Copying rooms and adding them to your plugin

Introduction

As the result of a mention made in the original version of the warning posted in the door markers tutorial about adding rooms to your .esp file (mod) using another plugin, there have been a few questions directed at me concerning exactly how to copy a room as is from another mod such as the display room from the "displayrooms" mod available (august 5, 2006) at www.oblivionsource.com and add it to your own house mod. As a detailed answer is outside the scope of the warning section in the door placement tutorial, (where the questions first came up) I've created a section here that will explain the process in detail, encompassing not only the display room copy but also copying and modifying any cell or room to fit your needs without having to go to the trouble of building your own room from scratch.

Copying a room then either deleting it to make an empty cell or gutting it to the walls is mentioned in passing as part of a number of dungeon building and starter tutorials here in the wiki. I have created this tutorial page instead of just referring you back to the other tutorials for two purposes: 1. Addressing the specific questions directed at me, and 2. For the benefit of modders who would find a tutorial on this specific subject containing condensed and streamlined information more useful than having to reference a number of different tutorials to get the same info.

Much of the process described here uses the same steps you use to create your own cell and build a dungeon. If you aren't too familiar yet with things like duplicating, renaming, and editing cells, and navigating the render window, it would be beneficial to refer to/review the first couple of pages in the building your own dungeon tutorial while following the instructions presented here.

For my example I will use two of the building mod plugins currently available (on August 5, 2006)at www.oblivion source.com: The "myhome" mod, and the "display rooms" mod. I will also reference another mod found in the misc. section at oblivionsource, "reznods manequins". Keep in mind, of course, that these instructions will apply in a general way to any building mod you download and will be useful even if the aforementioned mods are no longer available for download.

The "myhome" mod is a house mod that features a house sitting right outside the Imperial City that's strikingly similar to Anvil's Benrius Manor in its layout. According to the mod creator it's a "work in progress" and I decided to customize it one day to suit my personal tastes. One of the customizations I chose to do was to add a display room full of mannequins to it (available at home goods shops with the "mannequins" mod running) to display my rather large staff collection.

The display room mod adds a display room full of display cases and chests to all the purchasable houses in the oblivion game, except the waterfront shack in the imperial city.

My first few attempts to copy a display room from the "displayrooms" mod and add it to the "myhome" mod failed miserably. Here's why: I was trying to add my display room as a plugin to the "myhome" plugin. BAD IDEA!!!!

THE PROBLEM: You CANNOT load the construction set with no active file set, build (or in my case copy) a display room, then save the display room addition as its own .esp file (mod). That is considered to be creating a plugin to a plugin and will generate a number of nasty errors in the editor if it doesn't crash both the construction set and the game upon loading.

THE SOLUTION: You must load the "myhome" mod as your ACTIVE file, THEN build or copy a display room, link it's door to a door in your house you have previously added for the purpose of linking it to the display room, adjust the teleport markers, and then save the changes as a change to the "myhome" mod. Since the changes are saved within the same .esp file, the teleport works and you have now added a new room to your house. This can be done as long as all the objects copied are from Oblivion.esm. If the ESP you are copying from contains new content, you won't see the new objects in-game, and you'll get "Missing object..." errors when reloading your mod in the CS.

Adding The Display Room

1. If you haven't done so yet, get the aforementioned mods from oblivionsource and add them to your oblivion data folder.

2. Load the construction set. (referred to hereafter as the CS)

3. In the data tab, doubleclick the oblvion master .esm file, double click the displayrooms mod listing, then doubleclick the myhome mod listing. You should see X's in the checkboxes next to them to denote that they will be loaded by the CS.

4. **IMPORTANT!!!** Click once on the myhome mod listing, then click on the "make active file" bar. The myhome mod should now read "active file" next to it.

5. Now load the files. If you get a prompt stating that there is no active file selected, do you want to continue, click NO and make sure myhome is set as the active file. reload the files. (as mentioned in the starting tutorial pages, now would be a good time to grab a beverage. this will take a few minuets)

6. The first thing we need to do is add a door to the house so we can get to the display room when we add it. I've found that if you add the door first, then add the room second, linking the doors with a teleport marker is a whole lot easier. I chose to add the door in the basement, although you can add the door anywhere you like. in the cell view window, scroll all the way to the bottom. (for some funky reason, the myhome mod is listed as "yourhome" in the cell view window) Click on the yourhomebasement cell.

7. Now click on any of the objects in the list to bring up the basement in the render window. Pan around the basement and choose a place of your liking for your door. A trap door in the floor is the easiest kind of door to place if you don't want to add a door in one of the walls.

8. Once you have picked a place and type of door, go to the object window, locate the door you want, and drag it into the render window near where you are going to place your door. you can hit the F key to make it fall to the ground, then rotate it in position using the mouse, z/mouse, and x/mouse techniques, or doubleclick the door and rotate it using the window arrows. This part takes a bit of practice to master, so be patient if your not already skilled at this. the door section of the dungeon building tutorial and the teleport section you probably just came from have detailed instructions on the appropriate techniques.

9. Once the door is placed to your liking, go immediately to the main window and click the SAVE button. DO NOT link this door to ANYTHING before you save it or one of the teleport markers could get lost or permanently assigned to the abandoned mine later in the process, screwing things up so badly you will probably have to delete your door, save the file with no door, re add your door, the resave your door with no teleport marker set. (Been there done that twice...) If you are paranoid like me you can load the game at this point to see what your door looks like with the game running, then reload the CS and tweak the door. (It's funny how the render window and actual gameplay tend to show things a little differently)

10. Now that the door has been added, we need to find or build our display room. (Remember that while doing this the myhome file MUST still be running as the active file or this and the next steps won't work.)If you wish to build it, do so using the instructions in the my first dungeon tutorial to create an empty cell and create a room from scratch, then skip to step 14. To copy an existing display room from the display room mod, keep following the steps below in order.

11. The display room mod adds 6 different display rooms, one to each of the houses except the imperial city shack. The one added to Benruis Manor can be found in cell view window in the 'A' listings as "anvilbenriusmanordisplayroom". this is the display room I copied.

12. Now that we have found the display room, we need to make a copy of it for our house. Right click the display room cell, then click "duplicate". a new cell will appear below the display room named "anvilbenriusmanordisplayroomCOPY001". click on the copied cell and wait for a second, and it will turn blue. Type a new name for it (i used "yourhomedisplayroom") and hit enter. now your newly named cell will be right under the original display room cell.

13. Now right click the newly named display room cell and click "edit". Under the second tab, set the lighting, as these values are defaulted to pitch black when you copy a cell. I used a value of 200 in the R, B, and G settings, but you can use any value that looks good to you, and play with the directional lighting tab if you so wish. Under the third tab, rename the room to what you want the "door to" caption to say when you click on the door you just added. I used "The Display Room" but you can use anything you want.

14. Now that the room has been copied and renamed, (or built) we need to link it to the "myhome" mod using the teleport tutorial instructions from the page you probably just came from. load the display room cell in the render window and doubleclick the door in the wall. Click the teleport tab, activate the teleport link, and select the yourhomebasement cell from the drop down list. now find and click the door we added previously, (it will probably be the only choice), click it, and click OK. A teleport marker will appear in the middle of the door. Drag it out of the door, hit 'F' to put it on the ground, then rotate it using the right mouse button to point into the room.

15. Doubleclick the newly placed teleport marker and click the "view linked door" tab. The yourhomebasement cell will now load in the render window, and the door we added previously will be centered in the window. There should be a teleport marker in it or by it somewhere. Put it where it needs to go. If it's really hard to find you can double click the door and click the "view teleport marker" tab.

16. Now that the doors have been linked, go to the main window and click on SAVE. The room and the teleport markers will now save as part of the myhome .esp file as an addition, letting us now load the game and go to our newly added display room.

17. Want more display rooms? Add another door to your house using the steps above and repeat the process.

More Fun With The Display Room

Copying then modifying existing rooms and adding them to your mod is also a very handy tool if you can find an existing room that is similar to a room you would otherwise have to build before you added it to your mod.

The "myhome" mod features a well door and stable by the road outside the front door. I added a well door to the other side of the stable in the workaround section to link to the catacombs, but later wanted the original well door (the one on the left) to go somewhere too. After thinking for a minute, I decided that the display room would make a somewhat believable well if it were empty and full of water. (At least to me, you may know of another cave or room to copy that would suit your fancy better if you copied it, like the mages guild well from the mages guild tasks)

To make my well: (myhome must be running as the active file when you do this!!!)

1. Copy the Benrius Manor display room again, rename it yourhomewell, and change the third tab to read "the well" I set the lighting at 85. click on the first tab, click the "has water" box, and set the water level.

2. Load the newly renamed cell in the render window and delete everything but the walls. This can be done by deleting objects in the cell view window or by highlighting the desired object in the render window and hitting the delete key.

3. To make the room look more like a well, delete the door in the wall and block it in with a piece of duplicated wall (see the building my first dungeon tutorial second page for instructions on how to do this). Alternatively, you could leave the door and link it to another secret room or your choice.

4. Since I wanted to be able to climb out of the well, I found a sewer exit with a ladder and resized it accordingly to make a ladder appear in the middle of the room to use as an exit. you may decide on another door type.

5. Since the well door is in a wilderness cell, it's much easier to create the door link from the well door rather than sewer exit inside the well. Doubleclick the left well door, activate the teleport tab, and link it to the sewer exit in the well. set the teleport markers to where you think they should be.

6. Since a well full of nothing but water would be boring, i added a bunch of ninroot plants and gold pieces (presumably thrown down the well by passers by while making a wish). You will probably have a different idea of what should be in the well, have fun dragging things from the object window and experiment.

7. Now click SAVE in the main window. You now have a well to drink from or go swimming in to find hidden treasure

8. if you decided to leave the original door, or add another ladder or trap door to make the well an in-between place going to another structure, now add the next room, link the doors, and save again.

This process opens up a whole list of things that can be easily done as mods or mod additions without needing to build rooms from scratch and landscape. It's a lifesaver for folks who are so busy that mod building time needs to be kept as short as possible so it doesn't cut too much into thier gameplay time or other schedule issues.