Creating a House
This article has been marked by editors or authors as incomplete. Please see the Talk page for details. Discussion and collaboration can improve an article and lead to a better Wiki.
- PICTURES YET TO BE UPLOADED
- OWNERSHIP SECTION TO BE ADDED
Introduction
Making a house in Oblivion is a very easy, rewarding and fun thing to do; and who doesn't want to make a house anyhow? This tutorial will guide you through how to create a house step by step, giving examples of items that can be used in certain areas and where to find them.
Although this guide is intended for first-time Construction Set users, it is advised that you do the My First Dungeon tutorial before attempting this; as some sections assume that you know how to use the Set at a basic level.
Getting Started
Load the Master File in the usual way, then click on 'World' on the Menu Bar, then 'Cells...'. This will bring up the cell list for the selected worldspace. Since we'll be creating the interior of the house first, make sure you are on the worldspace called ' Interiors'. This features at the top of the World Space list. Now you can see all of the interiors that feature in the game.
Creating and Editing your Cell
Right-click anywhere on the input table and select 'New'. Give your cell a memorable and functional Form Editor ID (This is what the cell will be called in the Construction Set): For the purpose of the tutorial, ours will be called 'TutorialHouse01' This will create a new entry, which we can use you create out house in! This interior will blank and have the default settings. These aren't all very practical for use in the game, so we're going to change them now.
Clicking on an Entry will show you it's details. Make sure that you have the empty cell that you just named selected. Now we can input some basic data into the cell, such as it's global lighting, name and who owns it. Below is a breakdown of each tab and what you should input into it:
Common Data
The 'Can't Travel From Here' box controls whether the player can Fast Travel from within the cell via the Map. To be realistic and in sync with the rest of the game, leave this ticked.
Music type changes what music tracks will be played whilst within the cell. The three types; Default, Dungeon and Public; are all best suited for a certain situtation. Since your house will neither be public or a dungeon, we'll leave this as Default.
The 'Has Water' tick box allows you to add water into your cell at a certain height. You can also change the type of water in the cell to the default water, sewage, lava, and many more. Our house isn't a public pool, so we'll leave water alone.
The other two check boxes, 'Force Hide Land' and 'Hand Changed' won't affect your house, as both of these control cells of the exterior world with terrain. Leave these both unticked.
Lighting
This section's a little more complicated. Lets take a look at the settings of another house interior, Weye, which is to the Right.
The Ambient lighting value is the light that will illuminate the whole cell, not allowing for direction and so no shadows will be created. It basically dictates how light the shadows and dark areas of the cell will be, and what colour they will show as. Since we don't want our cell to be too bright, but not spooky or dark either, set each of the RGB values in the Ambient Box to 40 (of 255), just like the lighting in the Weye Cell. Just to note, the colour and shade can be selected when the 'Select Colour' is pressed. This is only really useful for the white balance, as coloured light in houses doesn't look all too nice.
The other variables rarely get used in House interiors, since Directional light can be simulated with other, movable lights, and Fog in houses looks unrealistic.
If the 'Behave Like Exterior' tick box is active, then the cell will receive weather, such as rain, thunder and wind. Since this should be stopped by the walls, this button hardly ever sees any action.
Interior Data
This is a really useful tab: It allows you to tell the game what to call the house (such as when you mouse over the door ingame, it will say "Door to NAME"), and who owns the house. Lets set the house name to something fitting for the purpose. Ours will be called 'Tutorial House', but it could be anything you like.
The 'Oblivion Interior' box allows the cell to be associated with a plane of Oblivion. Since our house hopefully won't succumb to lava and high end monsters, we'll leave this box alone.
The other tick boxes ultimately say whether NPCs and the Player can enter legally. The Ownership NPC menu tells the game who owns the house. We'll come back to this later, though. The Ownership Faction menu is the same as before, but allows a group of people to own a house. The variables for these (the drop-down menus below) will allows the NPC to own the cell when the Global Variable is met. We'll leave these blank for now.
If the 'Public Area' box was ticked, then anyone could legally wander into the cell whenever the need arose. This should be left blank, unless you enjoy strangers watch you sleep.
In contrast to the 'Public Area' box, the 'Off Limits' box tells the game that it's illegal for anyone to ever be in the cell, except for the owner. It means guards don't mess around with the "I'm warning you..." phrases and just convict you of trespass. This could be turned on, although it can cause conflicts with companions being in the cell. Leave it blank, just to be safe. No one should wander in on a whim if you own it in any case.
The 'Can't Wait' box means you're not allowed to pass time in the cell with the Wait feature. You probably won't wait in your house many times, but leave the option open. Leave it blank.
If you want any more information on these options, check the Interior cells article.
Adding in an Interior Mesh
This is where it starts to get interesting. You get to choose your house design! A few things you should be aware of are:
- Most houses come as 1 set, with upstairs and downstairs in fixed positions. Although this doesn't lend itself for amazing creativity or changing layouts, the existing plans are quite good, and the rooms aren't themed for a specific purpose.
- Some houses have different levels as different cells. This means you need to have a seperate cell for the ground level, and another for any other levels you want.
- All house interiors have a linked exterior which are meant to be used together. Their shape and layout mirror each other, so they offer greater realism.
To start our house, we need to place one of these house deigns. These an be found in the object window, under 'WorldObjects', 'Static', 'Architecture', and then whatever theme you wish to use. Since each town has a different style of housing, there's a lot of choice! For the sake of the tutorial, we will choose a simple layout from the 'Bruma' section, called 'BrumaHouseMiddle02Interior'. Take note of the linked exterior mesh for later, 'BrumaHouseMiddle02'.
Load up your cell from the Cell View, using whatever Form ID you game to it when you created the cell itself. Ours is called 'TutorialHouse01'. Drag your interior into the Render Window, and allow full lights, the light bulb button on the Menu Bar. Now you can see your interior! Explore it, and get to grips with it. Hopefully the room size and shape will give you ideas as what to use the room for. Some basic room functions that are common within houses in Oblivion are:
- Bedroom(s)
- Dining Room
- Lounge(s)
- Storage Room(s)
- Hallway(s)
Most of these rooms are identifiable by certain objects and features. These are mentioned in the next section!
Furnishing your House
Well, you're house doesn't look too welcoming, does it? I suggest furnishings to take up some room and make it much more aesthetic. Take note that a larger, grander house will require much more work and attention to detail than a smaller, more humble house. Also, a shack will have a different item set to a mansion. This is explained below:
Most furnishings and items that you will find in houses belong to a certain group of items. In Oblivion, these are broken into 3 main 'classes'; Upper, Middle and Lower; with Lower being the least expensive and ritzy, and Upper being the most. Each house should have a continuous class - mixing an upper class bed with lower class cutlery wouldn't add much realism to the game. You can tell which class your house demands. Shacks and small houses will be lower class. Average sized houses with more than 1 story and plastered walls will, in general, be middle class. Upper class houses will have many levels and ornate looking walls and floors. To make defining the class of your house easier, some houses are labeled with their class, such as the interior mesh 'BrumaHouseLowerInterior01' is Lower class; 'BrumaHouseMiddle01Int' will be Middle class; and 'BrumaHouseUpper01Int' will be upper class.
To make things easier, there is a breakdown of common room functions and how furnish them below.
The Bedroom
Common features in this room are a bed, and often an empty trunk at the base of the bed. Other features can include a bookshelf, a table with ornaments on and candlesticks scattered in sensible and dark corners of the room.
These items can be found in the following places:
- Bed
- WorldObjects/Furniture/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '#CBed-', '#CSingleBed-', or '#CDoubleBed-', where the # is the initial of the Class.
- Eg: 'LCBed01R' (The letter suffix at the end of the file name tells you what side the player gets on and off of the bed from, so on the Right in this case).
- Beds are functional and bring realism, and feature in basically every house in the game.
- Empty Chest
- WorldObjects/Container/Clutter/(Class)
- These are normally named 'ChestHouse-'. Make sure that the Container doesn't have the 'Respawn' field ticked on the Object Information window (Double click the item in the Object Window), or you could end up losing any items you place inside it.
- Eg: 'ChestHouseTreasuryMiddle01'
- These are good for quick storage of any items the player will want to access frequently, such as weapons.
- Table
- WorldObjects/Static/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Table-'. Test to see which one suits the room. Don't choose a large, rectangular table. A small, circular table would be more suited for the decorative purpose.
- Eg: 'MiddleTable01'
- Tables are good for putting things on, just like in real life. Coincidence?
- Bookshelf
- WorldObjects/Static/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Bookshelf-'.
- Eg: 'MiddleBookshelf03'
- Books and ingredients can be put on bookshelves purely for aesthetics. They fill space fairly well and make the house look a lot more habitable.
- Books
- Items/Book
- These are normally named 'Book(Price)-'.
- Eg: 'Book2CommonShortLifeUrielSeptim'
- Books are a really good way to pad out a bookshelf, obviously. Books should suit the class and theme of the house; don't put a skill-giving book in a hovel.
- Ingredients and Food
- Items/Ingredient
- These don't have a naming system! Just look for what you want.
- Eg: 'Tomato'
- Food and Ingredients look good with books, and save your bookshelf looking too boring. Also, books are a pain to position, and ingredients aren't.
The Dining Room
The Dining Room generally houses a long table covered with food-filled plates, surrounded by chairs. There's not really a function to the room except for realism and aesthetics, but the house will look so much better for having one.
These items can be found in the following places:
- Table
- WorldObjects/Static/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Table-'. Each table is a different shape and size. Small circular tables are better for ornaments and stray books or ingredients, whereas larger tables are more suited to eating off.
- Eg: 'MiddleTable01'
- No one likes eating off the floor, so it makes sense to have a table in the room.
- Plates and Cutlery
- Items/MiscItem/Clutter/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)-'
- Eg: 'LowerClassCup01'
- Blank tables aren't much fun, and neither are plates or cutlery, but for the sake of realism and the fun for trashing it later on, why not?
- Ingredients and Food
- Items/Ingredient
- These don't have a naming system! Just look for what you want.
- Eg: 'Tomato'
- Empty plates don't bring anything to your house - fill them up with food!
- Seating
- WorldObjects/Furniture/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '#CChair-', '#CBench-', or '#CStool-', where the # is the initial of the Class.
- Eg: 'MCChair02L' (The letter suffix at the end of the file name tells you what side the player gets on and off of the chair from, so in this case, the Left).
- Seats are functional and realistic. They're also good for taking screenshots on.
The Lounge
This is usually just a place to sit down and take screenshots from. It's only real purpose is to look realistic and look good as you walk past. It's mainly filled with benches and tables with ornaments on.
These items can be found in the following places:
- Seating
- WorldObjects/Furniture/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '#CChair-', '#CBench-', or '#CStool-', where the # is the initial of the Class.
- Eg: 'MCChair02L' (The letter suffix at the end of the file name tells you what side the player gets on and off of the chair from, so in this case, the Left).
- Seats are somewhat imperative in a lounge, and are best situated around the edge of the room.
- Table
- WorldObjects/Static/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Table-'. Each table suits a different purpose, and for this room, smaller tables would look better.
- Eg: 'MiddleTable01'
- Probably best with random books and planters lying on it.
- Bookshelf
- WorldObjects/Static/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Bookshelf-'.
- Eg: 'MiddleBookshelf03'
- These are just to make your house look good and provide a source of lore, as well as realism.
- Books
- Items/Book
- These are normally named 'Book(Price)-'.
- Eg: 'Book2CommonShortLifeUrielSeptim'
- Books save a bookcase from just being a case. Pile it up!
- Ingredients and Food
- Items/Ingredient
- These don't have a naming system! Just look for what you want.
- Eg: 'Tomato'
- Ingredients for alchemy can be mixed in with books on a bookshelf, and it saves you having to put more books on in places. Avoid using food in the lounge, or it may look like a larder, not a bookcase.
The Storage Room
The Storage Room is useful for keeping random items that you intend to use later on, such as alchemical ingredients or armor, but not whilst traveling. This rooms has a few crates, drawers and cupboards scattered around for general use of the player. Even though just one container could be placed, most players like assigning certain containers for a specific purpose (such as armor, ingredients, potions...), which is why it's important to make each of your containers look different.
Due to some constraints that the game has in place, you cannot just use any container in the container list. This will be revisited in the section called 'Creating a Container'.
The Hallway
Hallways are usually quite small spaces to fill, but can make a house look badly done when not furnished. They usually have stools, benches or chairs positioned so that the player can see the house from a pleasing angle; and tables with an assortment of things on.
These items can be found in the following places:
- Seats
- WorldObjects/Furniture/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '#CChair-', '#CBench-', or '#CStool-', where the # is the initial of the Class.
- Eg: 'MCChair02L' (The letter suffix at the end of the file name tells you what side the player gets on and off of the chair from, so in this case, the Left).
- Seats are useful for taking screenshots, or seeing the house from a new perspective. They don't really have a function in the Hallway except to make it look more interesting.
- Table
- WorldObjects/Static/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Table-'. Each table suits a different purpose, and for this room, smaller tables would look better.
- Eg: 'MiddleTable01'
- These usually just have books or planters on, making the hallway look more homely.
- Bookshelf
- WorldObjects/Static/Furniture/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Bookshelf-'.
- Eg: 'MiddleBookshelf03'
- These aren't probably too apt in smaller hallways, but in large open spaces without any real use they could take up some space and stand there looking good.
- Books
- Items/Book
- These are normally named 'Book(Price)-'.
- Eg: 'Book2CommonShortLifeUrielSeptim'
- In this case, these books are mainly for aesthetics again, so don't over do it.
Miscellaneous Furnishings
- Rugs
- WorldObjects/Static/Clutter/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Rug(Shape)-'.
- Eg: 'UpperClassRugRectangle02'
- Bare floor doesn't do the house many wonders, and for middle and upper class, it can make the house seem much more inviting.
- Paintings/Tapestries
- WorldObjects/Static/Clutter/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Tapestry-' or '(Class)Painting-'.
- Eg: 'UpperTapestry04'
- These are basically rugs for the walls. These can take a house from being a boring house to an aesthetic masterpiece!
- Planters
- Items/MiscItem/Clutter/(Class)
- These are normally named '(Class)Planter-'.
- Eg: 'MiddleClassPlanter01'
- Planters are useful for filling empty space on tables the house over.
- Fire wood
- WorldObjects/Static/Clutter/Farm
- 'FireLogPile01'
- If there's a fireplace in your house, then fire wood would look good in it. The fire should be added later on!
Lighting
Lights within your house can make it look a lot more dynamic and interesting. You should aim for your house to be light enough to see everything in good detail without wandering around your house with a torch, and dark enough to have a contrast with the light in less interesting or detailed places.
All objects with a light source can be found under 'WorldObjects/Light'. There are 3 main types of lighting you should use around your house, and can all be found under 'WorldObjects/Light/Lights':
- Candles
- Candles are an easy way to light up your house without taking up much room. Lights sit happily on bookshelves, tables or ledges around the house, and make your house seem more inviting.
- Eg: 'CandleFat01Yellow256'
- Candlesticks
- These are like candles, but go on the floor. They're probably better suited along the perimeter of the room, in the edges. They can be a useful solution to having too much space.
- Eg: 'CandlestickFloor01Yellow256'
- Chandeliers
- When you just have no room at all for candles or candlesticks, or if you want an injection of style into your rafters, why not choose a Chandelier?
- Eg: 'Candelier01Yellow512' (Yes, Bethsoft did spell it wrong, apparently...)
The naming convention of all light sources tells you 2 things about the light:
The colour of the light is normally the second to last section of the Editor ID, for example 'CandleFat01Yellow256' would be Yellow.
The range of the light is the last section of the Editor ID. The higher the number, the larger the area the light will cover. The numbers are usually a square of 2. As a general rule: 128 covers most of a table. 256 covers a small section of a room. 512 covers most of a room, and 1024 covers a large area of a house.
Since light can travel through walls, you will have to think carefully about where lights are placed. Press L to see the range of all of the lights in the level.
In your home, you may have need for 2 other sources of light:
- Fire
- Fire, although not particularly practical on a table, add ambiance to a fireplace. To find this, you must look under 'WorldObjects/Light/Fire'.
- Eg: 'FireOpenSmall256'
- Source
- This method of lighting doesn't have a model that you will see in the game, just a light source. This can be useful when desperate for light when other sources would be inappropriate. These can only be found when 'WorldObjects/Light' is selected.
- Eg: 'ARCreepyAmb500'
To see lights as you will see them within the game, you have to turn off the 'Brighten Lights' tool within the Construction Set that we turned on earlier (it's the button with a light bulb icon on the menu bar). Press L to see the range of the lights (as mentioned earlier). Now you can cover your house in lights and make it looks more dynamic and homely!
Creating a Container
Containers are an essential part of a house, as they can hold items that would weigh the player down. However; most containers in the game are 'Respawn' enabled in their settings. This isn't very useful for a storage, as all contents of the container will be wiped and all initial items in the container will be added back in. This means any items that the player places in the container will be deleted from the game, and the player will not be able to retrieve them.
To fix this, the player must make their own container. This does not require any new mesh for the game, and is very simple - so don't get stressed!
Double click on the container in the Object Window that you want to have in your house. Remember: Suitable containers for your house can be found under 'WorldObjects/Container/Furniture' (although some objects such as barrels and crates can be found under 'WorldObjects/Container'). This will bring up it's Object Settings. For the purpose of the tutorial, we shall use the object 'CupboardClutterMiddle' as an example, found under 'WorldObjects/Container/Furniture/middleclass'.
Change the ID to whatever you want to see it in the Construction Set as - We're going to change ours to 'TutorialHouseCupboard01'. You must change this to something new which is not already in use. If you do not change this box, you will change the settings of the object, not add a new one. This will alter the settings of the object wherever it is used in the game, and can cause problems with other Mods loaded.
Now, un-check the 'Respawns' tick box. This means all items in the container will never change until a script or the player accesses it.
The large table on the right part of the window is the initial contents of the cupboard. Since it will no longer respawn, once these items are removed, they will never reappear. For realism, make the container empty by selecting all of the contents and deleting them. If you have just bought a house, then you wouldn't expect anything to be left there.
Click on the OK button at the bottom of the window to create your new Object. Since you are 'duplicating' the object, you do not need to add in a mesh or other settings.
A new window will appear, asking if you want to want to create a new form. Since you do, click Yes.
Now your new object will appear, under whatever you just changed it's ID to, in the Object Window. In our case, it will be called 'TutorialHouseCupboard01'. You may now place this ingame!
Repeat this will other types of container, and place them into your house. See the 'The Storage Room' section to see tips on how to place them. To find out more about Containers, view the Container Wiki Page.
Adding an Exterior
By now, your interior should be complete - Congratulations! You deserve a rest! Now all you need to do is make it accessible by adding an exterior into the game. To do this, you'll need to load up Tamriel, the main open wold of Oblivion.
To do this, click on the Cell Window, and change the World Space from ' Interiors' to 'BrumaWorld'. This is the town of Bruma's worldspace. Double click on the first cell in the Cell View table.
Now, you should be able to see Bruma: an annoyingly clustered city. Now click on the Object Window. Remember that we chose the 'BrumaHouseMiddle02Int' Interior? Well, the linked exterior is called 'BrumaHouseMiddle02', for obvious reasons. You can find this under 'WorldObjects/Static/Architecture/Bruma' as before. Keep this selected, but switch back into the Render Window.
Since Bruma is so full, it's hard to find a space. However, there is just about one big enough, slightly west the northern gate (the camera is facing north by default when a cell is loaded or reloaded). The space has some trees and small rocks on it at the moment. Select them all, and delete them. Drag in the selected exterior mesh ('BrumaHouseMiddle02' as mentioned before). Position the door and steps facing the Sidewalk, trying not to obstruct anything on it - it should hopefully fit, except with the terrain. We shall sort this out later; but for now, you have an exterior!
Just a note: The exterior can be placed anywhere in the game, such as in the Tamriel (main world) world space, in a cave, or even in another house. The options for having a house are limitless!
Linking the Interior and Exterior
Neither parts of our house have doors that work, so lets add them! Zoom closer to the exterior of your house, and find the door. The door you should be able to see is, sadly, a fake. It's just a part of the mesh. To add a functioning door, find a door model in the Object Window, under 'WorldObjects/Door/Architecture'. From here, you can select the theme of your door to match your house. For people religiously following the tutorial, this will be under 'WorldObjects/Door/Architecture/Bruma' - Or so you would have thought. Since the developers of Oblivion are as clever as they are annoying, the model we're looking for isn't under the Bruma section at all. Instead, they've reused the model from Chorrol. Go to 'WorldObjects/Door/Architecture/Chorrol' and add the door called 'ChorrolLoadDoorMiddle02' into the world so that you can see it.
With some careful positioning, you can get the new door object to overlap the fake door included in the mesh so that the new, actual door is in front. Now double click on the new door to view the object reference, and tick the box named 'Persistent Reference', and leave all the others as they were. Don't close this window: just bring the render window in front by click on it somewhere. We shall need this later.
Now, reload your Interior Cell by changing the World Space back to ' Interiors' in the Cell View window. Somewhere in your house there should be an empty doorway, which just shows the gray void. This is your front entrance. Just as before, add in the 'ChorrolLoadDoorMiddle02' and position it so that it covers the entire doorway. When you've done this, double click on this door, bringing up the object reference window, and tick the 'Persistent Reference' box again. Now, close this window.
Now you have both doors, it's time to link them, right? Bring back up that window of the exterior door that I told you not to close. You can tell if it's the correct door selected as in the grayed out 'Space' field at the top of the reference window, it should say 'WorldSpace 'BrumaWorld. If you have closed this window by accident, go back to your exterior, double click on the exterior door, and come back to the interior.
Click on the 'Teleport' tab, and tick the 'Teleport' tick box here. Now the door wants to be linked to another door. This is where ticking the 'Persistent Reference' boxes comes in handy - it means you can select it to link them. Now, click on the 'Select Reference in Render Window' button, and double click on the interior door. The cursor should go white when hovered over the door if all has gone to plan.
You should be able to see a Yellow marker with a purple nose coming out of your interior door in a wierd direction - if you cannot, press M (to display markers). This marker tells the teleport where the player should end up after the teleport, and the purple nose is the direction that the player will be facing. Rotate and position the marker as if the player has just entered the house, making sure that it is slightly off the floor and that it is not touching any object at all.
To see the marker of the other door (used when the player leaves the house), double click on the marker that you have just positioned. Click 'Yes' on the window that appears. Again, position the marker so that the player will find them self in a viable position.
Your exterior and interior are now linked: you can now access your house!
Editing the Terrain
Please not that this section is slightly more complicated than what has been previously done before.
Go to your house Exterior in the usual way, and press the H button. This is the 'Landscape Edit Settings' window! It allows you to texture and change the terrain's height. To change the height to make it look better according to the house, do the following:
- Set the Edit Radius to 1 or 2 (depending on how accurate you want your editing to be).
- Make sure the boxes 'Flatten Vertices' and 'Soften Vertices' are both un-ticked.
- Tick the 'Show Edit Radius' box.
- Make sure the 'Edit Colors' box is not ticked.
Now, left click and hold on the terrain you wish to edit and drag it up or down. Go around the edges of your house and make sure that the terrain isn't covering any of the house around door height - and try not to edit too much of the terrain on the road. Now, check the 'Soften Vertices' box, and run your mouse over any section of the road to the northern gate that you have edited that looks jagged or too steep.
Your terrain should look neat and make the house look just about the right level now.
If you wish to learn more about Landscape Editing, go to the Basic Landscaping Tutorial.
Finishing off
Now your house has a completed interior, linked to an exterior. All that's left to do is make the exterior look better, such as by adding trees and rocks.
These items can be found in the following places:
- Trees and Shrubs
- WorldObjects/Tree
- These are usually called 'Tree-' or 'Shrub-'. Some trees have a certain suffix; SU is summer (green leaves), and FA is fall (brown and orange leaves).
- Eg: 'TreeScotchPineForestSnow'
- Place these sparingly around the edge of the house to add more detail.
- Rocks
- WorldObjects/Static/Rocks
- These are named after the zone that they are found in, and the first section of their ID refers to this.
- Eg: 'JMRockSnow11'
- Add small rocks around the house for aesthetics.
Now your house is finished, both inside and out - Congratulations! If you've been doing this all in one swoop, then go take a long rest!