I've been thinking of ways to make our Construction Set lists easier and more intuitive to navigate. Sometimes I find myself having problems finding stuff, and then I rub my head for awhile because if I have trouble finding it - being the one who probably set it up in the CS - how difficult wouldn't it be for others to find the stuff they want to use.
The thing is I've organized the lists my own way up until now and it hasn't worked out great. It works ok, I think, but I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes in the way I organized the lists. A classic example (in my own opinion) is the Containers folder. What was I thinking? :dunce: Sure there are many legitimate containers in it but also a number of furniture pieces, like the Dunmer desk for instance, and I know modders sometimes don't know there are furniture in that list they can use in their interiors.
I guess the jist of the organization problem is that I have sometimes confused the way lists in Oblivion works with the way they worked in Morrowind. Using prefixes like "StFurn" is a good example of that; it might have made sense in a Morrowind mod where organization was synonymous with the Construction Set ID, but it doesn't have much point in an Oblivion mod. Everything lists together anyway when one goes into the right sub-list.
- What do you think is the most serious problem with the lists right now? Has anything been especially hard to find?
- Does anyone have suggestions on how the lists can be improved?
- Perhaps someone even has a new list organization plan?
I see the logic behind the desk being in containers section. Maybe a furniture section can be created within the ST container section?
There seems to be a ST subsection within every OB section. My experience was not understanding assets in general. Meaning static from non static or that there was an ST subsection for everything.
Now that 'I' look @ the CS with ST assets it is very plain to see the organization. Maybe there are certain tweaks within the static sections that could be made(clutter) but in IMO it's the layout is fine.
i say go by how oblivion did it, its more logical than morrowind's way. i have my furniture pointing to TR/Furniture/lower class, and its subdivided by statics and containers automatically when i input it into the CS. i havent looked at your organization in a while (since before 2.0) but i think the best way is to keep it in a base ST folder and then divide it according to oblivions precedent.
btw, restructuring is a pain in the ass, especially when you this many files to move
best of luck, stock up on coffee
I realize my say is a little bit less important seeing as I haven't actually done any claims, but I would agree with Lady Nerevar. Using Oblivion's general set-up for where things belong makes it easier for people who have already done modding outside of ST. If they have any real amount of experience, they know roughly where to look for items to place in the claim they are doing. Which makes the transition to an ST mod all that much more easier. And of course, there are those items that are required to be in certain locations (working lights for instance) because of the types of objects that they are which I believe lends strength to the idea of following Oblivion's layout in the CS. If the time comes to move to Elder Scrolls V, things could always be changed to that layout if it is different.
Having said that, I think there are areas in which the Oblivion CS could have made modding easier. Some items are in odd locations when you first look for them - non-functional lights for instance. Another area is that there isn't a real breakdown of upper class, middle class, lower class in Oblivion other than a couple of letters...sometimes. :eek: And even then, they aren't all in one section leading to a lot of comparing and/or recall of the game in order to determine if something looks out of place in a certain setting. While it is reasonable to assume that a lower class or middle class household might have 1 or 2 items of luxury that are precious to the household (and dearly paid for, or perhaps, even stolen), one can easily get confused and place a large number of things that don't belong without realizing it until you inspect what you have done.
I think that about covers my two cents. :yes:
Zurke: The problem with objects like the desk though is that I made a folder called Containers and put all models used for containers in it. So when you unroll the Container list in the CS you get a list looking like this: ST > Containers > Dunmer. If I had instead put the desk model in the subfolder
Dunmer of the folder
Furniture in meshes\ST then when you had unrolled the Container list the list would have looked like this: ST > Furniture > Dunmer. The latter feels both more intuitive and cuts one redundancy out of the list rollout, and is an example of things I wish I had thought of from the get-go
I'm sure I made other mistakes like that that I'm not even aware of.
Could you explain more about the improvement to the static clutter list?
Lady Nerevar: True. As you know our model collection started from scratch and I wish I had set down an organization of the collection from the start... but since the models just didn't exist at that time I felt it was unnecessary. Technically our organization is one step more complex than Oblivion's since (like Morrowind) we differentiate between both culture and class whenever possible. I guess that's why I thought it was a good idea at the time to use culture as the base for a root folder.
ShadowDancer: Your ideas are as welcome as anyone's, and I agree with much of what you said
Lights can be in any folder though, like the meshes\ST\Lights folder we use. But there are a lot of things that are indeed hardcoded, especially when it comes to trees.
Quote:Originally posted by Razorwing
ShadowDancer: Your ideas are as welcome as anyone's, and I agree with much of what you said Lights can be in any folder though, like the meshes\ST\Lights folder we use. But there are a lot of things that are indeed hardcoded, especially when it comes to trees.
Yes, what you said is true Razorwing. But what I was talking about is in the CS itself. Lights are hardcoded in the construction set in the sense that only in the lights section do you get the options that are on the lights for flicker, can be carried, etc. But if you also look in the Static section of the construction set, there are fake lights placed through out it. For instance, the BravilLightPost is under Static\Architecture\Bravil, other lights are placed under Static\Lights, some are under Static\Architecture\Castle, and so on. In this sense, I think that the CS setup is a little lacking in its organization (although these particular lights were probably only used in certain areas), but they certainly could have indicated the general use of the light in its name as in the case of the BravilLightPost.
There is no reason that someone might not have a light in their house from another area; maybe a Nord who moved to Anvil for whatever reason and misses home, as a motif, or even for some other reason such as showing off Imperial City splendour in a Bravil house as a demonstration of wealth and influence. However finding some of those lights can be a task in and of itself since there is sometimes little rhyme or reason other than where they were used at one point.
That's true, but I think it was hardcoded that way in Morrowind too. I fear modders would make mistake all the time if the CS wasn't hardcoded to only allow information that kind of object would use.
I've only checked a fraction of Oblivion's lights while modding, but don't basically all lights start with the same CS id and then have different suffixes depending on their use, even though they may be in different lists? So you could for instance drop a static light in the world window and then if you wanted it to be a real light you could do a search-and-replace and exchange it for the cs id "close-by" in the list.
I agree with what you said about interior variation. If someone mods a Nord living in one of Soluthis' homes I wouldn't protest too much if they used Bruma stuff to decorate it with.
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I've now begun organizing the changes I want to make, and are discussing them with my fellow core members.