When the Creation Kit Fights Back

You open the Creation Kit full of hope.
Maybe today’s the day the outfit imports cleanly.
Maybe the faces will finally show up the way they were supposed to.

Then—desktop. No warning, no error, just silence.
That special kind of heartbreak only modders understand.

The outfit problem

I’m so lucky. I have several terrific modders who have contributed their outfits and armor to this mod. But that also means I needed to learn how outfits actually work. Even when you don’t make the thing, you still have to understand its many parts. This is a double-edged sword. The true benefit, is the level of respect one gains in realizing how very many steps are necessary to build what seems like a simple outfit.

The other side of that sword is that sometimes… an armor or outfit behaves like a ticking bomb. You get everthing into the folders. You open up Xedit and tell it what you want. Voila! Everything looks fine… until you apply that outfit to a NPC. Then the CK decides it’s had enough of your optimism and collapses in on itself. The work you did is gone. Your will to live? Also gone.

The face problem

Again. I’m so lucky! No, really. I’ve got a true face artist making these faces (you’ll see a whole post on this down the road), and I’m so honored. But here’s where my lack of experience comes in. Yes folks, I know many things! But not all the things. I do know how to use Face Ripper… but not how to move NPC faces in Xedit like a surgeon.

And so… for me, NPCs in the CK are like ghosts. They’re half there, half not. I built their skills, affiliations, outfit, weapon, and tried to get those beautifully sculped faces into the plugin… and then launched the game. Yay! Uh… why is he bald? (Why? Because… Todd.)

The version problem

Okay, this one is also my bad. Sing it with me! Hi, it’s me. I’m the probem…

I thought I wouldn’t need to do Version Control. Ha! So, to quote a modding mentor of mine, I’ve had to “…play pass the plugin.” So you think you and your collaborator are using the same CK build. You are not. When do you find this out? Uh… Hi. It’s me.

The modder reality

The CK doesn’t break every day, at least not for me. I’ve been very lucky. But it does break enough to keep you humble.
It teaches patience, superstition, and the value of hitting Ctrl+S every five minutes. You learn to celebrate small wins: That NPC has hair now! Four of those eight outfits do work! And now you’ve got those assets to use when you do the Level Design yourself. And… thanks to an incredible friend and modding partner, you have a quest that doesn’t implode on compile.

Modding isn’t clean work. It’s a tug-of-war between inspiration and entropy.
But every crash, every silent desktop moment, every missing mesh, is part of the weird rhythm of creation.

Tomorrow, I’ll open the CK again.
Maybe the outfit will behave.
Maybe the faces will all be there. Maybe I’ll get more outfits to work.
Maybe the CK will remember what mercy feels like.

Either way… progress.

Testing time

Eventually, every modder reaches the same point: You stop tweaking and you launch that test save.
The game boots, the load screen spins, and you hold your breath.
Did the outfit survive? Will the faces render?
Will it load at all? Or will it drag you straight back to the CK to feel like you’re starting all over again?

When it works, even for a minute, it’s magic.
All those late-night crashes, missing hair and meshes fade away.
You walk through your own world and think, okay… this is why we do it.

Until tomorrow. That’s when the CK forgets that I have fifty-plus items on the Trello of Doom.
Tonight… I got a glimpse. The scene will work!