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Preview of the TES Construction Set
Let's start with the basics. What is the Construction Set? The Elder Scrolls Construction Set is the very tool that the developers of Morrowind are using to create the game (well, besides obvious tools like Visual C++ and 3DS Max). The editor allows the player to alter any facet of the game, from the placement of objects in the world, to the disposition of NPC's, to formula for spells and level advancement, to weather patterns, to AI settings for monsters, to scripts on just about any object imaginable. All of this information can be changed and then saved to exceedingly lightweight plug-in files. Plug-in files are basically simple files containing a list of the changes that a person has made to a game. The largest plug-in I ever created was about 500k and contained about a week and a half's work. These plug-ins can be easily traded between people across the internet and loaded and unloaded at the player's whim.
Once you've got the basics down, the first thing you should know about the Construction Set is that it's enormous, in terms of the amount of sheer stuff that one can play around with. How enormous? Let's go over a few numbers. Upon installing the Construction Set, every model used in the game gets dropped into a directory called "Meshes". I looked at the directory properties in Windows Explorer. Anyone want to take a guess at how many meshes the game contains, even now, three or four months prior to release? 5,893 files. That's nearly 6,000 models for you to place, shift around, and generally fiddle with. Textures are similarly installed, and that directory contains close to 4,000 files. All textures are stored in either .bmp or .tga format, so editing is as easy as opening your favorite painting program and going to town. Keep in mind those numbers only represent the numbers of actual, physical, visible objects in the world as well. It doesn't include such wonders as spells, enchanted items, books (which often share models), and dialog. The bottom line is this: You will be kept busy, both in Morrowind the game, and the Construction Set.
I should insert a warning here: The next few pages are going to bore some of you out there to tears. They contain highly detailed, dry, largely technical info on the features, lists, and functions of the editor. Later I walk you through the process of building a tavern. That's more fun. If you want to skip to that part right now, click here. Otherwise, on with the show.
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