Hey guys! Nice to see an editing forum still going strong. The Massassi scene died quite a while ago, though JK was an ancient game to be fair.

Right then, hopefully the answer to my question(s) will be a positive one and i shall be sticking around for a while, no doubt asking annoying questions.

I'm just about to enter my 3rd year of Solent University (in England) doing a degree in games art. [so i'm not a complete newb]
Now i havent been given the go ahead for anything yet, but ive already made up my mind somewhat concerning what i want to do for my FINAL MAJOR project.

I just finished Oblivion (a few years too late) and i loved the open world aspect, and realised this could be the engine i'm looking for.

Here's the major question:
What CANT i modify?

I wont go into details about what the mod will be about, but here's the important aspects I need to know:

Can I get rid of all Tamriel and start afresh on my own world? [as in, the data for tamriel is removed and replaced by the heightmaps/whatever for my own land]
Can I modify the HUD in a significant way?
Can I get rid of the annoying face generation part when starting a new game? I want just a few different characters available for playing.

If the above questions are either "YES" or "POTENTIALLY YES" then its great news.
THe project i want to do has NOTHING to do with elves and goblins, in fact most of the world wont even have trees or caves.
I've only played around with the mod programs for a day, the texture/model system is quite nice, though id rather not touch animations with a barge pole.

So let me know what i'm getting myself in for. Id rather stick with Oblivion's engine. the UDK doesnt seem to have a soul if u know what I mean.

Aeryn/Ruthven

The skills, attributes, base weapon types (blade/blunt, 1hand/2hand, bow, staff), and magic effects are hard coded, and cannot be changed much in the CS, although even those can be altered to some degree. The appearances, sounds, names, and AoE behavior can be changed on spells, and with a bit of scripting, new weapon types can effectively be created. I have just finished a mod with working wands, which function as 1 handed staves. I have seen several which allow thrown weapons, and one even has true functional offhand weapons. The leveling system can also be removed or changed.

All of Tamriel could be erased and replaced, if you have a lot of free time, although I think you need some other software to edit the land masses in any significant way. The character generation screen could be limited by making fewer playable races, or simply skipped and the player forced to use a default character you create. I don't think you could give several options without the face editing part though. The appearance of the HUD can be changed, but I don't know if other parts can be added, such as a secondary spell slot or experience bar or the like.

1. yes, all Tamriel data can be removed.
2. Yes, but if you want anything really different you'll also have to use some other mods to get it working (aka OBSE).
3. Err...not really. Before face gen you only have the single generic face and there is no way to copy or paste faces in oblivion. SOme thrid party programs can edit saves (like Wyre Bash) to do it, but it is very ahrd to use it on the fly.

Other things hardcoded:
Skills
Magic Effect are all hardcoded...however it is quite easy to script your own as a scritped spell.
Vaious items have hardcoded ID names, but you can edit the items themselves if you intend to use it.

The biggest problem starting from scratch is where from scratch can you start? If its a project for an assignment then you will have to see if you can use any of bethesda's files (you may not be allowed to), if you have to start from complete scratch then you'll be in trouble, as you'll have to do all the 3d models and animations for people, a job that can take a single person months to complete on their own. You also need to have a really good knowledge of how .nif and .kf files work and what you can and cant do with them.

It all depends on what you are allowed to use.

ok thats good enough for me, i'll give it a go.

Not off to a great start though, The TES Construction Set consistently crashes even after making the smallest changes in the heightmap generator. /facepalm

Theres another program you can use, then import the heightmaps, I think. The CS wiki says the CS heightmap editor crashes when too drastic a change is made, and the ground mesh gets unaligned or "rips." I can't really help much though. I've never worked with heightmaps, modelling, textures, and animation. I really prefer scripting.

Hi Aeryn,

I'm also a Oblivion nub, so you can choose to ignore what I say, but in my limited experience of scripting with Oblivion and looking into other peoples scripts it appears that the further you go from Oblivion's intended game-play the more hack like you're code seems to get and the more potential it has for conflicts and errors.

Probably the best way of expressing that is to say that unlike UDK which is an engine with development software available Oblivion is a game with development software available. It just happens that things like OBSE have given a lot of scope for modifications.

Same here, only started using and learning the construction set a week ago. I'm a 3d artist (though never had formal training in it, what I know is from six years of continuous modding experience). I'm one of the main artists in one of the grand finals winners of the MSU contest. Our mod team is now moving to the UDK engine for a commercial release (no, I'm not from the Toltec team ). The difference between the two is exactly what mikey said.

UDK is 'soul-less' simply because it's an entirely blank canvass. You'd need a pretty good coder to get something out of it, but the possibilities are almost endless if you do (as evidenced by the variety of mods and games made using it and the UE3). Oblivion is far more 'ready-made', but again is made specifically for a specific type of game. And yes, that means elves and goblins.

Modifying the simplest things like animations or getting a certain action to work through AI for example in Oblivion can be quite a pain. The art resources formats are also a bit nonstandard, nif support for commercial 3d apps for example (if you're not a Blender user) is haphazard at best. So if you're planning something with spaceships, or even just a game with multilevel buildings where an NPC can shoot down at another NPC at ground level, this isn't the 'engine' for you. Try Unity or CryEngine or yeah... UDK. As for me, I don't mind, as I'm modding Oblivion purely for personal gratification.

But as a final project engine for school, it would do nicely. Just don't get too ambitious. Starting from scratch is never a good idea, unless you have a dedicated team of various skills with you willing to work like slaves for three years LOL like we did for the UT3 engine.

thanks guys, yeah i'm in agreement with UDK vs TES comments.

But no my mod isnt too far from elves and goblins. Rather than based on D&D, mine is based on WoD, (world of darkness) so creatures and characters will be based on vampires/ghouls with other supernatural entities.
I'm not expected to create miracles for this project, as a game artist rather than technical artist or coder, i'm meant to create sweet looking models and environments. I got 3dsmax 8 to directly import Nifs, skeletons, and DDS textures.
My god though, the animation system is a nightmare. Hopefully i can get a few slaves (class mates) to do the tricky stuff. Already experienced in zbrush so normal map wise i'm sorted