Congratulations, though - and welcome to a really cool hobby. There is all sorts of stuff you can do, and it gets easier as you play about. As long as you have a clean backup, you can probably learn fastest by copying the tutorials and then trying things out. If you break stuff, it is only 1's and 0's - you just restore the game and try again
I'm too vague sometimes. I was undermining my claim that it's easy with the link. It was to the chinese room argument. One of the only things I agree with searle btw.
But I feel like the man in the chinese room: executing commands, "functioning" in a manner as competent but having no clue as to what I'm doing!
Whatever you do, don't get discouraged. I've been at this for about two years (with a four year break between) and I've found that.... I still don't know what I'm doing! Okay, not really. I just wish that I knew a lot more. But... that problem can be remedied (partially) by looking at the tutorials (as cmorgan suggested), and also looking at the coding of other mods and asking LOTS of questions.
@Sir_Carnifex thanks for the advice! Most of my questions so far have been asked and answered (sometimes many times over!) I have to say the community seems especially patient, friendly and helpful.
Has anyone written a bible/reference for newbies?. I've read through the one on this site which is great, but am thinking about modding myself ... and need all the help I can get.
The long answer is "Because of the sadism of the Infinity Engine, the arcane French voodoo involved in modding it, and the extremely varied backgrounds of people who approach modding for the first time, writing a comprehensive introductory resource is very difficult."
That's why the usual way it's done is for n00bs to show up on a forum, say, "Hi, I would like to make a mod which does (laundry list of 20 things) and I am (a Stanford computer science lecturer/a little familiar with programming/pretty sure I made a website by hand once/unaware of what a 'text editor' is)" and then people come along, tell you that half of your ideas are impractical or implausible, and then tell you to start looking at other mods which do the other half which *can* be done for example code.
It depends on what sort of modding you want to do - there is no One Tutorial To Rule Them All since all mods are different. (I suggest doing anything other than an NPC mod since for some reason that's what almost everyone does.)
The long answer is "Because of the sadism of the Infinity Engine, the arcane French voodoo involved in modding it, and the extremely varied backgrounds of people who approach modding for the first time, writing a comprehensive introductory resource is very difficult."
That's why the usual way it's done is for n00bs to show up on a forum, say, "Hi, I would like to make a mod which does (laundry list of 20 things) and I am (a Stanford computer science lecturer/a little familiar with programming/pretty sure I made a website by hand once/unaware of what a 'text editor' is)" and then people come along, tell you that half of your ideas are impractical or implausible, and then tell you to start looking at other mods which do the other half which *can* be done for example code.
Compton was posting when I was... basically what he said, but clearly his own site's link needs a bit of updating . One creature tutorial and zero DLTCEP tutorials? Honestly, it's like Yovaneth never wrote anything in the past umpteen years?
Wow guys. Thanks! I personally found @camdawg s kit creation guide extremely helpful. I think it can be found on gibberings and pp. I'll link it when I get to a comp
Comments
Congratulations, though - and welcome to a really cool hobby. There is all sorts of stuff you can do, and it gets easier as you play about. As long as you have a clean backup, you can probably learn fastest by copying the tutorials and then trying things out. If you break stuff, it is only 1's and 0's - you just restore the game and try again
I'm too vague sometimes. I was undermining my claim that it's easy with the link. It was to the chinese room argument. One of the only things I agree with searle btw.
But I feel like the man in the chinese room: executing commands, "functioning" in a manner as competent but having no clue as to what I'm doing!
The long answer is "Because of the sadism of the Infinity Engine, the arcane French voodoo involved in modding it, and the extremely varied backgrounds of people who approach modding for the first time, writing a comprehensive introductory resource is very difficult."
That's why the usual way it's done is for n00bs to show up on a forum, say, "Hi, I would like to make a mod which does (laundry list of 20 things) and I am (a Stanford computer science lecturer/a little familiar with programming/pretty sure I made a website by hand once/unaware of what a 'text editor' is)" and then people come along, tell you that half of your ideas are impractical or implausible, and then tell you to start looking at other mods which do the other half which *can* be done for example code.
But there is this list of tutorials. http://modlist.pocketplane.net/index.php?ax=list&cat_id=106
http://www.shsforums.net/forum/125-ie-tutorials/
http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showforum=62
http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php?board=16.0
It depends on what sort of modding you want to do - there is no One Tutorial To Rule Them All since all mods are different. (I suggest doing anything other than an NPC mod since for some reason that's what almost everyone does.)
Thanks for that link, much appreciated, off to do some reading.