Bryman1970 and I are working on Pelagiad Expanded. But I've never worked on a mod with someone else before. If I change one cell and he does his thing in another cell, how do we combine our work? I mean, if I give him the work I've done on PE, and he opens it as the active file in the construction set, how can he get his work from what he did in PE into mine? Or vice versa?

Its pretty simple to combine ESP's in the CS, I'm pretty sure its as simple as that, as long as you don't both modify the same things, it should be gravy.

How do I combine esps? If he uploads his for me and I download it, how do I combine it with mine?
And what if I want to modify the same cell he is working on?

I'm sure it's simple. I mean, how are the Tamriel Rebuilt people doing their mod as a team?

You just divide tasks and each work in your own designated areas, then when you are finished, merge them together using a tool like TES4 Gecko (for Oblivion, it has a button Merge Plugins, choose the plugins and it merges for you, not sure what the MW equiv is). The trick is to not work on the same things otherwise, the two .esps will not be compatible to merge and one person's .esp might overwrite the other. I found a good way to avoid issues is to have one person working on the exterior work while the other does interiors or something then you know for sure you're out of the other person's way. :goodjob:

When you are all merged together, one of you can just polish the finished project or maybe take turns working at that point to avoid conflicts. If you want to work on the same cell, it might be best to take turns passing the .esp back and forth, but you can't both change the same cell then merge it together, someone's work will likely get overwritten.

Good Luck :foodndrink:

Ah, a tes tool. So that's what I have to use. I'll go talk to one of the Tamriel-Rebuilt guys and ask them what they are using as a team to merge their mods.

Combining plugins is done using the combine loaded plugins thing in the file window. You must clean cells that you haven't intentionaly modded wi TESAME. At TR for example people work in claims the cells that get inadvertly changed around them are then cleaned. Cleaning with TESAME is how the abruptly ending world thing at the end of a TR map is possible

Sorry doublepost

You don't need any tools. Just go to file - combine loaded plugins, in the cs.

I've used it frequently. Though, I've never used it to combine two edited cells. Test it out first.

Load both plugins in the CS, but don't activate either. Select file->combine loaded plugins and save under a new esp file name. You'll need to clean the mod via TESAME before you're ready to release it, but I would wait until all of the work is done.

I want to add that when multiple people are working on something, having a clean file becomes much more important. (as if it wasn't already important) Make sure your file only contains what you are working on.

TESAME is your friend.

You can't combine the same interior cell from two different esps. It will use the one which has been edited last.

Also, for exteriors, when merged it will take the latest edited esp's land, and if ANY objects are different between the two esps, then it will add those as well. If objects are exactly the same, and in exactly the same space, then these duplicates will be removed automatically.

So it's best for only one person to touch the exteriors, doing the land raising and object placement, otherwise you'll end up screwing it up and it will get difficult to fix. And for each person to be allocated interiors which they do, and no one else touches.

Good communication and organisation is key.

Sounds good. I've never used TESAME but I have it downloaded in my files. I'm also going to use Morrowind Enchanted Editor because apparently all of my files are dependent on the expansions, all 3 better heads and the morrowind patch code. So I need to get rid of that stuff.