Hi. I want to have a go making my first mod that alters an exterior cell. I want to add a wooden foot bridge connecting the imperial city waterfront to the southern bank. The bridge I want to use is the wooden one that connects the north west of the city isle to the area near fort Empire. So I loaded that cell and copied the bridge because I couldn't find the bridge secions in the CS.

Ok so now I've basically got my bridge where I want it but I'd like to be able to link all the sections together so that every time I want to move it I don't have to Ctrl Click every section. Is it possible to do that?

I'd also like to try a bit of texturing to make a little cobble stone path leading to the bridge. I've found the panel that I assume is the texturing panel "Landscape Editing". The panel looks fairly straight forward (I've done a lot of landscaping and modding for NWN 2 so I assume it's pretty similar). I select the texture I want, select the radius I want but when I try to paint it onto the world it lowers or raises the ground instead of painting on the texture. Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

I've looked for a tutorial for this but come up empty.

Many thanks.

1) as far as i know, you can't "link" the pieces.
2) texture editing is done by the right click, ground level alteration with the left click. (iirc)

the http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Main_Page has tons of tutorials on this and other topics.

Aha, that's what I was looking for. Thank you kindly.

Another thing, is there any way of telling what a certain texture in the world is? Lets say I want to match a texture that's already there is the only way to do it to go through the whole list and try out every one that looks similar?

And is it possible to turn objects on their side, like a barrel that's been tipped over?

ya it is possible to do just hold z or x along with the right mouse button then you should be able to make it rotate

Thank you kindly.

I've finished my bridge and just as a bit of detail I added a light post on each end. The thing is there's a flame but no light. I wanted to add a light but I can't find anything in the tutorials about lights. And if I look at the same light post in the world I can't see anything that gives off light. In the NWN2 constrution set there is a little yellow diamond shaped thing that you place where you want the light, and edit the preferences for colour and radius and so forth. I assumed this would be the same, but I can't see anything.

I did however notice that you can turn the flames off on the light post properties but that still leaves the sound. Again, I assumed it would be similar to NWN2 and there would be something you can place or move around that gives off the sound but I can't find anything.

I hadn't planned to upload this mod (I don't know who'd be interested in it at this point, there are better bridge mods out there), but what would be considered a greater evil; a torch with no light, or a torch sound but no flame?

Thanks again.

adding a light is easy.
Switch to your "Object Window" window, and click the + next to WorldObjects. I hate to be a bit harsh on you, but if you did not see the additional + next to the item "Lights" then jeez. Anyways, once you dropped down the WorldObjects tab, minimize any other tabs (for convenience) until you find the + next to the "light" tab. select the plus sign to drop down the light tab and click on "light". Once clicked on, it will show every available light source in the game, ofcourse underneath that are subtabs that show architectural lights, clutter lights, dungeon lights, ect, but if you want to use lights with no mesh/texture, but just the light themselves, select the "Light Tab" at the very top.
select Amb300 (second light object down on the list) and double click to open it's properties.
IMPORTANT!!! First thing, and I cannot stress this enough, before you do ANYTHING in the window that opened up, change the ID to a new ID of your choice
**Good modding habit to practice is to always start the new ID with either YOUR initials or your mod's initials. For example my mod is Camp Simplicity, so every new object I created in that mod starts with "CS[objectname]" this makes things easier to locate for yourself and others who wish to change something.
after changing the ID you really don't need to mess with the script or the FOV, or Falloff Exponent. The radius is the size, and for a lamp, 300 - 500 is good (600 if you want to be daring).
Changing the colour, you can either type in the value amount of that colour, or use the select colour tab. The "brighter" the colour, the brighter the light. So if you have a yellow light (for fire) and have the darkness slider closer to the top, it will be brighter.
The fade value is how fast it fades from the center. For a lamp, leave this value as it is. I recommend values between .8 - 1.0 for lamps.

The flicker effect should be self explanatory. For fire, you want to set it to "Flicker". "flicker slow" "Pulse" "Pulse Slow" each do something a tiny bit different, and are pretty self explanatory, so I am not going to go into detail on this.

On the right side of the panel there is "This light can be carried". Ignore this. This is what you would set if you were making a new torch - so to speak. below that are seperate check boxes. Select the "Dynamic" check box. I am unable to accurately explain each check box, so just do as I say. By selecting any others, it will not cause damage to your game, so feel free to expirament to see what check box does what.

After you have ran through and changed the settings to your linking, hit okay, and (IMPORTANT!!!) when the dialogue box comes up saying "Old ID: Amb300 New ID:[yourmodID] You have changed the Form's Editor ID. Create new Form?"
Be sure - and again I cannot stress this enough - Be sure to hit "Yes"

and there is your guide

Thank you kindly for all that. But how do you get your light into the world? I tried dragging and dropping it like any other item but nothing seems to happen.

I can place one from the Fire tab, like FireTorchSmall, but that places an actual flame as well as a light. The lamp post already has a flame but no light. I suppose I could turn that off and move the one I just placed in it's place but it strikes me there must be a better way.

I didn't even look on the lists to find a light because I didn't want to mess around with the properties. I just hoped to find one already in the world and cut and copy it as it is.

Thanks again.

if you used the amb300 then there should be no problems with it being dragged and dropped. It might be there in the CS when you drag and drop it, but you can't see it, so push A (when in the render window) to brighten things up to see if you can see the light.

I just tried myself in the CS. click and hold on the new light, and drag it into the render window. It appeared right infront of me when I did it.

What does it look like? Do you need to have anything in the View turned on, like you can turn trees off for example. I've got light radius turned on, and I can see the radius around the flame, but that's the only one.

I'll keep trying, and try with some other lights.

Thanks again.

it looks like a translucent (not transparent) grey light bulb with a + in the middle of it.

I didn't have markers turned on, I can see them now.

It's finished, I'm quite pleased with it. I uploaded it and I've even got my first dikeish comment. It reminded me of the mods for NWN2 I made, and how people always managed to find something to complain about it. It took seven months of full time work and all some people can do is pick fault. People who no doubt have never created anything.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31581

lol, I was about to say, most comments seem like rude comments but they are just there to help you get better, but upon reading the comment, I realized, it was just a guy being a jerk.
lol, a recent comment I posted laid down my thoughts exactly for a mod, and I am sure that person will not like me ever because of my thoughts but hopefully that person has enough of a braincell to use what I said to better his mod.

Anyways, I will admit to you, that personally - as a first mod - I am weary of downloading due to possible dirty edits. Also, to me - though it is a nice minor addition to the game - I try limiting myself from grabbing every possible mod...I don't want to hit that mod limit you know? and the closer I get to it, the more problems I will experiance.
Maybe if I ever decide to clean my LO and I get my mod count considerably lower, then I will give your mod a look see...ofcourse, I also want to make sure you have cleaned it too.

EDIT:
I forgot something I really really wanted to say in this comment.

I would like to commend you for not doing what most first-time modders do (including me).
Even the other commenter on your file made note of this, but, anyways. Good job on not getting all excited about your "new found" ability to do whatever you want with Oblivion and make this humongous mod that would "follow with a crash/fail"