Item editing and basic navigation in the CS

Go get the Construction Set here.

Install it.

Now open up the CS (short for The Elder Scrolls Construction Set) and double-click the little white square in front of Oblivion.esm.

Choose "load" and wait a little. It'll take from 20 seconds to 4 minutes, depending on your computer.

You should see a tree-view at the left side of the screen. Go to

| Items |

-- | Weapons |

by double-clicking on the names, and find a weapon you would like to change. When you've found it, either double-click it or right-click and choose "edit."

Change the damage to something noticeable (176, for example)

Click OK. If you did something you didn't want to do, click Cancel. (Instead of OK)

Save the plugin by clicking on the disc in the left corner.

Quit the CS and launch Oblivion with your new mod.

Go find the weapon you changed. Notice the stats? That's the simple way to make mods.

Authors notes on "How to become a Modder"

Play around with stuff like this, changing item value and such. When you've got a good grip on navigating the CS items, try changing some of the spells.

After a little, you will begin asking "what is scripting?"

Go here, Scripting Tutorial: Basic Scripting Knowledge and you'll learn a little. There's a lot of other interesting tutorials in the wiki at that site.

Try messing a little with the render view and cells. When you can do all this, you've got most of it. Then it's about being creative. What do people need, what do YOU think would be fun to create?

I started with this one: Interior value ~ A thiefs best friend!

Try loading it in the CS. It's the same as opening the Oblivion.esm, but you'll have to click my mod instead. The Oblivion.esm will automatically be loaded. All the items that have a star/asterisk * in their IDs(/the count-tab), have been changed. Either by you, or me.

That's about it. There are many good tutorials out there.

This was supposed to end the endless stream of "how do I make mods?" threads.

-GBHis