Race creation tutorial
Introduction
Hi, welcome to the race creation tutorial where you'll find everything you need to create the perfect race that suits your charicter
in this tutorial i will show you
- how to change the look of your race
- how to balance your races atributes and skills
- how to make your race unique and suited to your style of game play
So now lets start the tutorial
Creating your race
Open The TES Construction Set, And either select a plugin file that you've already created or create a new one by just simply opening the oblivion esm file, i would recamend creating a new file because this will give you room to make a new race from scratch in its own plugin to reduce the ammount of extra unused content on your game.
Along the Toolbar at the top of the CS (construction set) there will be a tab titled 'Charicter', click this tab and on the drop down menu select 'race...'. This is the window were all the races in TES oblivion will be listed even the ones which dont show up when you create your charicter at the start of the game.
To create a new race you have 2 options, you can either start from scratch or use one of the other races as a template. if you want to create from scratch right click and on the list that appears select 'New', when you do this a window will appear asking you to give your race an ID, this is your races identification but not its name, if your not sure what to call it you can type anything because you can change this whenever you feel the need simply by clicking the races ID on the race menu. to use another race right click on the race and select duplicate, this doesn't require you giving your race an id as it is given the name '(Race)COPY0000' as default where (race is the race you have duplicated.
for the purpose of this tutorial i am going to create a race along with the tutorial, my very own 'Cliff Elf' race, for my race i used a duplicate of the woodelf because its face was most like what i wanted in my race.
now that weve created the file for the new race were going to edit the stuff found on the 'General Data' section.
before we go on to the next section you should close the race menu and save, dont worry about loosing the data because the new race is automatically saved as soon as you create it but you need to save the plug in encase something causes the computer or Cs to crash.
General Data
General data coveres the base atribules, skill bonuses, abilitie and any powers that your race will have when you create it. you can also change your races voice, for this i normaly go with the voices already created but you can create a custom voice but for that you'll need the help of an extra tutorial
Lets start with the atributes, the atribules are abriviated but what they stand for is fairly simple e.g. str = strength. Next to each atribule there are two boxes one for males and one for females, which is which is shown at the top of the two collums. Most races have a specific area that they excell in for example, orcs excell in combat due to their strength and endurance and bretons excell in magicka due to their intelligence and willpower. but you dont have to let your race excell in just one area or you could even make your race adverage in most if not all skills. for my race i am making them fairly adverage with the males excelling in combat and the females with magicka.
the first number symbolises the males atribute and the second is the females.
- Str - 45 40
- Int - 40 45
- Wil - 30 30
- Agi - 40 40
- Spd - 40 40
- End - 45 35
- Luc - 50 50 - all races have 50 for luck and i would advice you keeping 50
- Pers - 30 40
under each collum there shoul be a number, this shows the total of all the points for the base atribultes, as default the maximun is 320 but some plugins may change this to be more or less depending on their use and because your race is custom it wont follow the change that the plug-in offers. if you plan to release your race to the public make sure that the totals are balanced and that in the description you state what the totals for the race atributes were.
the next sectiong of the general data is the skill bonuses, there are 7 slots to mach the number of major skills avaliable ingame but you dont have to fill all of these, infact you dont have to give your race skill bonuses but its better if you do. the max for oblivion is 45 so make sure you share these points evenly throughout the 7 slots. normaly these points are sorted into 5's and 10's but i descided to change this so that i could have more divercity in my race.
- Acrobatics - 10
- Athletics - 5
- Blade - 8
- marksman - 8
- mysticism - 7
- alteration - 7
this gives me one extra slot so ingame i can choose another skill when i create my class.
The next part is specials, in this section you can add abilities, powers and lesser powers to your race, there is no limit to this so be careful you dont make your race too strong or too weak, for my race i added this
- Ability - Fortify magic - 100pts
- Ability - Resist Frost - 25pts
- Power - Heal(heals you of disease, poison and restores health but stops you from using and magic for 30 seconds)
this section can be tricky because most races have atleast one resistance some have more and some have weaknesses suck as the high elves.
the last section is the voice, because my race are elves i gave them the high elf voice because it is used by all the elven races, but if your race is nor human like you could give them the imperial, breton or nord voice depending on their apperance.
Save your progress
Body Data
The next section in body data, this is the general data for your races body. There are two sections, male and female, each section has the height weight and texturing for that race. Height determines how tall your race is, i would recomend having 1.2 as the highest option and 0.85 as the lowest so your race is neither too tall or too short. the weight determins how wide your race is and if you set wide to 10.0 your wont see your race become fat but they will become destroted, if your races height was 1 i would reccomend making the weight a maximum of 1.5 and a minimun of 0.9 because otherwise your race will look either too fat or annorexic. my race is adverage height at 1.0 and the weight is 0.95 for the males and 0.9 for the females.
The rest of the boxes in each section are for the textures of the race i would personally keep them the same unless you have custom made textures that you plan on adding to your race. if you plan on changing this the best option would be looking in the charicters folder if youv'e unpacked your bsa files becasue looking elsewhere could cause problems.
along the sides there are two boxes labeled 'Eye colour' and 'Hair Styles' i would reccomend keeping these the same becasue it would keep things simple but if theres a specific hair or eye colour you would like to use open the Eye or Hair windows by goin to the charicters tab again, they appear as the two things at the top of the list. in each window all the hair and eyes will appear, to add them to your race select them and drag them into the appropriate sections, also make sure the newly added hair and eyes are checked as playable or the race will vert back to the defaul or use on of the hair or eye selections already on the list.
Save your progress
Face Data
This section allows you to change what the head looks like, you can add or take away different features like the ears teeth or tongue, you can also change the heads texture or make the race have a back tongue or a white inner mouth, the best option though is to leave this section as it is unless you are more experienced with race creation.
Save even though nothing has changed since the last time you seved
FaceGen Data
This lets you edit how your race will look, i always seem to re-do this section atleast once tring to get the face just right as this section takes the most time. there are three sections that you can edit.
- having geometry and symetry selected you can change the size and shape of the face
- having geometry and Asymetry selected you can change the axies of the race so they could have their nose tilting to the left (dont fiddle with this)
- having Texture and symetry selected you can change the skin colour and the colours of different parts of the face.
- Texture and asymetry doesn't have any editable features init so theres no point selecting this option.
Save NOW you have jsut finished the hardest part of race creation
Text Data
In this section you can add a description of your race the name and make it playable. at the top of the section there is a box to type the name in, this name will appear as it does in the box ingame so make sure to add spaces and be creative. next to this box is a check box this determines weather or not your race is playable so make sure that you keep this checked so that you can use your race ingame. the second box is the race description, this gives you the chance to go wild with the races history and make up a huge story behind them but unfortunatly there is only a certain ammount of text that can be seen at charicter creation ingame so use what the default races have written as a template.
For my race i wrote this
"The cliff elves, also known as the caumer, are a race found all across tamriel taking refuge in the caves that can be found on the edge of cliffsides. because of their locationg the cliff elves are excelent acrobats, they are also quite compitent with swords and bows and over that also have some magical capabilities. it is thought that the cliff elves are a mix of the three elven races found in tamriel."
that is way too much and it doesn't all show up ingame but it makes me happy and its hard to stop when you start typing.
Save your progress
Reactions
This section basically determines how much your race likes other races, its best to just have your race as a plus 5 but if you want there to be more behind it you can add minuses and possitives for the races dispossitions, plus you can edit other races to change their dispossition toward your race and if you want you can set all of them to plus 100 but this would mean having the personality atribute and speackcraft skills would be pointless removing a large element from the game so be reasonable and make the maxinum both ways 10
Making your race playable
once youve finished your race you will want to make it playable at the start of the game when a charicter valen creth throws insults at you whilst in the cell.
to do this first save and close the race window, then on the list of objects which is at the left hand side by default, there will be an Actor section, click this then select NPC, on the list of races click Dark Elf and then Male, Scroll down to the bottom of the list and there should be the name Valen Dreth, doubble click on him and a new window should appear, at the bottom of this window click on the dialogue button, a new window will appear, on this window at the top select conversation the second option along and on the List Headed Editor ID below the tab you just selected select the option wich says 'CharGenTaunt2' with this selected a large list will appear click throughvthem to find one that suits your race and then right click it and select copy. there are two things you need to edit on this menu, firstly in the second box below the list of dialogue thats labeled 'Result Script' change the +1 to +3 this makes the game only need 1 line of dialogue before the quest can progress. secondly in the box below change the functions to represent this. delete and lines that determine the gender needed for the dialogue, to change the race click the button directly below the functions info whilst having the race line selected, and make sure that the value for the Quest variable line is set to 0 or the quest wont progress.
- Target-|Function Name----|Function info-----------|Comp-|Value-|----|
- no-----|GetQuestVariable-|Quest:'Charicteren',t...|==---|0.00--|AND-|
- Yes----|GetIsRace--------|Race: '(your race)'-----|==---|1.00--|AND-|
- no-----|GetIsID----------|NPC: 'Valen Dreth'------|==---|1.00--|AND-|
Conclusion
there might be some probles further on in the game because of your custom race but these can be solved with some plug-in files that can be found on some download sites
Now that you have finished the tutorial you sould have a finished race thats all ready for you to use, hope this helped you and i hope you enjoy playing oblivion as your new race.
-Troll Fire