Kjorik's Rest: a player home mod for Skyrim

So with the completion of the basic tutorials for the Bethesda Creation Kit, comes the proper start for my first mod Skyrim. It will be a Nordic-style player home called Kjorik's Rest, where I will hopefully be consolidating my favourite aspects from several other player homes, into one!

Yesterdays work made the the exterior and the entry hall for Kjorik's Rest. Here's some of the screenshots from the mod so far:

Kjorik's Rest view from the side, with the Western Watchtower visible behind it in the distance. To the right is some of the buildings that surrounds Whiterun.

The exterior of Kjorik's Rest, showing the gravel path leading up to the entrance.

The door into Kjorik's Rest. The grass visible through the floor is an artefact left over from terrain painting, and will be removed!

The entry hall of the Kjorik's Rests interior.

Looking through the grate at what will be a short hall of stories before a puzzle door that will act as the main entry (proper) into the home.

The claw for the puzzle door. In time, this pedestal will be activate-able so the puzzle door will lock. Then you can just leave the claw on the pedestal as shown, or take it with you as a key!

Gotta have Easter eggs somewhere..... This hidden pullbar opens up a secret passage to the dev area, where I will be testing scripts and setups.

The false wall pulls back to reveal the entry to the dev zone!

And finally, a veiw from inside the dev zone, currently empty! It's basically just a copy-paste of the entry hall, minus most of the doors!

Well, that's my progress so far. I'll hopefully get back to it during the midweek once my work is done!

Bringing a dungeon to life...

... literally! Continuing my tutorials of the Bethesda Creation Kit, its time to make the dungeon come alive with baddies and effects. My first attempts at putting AI enemies into the dungeon have not gone well, with my Draugr gleefully standing on top of his coffin, before slowly stepping off at the moment the coffin dramatically bursts of. Then there's the other, patrolling AI, that seems content just drawing and sheathing his weapon as opposed to actually moving about.... At least the navmesh is working well enough that you can successfully stab them for their hubris!

With the inclusion of AI into the dungeon, I needed to add some more rooms. I basically copy pasted the first room, and extended the hallway to facilitate the rooms, also adding in a downwards staircase.

At the bottom, the hall narrows into the final boss room (I have subsequently added a gate).

Finally, there was the application of of lighting and light templates. I've not added many lights yet, but you can definitely see the altered feel of the dungeon. The two pictures below show the entrance to the barrow and a skylight in the main corridor.

So that's my content creation from the past few days in a nutshell. I have a few more tutorials to play about with in level design, before I move on to scripting tutorials. Then I'll be starting my own mods proper!!!

I'm a modder! (VERY beginner, though)

So yes, as per my post yesterday, I've now taken up modding - in lieu of my Hibblejayvlog series. The series might come back in the future if I get the time, but for now I have no plans.

I'm currently planning on working on 3 mods for Skyrim - the logical choice, since that's where I've been spending the majority of my free time lately! At the moment, I'm nowhere near starting any of them, I'm just working my way through the Creation Kit tutorials. So to start with, I've made an extremely small Nordic barrow. Here's what I've done so far:

 This is the cave, looking toward the barrow entrance.

 The main entrance to the barrow, showing off the fire.

 Inside the main corridor, looking back at the main entrance, showing off some rubble and furniture scenery

 The remainder of the main corridor

 The door into the main chamber.

 Some Nordic urns with randomised loot.

 I made an alchemy station in a nook of the main chamber. Showing off some neatly placed ingredient satchels and some levelled potions above that (the potions vary with player level).

 Experimenting with the Havok-settle function in the creation kit, I made a basket filled with leather.

 The altar inside the main chamber, showing object (coins) and levelled item (the bow at the top of the image) placement.

 The loot containers inside the main chamber. This was an exercise in altering the loot inside the containers, and playing around with locks (the strongbox is locked).

 

My bowl of potions. This was to allow a slightly destructive environment: the bowl is non-static so can fall off the altar, dropping the potions across the floor.

More content to follow, once I've made it, of course!

Modding Games: Hibblejayvlog

This week on Hibblejayvlog, I tackle modding and why we mod out our games. Modding is a very vast topic, and I just touch the tip of the iceberg here:



Transcription (may not be 100% accurate):
Welcome back to another week of Hibblejayvlog. Today I wanted to talk a little bit about modding in general. Although I've not really had the time to do nearly as much reviews as I'd have liked, one of the main things I wanted to show off with my channel and blog is mods, as well as full games. Mods are often programmed by an individual or small group and are usually released for free, for the enjoyment of the community. So in doing what I do, I wanted to give a little back to the authors of the mods that I use.

So why do we mod our games? Well, there are 3 general reasons. Firstly, there are tweaks, fixes and patches, which slightly alter the gaming experience to make it closer to what the developers originally intended it to be or to make the game more a more enjoyable experience. The unofficial Skyrim patches, are an example of the modding community coming together to fix various issues in the huge game that is Skyrim. A game so vast, it would take an age for the dev team to find, fix and distribute all the patches. I actually remember seeing on the Bethesda support page something along the lines of "if you're here to report a clipping issue, don't bother, we don't have time to fix it", which I thought was pretty funny.

Secondly, you can mod a game to expand upon the content that's already present. So things like new quests and new weapons & armours, etc. Those mods can vary wildly, from a few megabytes for a new weapon, up to several GB. The mod that springs to mind here is Kobayashi Maru mod for Star Trek Bridge Commander. Which weighs in at well over a GB for a game that's only a few hundred MB big, adding a whole heap of new stuff, pretty much quadrupling the original content of the game, while still letting you use most of it in the original game itself.

Finally, there are total conversion mods, which completely change away from the original game. Some of these eventually blossom into their own games, like Day-Z and Dota 2. These mods use the user interface and framework of the original game to effectively create a new game, which can range from something of a similar nature, to a completely different topic!

There are many examples of all of these different kinds of mods for literally thousands of different games out there. This is probably where I'd tell you put your search engine to work and try them out for yourself, but actually, I air on the side of caution when it comes to mods, and here's why. There are some mods out there, that while still being lore-friendly, can fundamentally alter the experience of the game. Don't get me wrong, this isn't always a bad thing, but it can detract or alter the original experience of the game as intended by the developers. Take my earlier example of Skyrim. Something like a texture pack isn't going to be detrimental to your experience, but modding the BFG 9000 into your game is going to seriously screw up the difficulty for you. I'm not saying don't do it, just be sure of what experience you want to get out of the game when you are considering putting mods on - particularly if it's you're first playthrough. In that case, I'd recommend getting a feel for the game, and getting to know what you like and what you would change. Then put on the mods you feel the game needs and try it out!

My general rule of modding is that mods are infinitely harder to get rid of than they are to install. In most of the games I run with mods, it's a case of install the mod by dragging and dropping, and uninstall the mod by deleting the entire game folder, reinstalling the game, then reinstalling all the mods you wished to keep. As someone who's never actually finished Skyrim because I've had to keep re-doing installs and restarting characters, take it from me not to just vomit every mod you come across into your game. If you're not sure about a mod, make a backup of your current install, so you can revert back if it doesn't work out. And for the love of everything that is holy, read the description! Just because all the mods you've installed for a game before have been drag and drop, doesn't strictly mean the one you are about to install is. There is also the matter of conflicts that you should be clued up on as well. Again, if you're not sure make a back up!

The other thing to keep in mind, is that mods are generally not made by large groups. Mods are not tested on a wide variety of platforms and if something does go wrong, you are likely to receive little to no support. This brings us back to the aforementioned point that mods are a lot harder to get rid of than they are to install.

Most of what I just said makes it sound like I don't recommend modding games, but that's not true. There are some truly fantastic mods out there, which impact tremendously on your enjoyment. I've even seen mods that rival or even surpass the quality of the original game! What I am saying is be wary. A good practice, albeit a tedious one, is to install mods one at a time, making backups beforehand and running the game after each install to make sure everything is working swimmingly. If it's your first time playing a game, I recommend only modding the game to what you need, but if you're returning to the game and wanting a different experience from before, then by all means knock yourself out.

Remember that mods aren't made by huge companies, and they are usually distributed for free, so share and endorse the mods you've enjoyed, it will really make a developers day!

So that's all for today. Modding is a colossal sea, that I've just taken a quick paddle in, so if you've got anything to say on the subject please post a comment below. I'd also be interested in hearing your stories of the great and the grim mods that you've experienced in your gaming careers. Remember you can find me on social media using the links below:

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I'll see you next week! Bye!
Hibblejaybob