Hi, I've been working on customizing this mod in CK for myself for literally months. I've put probably upwards of a hundred hours into editing it to be exactly how I like (half of that is probably loading and another 25% on learning creation kit but still plenty of time to make massive changes).
I've gotten everything set just about how I want it but there's still one last thing bugging me: the spot next to the door that you can't walk through. What exactly is causing this? You can't see it in creation kit even with markers turned on. There's something invisible or maybe the tree or something in the ground that creates an invisible wall that prevents the player from walking toward the tree. My first thought was that it was the moths seeing as they have that huge box around them (no idea why they would need it) but even after moving them up into the branches of the tree and deleting the clover that is sat there on the ground (which also doesn't cause problems elsewhere) the barrier still exists.
If you're interested, since permissions to re-upload is restricted I would be willing to share my extensive changes as an alternate file for free and let you take all of the credit. I simply want to share my work seeing as it was... rather extensive. It's hard to remember over the months it's taken but I'll do a walk through in my head and hopefully I won't miss anything. This was optimized for use with ELFX but there are still flashing lights in a few places so if some lights are deleted or moved that's why... Here is a list of the changes:
Exterior:
rotated body of cliff face behind door so it doesn't stick through the wood
fixed several transparent textures/holes in cliffs that could see through the map
placed a black plane behind door so that when it opens it doesn't show the bare cliff wall & roots
Entry Way:
changed floor in front of interior door to stone slab (Windhelm castle floor I believe) to match the tile in bag end (there is no red tile to pick from but I think it looks better anyways as it differentiates the entryway from the rest of the house) + entry way carpet/"welcome mat" to indicate the walkway
replaced letters on the side table with a small soul cairn geyser for a cool lighting effect and something to look at that isn't messy clutter
changed thalmor boots next to bench to thieves guild boots (looks more "worn" as they slope down, matches Bilbo more as he was the "thief" in The Hobbit, and nobody likes those nasty thalmor!)
Replaced all house floors and ceilings with (clean) hjerim dark-wood-plank floors to offset the bright oak walls and get rid of that dirty ship rust/paint stripping from the Katariah floors
re-did the fountain (I accidentally deleted some of the rocks and then saved so I had to re-make it from scratch. Still looks good although I haven't compared it to the original)
deleted wisps' extra lights (not the wisps themselves) - with ELFX and ENB installed these were WAYYY too bright and cast weird square-shaped shadows on the ground despite the floor tiles being much larger than said squares. No idea what caused this but it was too ugly to justify having what was otherwise cool lights. I'm not sure but I think ELFX adds lights to the wisps themselves so there are still glows that hit the wall but they aren't nearly as bright or beautiful :(
Crafting/Desk room:
added the lavender? out the window that Sam was hiding behind while "dropping eaves" (don't turn me into anything... unnatural!)
added container to the ledger so you can store your money! (for gold hoarding dragons)
moved some things around on the desk and deleted duplicates used elsewhere so the clutter/decor has a more unique feel
deleted a bunch of books/book stacks so that it didn't feel like a book loving hermit had been using bag end as a storage unit (some of them were a little... too large and it felt like apocrypha in there)
added a disenchanting fountain from DLC2 with a dragon skull above it for extra flavor
deleted a few of the dust-streams coming in from the window (not sure if this is because of ELFX but they looked REALLY dirty)
moved the ambient lights around to better illuminate the room and make it feel more natural/cozy
added a potions collection container next to the alchemy station
added a witch's pot and bubbling green-glowing goo behind the alchemy table to fill the empty space in a little
Bedroom:
Moved flying bird to front hall to make room for bigger chest for main-storage (and to clear walk way to fire place since the armor chest there was slightly blocking the hallway)
Added a dragon skull to the book shelf at the foot of the bed since there was extra empty room and there simply aren't enough books to fill the whole house AND this mini-shelf (I thought about doubling the input markers since they only filled half of the shelf, but it was too tedious and I couldn't fill them anyway)
Added a 2nd light to fill in the space left by removing the empty chests and moving things around (adds more ambiance and life to that corner of the room, feng shui)
Fixed the rugs under the mannequins so they are centered now
removed the cross-swords above the mannequins and added some animated banners to make the walls above them less bare
I liked the map behind the shelves but because the asset is so small and it's blown up so big the texture looked a little ugly, so I COMPLETELY reworked the shelves. This took WEEKS.
added ivy behind the upper most shelves (to add something up there but avoid placing objects you will never see
3 themed columns of shelves: gods, factions, collections...
Gods shelves: top two are the Aedra's shrines (with Talos up top in the shadows to represent both either his supremacy over the other aedra, or putting him out of reach, forgotten and dusty, depending on your perspective). Bottom two are a painstakingly curated collection of all daedric artifacts and statues in the game. These shelves double as a "Daedric Artifact Storage". Clavicus Vile is holding his actual mask, Meridia holds her beacon with Dawnbreaker slung across her hip, Azura holds her star, Mehrunes Dagon guards his dagger, Hermaeus Mora sits atop the Ohgma Infinium, and I made a custom NIF file for Boethia's statue since the source included the entire damned hill underneath of her and wouldn't fit on the shelf.
Factions shelves: Top two shelves are dedicated to the evil guilds (all of the thieves guild collectibles & golden stolen valuables, plus a nightingale and dark brotherhood banner! Bottom shelf is dedicated to the "good" guilds with an animated eye of magnus and college magicka fountains, plus the banners of each Civil War army!
Collections shelves: top shelf for the claws, bottom shelf for the bug jars, I couldn't think of other collectibles so I decided to make a mini-black reach diorama for fun.
Fire Place:
Replaced the burning book (who would do such a thing!) with The Ring, (hold out your hand) It's quite cool...
removed the pages under the coffee/tea table (who would destroy a perfectly good book!?) so the room doesn't feel like apocrypha again
chose a different rug that looked better at such a large size
moved crossed swords rack out of the wall so it can be used (these things suck, they never work properly but I got others to work elsewhere)
moved floating book up to look like it was floating from one shelf to the stack on the other side
deleted statue on the floor blocking the book shelf from being used
Kitchen:
made the floor the same stone as the entry way to match this diagram.
added more lavender to make it look like there was an outside that wasn't pure blackness (I wanted to add some kind of skybox but apparently that can be pretty difficult...
added a map on the table to simulate the map of the misty mountains Gandalf looks at while talking with Bilbo
added a ship wheel to the fireplace next to the sign for some extra decor
messed with the lights a bit, moved some things around to allow better navmesh pathing through the room
Forge:
This area is completely re-done because I accidentally did all of the above to the original file without the forge room and didn't want to start over
re-done cave structure bigger than the original
sky haven temple walls with weapon plaques to make the room feel more like a room and less like a cave or collapsing mine
added an extra mannequin and a chest for storing weapons
added a sack for storing forge materials
added all of the smithing stations
added stone tiled floor so that, again, it doesn't feel like a cave
I wanted to add the skyforge eagle but felt it wouldn't be original enough and would require a large open space because it is so big which goes back to the skybox problem
Added a waterfall to the ceiling-hole
Added alchemy ingredients and a ramp up to the now expanded out-cropping of grass (and a little secret)
Added a hide rug to the crafting area so you don't hurt your knees while you kneel down to tan leather. Who says a forge can't be cozy?
Added a hobbit-sized training dummy and an elevated archery target
Lots of water drips around the cave due to the mixture of moist waterfall air and the heat of the forge
Replicated the forge smoke exiting through the ceiling hole
General additions/changes:
completely redid all of the navmesh (my npcs were bugging the hell out, had to learn navmesh and painstakingly, manually map out the whole floor)
deleted navmesh points outside the map and on top of the building to hopefully improve performance/stop any buggy npc behavior
moved some things around to make the navmesh less messy and so npcs can move around objects like tables, trees, and thin hallways
messed with all of the lighting to try to prevent flickering to the best of my ability while using ELFX, although it still happens with all of the candles
filled in gaps in hallway floors that left holes straight down into the abyss
re-did ugly un-even clipping carpet to be a little less noticeable (although there is no good way to make that texture line up since the rug itself is not perfectly rectangular)
fixed distracting clipping struts stuck inside of each other all around the house
tried to patch some rough corners/wall textures that stuck out to hopefully make the seems less noticeable (although there is one really ugly one to the right of the entrance that I don't know what to do about)
added some music for myself since it's silent but the files are sourced from a different mod so if it breaks you might need to go back in and swap it out for different music (in CK just go into the world tab at the top, find the cell, and select music for the cell on the right)
can you share this to me??? i loved this mod sm and as a huge Tolkien fanboy was so sad it was abandoned, and it sounds like you brought it back to life! only thing that would have made that change sound even better wouldve been a guest room or something for family and kids (or your many dwarf and wizard friends but forget the distant relations :D) and a horse stable for your ponies, with an extra secure padlock so no trolls or goblins will snatch them up XD
Just one thing bud , do not take me wrong but a lot of people love this Original Mod including myself , but what is the point of posting all this you changed and improved to make the Mod bug free and better if you do not Upload it even as a patch ???
I really never understood the point of , not only you but a lot more people , posting mods that cure , fix , improve other older or abandoned mods out there including this one and do not post their fixed stuff !
Sorry not Ranting , but take into consideration that you gave the trouble to post a list of changes , fixes and improvements I was just waiting to see a link for some kind of Patch from you and in the end its just like giving a photo of a chocolate cake to a kid and say ...SOON !
Love this mod. So beautiful and so much thought has clearly gone in. I recently got back into the game and am using it as the main home for a brand new character. The one thing I'd say this mod could really do with is a smelter. The room for smithing new items is excellent, but I find myself having to fast travel to Whiterun in order to turn my ores into ingots. If this could be done in the home, it would be a vast improvement.
I am a fan of this mod! But I have a small question, I would like to dress the models but I am afraid that my objects will disappear. Is it possible that bandits or the like are coming to this house?
House Mod Community Guidelines >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Just so this is all in one place ...... here are some notes for house mod makers that are rarely posted anywhere.... Please don't take personally .... everybody has problems with this ...
1) Give credit to nif, texture, and script makers.
2) Make an attempt to figure out if a popular mod already occupies the space where you want to build. If a popular mod sits in the same place or even the same cell, nobody will use your mod and it will make both mods malfunction. Contact the mod author regarding a merge if there is synergy.
3) Don't situate your house on a border between cells ..... check position in CK first ....... The front door of this mod is right on the border of 4 cells which means the navmeshes for 4 cells need to modified and finalized ....... 4 times the compatibility problems..........This mod is in a pretty sweet spot so I understand why O used it anyway
4) Never use vanilla assets and never make vanilla base asset changes as this can effect every item in the game. Make a Duplicate and use that.
5) Skyrim has severe lighting limitations and there is no way around them.Only a few shadow casting and non shadow casting lights can light surfaces and this is determined partially by your FOV. After you light your house you need to walk every area of your house to look for lights that flicker depending on where you look. Areas where a lot of light are visible are the worst offenders. THEN you need to activate the spell Candlelight and do it all again, unless the place is so bright that you doubt anyone would use Candlelight. If you have lights that only turn on during the day you need to check during the daytime too.
6) If you make any landscape height adjustments, don't do that near a cell border as it will make seams if other modder makes changes to the adjacent cell.
7) Check your mod with SSEedit for wild edits and ITMs ....... the CK generates these like crazy even when you are careful.
8) Avoid persistent item flags unless you really need it
9) Initially disabled is your friend ..... don't delete vanilla items especially base objects.
10) Navmeshing is a pita , don't span cell borders with changes as this is a recipe for disaster in terms of compatability
11) Keep your house as focused as possible ..... don't make changes outside your cell unless they are really compelling ..... your world edits may break somebody else's mod and are a nightmare to troubleshoot
12) Don't use Guard NPCs to limit access to your home ...... they require scripts to keep them under control which are rarely done properly.
13) Adding a key that you need to find can be equally problematic as you can't just leave it sitting in the world somewhere because this is risky. Another mod may load something in the same area and send it flying. Another mod may move the object it is sitting on. Depending on how the meshes load the object may just fall through the floor or fall though the ground when a NPC walks by. Perhaps the best ways is to just set up a collision box in front of the door with a script that checks if the player meets some requirement before disabling......... this requires knowledge of the Papyrus scripting and aliasing and actually setting up your CK to work with scripts........which is way too convoluted :(
14) If you have windows consider making them transparent and building a fake exterior just outside. Then add time of day lighting using the external emittance mask but keep the source point outside.
15) Don't allow instant fast travel. Usually keep the map marker hidden until discovered. It is easy to create a book or note that when read will reveal the marker. Include a COC marker and give COC instructions in the mod description for those that want to assess the mod.
I will not give permission to use my plug-in, and I officially declare that this modification does not use third-party mods except the general displais which I deleted and do not plan to add it to my plugin.
LOL .... I respect that .......This is supposed to be a community but it obviously isn't. People think they can mod and get a job ..... they probably won't ..... This industry is a big meat grinder.
I wasn't trying to steal your mod ..... I saw your mod and liked it enough to hack it to bits and use it for my own purposes. Why not share the information with you so you can make your mod better? I have no illusions that my skill as a modder will get me anything other than amusement ....
Why would the industry buy the cow when the milk is free? Millions of liters of it ....
And relax ..... nobody is accusing you of deliberately putting your mod where Marnya is..... There are NO Rules regarding where you can put your mods in Skyrim but when multiple mods change the same cell this causes issues. Nobody is happy.... It is a negative sum game. If Beth was a real leader they would have figured out a way to deal with this but they can't or won't.
The Nexus should have a built in process where every mod submitted is screened for what cells are edited and this information fed into a database so that the community can see exactly what cells are edited by every mod they download and can filter out incompatible mods. This would also force modders to be more focused and screen their mods for wild edits. Yes you can do this with SSEedit but it would be much easier at the nexus level.
Thark reminded me of Golem, it's like someone looked at his ring and he snatched his hands away with spit flying out of his mouth yelling "IT'S MINE!!! IT'S MINE! MY OWN!!"
HAHAHHAHAA, no matter the consequence. This comment was worth all of it.
Sirandar is right, your mod is a mess. He was just trying to help you out with your mod, you should be thankful he fixed it at all! With an attitude like that no one will endorse or download your mods. You have to be nice with the users here or you can kiss your endorsements goodbye!
Excuse me! I just don’t know English (I use Google translator) and didn’t understand it correctly! Sorry if I offended someone! Unfortunately I do not have time to fix the mod!
Absolutely gorgeous home - it feels very magical:) Everything seems to be working fine for me, thank you. Speaking as someone with the spirit of a hobbit, I'd love a bit more food decoration in the kitchen but you've made a wonderful, cosy home here<3
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I've gotten everything set just about how I want it but there's still one last thing bugging me: the spot next to the door that you can't walk through. What exactly is causing this? You can't see it in creation kit even with markers turned on. There's something invisible or maybe the tree or something in the ground that creates an invisible wall that prevents the player from walking toward the tree. My first thought was that it was the moths seeing as they have that huge box around them (no idea why they would need it) but even after moving them up into the branches of the tree and deleting the clover that is sat there on the ground (which also doesn't cause problems elsewhere) the barrier still exists.
If you're interested, since permissions to re-upload is restricted I would be willing to share my extensive changes as an alternate file for free and let you take all of the credit. I simply want to share my work seeing as it was... rather extensive. It's hard to remember over the months it's taken but I'll do a walk through in my head and hopefully I won't miss anything. This was optimized for use with ELFX but there are still flashing lights in a few places so if some lights are deleted or moved that's why... Here is a list of the changes:
Exterior:
- rotated body of cliff face behind door so it doesn't stick through the wood
- fixed several transparent textures/holes in cliffs that could see through the map
- placed a black plane behind door so that when it opens it doesn't show the bare cliff wall & roots
Entry Way:
- changed floor in front of interior door to stone slab (Windhelm castle floor I believe) to match the tile in bag end (there is no red tile to pick from but I think it looks better anyways as it differentiates the entryway from the rest of the house) + entry way carpet/"welcome mat" to indicate the walkway
- replaced letters on the side table with a small soul cairn geyser for a cool lighting effect and something to look at that isn't messy clutter
- changed thalmor boots next to bench to thieves guild boots (looks more "worn" as they slope down, matches Bilbo more as he was the "thief" in The Hobbit, and nobody likes those nasty thalmor!)
- Replaced all house floors and ceilings with (clean) hjerim dark-wood-plank floors to offset the bright oak walls and get rid of that dirty ship rust/paint stripping from the Katariah floors
- re-did the fountain (I accidentally deleted some of the rocks and then saved so I had to re-make it from scratch. Still looks good although I haven't compared it to the original)
- deleted wisps' extra lights (not the wisps themselves) - with ELFX and ENB installed these were WAYYY too bright and cast weird square-shaped shadows on the ground despite the floor tiles being much larger than said squares. No idea what caused this but it was too ugly to justify having what was otherwise cool lights. I'm not sure but I think ELFX adds lights to the wisps themselves so there are still glows that hit the wall but they aren't nearly as bright or beautiful :(
Crafting/Desk room:
- added the lavender? out the window that Sam was hiding behind while "dropping eaves" (don't turn me into anything... unnatural!)
- added container to the ledger so you can store your money! (for gold hoarding dragons)
- moved some things around on the desk and deleted duplicates used elsewhere so the clutter/decor has a more unique feel
- deleted a bunch of books/book stacks so that it didn't feel like a book loving hermit had been using bag end as a storage unit (some of them were a little... too large and it felt like apocrypha in there)
- added a disenchanting fountain from DLC2 with a dragon skull above it for extra flavor
- deleted a few of the dust-streams coming in from the window (not sure if this is because of ELFX but they looked REALLY dirty)
- moved the ambient lights around to better illuminate the room and make it feel more natural/cozy
- added a potions collection container next to the alchemy station
- added a witch's pot and bubbling green-glowing goo behind the alchemy table to fill the empty space in a little
Bedroom:Fire Place:
Kitchen:
Forge:
General additions/changes:
- completely redid all of the navmesh (my npcs were bugging the hell out, had to learn navmesh and painstakingly, manually map out the whole floor)
- deleted navmesh points outside the map and on top of the building to hopefully improve performance/stop any buggy npc behavior
- moved some things around to make the navmesh less messy and so npcs can move around objects like tables, trees, and thin hallways
- messed with all of the lighting to try to prevent flickering to the best of my ability while using ELFX, although it still happens with all of the candles
- filled in gaps in hallway floors that left holes straight down into the abyss
- re-did ugly un-even clipping carpet to be a little less noticeable (although there is no good way to make that texture line up since the rug itself is not perfectly rectangular)
- fixed distracting clipping struts stuck inside of each other all around the house
- tried to patch some rough corners/wall textures that stuck out to hopefully make the seems less noticeable (although there is one really ugly one to the right of the entrance that I don't know what to do about)
- added some music for myself since it's silent but the files are sourced from a different mod so if it breaks you might need to go back in and swap it out for different music (in CK just go into the world tab at the top, find the cell, and select music for the cell on the right)
Anyways, here are some screenshots of my changes!?I really never understood the point of , not only you but a lot more people , posting mods that cure , fix , improve other older or abandoned mods out there including this one and do not post their fixed stuff !
Sorry not Ranting , but take into consideration that you gave the trouble to post a list of changes , fixes and improvements I was just waiting to see a link for some kind of Patch from you and in the end its just like giving a photo of a chocolate cake to a kid and say ...SOON !
Also, it doesn't say in the description, but do we need to use both the main file and the update? Why's the main file called Nora?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Just so this is all in one place ...... here are some notes for house mod makers that are rarely posted anywhere.... Please don't take personally .... everybody has problems with this ...
1) Give credit to nif, texture, and script makers.
2) Make an attempt to figure out if a popular mod already occupies the space where you want to build. If a popular mod sits in the same place or even the same cell, nobody will use your mod and it will make both mods malfunction. Contact the mod author regarding a merge if there is synergy.
3) Don't situate your house on a border between cells ..... check position in CK first ....... The front door of this mod is right on the border of 4 cells which means the navmeshes for 4 cells need to modified and finalized ....... 4 times the compatibility problems..........This mod is in a pretty sweet spot so I understand why O used it anyway
4) Never use vanilla assets and never make vanilla base asset changes as this can effect every item in the game. Make a Duplicate and use that.
5) Skyrim has severe lighting limitations and there is no way around them.Only a few shadow casting and non shadow casting lights can light surfaces and this is determined partially by your FOV. After you light your house you need to walk every area of your house to look for lights that flicker depending on where you look. Areas where a lot of light are visible are the worst offenders. THEN you need to activate the spell Candlelight and do it all again, unless the place is so bright that you doubt anyone would use Candlelight. If you have lights that only turn on during the day you need to check during the daytime too.
6) If you make any landscape height adjustments, don't do that near a cell border as it will make seams if other modder makes changes to the adjacent cell.
7) Check your mod with SSEedit for wild edits and ITMs ....... the CK generates these like crazy even when you are careful.
8) Avoid persistent item flags unless you really need it
9) Initially disabled is your friend ..... don't delete vanilla items especially base objects.
10) Navmeshing is a pita , don't span cell borders with changes as this is a recipe for disaster in terms of compatability
11) Keep your house as focused as possible ..... don't make changes outside your cell unless they are really compelling ..... your world edits may break somebody else's mod and are a nightmare to troubleshoot
12) Don't use Guard NPCs to limit access to your home ...... they require scripts to keep them under control which are rarely done properly.
13) Adding a key that you need to find can be equally problematic as you can't just leave it sitting in the world somewhere because this is risky. Another mod may load something in the same area and send it flying. Another mod may move the object it is sitting on. Depending on how the meshes load the object may just fall through the floor or fall though the ground when a NPC walks by. Perhaps the best ways is to just set up a collision box in front of the door with a script that checks if the player meets some requirement before disabling......... this requires knowledge of the Papyrus scripting and aliasing and actually setting up your CK to work with scripts........which is way too convoluted :(
14) If you have windows consider making them transparent and building a fake exterior just outside. Then add time of day lighting using the external emittance mask but keep the source point outside.
15) Don't allow instant fast travel. Usually keep the map marker hidden until discovered. It is easy to create a book or note that when read will reveal the marker. Include a COC marker and give COC instructions in the mod description for those that want to assess the mod.
I wasn't trying to steal your mod ..... I saw your mod and liked it enough to hack it to bits and use it for my own purposes. Why not share the information with you so you can make your mod better? I have no illusions that my skill as a modder will get me anything other than amusement ....
Why would the industry buy the cow when the milk is free? Millions of liters of it ....
And relax ..... nobody is accusing you of deliberately putting your mod where Marnya is..... There are NO Rules regarding where you can put your mods in Skyrim but when multiple mods change the same cell this causes issues. Nobody is happy.... It is a negative sum game. If Beth was a real leader they would have figured out a way to deal with this but they can't or won't.
The Nexus should have a built in process where every mod submitted is screened for what cells are edited and this information fed into a database so that the community can see exactly what cells are edited by every mod they download and can filter out incompatible mods. This would also force modders to be more focused and screen their mods for wild edits. Yes you can do this with SSEedit but it would be much easier at the nexus level.
Thark reminded me of Golem, it's like someone looked at his ring and he snatched his hands away with spit flying out of his mouth yelling
"IT'S MINE!!! IT'S MINE! MY OWN!!"
HAHAHHAHAA, no matter the consequence. This comment was worth all of it.
This mod is a bit of a mess and Sirandar was just trying to help you!