Can I make edits to uploaded mods to make them 'standalone' not 'replacers'?

[plut0o]

I like alot of the armors I find on Nexus, but like 90% of them are Mantis Replacers. I also have this fantasy to turn Andreja into Gamora, but the Green skin mod, replaces all skin layers.

 

Anybody able to give me some pointers?

[DocClox]

Replacers just provide a new file with the same name as a vanilla one. If it's a new texture, you get a re-color If it's a new nif, you can change the mesh. The advantage of that, this early in the modding process, is that you don't need to edit a .esm file to make the changes,

 

If you want to make one of those changes standalone, you need to get a copy of SF1Edit. Load the game files, find the armor record, and right click it and choose "copy as new into..." That will create a new record in a different mod. You can create a new file, or copy into one you created already.

 

If the mod replaced existing files (nif or dds probably) then you need to rename these and make your new record reference the new file names. That makes the old one go back to the way it was, and the new one picks up the changes. And t his is where it gets tricky, because the SF meshes use a new material system for texture files and it's not clear how to change the file a mesh uses.

 

Changed nif files are easier - they're pointed at by Armor Addon records. Copy those like above and change the path to the nif and you should be gold.

 

Green skin - is basically another retexture and hits the same problems. If you find out, post here with the solution. I want to do some colored skins for a naked space suit mod I'm working on. I know two different ways to do this in Skyrim or Fallout 4, but I don't think either of them apply here.

 

One last thing - if you're going to use someone else's assets in a mod, get their permission first. Sounds like a buzzkill thing to say, but some people take these things very seriously, and not just the creators either. Check the permissions on the mod first - rights may already be granted by the creator - but if not get permission before you start.