Okay, so some may know that I used to work on a mod called the Apocalypse Club along with some others that never got finished due to PC trouble. Well, I found most of the important files for the AC mod on an external hardrive, and decided that I would finish the mod when NV is out and add it in there rather than in FO3.

My question is this, how will this work? The mod obviously uses mostly FO3 resources, along with some resources made by other modders (I have permission, credits are written down as well) and some textures of my own making. I assume NV will come with all the basic FO3 resources in it, so I figure I can just use the same mod file I have in the new GECK without any problems.

My question is simply this: Am I right in assuming that simply using the esp. file I have in the new GECK will work just fine, or am I wrong? Hopefully nobody needs to correct me, but I'd appreciate knowing for sure if that'll work well or if I have to start over. I doubt I'll have the time to rebuild the mod from scratch, so being able to just transfer the files would be nice.

I'm hoping that you'll be able to at least open the .esp up in the editor to see what needs to be updated, and then recompile/edit scripts accordingly. Given the fundamental changes made to weapons and armor (mod kits and damage threshold) I'm guessing those will have to be recreated, if those changes don't prevent you from being able to open up the .esp in the first place. But who knows. It'd be nice to hear something from Bethesda/Obsidian about it.

Yeah, I mean, I can easily replace armor. I imagine the basic ones will remain or at least the way the look, so I can use my white suit texture and transfer my other texture work over to other armor in the mod, worst case scenario I can just retexture the new stuff, shouldn't take too long.

Scripting will be an issue, I didn't consider that. Though not much scripting has been done yet, so it shouldn't be a big deal. What requires the most work is the building, which I've spent a huge amount of time on, if I can transfer that then everything else should be just fine.

We can only guess in the moment.

My opinion is that the Form Ids of the objects are totally different, a lot of objects from FO3 are hopefully reused but with other Ids, new objects, the new dialogue editor and some new script commands are added. LIP files are still not possible (because it's a extern library). I am pretty sure that esps & esms get a new version number so FO3 mods can't be loaded in the new Geck. I hope that the NIFs aren't changed.

Which means a mod which adds a club to the land (interior and exterior) has to be done from the scratch because of the new Form Ids.

That's all guesswork but I can explain why I think this way if there is interest.

As I understand it you cannot reuse FO3 assets.

* (unless you get lucky and find them officially included in FO:NV ~if that happens, then I would guess that you can test your mod using the files they include in the official game, and re-work the mod to use those files; and for those that use assets from FO3, to use something else).

The answer is that you cannot take the assets from one game and use them in another - even if you own both games. You can only use assets used in FNV to mod that game.

so they changed the EULA so you cant import your own assets that you created? or were you strictly (and improperly) refering strictly to Assets from FO 3

I'm pretty sure he meant assets from FO3. Like if NV didn't include combat armor, you couldn't port the combat armor from FO3 into NV.

whell if thats the case he should have said "You can only use assets used in FNV or that you have created to make a mod for FNV."

Granted some people think im being anol, but unfortunatly I make a very good liveing cleaning up the messes created by people who are sloppy about things like that.

I'd think the scripts would be easy to transfer, since most (if not all ) of the commands will be there. One'll need only add the references.
Textures, if the exact same asset with the exact texture mapping from FO3 is in FNV, no issue.
Meshes, depends on the .nif version. If the .nif version is higher, as it was with Oblivion vs FO3, then you'll have to "filter" them. I do this in Blender: open old .nif , save it in the new version.
The .esps, I doubt you'll be able to open it with the new GECK,as FO3 .esps need fallout.esm, but I guess you can open the FO3 .esp with the FO3 GECK, then manually transfer your stuff to a FNV .esp in the FNV GECK.

I feel your pain

Although, the issue is not with using the assets; you can do that in the comfort of your own mod. It is when you distribute the asset within a mod that you have issues. Same thing with DLCs.

Although, I would think that, the asset from one game would have to go through some sort of conversion to be playable in the other game, so technically it wouldn't be the same asset... change the texture and remove a couple polygons... not the same asset anymore.

Wrong.

Why is it wrong?

Only assets that are created from Scratch or from New Vegas will be allowed in a mod for New Vegas. Taking something from another game and changing a couple of things does not fit that description.

... and if I make something that looks exactly like an asset from another game from scratch? Then what?

Before we get bent out of shape here, I understand why the corporation wouldn't want that - nothing to do with copyrights, all to do with money. Thankfully, software companies don't write law, just EULAs

I'm pretty sure it has to do with both laws and money. In the same way pirating something to do with both the law and money. Not that I'm saying it's exactly the same, it's just an anology.

I think they said that there will be some work if you want to transfer a mod, but it isn't impossible.

If you use your own textures, and create the mesh yourself, using the original as a reference, it should be fine. There have been Morrowind objects made for Oblivion, with brand new meshes and new textures that are similar to the originals.

Again, you use the original as a reference only. Don't take the original mesh and remove some things here and there. It must be a brand new 3D model, made from scratch.

I am aware of that, I was simply thinking that most of the Fallout 3 resources would be included in NV as seen in several screenshots it seems they've reused a lot of stuff, and it would make sense to keep all of it there with modders in mind. Hopefully I'm right, if not then I might just rework the mod and build it from scratch, and use the custom assets I have in a new way.


If I can keep what I have so far intact then that would be incredible, and I'm willing to do almost any amount of work to get it done. The building took about a month I think in total as my time was limited, and is even more limited now.

If the meshes/textures are original, then yes, you can bring them into a mod that you create for New Vegas even if you used them in some other mod for some other game. Note, if another modder created them, make sure you have permission to use them. If the mod uses Fallout 3 Meshes and Textures, then those will have to be present in the New Vegas build in order for you to use them.

Now, It is likely that just about everything that was in Fallout 3 bsa's will be brought over as there is a lot of graphical overlap. Obsidian would just add what they need for the new content. They may also replace some of the elements that were brought over with Fallout 3 so the look and feel fits the new game better. That would mean your building would look different. Maybe have flashing marqee lights appear on it.

So, part of the work will be to see what Meshes and Textures need to be fixed. If the building has any scripts, those may need to be tweaked if the scripting has changed much.

I have my own mod/DLC that I've been working on for 19months. The idea of having all that work depricated by the pending release of New Vegas was crushing to me for some time, and I spoke with Elminster about this matter. The really Good news is that he plans to update Fo3Edit to work with New Vegas, so we will have the power of that tool to help make the conversion from Fo3 to NV. Without him and Fo3Edit I feel that converting complex mods would be impossible. I will be making many sacrifices to him in the coming months!

For models/textures, he suspects that in addition to them re-using many models from Fallout3, that many of the FormID's might even be the same for those assets. I then went through all of the available trailers and identified over 100 items that are direct transfers from Fallout3 - stuff like road pieces, trash cans, sidealks, etc. This gave me great hope that at least some percentage of our cells could be directly converted from Fo3 to NV format, and leave us with enough left to replace the parts that don't transfer. If the FormID's changed, then the work of conversion will be a bit more tricky as a conversion table will be required that matches Fo3 assets to NV assets using the same models/textures. From that list it should be possible to directly swap the old FormID with the NV ones via script or Fo3/NVEdit. So how quickly/simply cells can be converted much depends on wether the FormIDs maintained their original names or were changed. I actually suspect both will be true, with any directly-ported asset having the same FormIDs and anything they changed/modified from the original with a new FormID - but we'll see. Much will depend on what we find in NewVegas.ESM.

I've also wondered about the DLC assets from Fallout3, as most of them contain "DLC" in the FormIDs and their assets are placed in directories like /Data/DLCPitt or /Data/DLCAnch. I have no confirmation, but I suspect that very few DLC assets got carried-over into NewVegas, as they would all require new FormIDs and to have their assets moved around at the file level. I'm also willing to bet that Some select DLC models/textures got re-used where a specific model/asset looked good for a particular part (such as the ScaffoldKit), but for the most part I don't think the DLC assets will be in NewVegas. I could be GECKulating wrong here, but playing it safe I've taken the time to strip-out all of the DLC assets from my mod with a few exceptions, and detached the DLC masters from my mod so that only Fallout3.esm remains. I GECKulate that this will be required for everyone, as a conversion makes replacing Fallout3.ESM with NewVegas.ESM, and vegas won't have the DLC masters. This clears the way for New Vegas's own DLCs. Any DLC asset in out mods will thus not work right if I'm correct here, unless they get built as new FormIDs/objects.

As CCNA said, scripts and anything custom that we have made can be ported over without quesetion so long as they use any asset only in NewVegas.ESM. Part of what I'm doing (the longest part actually) is to get my models/textures placed into a unique directory structure that isn't part of any existing/Fallout3 directory, such as /Data/Miax/Architecture instead of /Data/Architecture. This will allow me to make my own BSA's that won't conflict with Any directory that the New Vegas models/textures will use. Most experienced modders already do this, I'm getting my education now. The result will be a set of BSA archives that will port directly to New Vegas without issues. Sounds, Voices should also be similarly packaged for a smooth transition.

As for game settings, I suspect some will port directly without any modification (perhaps the Whether is like this), but other systems like Combat and Weapons will have dramatic changes that may result in changes to global variables, control knobs, etc that will make combat-mods difficult or impossible to port directly.

For Quests and Dialogue I feel better here, as we've heard from Chris Avellone in one of the interviews back in July that the dialogue system in the current GECK will still work, but that there is also a New dialogue editor that gives advanced features. From this I GECKulcate that quests and dialogue will be directly-portable from Fo3 to NV mods, after which we can go back and use the new dialogue editor to add/change things. I'm REALLY hoping this is the case, as quest/dialogue is complicated and time consuming to build - I've got one quest with 184 users and complex branching structure that I do not want to re-create!!

For the world, Elminster and I both suspect that all but a few test cells would have been deleted, all but a few sample NPCs and Quests would be deleted and any asset that is east-coast / Fallout3-theme specific would have been deleted before starting. This would have given Obsidian the GECK with all of the generic, non-Fallout3-specific assets left in to start working with New Vegas. I think it was very smart on both companies as Obsidian didn't have to waste time making thousands of common objects, and could instead focus on building the world and making NV-thematic-specific content. This makes the 18-month time line much more understandable, and it was a true gift to the modding community as at least some or most of our mods can be converted legally and within the rules set out by Bethesda and Obsidian.

All I can say is that October 19th can't come soon enough! Until then I'll be converting and preparing my my own mod for conversion, and praying very hard that Many/Most of the Fallout3 assets (especially the kits) get included in New Vegas. :fallout:

Miax

There are a couple of scripts, but none of them actually work, so no real problem there