I recently came across a feature in the Creation Kit called "Find Text". It allowed you to search all of the objects, quest stages, dialogue, objectives and more in the Creation Kit to search for certain phrases or pieces of text. It's incredibly useful to me, as I'm often searching for a phrase - be it to implement voice, or bugfix the sentence I saw in the game - that I don't know the location of. It's quite easy to use - I detail its features in the following article.
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If you've worked with quest dialogue even a small amount, using the feature brought about in Skyrim called "Dialogue Views", you have probably experienced the huge mess that is linking your dialogue topics. When you attempt to link them together, the links will often go in incredibly weird directions - like AROUND your branch 3 times - before looping back to a topic literally right next to the topic you're linking from. And it makes you want to punch your computer. However, I've found out how to fix it.
Today, we'll be looking at two tools that can be used for branching dialogue and story creation (Twine and inklewriter). Writing out branching dialogue, which is used in Skyrim, can be quite difficult when using conventional tools like Word or Google Docs. At best, you have a nice, neat system with numbering. But even then, there can be significant issues. Numbering gets screwed up, the text is shoved into the corner as the numbered list grows longer, you have difficulty navigating. Both Twine and inklewriter are great tools for branching creation, and are a LOT easier than traditional text editors.
Today, I'll be comparing text editors for use with Skyrim's scripting language, Papyrus. I'll be listing two of them, as well as their pros and cons and my personal opinion on each. There are also a few Honorable Mentions included on the list. Hopefully, this article should help you decide which text editor you want to use. The two text editors we'll be comparing are Sublime Text 2 and Notepad++. Both are free.
This'll go over something that a lot of people are confused about. When you start a mod, how do you attract people to join your team? I've got a decent amount of experience in this from Immersive Quests, which has a team of around 12 now. So, let's start. I apologize if I seem to take a harsh stance on this, it's a point that needs to be made.
And regarding the title... Mlee made an article on this but redacted it. I wrote a new one but since it's about the same subject figured I'd go with a similar name. Just didn't want to confuse people who think this is also by Mlee. This is a rewrite of the previous version of this, Making Good Dialogue, including mlee3141's own section on writing dialogue. Everything written in italics was written by me, everything else is written by mlee. This is an article about writing good, interesting dialogue for your quests (which should be well-made, too). Dialogue should be more than just connecting the dots in your quests - it should be what tells the story, and not just the quest's story either. The characters' story too. This article will teach you how to do that.
In some responses to people, I've mentioned polling, a method used in scripting that can cause damaging leftover scripts in saves if not done right. They've asked me what it means, so I figured I would create an article about what it is, and why it's damaging. So here it is.
We're going to talk about the best way to test mods. Whether you're beta or alpha testing for another modder, or just for your own mod, it's important to follow at least some of these guidelines to minimize your chances of destabilizing or even ruining your game because of a bad mod.
If you want to promote your mod, a big part of it is showing off your mod - visually. But just taking screenshots or recording a video isn't enough. If you want to show photos and trailers of quality, or how to get those downloading your mods to see how amazing your mod looks (we'll make it look amazing), start here.
This is a simple article on how to check for mod conflicts. This applies to both mod users and mod creators. Knowing how to check for mod conflicts is a useful skill that will help stabilize your game and eliminate many possible crashes.
I originally intended to have this as part of a larger series on how to publish a mod successfully, but decided to release this part first after recieving a question about it on the Nexus Forums. So what follows is a guide to successfully promoting your mods.
This is an article on the use of OnDying, versus OnDeath. The pros and cons of each. But before you even start reading it, here's a hint: OnDeath has no pros. Note: This is like an educational rant.
This is an article on how to name your records in Skyrim. This includes NPCs, items, Papyrus Fragments and more. It also talks about some other organizational tools you can use in the Creation Kit.
In this article, we use the terms CK, record and mod. CK is the Creation Kit, the tool used to modify Skyrim, and a mod is a modification to the game. Records are the individual things that you can create - items, NPC's, etc. |