Oblivion Mod:Modding

This article is about creating mods. For information about using mods, see Modification.

Basic Info

• Acronyms — Common mod and mod tool acronyms
• FormIds — What FormIds are, where to find, how to use them
• Linux — Information on modding Oblivion on Linux
• Oblivion Mods FAQ — How to get started playing mods for Oblivion
• Tools — Programs for both players and modders
  • Tool Features — Commonly used tool features

Mod Projects

• Cobl — Modder's Guide and project pages for the Common Oblivion (Cobl) project
• FCOM Convergence — Compatibility problems and solutions related to FCOM

Modder Info

• Modding FAQ — Frequently asked questions and their answers
• Modding Terminology — Basic modding concepts (records, references, etc.) and terminology
• Oblivion XML — Information on editing Oblivion's user interface
• TESCS4 Wiki — Official, wiki-based documentation for the construction set. Also provides extensive coverage of OBSE, pluggy, and other modding topics

Toolmaker Info

• BSA File Format — The media archive file (bsa) format used for Oblivion
• Directories — Overview of Oblivion's directories and the files found in them
• Mod File Format — The record-based format used in Oblivion data (esp, esm) files
  • Animation Groups — IDs and index numbers for animation groups in alphabetical order
  • FormID Fixup — Review of storage location of formids. Each of these has to be updated if/when the indexing of existing masters is shifted.
• Save File Format — The format that saved games created by Oblivion (ess) are based upon

Outdated Tech

The following articles have been outdated by technical advancements, but may still have some useful information in them.

• Mod Integration — Mod merging, mod isolation, mod communication, large modding projects
• Mod Merging — Suggested procedure for merging mods
• Programmers Page — List of programmers and projects
• Releasing Mods — Elementary guide to first-time modders
• Resurrecting the Player — Bringing the player back to life
• Technical Wishlist — A fix-it and wish list from the modding and technical side of the game. (This is not actually outdated, but it also does not provide useful information for modders.)

Tools

Tools for Players	Focus	Description
OBMM	Players, Modders	Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) is mostly focused on mod management, but also has functions for browsing and editing BSA archives and a few other miscellaneous functions. Note: Conflict detection feature has now largely been superseded by Tes4Edit.
Wrye Bash	Players, Modders	Wrye Bash has a very large number of features associated with managing, reconciling and editing mods and savegames, as well as extracting and modifying data in them. Mod/Savefile management. Player face import/export. Bashed Patch: Automated mod tweaking and conflict resolution.
Tools for Modders	Focus	Description
TES4 Gecko	Modders	Primarily focussed on merging mods. But also has a few special purpose functions (silent dialog generation, worldspace pushing, etc.)
Tes4Files	Modders	Allows packaging or uninstalling Oblivion mods. Convert all a mod's files in a few clicks to a BSA archive type distribution. (Not obsolete, but largely surpassed by OBMM.)
TES4View/TES4Edit Unofficial Help Release Notes	(Advanced) Players, Modders, Tool Makers	Primary focus is on revealing reconciling conflicts between active mods. But provides both basic editing and advanced special function reconciliation tools (e.g. automatic distand load texture generation based on all loaded mods).
Bethesda Archive Extractor	Modders	A tool to see or extract the content of .bsa and .ba2 archives of all Bethesda games from Morrowind to Fallout 4.
ObEdit [Outdated]	Modders	An alternate editor for Oblivion. However, development stopped in October 2006 while it was in alpha.
TESsnip [Outdated]	Modders	TESsnip was an early low level editor of mod files. If you want to do this sort of editing today, use Tes4View instead.
Tools for Modellers	Focus	Description
NIBLE	Modellers	Less options than NifSkope, but a less confusing interface concept.
NifSkope	Modellers	Lets you view and edit Oblivion NIF files (3D meshes), assign new textures, etc.