Category:FAQ

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, many coming from the Official Bethesda GECK Forums.

This page is under construction as it gets added to following the release of the GECK on 2008-12-12.

Short FAQs should be answered here on this page, while more lengthy tutorial-type FAQs should get their own page.

General Modding Frequently Asked Questions

Why are there no Modding Tools for consoles?

• This has to do with licenses and restrictions by the makers of the consoles.

Where do I find Modeling or Texturing tutorials?

• Many general, though some Oblivion specific, tutorials for Modeling can be found here, including links to the tools themselves.
• Here are the Oblivion CS Wiki Texturing Portal and Texturing Tutorials.
• A texturing tutorial of paticular interest to Fallout is this Hard Surface Texture Painting tutorial which essentially explains how to give your textures that old, weathered and beat up look.

GECK Frequently Asked Questions

What is the GECK and where can I obtain it?

• The G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) is, in this context, the Construction Set or SDK for Fallout 3. You can download it from the Official Fallout 3 site or from Fallout3Nexus. The G.E.C.K. in the game world is explained here: SPOILER WARNING!
• Quote from Developer sbailey: "The GECK is the tool that our designers and artists [use] to put the game world together. We then give it to you guys so that you can modify and extend our game. You can't make actual pieces of art with it -- we use 3D Studio Max and an exporter we don't release -- and there are a few things, like skills and statistics, that are hard-coded, but you can modify pretty much everything else. And there are, of course, tools made by the mod community that allow you to create your own art."

How do I run the GECK if I have the Steam version of Fallout 3?

• The GECK must be installed in the correct Fallout 3 directory, see the GECK Setup Tutorial for details.

How do I access the mesh, texture & icon files referenced in items?

• These files are packed in BSA archives. See BSA Files for how to extract and use them.

How do I dupe an item in the Object Window? or How do I create a new item similar to an existing one?

• Double-click on an item that is similar to the one you want to create, then change the Editor ID in the first text field. Click OK, then when asked if you want to create a new Form, click Yes.
• You can also click an already highlighted item and change the Editor ID there, then click Yes when it asks if you want to create a new form.

How do I add/edit a custom effect to an armor/weapon piece?

• Effects like "+10 to Sneak" on armor are called Object Effects and are located under Game Effects. Notice many have the prefix Ench meaning Enchantment.
• You can create a new Effect, giving it an identifiable Editor ID and name. Then select the type: either Apparel for armor or Weapon. Right-click in the Effects list on the right which will bring up a dialog box with a list of available effects. Range is either Self for Apparel or Touch for Weapon. Area is self evident. Duration 0 is used for apparel for a constant effect.
• To apply the effect to the armor/weapon, double click on the item and select the effect's Editor ID from the Object Effect dropdown menu.

Where can I edit exterior cells like Megaton or Canterbury Commons?

• These cells are in categories beneath the Interiors category in the Cell View World Space dropdown menu.
• Megaton has it's own world space called MegatonWorld, while Canterbury Commons is located in the Wasteland world space.
• Many nondescript wasteland cells do not have specific names, and can only be found using a grid (reference?).

How do I lock items in place, or toggle their visibility in the Render Window?

• You can't lock them in place, but you can select certain object types to be not visible/selectable in the View > Show/Hide Window.
• You can also toggle whether items are selectable or visible: select the items either in the Render Window or in the Cell View window (you can also use the Filter for this), then with the Render Window active, click "1" once to make your selection not selectable and twice for not visible. You can revert this by selecting the items in light blue in the Cell View window.

How do I connect a door to a control panel?

• Make sure the placed door is a persistent reference, and giving it an identifiable Reference ID can make this easier.
• In the Linked Ref tab of the control panel, you can select the door via dropdown menus (first the cell, then the door), or by clicking the Select Reference in Render Window button and then double clicking on the door with the red cross hair.

How do I add items to an existing vendor's inventory?

• See this page for a detailed tutorial.

How do I add items to Leveled Lists?

• There is a function for this: AddItemToLeveledList.
  • Note: this function is not useable in the current version of the game, but will likely be added in the upcoming patch.