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Dave Foster's Morrowind Construction Set Tutorials

The Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind Construction Set Housemod Tutorial 2

Page created 15th February, 2007

The first tutorial covered the use of the CS for the beginner including : opening and loading a mod, keyboard shortcuts, coordinate system, copying and pasting another house into Moonrest in the Five Keys of Azura mod.

The second tutorial will begin where the first left-off, i.e. setting up the interior of the house and linking the interior to the exterior.

• Step 1

Open up the CS and arrange it to suit your needs. Open up the mod and focus the CS on the house in Moonrest, where you left off.

• Step 2

We are now going to create an interior for the house. The best way to do this is to copy an existing interior into a new interior cell, then make some mods to the items in order to make it look different in some way. How you do this is up to you; re-arrange the items, get rid of some of the existing items and replace them with something else, etc.

So, first we need to create and name a new interior cell. To do this, go to the menu World|Interior Cell and click on the New button in the pop-up dialog. Type in the name of the new interior cell as - Northlands, Moonrest, newinterior1. Click on the Apply button then on the OK button. Now go to the Cell View window and confirm that it has been created OK. We are going to copy the contents of the original house into this cell. So, how do we know the name of the original interior cell? Well, we need to check the pink teleport marker outside it's door in Moonrest. Ensure the render window is pointing at the Moonrest 45,35 cell, and locate the original house and it's teleport marker. Double-click on the marker and a pop-up opens showing details of the marker. On the right of the window, find the box marked 'Load Cell' and click on the button called 'Select Marker' just below the combo-box; the interior of the cell opens in the render window. See the images below. The interior teleport marker is highlighted.

• Step 3

Ensure the render window is current, then zoom-out so you can see all the house shell and interior. Draw a box around everything ( click at top left, hold and drag mouse to bottom right) as per the image below, then CTRL-C to copy everything.

In the Cell View window, locate our new interior cell, double-click to bring it into the render window, ensure the window is current, then CTRL-V to paste the contents. Second image below. Note that the pink teleport marker never copied into the new cell; we will create a new one shortly.

• Step 4

The view is a bit long so make sure the window is current and that everything is still highlighted, then, zoom-in and rotate the contents until you're looking directly through the door - see below. Note the white arrow below the house; this is the North Marker. A North Marker is required to ensure that, when you walk out of the interior to the exterior, you're facing in the correct direction in the external cell.

You can place the North Marker wherever you like in the internal cell, but ensure that it is pointing in the right direction. This is a little hard to explain...Remember the external cell? We were on the northern edge of Lake Moonlight, facing north. So, to walk through the door and into the house, we had to walk towards the south. Imagine now that you have just entered the house from the north; you are facing south into the house, so the north marker must point the opposite way. So, the North Marker is correct as you would expect; we copied the house that was already facing north. Furthermore, the internal teleport marker that we are going to create must point inwards.

Zoom-in further on the entrance until you can see the outline of the doorframe and the door handle. Click on the doorhandle and note the name of the door in the lower left of the status bar. A window opens up giving details of the internal door. See the image below.

Note the empty Teleport box over on the right of this window. We are now going to link this door to a teleport marker in the exterior cell. The teleport marker will be created when we click in this box then name the exterior cell in the combo-box, then click on the Select Marker button. Do it...scroll down to the Northlands, Moonrest, (45, 36) entry then click the button. You're taken to the exterior view with the pink teleport marker highlighted ( see first image below ). Zoom out some to see it's exact location.

In this instance, the marker is actually on the west side of the village. Sometimes you have to hunt around for it. It might be hidden underground, or inside the shell of the house, or even in the side of a mountain. But, when you find it, you will need to drag it to just outside the door, and point it so that it is facing away from the door. You will need to experiment with this a little. See the new position in the second image below.

• Step 5

Close the door reference forms so you don't get confused. Now, zoom into the marker using the C key. You should be inside the shell, looking out of the doorframe. See the doorhandle? Click on it and make sure the doorframe highlights. Now, double-click on it to bring up it's reference form.

We now do the same as we did with the internal door. We tick the teleport box, locate the interior cell in the drop-down, then click on the Select Door button. You're taken to the interior cell with the marker pointing in, just inside the doorframe. See the image below. Dismiss the door reference box.

• Step 6

We now need to get a better look from inside the house, so spin the interior around the highlighted doormarker. Move the marker to the position shown in the image below.

Let's now go back to the interior cell menu for this cell, since we skimped over it when we created the new interior. Also, in the first tutorial I failed to mention the keyboard shortcut for turning on the lights in the render window; it's the A key. Try it. By turning the lights on and off with the A key, you get a feeling for the ambience of the location when you're playing the game. This ambience is created by adjusting the properties on this form. Try turning the lights down, and experiment with the colour of the light. You can also turn on fog, and set whether the player is allowed to sleep in this cell, and whether the cell has water in it. You need to play around with these settings a lot, in order to get a feel for what can be done with lighting and colour to produce the atmosphere that you require. When you've finished, just click Apply then OK to save the settings for this cell. Save the mod.

• Conclusion

In this tutorial, you have learnt how to create the interior of your new house, how to setup the teleport markers, the importance of the North Marker, and how to adjust the lighting. Here's an updated list of the keyboard shortcuts that you have learnt.

• Keyboard Shortcuts



A --------------------------------------------- Lights
B --------------------------------------------- Borders
T --------------------------------------------- Zoom to Top View
C --------------------------------------------- Zoom to Ground Level View
LShift/Mouse ------------------------------ Move object/s around
MouseWheel/Move mouse ---------- Move your viewpoint or zoom-in/zoom-out
Z/LeftMouse ------------------------------- Move object up/down
CTRL-C, CTRL_V and CTRL-X ------ Copy, Paste, Cut

In the next tutorial, we'll see how to move the objects around inside the house, how to create new objects and how to set the ownership on those objects. By the end of the third tutorial, you should be ready for doing your very own house mod.

You can contact me here if you wish to make any comments or suggestions for further tutorials. Or try the Morrowind-Oblivion Forum. I'm always on-hand to answer your questions.