Basic Morrowind Modding: Part 2
By The Slof
Mail: theslofathotmaildotcom
2:0 Intro to The Elderscrolls Construction Set
The Elderscrolls Construction Set, TESCS, is a program that lets you modify and add
objects, Not Playable Persons (NPC), quests, dialogues, races, factions, classes, skills,
spells, etc. You can even alter the very world by changing the terrain, adding new islands
and cities. The TESCS is an invaluable tool if you want to alter the world of Morrowind.
2:1 Loading data files and getting around in the program
Start TESCS. The program loads and you should now have three windows in front of you.
The big brown is the rendering window. Here you can se how a cell, a piece of the world,
looks like when it's finished. The Object Window contains all object that you can place in the
world, everything from lock picks to books. Here you can add anything you have created. A
new sword? A warrior to carry your sword? A pear?
You can also add new spells to cast and enchantments to apply to your gear.
The Cell View is a list over all of the cells and everything they contain. Using this you can
quickly browse through what a cell contains, or load a cell into the Rendering Window by
double-clicking.
Open Morrowind.esm, by clicking File/Data files... double-clicking Morrowind.esm and
clicking OK.
The .esm-file can take a while to load, depending on your computer.
You should now get a list over all item used in Morrowind (well... at least some of them) and
one over the cells. We are going to add the pear as an ingredient inside The Guild of Mages,
Balmora. An ingredient may not be one of the easiest items to create (Static is), but it isn't
hard.
First we load the Guild. In the Cell View, scroll down to Balmora, Guild of Mages and double-
click.
The inside of the Guild appears in the Rendering Window.
Click any object and centre the view on the guild by holding down space and moving the
mouse. Use the scroll wheel on the mouse to zoom in until you can see the baskets and
barrels on the first (entrance) floor. Select something here and zoom in so you can see a
barrel clearly.
Now; in the Object Window, Ingredient tab, right-click and choose new. A window named
ingredient pops up.
ID is the name Morrowind uses to identify the object. You can NOT have two objects with the
same ID.
Name is the name that shows up in Morrowind as you play. You can write whatever you want
here.
Scripts can be added, but I'll cover this later.
Weight and value is how heavy it is and how much it costs.
Morrowind uses Effects to calculate what a potion made out of the ingredients do.
Write something nice in ID! I start my with a "_" to assure it is easy to find (it appears at the
top). The "jt" is my initials, to make sure I know what I have made, not to confuse them with
someone else’s work.
Choose some effects you think a pear should have. I start mine with Silence to make it
harder to tell what it does (for people with low Alchemy (oh, and then I want people to eat
with their mouth closed =D)). Weakness to Magica is only to make the pear have balanced
effects, so that it isn't all ambrosia (food of the ancient Greek gods). Fortify/Restore Health is
since it is a fruit and I want it to restore health.
Click Add Art File and browse to "pear.nif". Click Inventory Image and find the pear.tga in the
Icons folder (make sure you change the file format to TGA, or you'll never find it). If you
haven’t already entered a Name, Weight and Value, do so, then press OK.
You may want to save now!
Know this! Every time you change something (Levelling a mountain, add/remove an object,
moving a rock or renaming something), you add a few lines to the .esp. Moving a rock may
not do very much, but changing the name of food_kwama_egg_01 (Small Kwama Egg) or
barrel_01 (or adding an item in the barrel) adds a ¤%#¤@ amount of rows and increases the
size of the file by quite a bit. I "accidentally" renamed Wick wheat, Kwama Egg Sack, Saltrice
and Large Kwama Egg, but I changed it back to the original. This shouldn't have changed
anything... Or..? The original file was 6kb, the new 213kb... 35,5 times larger... Not a big
deal?
Now, how do I fix this? I get a hex editing program, TESAEM is a good one for editing .esps,
and fix it.
By clicking Details... in the Data files window you can have a look at all things the .esp
changes.
Now, on to the adding of pears! Drag a pear to the barrel. Double-click it and click any of the
scroll bars (Position X/Y/Z). If the pear disappears (as it a lot of times do for me), just click
the opposite way (e.g. if you click X+, click X-) and the pear should reappear. Use the X/Y/Z
to move the pear onto a barrel. If you are sure you are over the barrel and want the pear to
"fall down" onto the barrel, click "F" (this only works if the Rendering Window is selected). By
using rotate you can make the pear lie down (optional).
When you are satisfied with the placing, save!
Start Morrowind and at the splash screen click Data files and check the mod. Start the game
and open the console by pressing ~, "tilde" (on my computer it's the button next to 1, above
Tab). Type 'coc "balmora, guild of mages"' (leave out the '). Find the pear and take a look at
it. Yummy!
Congratulations! You have now finished Part 2!
I'll add a small bonus part on Unwrap UVW to show you how to texture single faces instead
of the entire object.
2: Bonus! Unwrap UVW on sole faces
Open the pear in 3DSMax. If you can, remove the Unwrap UVWs applied to the objects, by
selecting an object, selecting the Unwrap UVW and clicking the waste can. If not, just tag
along anyway. If the pear is one solid object you won't have to do the next step, but if it's
divided into Pear, stem and leaf do this: Select the pear, go to the Create tab, Geometry and
change Standard Primitives to Compound Objects. Click Boolean, in Operation, choose
Union and click Pick Operand B. Click on the stem. Right-click to exit Boolean and right-click
again. Choose Convert to: Editable Mesh. Repeat the Boolean thing, now clicking Leaf as
Operand B. Convert to Editable Mesh again. The pear is now a single object and all interior
polygons is gone (e.g. the lower part of the stem).
Go to the Modify tab and pick Unwrap UVW from the modifier list. Click Unwrap UVW so that
it turns yellow. Uncheck Ignore Backfading and select all faces on the pear, ignoring the stem
and leaf. In the Parameters rollout make sure Averaged Normals is checked, click Planar
Map and then Edit. Scale and move the vertexes to fit into the green area. Deselect to see
how it looks. If something's wrong, click undo and rescale/move the vertexes.
Select the stem and do the same thing. Repeat for the leaf.
If you use Mesh Smooth after this you'll find that the stem "melts" out on the pear. I do not
like this, so I check the Surface Parameters, Separate by: Materials box. The Separate by:
Smoothing groups gives the cap of the stem a sharp edge, while still smoothing the sides.
I think that this pear had a nicer texture and since it also have fewer polygons (the stem
inside the pear and parts of the leaf) I'll export this instead, just overwriting the old (don't
forget to rescale it! 10%)
You can apply different textures to different parts of a solid object too! To do this the object
needs to be in Polygon mode (Convert to: Editable Poly). Enter select Polygons (or faces)
and select the area you want to texture. Drag a texture to the selected area, then select a
new and repeat the process.
That's all for today! I'll continue writing, adding weapons, armor, particles, creatures (when I
get 3DSMax 4.2), terraforming (landscaping), maybe some scripting, etc. Next will probably
cover weapons. Bye!