In my haste to mod Skyrim I neglected to make a duplicate of the cell I was intending to modify. I went ahead and made changes to Windhelm Hjerim Interior and saved my plug in. While the mod works fine I realise now that it would have been prudent to have duplicated it and made a new cell then added the cell transition in Windhelm exterior to bypass the original Hjerim interior.

So my questions is this. If I duplicate Windhelm Hjerim Interior in my plug in now, how do I restore the original Hjerim from Skyrim.esm into my plugin?

What I would then like to do is add a new dialogue option to Jorleif so that only when the house is bought and fully furnished do you then have the ability to select "Hjerim House Makeover (1000 gold)" for example. This then turns on the mod and the next time you enter Hjerim house it uses my .esp file. This way the player is free to run the game with the mod in Data Files in the launcher, is also free to visit original Hjerim house and when they're ready they speak to Jorleif to change it.

First of all though I need to make my Hjerim house into a new cell and restore the old one. Any help for both the above would be very much appreciated, thanks.

You never actually change the original game files. Your 'mod' does a modification to the original game assests. If you want to restore it, simply do not load the mod that made the changes.

Your save game is a different story. Persistant references are stored in your save game, and your save game overrides ALL mods and game files. What this save game is then called is a dirtry save game. It has those old dirty edits from any mod stored in it, and there is no way to clean it. Its recommended to use a 'single' save game when your testing that has never had your mod your making activated when it was saved. Use that for testing until your satisfied with the mod.
If the objects you placed were all 'new' objects, and not just vanilla game objects you moved around, these will be 'cleaned' from your save game if you deactivate your mod and load up your save game. Its called cleaning a save game. You then save your game, reactivate the mod, and it should start fresh.

You can also make a duplicate of the cell, save it, then on the details button when you load the mod, find the original cell and delete those changes. That way you can keep your mod changes you made, and remove the changes you made to the original cell.

Well that's the thing, see I made so many changes to Hjerim house that to restore it back to vanilla manually would be quite difficult. Is there any way to load the original cell in Skyrim.esm, copy from render the whole house, load my mod, having duplicated the cell then deleted all the objects from the old one, and then paste from render? That way I've got vanilla Windhelm Hjerim Interior and my duplicate, with my changes.

With regards to the saves I made sure before starting modding to make several different saves so I can always load a clean save for testing. I have seen at first hand what happens if you confuse your save files with various object placement errors.

As williesea explained, when you create a plugin that edits vanilla, reverting your changes is just a case of deleting them from your plugin

First duplicate your edited hjerim cell and give it a unique name. Save and make a back up copy of your esp before you continue.

Then go to the load plugin window, highlight your mod and press the "details" button. What then pops up is the details window which is a list of every edit your plugin contains

If you press the "c" key, it will jump between the different cells your mod contains. When you find the vanilla hjerim cell, select it and then ctrl+click every line until you come to the next cell. Now with all those lines highlighted press the "delete" key which flags all the lines as "ignored". Then continue to load the plugin as normal, then immediately save once its loaded. You should then be left with the vanilla hjerim back to its vanilla glory and also your edited hjerim in its own new cell

- Hypno

I see, thanks guys. I thought there would be a simple solution! I'll give this a go.

Now, are there any tutorials that tell me how to add a new dialogue option to Jorleif that will allow me to "turn on" the mod? My intention is for the player to install the mod but can still enter Hjerim house as vanilla as much as they like. Then only after buying all the decorations, there will be a new dialogue option that then activates the mod so when the player goes back to Hjerim house it's the new one? Sounds simple but I'm sure it isn't.

Actually, yeah. I didn't think there would be, but...

Video Tutorial: http://youtu.be/RLv9FRL9rGQ

Now... there is also a text tutorial from the same guy, for those who prefer written tutorials. Problem is, the only place I can find it is on gamesas, which is a fake site that uses bots to grab posts from various other forums and repost them under fake bot accounts. I don't know what the purpose of the site is, maybe ad revenue, but regardless I'd rather not support it so I won't link.

The post itself is from the person who made the video, and obviously was originally posted on a legit forum, maybe this one... but it evidently isn't searchable anymore, I can't find it in any archives anywhere besides gamesas. If you really want the text tutorial, use Google and search for the URL of the Youtube vid. Just stick the URL in the search box. The site should be the only result that pops up.

Thank you ChaosPearl, I will watch this and see how I get on!

Hjerim is back to vanilla, thanks to williesea and hypno88 for that. I now have vanilla Hjerim and my NewHjerim. All I need to do is now is add that dialogue action to Jorlief to "turn on" the mod. Wish me luck!

One other thing. Since I've now made a new Hjerim can I remove all the pre-murder stuff from the house? There of course various triggers and things to reset stuff when the Blood on the Ice quest line is solved. Is it okay to just remove all the blood and things associated with that from my duplicate? Seems silly leaving them in if they're not needed.

So, I got as far as 15:55 in that video but have hit a snag, this tutorial is (at it's most basic form) for making a wall disappear when the Basemant is bought from the housecarl, revealing this guys hidden basemant.
I'm not revealing anything in my cell, I want my housecarl to swap WindhelmHjerim cell with WindhelmNewHjerim. How do I do this? This is why I duplicated the cell because I've made so many changes that it would be nigh on impossible to Xmarker reference all the changes (I've added new walls, changed the shape of the house etc).

There are a few ways you can realise your goals.

You could very simply limit access to the door the player uses to enter the cell. When entering WindhelmHjerim you'll most likely be using the default door, when you wish the player to enter WindhelmNewHjerim you just pull the old switcheroo on the doors.

Alternatively you can call up the Reference Batch Action menu with the "-" (minus) hotkey and set enable parent to your x marker.

So I just click on the X marker (which I've put in WindhelmNewHjerim), press "-" ro bring up the Reference Batch Action window and Set enable parent.
Then what, click "Do"? Because that doesn't do anything. Or are there other things I need to set here? On testing, Jorleif has the new dialogue option to purchase the makeover and I pay the right gold, but when I go back to my Hjerim house it's vanilla (still using WindhelmHjerim)

Or should I have put the X Marker in WindhelmHjerim and in the Cell under Reference Batch Action put WindhelmNewHjerim?

You would want all your changes to be parented by that x marker, so you select all your references then bring up the batch action menu. (if only using the single cell, for multiple cells see below)

Alternatively you also edit WindhelmWorld to have two doors in the same spot which lead to different versions of your interior. You enable/disable at your discretion to allow access to one or the other.

Okay, I think the enabling/disabling of the doors is more of an option considering how much I changed the Hjerim house!

Something isn't working. I've followed the written and video tutorial (inserting my own parameters where necessary - HDWindhelmMakeover, my unique script ID etc etc). Everything looks fine but it isn't working.

There is no dialogue option with Jorleif to choose "Makeover". In the Windhelm cell Wilderness 31,10 I made a copy of the Hjerim front door and moved it off to the side. My X Marker is set to this. In the game I can't see the door which is correct and I can enter and leave the original door to Hjerim. But because there's no purchase option from Jorleif, that copied door is not being made visible for entry.

Naturally I'll want to disable the original door when the new one is activated and place the new door in the same position, but for testing purposes I've kept them apart for now.

I've uploaded the plugin here: http://www.filefactory.com/file/67axldka3v8t/n/Hjerim_Improvement2_esp
If Antares or someone can load this up in CK and check what's wrong I'll credit you in my workshop when I eventually upload it!

If your mod contains any scripts you'll need to upload those as well. You may be better served posting your script in this thread where everyone can view it easily, rather than having to download and load up your plugin.

You can actually use the same x marker as an enable parent for both doors. Just set your original door to be in the opposite state.

Ok I had a poke around your plugin and noticed a few things immediately:

1. The lighting conditions in your new interior are taxing. To check this right-click anywhere in your cell > Render Window Properties > Shaders Tab > Debug # of Lights. You don't really want any surfaces coming up red. I saw that you had a shadow casting light so close to an omni that it wouldn't cast any shadows, this is a waste of resources.
2. The quest MS11 Blood on the Ice has been edited by your mod, I assume this in unintentional.
3. WinterholdCollegeArchMageQuarters has also been edited by your mod, again I assume this is unintentional. You will need to stay vigilant against other unintentional changes and make sure they are cleaned up if you decide to release this to the public.

I didn't have a good search for any "dirty" edits, the above are only those I noticed upon cursory inspection. You'll have to scour your mod yourself and judge what is dirty what is not (I'm not in a position to do that for you).

The reason your new door is not showing up is because you have the "Set Enable State to Opposite of Parent" check box flagged (and your x marker is enabled by default, thus your door is being disabled when loaded).

This is how I would set it up:

Keep your x marker exactly where it is.
Set it to be initially disabled. Make it the parent of both doors.
Make sure the "Set Enable State to Opposite of Parent" check box is flagged for your original door, leave this unchecked for your BypassHjerimVanilla door.
You'll need some code in the HousePurchase (or whichever quest is appropriate) Quest to enable your x marker (WindhelmPlayerHouseDecorateMakeover), which will then allow access to your new interior. When this happens is at your discretion.

When the x marker is enabled it will basically switch your doors. The old door will be disabled and the new door will be enabled. Make sure that the navmesh works for every door that you will be entering. If you never enter the old Hjerim the navmesh for that door won't be of any consequence.

Hope this helps!

Okay, thanks I'll see if I can sort it. As for the Blood on the Ice Quest, yeah there would be some change to that because of the way the house cleans up after you solve the murders. Had Hjerim house been something simpler like Riften then that wouldn't be a problem. However, that mission should be completely unaffected. The only reason WinterholdCollegeArchMageQuarters would be in there is because I couldn't find a certain object and had to load it up to find the name of it. I did not make any changes to the cell though. How do I clean that up? Okay, cleaned it up with the old ignore flags. I should leave the Blood on the Ice quest alone, I probably moved the odd trigger or two that are associated with that quest, should be fine though. Any accidental movement was undone.

EDIT

Re lighting conditions, If you load up the vanilla Hjerim you'll find it's full of red areas, so nothing I've done. In my version it's the same, apart from my cellar which only has one small red area, probably because I haven't finished the lighting down there yet. The shadow casting close to an omni, is that in my cellar or in the house proper? Because I haven't touched any lights elsewhere (not intentionally anyway)

There is quite a bit of literature available on mod cleaning both here on these forums and the http://www.creationkit.com/Main_Page.
The short answer is when you go to open a plugin, next to the Set As Active File button is the Details button. Pressing Details when your plugin is selected you are able to view all the changes a mod makes. From here you can select entries you wish to omit or "forget" and the edits from here will be applied when the plugin is loaded.

*EDIT: See further up this thread for how to clean a plugin with the Details feature.

Ah you beat me to it! I realised I already knew how to clean it up so I edited my post!

Hmm, almost there and one major issue. The script works, although I mucked up the gold value somehow. It costs 2000 gold to buy the makeover but my line of dialogue says 1500. Anyway, I should be able to fix that - the new door appears after buying the makeover, that's great. The old door though doesn't disappear so I can still enter vanilla Hjerim.

However, the major problem is entering the BypassHjerimVanilla door takes me to my NewHjerim cell as it should but in the same state as the first part to the Blood On The Ice quest, so there is no interior decorations and there's still blood everywhere (the save I'm using is a clean one, after solving the murders, buying the house and all the decorations and before my mod was active). My dividing wall is there, along with everything else I put in including the cellar but the house is empty and cobwebby as it is before completing the Blood on the Ice quest.

Maybe I should have modified one of the other houses instead, with Hjerim being involved in a quest line that alters it so much it has made this more complicated than it ought to be.

New link: http://www.filefactory.com/file/6xt2oladv2yv/Hjerim_Improvement2.esp
and the scripts:

;BEGIN FRAGMENT CODE - Do not edit anything between this and the end comment;NEXT FRAGMENT INDEX 1Scriptname TIF__0200A757 Extends TopicInfo Hidden;BEGIN FRAGMENT Fragment_0Function Fragment_0(ObjectReference akSpeakerRef)Actor akSpeaker = akSpeakerRef as Actor;BEGIN CODEgame.getplayer().removeitem(gold, HDWindhelmMakeover.value as int)decoratemarker.enable();END CODEEndFunction;END FRAGMENT;END FRAGMENT CODE - Do not edit anything between this and the begin commentMiscObject Property Gold  Autoint Property GoldAmount  AutoObjectReference Property DecorateMarker  AutoGlobalVariable Property HDWindhelmMakeover  Auto

And the Papyrus fragment:

game.getplayer().removeitem(gold, HDWindhelmMakeover.value as int)decoratemarker.enable()

EDIT

Hold on, think I figured out what went wrong. As I duplicated Hjerim I also copied all the Blood on the Ice quest triggers etc. I just need to delete them all from my new cell.

This, or you need the quest to point to the markers you copied over.

*EDIT: Regarding lights, that doesn't mean it is best practice. Bethesda will rarely overuse lights the way I pointed out. It was probably ok in this instance since its such a small interior. I didn't take a look at the roombounds but its likely they also optimized the cell so the game is only rendering what it has to. Bear in mind that in the vanilla Bethesda use mannequins, weapon racks and bookshelves quite sparingly as these are very demanding of system resources. Most of the time modders will want to add more of these objects than Bethesda ever intended to be in the same cell at the same time.

In my mod Mzandahrk, my master bedroom had too many lights, even after the heavy optimization of the rest of the cell, it was problematic. I fixed it with the following techniques:

• use of roombounds/portals wherever possible
  
• lessened the number of lights in immediate area
  
• broke up long line of sight

A lot of the time this stuff isn't super-duper important because you can build a fairly cheap pc which will run Skyrim just fine. My problems became apparent for two reasons: a.) I am running a build of Skyrim (heavily modded + textures) which pushes my pc to its limits, and b.) my interior was large, shadow lit, complex and full of features.

All this is to say best practice is not to be taken lightly and as modders we need to be mindful of users with lower-end systems.

Well I deleted all the stuff associated with the Blood on the Ice quest from my cell but it's still empty when I enter it after buying the upgrade, empty apart from the things I've added and changed.
That doesn't make sense. In theory all I've got is a new door outside that teleports to a new cell that isn't vanilla Hjerim so why is it empty? I've updated the link http://www.filefactory.com/file/3fy3a7cuapon/Hjerim_Improvement2.esp. Obviously you can't run it and see for yourself but I could Fraps a video onto you Youtube if you want to take a look see.

Pretty sure my save is clean. I saved after the Imperial v Stormcloak conclusion, solved the Windhelm murders (so had already visited the empty house), bought the house and bought all the decorations and before installing the mod. And before entering the newly bought house for the first time. All in that one save. So for testing I'm running my mod and loading that save, entering vanilla Hjerim, leaving, buying the Makeover upgrade from Jorleif, then entering the new front door to take me to the WindhelmNewHjerim cell.

When you made your new interior did you start by copying stuff over from the original Hjerim?

When looking around either cell you may have noticed that quite a few x markers were floating around outside the viewable and playable areas of the cell. If you click on one of these, you should see a whole lot of lines running out to various objects. These objects have these lines attached to them to indicate they are children of the x marker you currently have selected.

That's why in one of my earlier posts I said you had to make sure that you adjusted the HousePurchase quest (or whichever quest actually handles it) to point to any new x markers in your new cell (because if you have copied them over from the vanilla cell they will all retain the same parent/child relationships).

*EDIT: RE lighting again. It didn't occur to me that some of the lights placed in the cell will be enabled/disabled depending on how many "furnishings" the player has purchased. To make sure have a look at which lights are enabled at which times and use the "1" key to hide the lights where appropriate, then check with Debug # of lights.

Probably best to remove all the lights and start a fresh to be honest. Unfortunately I've hit a major snag....Creation Kit no longer loads. It stays on the splash screen. Rebooted several times but no joy.
If I uninstall and reinstall I'm not going to loose anything am I?

It should be fine, you just have to make sure you preserve any enable-parent relationships.

How odd, your plugins will be fine. I don't think they get removed even if you uninstall Skyrim.

This might be unrelated but did you perchance opt into the Skyrim beta patch thats currently available? It may cause issues with using the CK.

Not that I'm aware of. I verified the integreity of the tool cache, it failed so downloaded the kit again and Scrolls also updated. Now it loads but I can't load my plug in. Error message says:

MASTERFILE: File Update.esm is a higher version than this EXE can load.

Then:

Unable to fond masterfile: Update.esm.

So scrolls updating has removed this file?