And I'm not sure if its necessary to cut the contents of it piece by piece, but we will do it this way just in case.

-Just highlight everything EXCEPT the 3 folders, cut and paste it in your 3ds max directory:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8

-Now you need to take care of the 3 folders. Double click on the plugins folder, cut everything in it, and paste it all in:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8\Plugins

-Now double click on the scripts folder, cut the "CivilizationIV" folder and paste it in here:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8\Scripts

-Now go into CivilizationIV-MaxTools-v7+\scripts\startup\ and cut everthing there and paste it in here:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8\Scripts\Startup

-Now go into the UI folder, open up macroscripts, cut everything there and paste it into here:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8\UI\MacroScripts

-Now go into the Icons folder CivilizationIV-MaxTools-v7+\UI\Icons\ cut everything there, and paste it in here:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8\UI\Icons

-Then take the 2 last files CivilizationIVTools-Max7.cui and CivilizationIVTools-Max6.cui and put them here:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax8\UI

Now if you did everything right, there shouldn't be anything left in the CivilizationIV-MaxTools-v7+ folder(except for some empty folders), and you shouldn't have gotten any messages asking to replace any existing file.

Its probably not necessary to get all of those files in your 3ds max folder(I think you only need a few of them for this tutorial) But it helps so that if you want to get into modding more for oblivion in the future, you have all the materials you need(for now).


After you do all that you should only need to use the TES4BSA file. This file isn't really necessary to use for this particular tutorial, but you might want to do it, so that you can access all the nif and dds files for oblivion if you want to. All you do is you have to copy these 3 files that are in your Oblivion/Data folder:

Oblivion - Meshes.bsa
Oblivion - Misc.bsa
Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa

then go and make a new folder somewhere else on your hard drive, lets say C:\BSA\ and paste those files in there. Also take the TES4BSA.zip, extract it, and put tes4bsa.exe it in the same folder.

Now press Start>Run, type in the word 'cmd'

A black window should come up, type in the following:

C: (press enter)
cd \BSA (press enter)
tes4bsa unpack "Oblivion - Meshes.bsa" (press enter)
if you did it right you should see the black window go crazy with a bunch of lines going upwards. This means that its unpacking the files(kind of like extracting a zip file). After its done, do the same thing for "Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa" and "Oblivion - Misc.bsa"

After its all done, you should now have 3 folders named meshes, misc, and textures.
Copy all 3 of those folders, and paste them in your Oblivon\Data\ directory




--------MAKING YOUR OWN .DDS TEXTURES--------

In order to see your own made textures in the game, you need to learn the steps on how to make a .dds file, which is pretty simple!

First, download the image/texture you want to put onto the 3d model you will be making later(you could make your own if you want to, and if you know how to use photoshop)

Just so that we are on the same page, go here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v153/psychoticworm/textures/crate.jpg and save that picture to your desktop.

Right click on it, go to Open With>Choose Program> and look for Adobe Photoshop.

Now you should be in adobe photoshop with a canvas of the texture you just downloaded. Now go to File>Save As... and choose the format from the drop down menu "D3D\DDS (*.DDS)" name it "aaacrate.dds" and save. You should get a pop up window. Make sure the littel section that says "MIP Map Generation" the last option is checked(No MIP maps). Then press save. Now cut and paste that into C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\textures\



--------MAKING A CUBE IN 3DS MAX--------

Now open up 3D Studio Max.

Click on the Materials Editor Window in the upper right corner of the screen.


In the Blinn Basic Paramaters window, Click the little grey square box next to "Opacity"


Double Click on Bitmap


Find "aaacrate.dds" that you saved to your Oblivion\Data\Textures\ folder and open it.

Now one of the Balls in the Materials Editor Window should have the texture on it, and it should be a little transparent(dont worry, it won't look like this in the game)

Now In the Materials Editor window, there should be a little curved black colored arrow pointing up, its right under the 6th ball. It should be called "Go To Parent". Press that, and then to the left of that small "Opacity" window there should be another little grey box to the right of the word "Diffuse" click on the tiny square box, and choose the same exact file aaacrate.dds.

Now minimize the materials editor window, And your going to just make a box. On the panel to the right of the screen, under "Object Type" click "Box" and make sure the "Cube" option under it is checked.


Now in the window labeled "Perspective, just click and drag your mouse to make a box.

You should have something that looks like this(it doesn't matter what color it is):


Now open back up the Materials Editor, and just click and drag the texture from the circle to the box.

Then go to File>Save As... and save it as "aaacrate.max" and save it to the desktop.

Then go to File>Export...and for the Save as Type drop down menu, choose "CivilizationIV (*.KF, *.NIF, *.NIF)" and name it aaacrate.nif and save it to C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\meshes


Save it. A popup will come up, don't change anything, just press OK.




--------PLACING THE BOX IN THE GAME SOMEWHERE AND PLAYING AND BEING ABLE TO SEE IT--------

Ok this is basically the last step. Open up TES Construction Set.

Click File > Data and double click on Oblivion.esm and press OK.(it will take awhile to load, you can see what percent its at at the bottom of the window)

Now, first we need to bring your item into the Construction Set "Library"

In the Window labeled "Object Window" click the plus sign on "WorldObjects" then click the plus on "Static" then click the plus on "Clutter" and then click on "Farm"

There should be 5 or 6 things that show up in the white space seperated by lines. These are objects used in the game. You want to make a new one, so right click on the white space there, and click New. For the ID name it aaacrate1 and then click on the "Add NIF File" button. Find your Oblvion\Data\Meshes folder, and choose the aaacrate.nif that we put in there earlier. then click ok. you will see that it doesnt show up, but dont worry! Just click on the Bolded word Static, and it should be at the top of the list somewhere. Now that you found your new item, we need to place it somewhere.

In the Cell View window, make sure it says Interiors, and in the editor ID find "AnvilAbandonedHouse" and double click on it. This will be our testing ground to see what the object will look like. It should load in the Render window, and it will be very small. just click somewhere on the room and press T on your keyboard(this action sort of zooms in and centers itself right above the room). Zoom in a little bit using the mousewheel, and rotate your view by holding down the shift button. Play around with it an get used to the controls for awhile. Then try to get to a view somewhat like this:


We will just place the box in the corner of that house, in front of that boarded up hallway. All you do is drag and drop aaacrate into the Render Window. If you did everything right in all the previous steps, you should see the box with the texture that we saved on it!. Now just move it around by clicking on it and drop it to sit on the ground(you move the box up and down by holding the Z button on the keyboard). Once you got it where you want it, you may want to Resize it because how small it is. So double click on it(an error will come up about something talking about lighting, just press Yes to all) and in the Scale Section, bring it up to something like 2.000. Now make sure you move it around in the place you want it, and that its touching the ground.

Next go to File > Save and name it aaamyfirstmod and click Save.

Now minimize all open windows, Click on oblivion, click on Data Files, and double click on aaamyfirstmod then click Ok then PLAY!!!

If you did everything right, go to the 1 abandoned house in Anvil, go through the door and look around. you should see your box sitting there!




WOW AWESOME! congrats! this is just the beginning of modding though, you should be able to do alot more then just this. look around for some tutorials. here are a few that helped me:

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Custom_Weapons_with_Nifskope
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Category:My_First_Dungeon
http://oblivionsource.telefragged.com/content/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1006&sid=ef4f538957c298cbf6ecae96fe0cf698


Congrats!! Have fun with this! Many thanks to all the people who have made it possible to do this stuff!