A beginner's guide, lesson 1 - The Construction Set Primer

Preamble

This is the first in a proposed series of Tutorial Lessons aimed at teaching how to mod TES IV: Oblivion aimed at beginners. It will build up into a Complete Modding Course. Don't worry there are no exams, though there is some homework. It is not intended to aid the transfer of modders from Morrowind nor it is intended for experienced modders, although as the series develops you may find something of interest in them.

Introduction

I can tell you the exact moment I decided I wanted to try my hand at modding. I was on a quest and was riding my horse along the road from Weynon Priory to Cloud Ruler Temple. It happens quite early on in the Main Quest. The novelty of riding hadn’t yet worn off so I rode everywhere. As I rode higher into the hills on the Orange Road, I came to a narrow bridge. Crossing the bridge I looked to my right, and if my NPC could have fallen off his horse, he would have. The view took in the Imperial City and the Upper Niben with Bravil fading into the distance. I thought to myself, wow, this is where I want to live.

The problem of course was that to the left where the ideal house location would be, was a sheer wall of rock. In my imagination those rocks opened up to reveal a perfect valley and a massive manor house, supported by a wonderful little village. I so wanted this. I wanted a mod, and since no one was going to do justice to my imagination like me, I was going to have to do it myself.

I downloaded the Construction Set (CS) and pulled up the Wiki, ready to make my dreams come true.

Then reality set in.

The Wiki is a very good solid technical manual, but it is not user friendly. All the stuff is in there, but you need to have a clue what you are looking for. I knew I was going to have to take small steps to realize my dream.

The first steps we will take will be just that. Little baby steps, that will start us off in a long journey. Do not be discouraged. Many of the modders producing those fantastic mods you see on sites like The Elder Scrolls Nexus have been modding Morrowind for years and the change to Oblivion has been easier for them.

We ‘newbies’ have a lot of catching up to do. So let’s get started.

I suppose we should begin with the obvious question, what is a mod? A mod is an additional piece of programming that alters or modifies some aspect of the original game. Bethesda has made this process easier. They clearly recognize that games like TES thrive and gain extra longevity by encouraging mods. To aid this they have provided the interface software called the Construction Set.

You will need to download a copy of this before we can start. While there are sometimes reasons to use the old v1.0 version of the CS, for this tutorial we'll use the v1.2 version. Also, make sure you have the latest patch for Oblivion; the patches can be found here. Get the Shivering Isles version if you have the expansion, otherwise get the Oblivion version (you have to scroll down a bit). Make sure you get the correct version for your locality.

Now just before we look at the CS, let’s load up the game. Select a saved game, any will do. Now save it two or three times. It is always a good idea to make several saves before you try modding, or indeed before you activate or deactivate any downloaded mods.

Once in the game, fast travel to the village of Weye. It’s located just outside the Imperial City west of the Talos Plaza gate. It actually doesn’t matter where we go to do this experiment but it makes sense for all of us to be in the same place.

As you look around you see a picturesque village with a few houses and an Inn. Behind you the Imperial City looms. I’m feeling thirsty, let’s get ourselves a drink. Walk up to the inn door. The door icon appears. You press spacebar and enter the inn… only in reality you don’t. The door doesn’t swing open to reveal the interior.

When you pressed the spacebar the loading screen appeared. This is an in-game visual clue that you are changing location. The game consists of a huge array of locations, which the CS refers to as worlds. These are independent but linked spaces. The door you used was a portal. Activating it told the game you wished to move from an exterior cell to an interior cell, which represents the inside of the bar. The exterior inn building you saw outside is a shell.

Basically it’s four walls a roof and a door. The door is special linking object which, when activated, lets the game know which interior location you want to jump or teleport to. The two spaces, or cells, are not dimensionally linked. You could store an entire palace worth of rooms in a small shed if you liked. It would just be a bit silly. We will do something like this when testing our mods later in the series.

Design note. Now that you know what to look for, make a note of any locations in the game that you think are cool. You can then look them up later to see how they did that.

The exterior world of Cyrodiil is made up of a number of tiles or cells. Each cell defines a particular location. These are joined together to form an exterior world. You know you are passing from one to another because that "Loading Area" bit appears. In a later lesson we will look at these exterior cells and how we can change them.

In the first few lessons we will concentrate only on interior cells.

Have a look around the bar, note the objects on the bar counter. In this first lesson we will modify this.

Save your game, and exit Oblivion.

Now start up the CS.

File Types

In most of these lessons we will concern ourselves with just three file types. Don’t worry, the CS writes all the files for you.

<filename>.esm 
<filename>.esp
<filename>.nif

For a mod to work the game needs to know 3 things. The file you plan to change. This is called the Elder Scrolls master file, or .esm. For all these early files this is going to be the Oblivion master file (oblivion.esm – located in the game's Data folder). The CS knows where it is. The vast majority of user-created mods can be written using the oblivion.esm master file.

It also needs the name of the Elder Scrolls PLUG-IN that you are writing (this is your mod file). These are designated as .esp files. The first time you set out to create a mod, you will not provide the CS with the name of an .esp file. If you don’t give it a name it will write a new one, prompting you to choose a name for the file the first time you save it. Any future changes you wish to make to the same mod would require you to choose this .esp, making it your active file. Making a file your active file simply means that when you choose to Save your work, the CS will automatically overwrite that file with any changes you have made.

Finally it will need information about any objects you add to the world. These are image files called NIFs, short for NetImmerse File format, which have the .nif extension. The game already knows about thousands of these objects, and we can use this library of image files to populate our world with stuff. For a beginning modder, the .nif files that are already contained in the CS will provide plenty of material to work with. For now, you should simply be aware of their existence. Later in the series we can look at changing and adding our own .nif files.

The developers have left the options for experienced gamers pretty open but it can be a little awkward for us newbies. So here’s what we have to do each time we use the CS. We need to let the CS know what .esm and .esp files we wish to work on.

Open the File menu. From the options select Data. We will look at the other options in more advanced lessons. The Data dialog box should open. It looks in the oblivion/data folder for all .esm and .esp files it contains. If you have no mods installed, the only file to show up will be oblivion.esm – if you have installed other mods these will show up as files with .esm or .esp file extensions depending on how their developers wrote them.

To choose a file, double click on it. Do this to the oblivion.esm file. Leave any others unchecked - we don’t want to mess up their hard work. Select OK, and a dialog warning box may pop up telling you that you haven’t selected an active file. For now, you may ignore this. Any changes that you make are stored by the CS until you save it. All changed information has an asterisk added to its name in the CS. When you save, you will need to tell the game the file to save the information to.

The default setup protects the original files so you can’t overwrite them. However if you wish to amend a mod and keep the same file name you can activate that file. When you save, the CS will overwrite that file. Generally speaking you should only activate a file when you want to alter it. You can not activate the oblivion.esm file. This protection means we can’t break the game.

In this first tutorial you should only select the oblivion.esm file and click oK. At the warning, click Yes. We now have no active file.

The CS will now load the data. This may take a little time depending on your system. You can see the progress along the bottom of the window. When it has loaded you are ready to mod.

The Construction Set

There should be three mini windows on display. Two on the top and one below. These are the object window, the render window, and the cell view window. You can open and close them using the View menu, but for most tasks you will want to have all three windows open. Generally we select a cell in the cell view window, look at it in the render window, and drop objects into the render window from the object window.

Let’s look at the function of these key windows.

The Object Window

The object window contains a list of all the base objects in the game. These are sorted into categories, depending on the object's function. Items/Armor, for example, contains objects that provide combat protection in the game. We will cover each group when and as we use them. The objects can be edited and customized but we will stick to the standard objects for now.

The Cell View Window

The cell view window contains a list of all the cells or worlds in the game. On the left is the cell selection lists, on the right the cell contents list which will be blank until you select a cell. A cell is a location. It could be a room, a set of rooms, or an area of wilderness.

The drop down menu allows you to move from interiors to the different external worlds. We will look at the external worlds in a later lesson. The game defaults to interiors. Take a little moment to shift from one cell list to another to see how the list on the right changes, then when you’re ready to continue, select interiors again.

If you click on the first cell in the list, the Abandoned Mine, you should see a list of objects on the right hand side. These are all the elements contained in the Abandoned Mine cell, ie. all the pots, chests, NPC's, and rooms that make up the space you explore in this dungeon.

Now scroll down the cell selection list to find WawnetInn Tavern.

You can speed the process up by hitting the W key to scroll down to the locations that start with letter W. When you’ve found the cell select it. The Cell contents list will fill up. If you double click on the Wawnettinn cellname the object will appear in the render window.

The Render Window

The render window is your view into the world you are creating or changing. When you double click on the Wawnetinn Tavern cell the picture should appear in the render window. It is likely to be a small block like structure in the window.

It may be so small, in fact, that you will need to zoom in with your mouse wheel to see what you're doing-- but beware! The window is huge and the object is small, so you can easily lose it. Selecting another cell in the object window, then re-selecting the Wawnetinn Tavern, will put the object back in its starting position in the window. In practice, you will need to combine the navigation commands described below with zooming in, in order to keep the object centered in the visible part of the window.

Navigating and manipulating the render window is vital to any mod you make.

Objects are dropped into the world by dragging them from the object window into the render window.

You then manipulate the objects from that window.

It is therefore crucial that you are able to operate within the render window with confidence, or nothing meaningful can be achieved. I suspect this is why so many potential modders give up. This is a shame; the more modders there are the more mods we will get. This will make our gaming world more varied and interesting. So don’t give up, stick with it.

The fact is that for a beginner, using the window can be a pain.

This is because several of the functions are counter-intuitive. Because the game world is 3-d and your screen is 2-d there is a problem. You will need to be able to move left and right (y-axis) front and back (x-axis) and up and down (z-axis). However, your mouse can only move along two of these axes, but which two?

Intuition suggests left/right and up/down. But it turns out that when using the tool you are far more likely to want to use the x and y directions. The developers recognised this so moving your mouse up and down moves the object backwards and forwards. It is a pain at first but you soon get used to it.

To access the z-axis you need to hold down the Z key.

You will need to practice and be able to do five key things in the render window.

1. Move the Camera

The camera is your view of the world. To move it you will use a combination of key and mouse commands.

First click on the grey part of the render screen away from the objects. This is the standard deselect option. You can also press the D key. I always deselect before I move the camera. You don’t have to, but it does prevent you from moving an object by mistake if you misskey.

Now select the Wawnet object (you can select by clicking or by dragging a box around the desired object). A multi-coloured box will appear around the little block. The box defines the area of the object in its three dimensions. It is used in collision detection and Havok physics.

Double click on the block and a dialog box will open, giving information about the block. Check that the name of the object is <name>. If it is not, close the dialog box, deselect and try again. In the central area is some information about the object's position. This lists the object's x, y, and z coordinates, and some info about rotation. These should all read 0,0,0. This is the default position. If, in the course of the tutorial, you drag the building out of the way by mistake, don’t panic. Select it, open the dialog, and reset it to 0,0,0. Note, however, that this will flag the object as having been edited, with a * next to the object's name.

To move the camera in the normal mouse directions, press and hold the centre wheel button or the spacebar on the keyboard. Move the mouse and you can move the camera about the room.

Practice makes perfect.

The A key allows you to toggle Bright Light on and off. It's a very useful thing while working with Interior cells in the Construction Set and has no influence on the light in game.

2. Rotate the Camera

What you end up with might not be the best view. We need to be able to rotate the camera. This is done by combining the Shift Key and a mouse move. Do not hold down any of the mouse buttons. The camera rotates about the selected object. If you have selected the Inn block it rotates about the centre of the block. Practice this. Now select an object in the inn like a table or a stool. Again, try rotating. Practice selecting objects, viewing them from different angles. Remember not to press the left or right mouse buttons. When I started I was so used to drag and drop I kept doing this in camera moves.

Why shouldn’t you do this? Because this is how we move and manipulate objects in the world.

3. Center the Camera

With objects selected, press C. You should now have a view with the block in the centre of the window. C is your centre tool. It always centres the selected object.

4. Zoom

This is the function of the centre wheel. Scroll in and out and watch the image in the window.

Another way to zoom is to hold the V key while moving the mouse (no buttons pressed). This is finer move than the scroll and allows a much closer view. But usually the scroll wheel gets the job done.

Zoom out a bit and press T. The render changes to a nice top down view. Again you can zoom in and out. T will move the camera to give you a top down view of the selected object. It may, however, be blocked by objects which are above it.

Practice using these and when you are ready move on.

5. Manipulate Objects

Holding the left mouse key allows you to drag objects in the x, y plane. (left, right, front, back). Combining this with the top view , T, can be a very useful technique. Make sure Snap-to-Grid is disabled first, otherwise the object we're about to move will probably jump further than you'd like (it's the grid button on the toolbar). Click on one of the small objects like a beer mug. Use zoom, pan and rotate to get the best view of it. Now move the mug across the table. Select the mug, go to Top View, zoom out a little. Left click the mug and drag it to a new position on the table.

Believe it or not you have just done your first mod. It is a mod that shifts the position of a beer mug in Wawnett Inn. Ok it’s a pointless mod, but it is a mod nonetheless for that.

Other Useful Tips

Let’s move on to a few more useful functions.

Deleting/Cutting

Turn your focus to the bar. It is good practice in using the camera. Now select an object on the bar. Any will do. We can now look at the cell content list on the right of the cell view window. Scroll down and you should find the object highlighted. Right clicking on it brings up a menu. Select delete. The object disappears. You cannot reverse this by selecting Edit > Undo from the CS's menu bar at the top of the window, however!

You can also select the reference in the Render Window and press Delete on your keyboard. This method of deleting can be Undone.

To Cut an object simply select it and press CTRL + X, or select Edit > Cut. This removes an object from the Render Window and adds it to your operating system's clipboard.

Selecting Multiple Objects

You can select multiple objects as well. Deselect (D), then using the Left Mouse Button held down, drag a rectangle around the objects in the render window.

Alternatively you can use CTRL + left click in the list of objects in the cell view window.

Scaling Objects

Here is another useful key. Select a beer bottle (any object will do though) from the bar. Hold down the S key and drag away from it. The more you drag, the bigger it will get. If you drag inward, it will get smaller! You can have a lot of fun making big beer bottles. This way of making things bigger or smaller is good to know, because it is handy when placing trees. It should work on any object, including NPCs.

Altering the size of an object, called scaling, is a good way to add a bit of variety to your mods. Note, however, the general rule that most objects do not look as good when scaled to less than half or more than double their original size.

Standard Tasks

Creating an empty interior cell

Method 1:

1. In the Cell View Window, select "Interior" from the Drop-Down box
2. Select "TestQuest01" from the left list
3. Right-click it and select "Duplicate Cell"
4. The new cell should appear below "TestQuest01", select it
5. Slowly double-click it so you can change the EditorID, give it a new name

Method 2:

1. Open the Cell window by going through the World>Cells menu
2. Be sure that the Worldspace "Interiors" is selected
3. Right click in the list of EditorIDs and select "New"
4. Enter the name for your new cell and click "Ok"

Notes

• For storing remote containers and activators you can leave it floor-less without a problem.

• Method 1 gives you an empty cell, rather than some vanilla interior.

Creating a New Persistent Reference

Generally, giving a thing a persistent reference is necessary when you want some process to be able to refer to that thing from somewhere else. Specifically, flagging a reference as persistent means that Oblivion will always keep it in memory (it persists.) The advantage to being flagged persistent is that scripts, quests or AI packages can use that reference even when the player is in a different cell. If a script, a quest, or an AI package, will possibly need the thing outside of the cell in which it is given its reference, then that reference needs to be a persistent reference. Oblivion only loads a certain number of cells at a time, and calling upon anything that is not loaded or persisting in memory will cause a crash. The disadvantage to making all references persistent is that the persistent references occupy memory. If 500,000 references that did not need to persist were, in fact, made persistent and each used 4 bytes that would require about 2 MB of memory and a corresponding use of disk space for each save. After all, to persist they must be reloaded upon resumption of the game.

The plan is get something you'll use in your scripts, hence the persistent reference.

1. Open the cell you wish to add the Persistent Reference to, so you can see it in the Render Window
   • Double-click the cell in the Cell View Window
2. Select the base object from the Object Window
   • Temporarily in the Object Window you could try: Items > Armor > Glass > and in the right hand side of the window scroll down to: EnchGlassCuirassCameleon
3. Drag the base object into the Render Window
   • You should have a cool cuirass in your renamed TestQuest01 Render Window
4. Double-click the new reference in the Render Window
5. Give it a "Reference EditorID" (top bar of the Edit window)
   • This is the name you'll use in your scripts, so give it a name you'll remember
   • Do not start the Reference EditorID name with a number as this will cause you a lot of problems down the road
6. Flag the object as Persistent (top-left of the 6 check-boxes at the bottom)

Creating a New Base Object

There are 2 ways to create a new base object:

1. New object - if you want an icon and/or model, the file will need to be unpacked from the .bsa
2. Copy another object

New Object

1. In the Object Window, select the type of object you want from the treed-list on the left (i.e., Activator, Spell, Key)
2. Press Insert or right-click in the right window and select New

Copy Object

Changing the EditorID will allow you to copy a base object

1. Select the base object with the icon and model you would like your new base object to have
   • You can check the icon and model by double-clicking the base object
2. "Change" the EditorID of the base object
   • Slowly double-click the EditorID of the base object, give it a new EditorID and press Enter
   • You can also change it in the Edit menu
     1. Right-click on it and select edit or double-click it
     2. Once in the edit menu, change the EditorID and press OK
3. You should see the dialogue

   Create a new object?
   No will rename this object

   • Select "Yes"
4. If necessary, make any further changes to the new base object through the Edit Menu

Making Some Practical Changes

As a final part of this lesson, let’s add some objects of our own.

When I first started this was the most frustrating of all the activities. Let’s face it; this is what modding is really about. We want to add stuff that wasn’t there before. It can be awkward to get this right; hopefully this guide will ease you in.

Clear the bar of all objects by multi-selecting them. If you accidentally delete the bar itself, use CTRL + Z to undo it. (Don’t panic when using the CS, Ctrl + Z is a useful undo tool).

We have now removed objects from the cell.

Adding and Positioning Objects

Let’s go back to the object window. At first this can be a bewildering thing. There are just so many things. Gradually you will learn to use the menu, and indeed remember the names of your favourite objects.

The objects are to a degree sorted by their function (ammo, apparatus, armor, etc). For example, the Armor and Weapons categories contain exactly what they say. All the armour and weapons contained in the game. These are further sorted by type. Ebony, Iron etc. These are objects you can pick up and equip. Containers contains all the boxes, chests, and crates that can be used to hold things. Magic contains the potions that you can collect.

We are going to use the MiscItem menu for now, which can be found under the Items group. This contains all the no-value and low-value clutter that you can pick up but not do anything useful with: Plates, Cups, Bowls and so on. Again there is a bewildering list of bits and pieces. Practice will teach you what most of these are. Nothing besides experience can make this part easier for you. If you want to find an item, use your best judgment in deciding which categories to search. If you don't find what you're looking for, try something else that makes sense.

Objects with names that begin with MQ are quest based items and are best avoided.

Concentrate for now on the stuff related to an economic class. These usually begin with the prefix LowerClass, MiddleClass, UpperClass, Lower, Middle, or Upper. Let’s find a lower class plate and drop it on the bar (LowerClassPlate01).

You can scroll through and try to find it. Another way is to narrow the search by using the find text option. In the Edit menu select Find Text. A dialog box opens. Type in "plate" and press go.

After a few seconds you can look under the object tab. Look for references that have the MiscItem description. You can click at the top to sort alphabetically by description.

Here is where the CS has really missed a trick. Ideally you should be able to drag and drop from here but alas that is not possible. Note the name of the object and then find it in the object list.

Anyway, once you have located a plate that you want (any will do). We will set about putting it on the bar.

If you drag this onto the render screen it will appear. You may have to zoom out a bit to see it clearly. There is very little subtlety here. Trying to put this item on the bar using left click and drag is a leftclicking drag. There is an easier way, thanks to those shortcut keys.

First select the bar and use T to get a top down view. Zoom out a little so the whole bar can be seen.

Now drag and drop the plate into the render window. You should now be able to move the object so it is directly above the bar. But it’s probably sitting in mid-air a good few feet above the bar.

We now want to change the height so that it sits on the bar.

We will learn about 4 techniques today. We should practice all 4, even though some are harder than others, because all will have some use in time.

1. The Mouse Method

The first is the mouse method. Hold the Z key, to restrict movement of the object along the z axis (up/down) and click/drag with the left mouse button to move the object. The coloured box around the object is a useful guide to when it is in position. If any part of the coloured border sinks into the bar, you have gone too far. This is a fairly slow technique and uses a lot of camera changes. Be patient. You will normally use this technique to position objects on vertical surfaces like walls rather than horizontal surfaces like the bar.

Stick with it.

2. The Manual Method

The second technique uses references from other similar objects, in this case the plate we have just placed. After you have positioned the first plate with the method described above, double click on the plate. Remember that x,y,z co-ordinate information we mentioned before? Look at the info giving the plates' positions. Write down the z co-ordinate.

Once done, select the bar again, get the top view and drop another plate into the render window, and reposition it above the bar. Now double click on this new plate and type in the z co-ord you have just written down. The new plate snaps to this new point on the bar. This is a great way to get a lot of objects at a precise height. But they must be identical objects. The xyz co-ordinates actually refer to the location of the centre of the yellow cross inside the object's multicoloured box. Objects of two different heights will have two different z-axis positions, even if they are placed on top of the same flat surface.

3. The "Fall" Command

Set up another plate above the bar. We are now going to learn one of the most important keys in the CS. This is the F key. This causes the selected object to fall. It will fall until it hits another object. It is a great way to add objects on to tables, floors etc. Take care though. The object will stop when it hits an object. Check its height later to see nothing stopped it on the way down.

Handy hint: when decorating an empty room try to work from the floor up. Start with carpets, then furniture that stands on the floor. Then objects which stand on the furniture. This way the F key can be really powerful.

4. Duplicating Objects in Place

The last technique is to use the CTRL + D function. This makes a duplicate of an object in exactly the same position. It’s brilliant for stacking and repeat tasking. Select one of the plates on the bar and then press CTRL + D. The object may change appearance. This is a side effect of the doubling. Now select and drag one of these plates across the bar, and you will see the new plate appear. It will maintain its z-axis position from the plate you duplicated. Position it so it does not collide with any other objects. We now have 4 plates on the bar. Practice if you like dropping other objects using the F key and the CTRL + D to duplicate them.

Rotating Objects

The final part of this first lesson involves rotating objects. Select an object that will clearly show that rotation has occurred. A mug with a handle will do. You rotate using the right mouse button (RMB). But here is the thing: rotation occurs only in the z axis. This is the most common type of rotation and is the easiest to perform.

To rotate in the x axis, use x + RMB.

To rotate in the y axis use y + RMB.

N.B. Some people have found that rotating in y axis was the default, and rotating on the z axis required z + RMB

You can also use the rotation boxes in the object's pop up dialog box. This is best if you want precise angles like 90, 180 and 270 etc.

Practice doing this.

You may also place your cursor in any of the position or rotation boxes and use the up down arrows on your keyboard to make very small incremental movements.

Finally a couple of extra bits:

Holding X when dragging an object restricts movement to the x axis only. (Very handy when hanging stuff on a wall).

Holding Y when dragging an object restricts movement to the y axis only. (Very handy for stocking shelves).

Testing Your Mod

Now all we have to do is save our handy work. Select File > Save in the main menu. You will be prompted to name your file (assuming this is the first time you have saved). Call it something useful like Test-1. Close the CS.

Open Oblivion, and if you want to see the damage you did, activate your mod by selecting Data Files from the Oblivion Launcher. Locate the file named Test-1.esp (or whatever you may have named it), and double click to place an "x" in the check box beside it. Now, when you load up a saved game, the changes you have made in your mod will be visible in-game.

Don’t save your game or you may make your damage permanent.

Congratulations you have now done your first mod. Ok it’s a useless mod that beats up a very nice bar, but a mod none the less. More importantly you have learned the techniques needed to navigate around the render screen and to manipulate objects.

To restore the inn to all it's former glory, simply deactivate your mod.

Key Controls Summary

(LMB=left mouse button, RMB=right mouse button)

Camera
Centre Wheel Hold + mouse – Pan
Spacebar + mouse – Pan
Shift + mouse - Rotate
Centre Wheel Scroll – Zoom, stepped
V + mouse – Zoom, fine
C – Centre On selected
T – Top View selected

Object
LMB + mouse – move on x and y axis
Z + LMB + mouse - move on z axis
X + LMB + mouse - move on x axis
Y + LMB + mouse - move on y axis
S + mouse - scale size
RMB + mouse – rotate about z axis
Y + RMB + mouse - rotate about y axis
X + RMB + mouse - rotate about x axis
D – De-select
F – Fall
CTRL x – cut
CTRL c – copy
CTRL v – paste
CTRL d – copy and paste in present position (duplicate)
LMB (with nothing selected) + frame - select multi-objects
CTRL + LMB – add to selection list

Misc
A - Illuminate (Toggle Bright Light)

Ok hope this has helped get you started. Next time we will add a new basement room to the Inn and decorate it.

Bye for now, see you in Lesson 2: Creating a Room.

Tom Dawson

See Also

Useful settings in ConstructionSet.ini