Easy PDF Copyright © 1998,2004 Visage Software This ...Morrowind scripting for dummies. I might...

Basic Morrowind Modding: Part 1By The Slof

Mail: theslofathotmaildotcom

0:1 In the beginning...

...there was the modder (Please don't yell!) =DWell this probably is why games like Morrowind was first created. A game with endless possibilities.When I started modding (modifying) for Morrowind I searched the web for tutorials covering 3D Studio Max 5 (hereafter referred to as 3DSMax) and found some, but all very advanced, so I thought that I could use my knowledge (hmm...) to help others with the same problem. This tutorial will cover 3DSMax, some of the basics in The ElderScrolls Construction Set (TESCS) and some basic scripting since there's a great tutorial already, Morrowind scripting for dummies. I might include hex editing and Maya 4 PLE, but that's in the future. As of now, I will NOT cover animations. I just found out that the NIF exporter I'm using makes 3DSMax 5 crash when trying to export animations.Now for the fact that I'm from Sweden... This may cause more spelling errors than usual, but I'm going to try running all text through Word to check my spelling. Still, if you find any errors that I have not detected, please mail me and complain :) I won't snarl at you!

0:2 Legal stuff

Do I really need to write this? I have no idea. Since I'm from Sweden, the laws of United States of America does not have anything to do with me, but since I have no idea of how the laws of Sweden looks at this I'll write some stuff here.

First all mods created for Morrowind, Tribunal or Bloodmoon are freeware (probably except those created by Bethesda Softworks), meaning you may distribute them as you please, although you may not distribute them on a commercial basis. Also you may not edit or copy anything made by Bethesda Softworks, something a bit strange, since TESCS is based on the possibility to edit and add material (my personal comment to this is that this probably just covers the code, but still :| )... You may edit and copy material from any mods, but please ask before using material made by someone else. This way everyone's happy.For more information, read the "license.txt" in the game folder for more information.

Also I have no connection to Bethesda Softworks or any other of the authors of The Elderscrolls III: Morrowind.I also take NO responsibilities for any damage made by my files, or mods created in help of this tutorial.

If you would like to upload this file to the internet, feel free to do so, but please look out for newer versions, since the internet is already full of old, outdated tutorials on almost anything you can imagine. And if this file came with any other files, please upload these too. I might include some files in a future version, files needed to do some of the more complex exercises, so please respect this.

1:0 Part 1: 3D Studio Max

In this tutorial I will show you some of the more basic menus and functions in 3DSMax 5. These include:

l Tools - Moving, editing, selecting, etc.

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l Objects - Creating and resizingl Modifiers - Using predefined commands to modifyl Texturing - Creating and applyingl Exporting - Exporting to TESCS, using TES Exporter

1:1 Preparations

The best way to learn 3DSMax is to read the tutorial in the Help menu and to experiment. This is the way I learned how to do stuff. Another way is to read this, since it will concentrate on Morrowind stuff and be very basic, at least in the beginning.

Here are some files used in the art of modding:

3D Studio Max

This is very necessary... If you haven't got it, then I suggest you get it. It will be very hard to do the exercises without it. As for now, I'm using 3DSMax 5, but I'm thinking of reverting to an older version, so that I can create some animations.

Some kind of image editing program.

I'm using, and will cover, Photoshop 7, but any program will do. I suggest you use a program capable of handling masks, since these are used for transparency.

TES Exporter

This file is needed to apply textures correctly and export meshes (stuff) to NIF files (NIF is the format used by TESCS and Morrowind). I'm using the 3DSMax 4.0 version, since there's none for 3DSMax 5 that I know of, at least not at this time (April, 2004). There's an exporter called NIFExporter, but some people have had problems using it. Stick to the TES Exporter, unless someone else can convince you not to... It can be found on the web. Try Thanos' Tower; a great site for Morrowind modders.

NIFImporter

Nice if you want to import NIFs. Note that not all NIFs can be imported and that no animations are imported. Note also that Bethesda states in the license.txt that you may NOT alter any of their material, so I have no idea if you are allowed to import stuff from the game.

DDS plug-in for Photoshop

This plug-in allows Photoshop to save files in DDS format, created by NVIDIA (or so I think, since the plug-in is). I have heard of people using it in Paint Shop Pro, but I haven't, so I'm not so sure it works. This plug-in can also be found at Thanos' Tower. (This isn't necessary, but nifty)



Scene/Max Immerse

A program used to view NIF files. TESCS works just fine for me, though. Not necessary!

Saving

Be sure to save everything you do regularly, both in 3DSMax (before doing something complicated and before importing/exporting) and in TESCS. A crash can come at any time, especially if you haven't saved for a while...

1:2 The basics of 3D Studio Max

Now I suggest you start up 3DSMax, if you haven't done that already. You should have four grey squares, named Top, Front, Left, Perspective. These are called the Viewports

If something's wrong, you can change this in the Customize/Viewport Customization by clicking the Layout tab.



Let's have a look at the Viewport!

The most common tools are displayed in the top. These are the tools we will be using.The Undo/Redo arrows are good to know about. 3DSMax remembers 20 commands, mostly enough, but not always, so remember to save. I will cover the link tools later on.The selection tools are used during times when you want to select something without risking to change something, or when you need to select a specific object. Then the "Select by name" is a good one. The "Window / Crossing" toggles between selecting everything within or partly within the selection rectangle.The "Select and Move" does just that, same for "Select and Rotate" and "Select and Uniform Scale".



The "Use Pivot Point Centre" can be changed to "Use Selection Centre" and "Use Transform Coordinate Centre". These options changes the centre point (Pivot Point) of the selection. "Use Pivot Point Centre" uses the different objects Pivot Points as centre for rotating etc. while "Use Selection Centre" uses the centre of the selection.The different snap setting snaps the objects to each other, or to certain angles and so on.The mirror selection selects everything except the selected objects. The Align button aligns selected objects to each other.Curve Editor and Schematic View will be covered later.The Material Editor (short button 'm') is a well used tool. In here you create the materials and textures used on objects. This will be covered in the texturing part.The Render Scene button brings up a window full of settings. Here you can select an output file, change the render settings and more. The Quick Render uses the settings in Render Scene, but skips the settings window.

On the right side of the screen you have lots of nice stuff, as well.

This is the create panel. Here you can create 3D objects (Geometry), 2D objects (Shapes), Lights, Cameras, Helpers, Space Warps and Systems. In this tutorial we will only use the three, maybe four, first. The others are mostly for animations in the program and can't be used in Morrowind.The Modify tab contains lots of nice stuff, used when changing attributes, or modifying. Here you can edit the object in the Vertex Sub-Object Level, or add modifiers, eg. Bend, Smooth, Unwrap UVW, etc. This is used a lot.The Heirarchy tab contains control over Pivot Points, something used when positioning objects.The other three will not be used.

At the lower right corner lies the zoom panel. This controls the field of view in the viewports. I strongly advise against using the Arc Rotate in any view other than Perspective. If you accidently do this and the view gets FUBAR, just press Shift+Z, or rightclick on the name of the view (upper left corer), pick Views and choose the correct view.

The slider and the other stuff at the bottom has to do with animations, but since I whon't cover this for now, I'll leave these out. I'll just add a short note on the lock button and the coordinate field:



The lock button locks the selection to the selected targets. When on, no other objects than the selected can be manipulated. You cannot deselect when in this mode.The X, Y and Z fields displays the current position of the marker, current position of selected object, how far an object is being moved since its last position, the change in size in percent, etc. You can also sometimes write new coordinates, or other values, in these fields.

So... Do you feel like starting the first lession? Let's go!

1:3 The first lession - Creating a pear

In this lesson I will try to teach you how to create an object, modeling it into something pear-like, adding a stem and a leaf, texture it and exporting the whole... fruity thing... to TESCS.

1:3.1 Creating a sphere

Make shure that 3DSMax is reset by choosing File/Reset, or restarting the program.

In the Create tab choose Geometry and pick Standard Primitives in the rollout.Click Sphere and select the top viewport by right-clicking it. Click and hold the mouse button in the top viewport and drag until you have a sphere. Change the radius to 40 and check the Generate Mapping Coords. Choose

the "Select and Move" tool and set the coordinates to 0,0,0 by typing them in manually at the bottom.



Don't worry if the sphere has another colour. The colour is picked randomly, but we want green (the colour does nothing to the colour of the finished object, but it's nice to have a clue of what it will look like). Make shure the object is selected (white corners around the object in the Perspective view, white wireframe in the others).

If not choose the Select tool and click the sphere.Go to the Modify tab and highlight the name "Sphere01". Rename the sphere to "Pear". Press the coloured square next to the name, in my case blue, and choose a green, pearlike colour. The green sphere in fron of you should not look like a pear, so we'll do something to change that. Either right-click in the Subtree list (the list under the Modifier List rollout, containing the word Sphere), or right-click in the selected viewport. In any case, choose Convert To: Editable Mesh. This makes the object more easy to model. Save!1:3.2 Modeling the sphere into a pear =D

In the Subtree list, klick the plus icon next to Editable Mesh. This brings up all Sub-Object levels: Vertex, Edge, Face, Polygon and Element. Click Vertex. Vertex should be highlighted in a yellow colour. Also the different viewports will show the sphere covered in blue dots, vertexes (or is it vertexii?).



Click the top blue dot of the sphere, either in the perspective, or in the top viewport. If you're having a difficult time selecting the correct vertex, check the Ignore Backfading box. The selected vertex should turn into red.Click the plus next to the Soft Selection and check the Use Soft Selection box. The ring next to the selected vertex turns into yellow and the next ring into grey. Increase the Falloff spinner until the fourth ring is grey (somewere around 40).

Choose the "Select and Move" tool , click the blue axis, the z-axix, and drag straight up for ca 25 units (or type in 65 in the Z coordinate box, at the bottom). The mesh should now have a more pear-like look, but it's not ready, yet. Change the Falloff to 20 and lower the top slightly, to make it less pointy. Select the fourth ring



(uncheck Ignore Backfading!) in the Left, or Front, viewport. Pick the "Select and Uniform Scale" tool , select the Top viewport and click-drag, using the inner triangle of the transform gizmo, downwards until the X coordinate box says 85.

Select the bottom vertex of the mesh and change Falloff to 20. Select Perspective viewport. Right-click the

"Select and Move" tool . Change the value of Offset: Screen, Z to 10 and hit enter. Close the window.

Save your project!

Now the mesh looks a bit more like a pear. Now what's left is the stem, a leaf and some texture.



1:3.3 Creating a stem

Exit the Sub-Object level of the pear by clicking Editable Mesh. Go to the Create tab and click Cylinder.In the top viewport drag a circle to create the base of the stem, when finished move the mouse so that the stem gains some length.

Change the name of the cylinder to "Stem" and change the colour to brown. Change the Radius to 1,0 and the Height to 20,0. Check Generate Mapping Coords.

Pick the "Select and Move" tool and place the cylinder at the coordinates 0,0,0 (type them in at the bottom).Move the cylinder upwards, by the z-axis until almost all of it sticks up above the pear. Leave a teeny piece though (so that the stem doesn't look like it's floating, or only partly stuck to the pear).Right-click and Convert To: Editable Mesh. Choose the Vertex Sub-Object level and select the top row of the

cylinder. Enable Soft Selection, Falloff set to 20, Pinch to 0,75. Pick the "Select and Uniform Scale" tool and in the top viewport, drag the outer triangle diagonally, upwards and to the right, until the cylinder gains some shape (X: 160, Y: 160). Exit Sub-Object level.From the Modifiers List choose Bend. Change Angle to 45. This gives the cylinder a bend.Save!



In the next part we will create a leaf, and add some textures. You will learn both how to texture using Unwrap UVW and how to make partly transparent textures.

1:3.4 Creating a leaf and texturing

A leaf is thin. Very thin. So we will use a plane. A plane is a two dimensional object, used as a three dimensional. It has only got length and width and is usually transparant from one side.Pick Plane, from the Create tab. Drag a square in the top viewport.In the Modify tab, change the name to "Leaf" and the colour to a dark green. Set the Length to 20 and the Width to 25, check the Generate Mapping Coords.Place it at the stem, halfway up. Save!



Start Photoshop (or any other program capable of Alpha channels). Create a new dokument, using the properties 256*256 pixels and the resoluion 72 dpi.Fill the background using a green colour of your choise. I have applied a layer above my old, containing a Filter called Clouds. The layer has an opacity of 45%. This gives some variations in the texture. You can do what ever you think looks good.Create a new layer were you draw a dark green square.

Draw a leaf in this square, something fancy. Also add a texture for the stem.

Add a new channel, an alpha channel. This is what gives the texture its transparency. Black=Transparent



Save your new texture in ...\Morrowind\Data files\Textures\ as a BMP, DDS or TGA.

Open 3DSMax and recover your file. Open the Material Editor by pressing 'm'.

Here you create all of the materials used on your model. A material can be as simple as a sole colour, or advanced as a Raytrace mirror (a rendering tecnique not used in Morrowind!). We will just add our texture to the pear, stem and leaf.In the Shader Basic Parameters rollout, change Blinn to TES Shader. TES Shader is optimized for use with Morrowind.In the TES Shader rollout, klick the small square next to the dark gray Diffuse-field. The Material/Map Browser turns up. Double click Bitmap. Browse to ...\Morrowind\Data files\Textures\ and choose your texture.The first slot in the material editor (or the one you selected) should turn into the colour of your texture, in my



case, green. Drag the first slot onto the three parts; pear, stem and leaf. If you sucessfully placed the material, the object should turn grey. Click the little blue/white checkered cube, right under the material slots. The objects now have textures, although in the wrong place.This is something we are going to fix with a Unwrap UVW modifier.

Note: If you think that adding a texture to the pear and stem was unnecissary, since they already had nice colours, you're probably right. In this case we could have sticked to the applied colours, but there would be no variation to the texture of the pear. This tecnique allows you to add discolouring, or a sticker...

To add a Unwrap UVW, select the pear. In the Modify tab, pick Unwrap UVW from the Modifier List. Add a Unwrap UVW to the stem and leaf too. Select the pear. Click Planar Map and then Edit...What you should see now is a black window with white lines in it. Click Show Options... and increase Brightness to 1,0.



Select all of the Vertexes by draging a square around the entire set of lines. Choose the Scale-tool to resize them and the Move-tool so that all of them is in the pear-coloured area. Select the stem. Press Planar Map, Edit... and set the brightness to 1,0. Click Zoom Extents and select all lines. Click the Rotate +90 button to rotate. Select the upper ring vertexes. Turn on Soft Selection, choose the Scale Horizontal and scale until the stem has a cylindrical shape.



Scale the lower part too, so that it gets a cylinder shape. Use the normal Scale-tool to resize the entire cylinder to fit in the brown field. Use the Scal Vertical-tool to resize it in the vertical direction.Do the same to the leaf. Beware that you may have to rotate (probably Rotate -90). Make the square rather to small than too large, since you have alpha channels. This prevents the creation of a frame around the leaf.When you are done, close the Edit UVWs window. If the Material Editor is open, close it too.Add a Bend Modifier to the leaf (in the Modifier List). Change the Angle to 60 and the Bend Axis to X. Apply another Bend Modifier. Change Angle to -30, Direction to 90 and Bend Axis to Y. The leaf now has a nice curve.Oh, darn... From under, the leaf is transparent! Oh, NO! This means we'll have to redo everything... not!Open the Material Editor (m) and drag the used material slot to an unused. Change the name from "1 - Default" to Leaf or something else (anything else than "1 - Default" works just fine). Check 2-sided. Drag the material to the leaf.Yay! Now the leaf has two sides! Save!

In the next chapter we will render the pear to see how the finished thing will look like. We will also use Mesh Smooth to make the pear more smooth. Ant then the final: Exporting!

1:3.5 Rendering, polishing and exporting

Change the camera until you have the desired angle (in the perspective viewport! If something goes wrong,

press Shift+Z to undo any changes to the camera). Click the Render Quick button . The picture of your pear should appear.



The time to render the image can be very different from computer to computer.I am using a 2,17GHz AMD Athlon XP 3000+ processor, 512MB RAM and a ATi Radeon 9800PRO (I'd say somewhere about $1000 to $1500 for a complete computer containing this). On my computer the rendering time is less than a second, depending on how many programs running in the background. A scene containing more objects and more complex effects, eg. Raycasting, Lens Effects etc. takes a LOT longer time. I'd advise against this on slower computers.The pear seems a bit choppy, not so very nice... We'll need to smooth it! (Don't worry about the leaf. The transparency will show in TESCS)Close the rendering window, and select the pear. In the Modifier tab, beneath the Modifier list, right-click under Editable Mesh and choose Collapse All. A warning pops up. Click Yes. In the Edit Geometry rollout, click Attach. Click on the stem and on the leaf. When the Attach Options appears (clicking the leaf), choose OK.In the Modifier List choose Mesh Smooth.

This is a Modifier that should be handled with care! It increases the number of polygons... Big time!If you have a very slow computer you'd probably be better of not using this at all!

Change the Iterations to 1. The number of polygons quadruples! You can attempt to increase it to 2, or 3 for that matter, but be shure to save before. I checked the Render Values, Iterations and set it to 5 just to test. The computer slowed down and 3DSMax almost crashed. It took a minute or three to render and when it was finished I get this:

Yes, it's smoother, but is it worth it? The darn program almost crashed and since I forgot to save... Anyway, these results can be aquired by changing the level of Iterations to 2, or 3.



I did this to show the amount of vertexes used when you change the Iterations from 0 through 5... It took a wile.Here you can see the difference. I normally do not work with more than 1, top 2 Iterations. If I'd want an abnormally smooth image I would set the Render Value to 3, maybe 4. But then I'd have to wait all night for my scene to render...



Set the amount to 1 and render again. The pear looks smoother. Save!

Let's look at the size; A normal person in Morrowind is 128 Max-units tall. Our pear is almost 110... Use the Uniform Scale-tool to decrease the size to 10%. Go to the Hierarchy tab and choose Affect Pivot Only. Click Reset: Transform and Scale. Use the movetool to place the Pivot Point at the base of the pear. Click Affect Pivot Only again to deselect it.Zoom in on the pear from a good angle, so that the pear covers the entire Perspective viewport. Click the

Render Scene button to bring up the render options. Change the output size to 32*32. In Render Output, click Files... browse to ...\Morrowind\Data files\Icons\ and save the file as pear.tga (or anything else, as long as you have .tga at the end). Click Render.

Now to exporting: Go to File/Export... Change the file format to TES Exporter (.nif) and save the file in the ...\Morrowind\Data files\Meshes\ directory. You can use custom folders here to put your stuff in, but the complete path (eg. custom\pear.nif) can not exeed 32 characters!

Congratulations! You have finished the first part! In the next part I will teach you how to add the pear to the wonderful world of Morrowind. Bye!



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