[tutorial] Advice to new modders

[Ghost]

I have made this because in a lot of threads, new modders post ideas that are not within their reach yet. To save a lot of repeating advice, I am going to post and advice thread here. Feel free to put it in the Tutorial Section.

 

To New Modders: Welcome to the Kotor Modding Community. Here we produce the mods which advance gameplay in modding. For you new modders who want to be a part of that, I suggest you read this advice thread. You may find it will help you with modding.

 

1. Getting Started: When you start, you want to start small. It is best suited for new modders because it helps them get used to modding Kotor. Use tutorials here in Holowan as well as the tools posted in the Tutorial Section. The best one to start out is Kotor Tool. You can find all tools you will need for modding here: Click Me

The tool I advise using when you start is Kotor Tool. It is best suited for starting small, like simple GFF file edits (Items, Characters, Merchants, etc)

 

2. Advance little by little: A lot of new modders are very excited and want to go do huge projects, like Total Conversions. A lot of advice here in this forum is dont. Huge projects can take months, or even years (TCs). Simple modding is best for now. As you advance, you will discover new ways to mod

 

3. Patience: A lot of modding skills here require patience. Skinning and Modelling can take a while, and rushing it will just ruin the quality. Good skins/models took atleast 2-4 weeks to complete.

 

4. Perseverence: A lot of the times, modders lose interest in their projects and they lay dormant. Reason why is they are impatient. Long projects take a long time, so you need to stay with it if you are to complete it.

 

5. Ask Questions, Accept Criticism/Advice : When expert modders give you feedback, no matter how bad it seems, they are doing it to help you. If you have a question on modding, just ask a fellow modder who has worked in the business for a while. Some critics do not care, so sometimes you may have to ignore those who only post negative comments to your work. Its the way of modding here

 

6. Work with other modders: As you advance in modding, you will need help on some projects. That is where a modding team comes in. However, you should only need a team when you are an experienced/average modder. If you are still a beginner, work solo.

 

7. Respect other's content: Some modders want to use other mod's content in their mods. There is a solution for this. A lot of mods require permission from the author to use their content, to prevent pirating. And/or you canuse it if you give them credit. But you must always give that author credit if you use his/her mod material. If you use material from another author without their permission and/or not giving them credit, your mod will not be posted.

 

8. Places to post your mod: Here in LucasForums, we place our newly release mods in Taris Upper Emporium, or on Filefront/Kotor Files. It will take a while to upload it, so you must be patient.

 

Well, thats my advice. I welcome other advice other modders wish to add