I have been wanting to mod for some time. However, I'm not the kind that learns on my own. I need a teacher. Having looked at some of the Art Deco assets from Sierra Madre being ported my soul is on fire yet again. I am wondering if there's a mod crew that will take me on, train me and mine me for ideas. Port Lookout is ideal, for I have many many ideas. Just not sure how to make them live.
Thank you for your time.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but right now that might be hard to find. Most good modders, modders you'd want to teach you, are either self taught or have taken classes/programs/courses. Don't let that get you down though. I highly encourage anyone to try and learn for themselves. It isn't easy, but for some it is. If you really really get stuck, ask for help here.
If you want to learn to mod, or make your own mod, you can find some tutorials on youtube about scripting, making things in the geck, blah blah blah. It's good to test your skills before putting them into a mod you want to make incredible. Plus, most experienced modders want to see that at least some work is done on a project before joining, otherwise it's just an idea and an idea that they'll have to do most of the work on.
Really, I encourage most people to learn for themselves. It's how we end up with great mods, and new ideas. You can always ask for help if you get stuck, just don't expect it.
If you are interested in getting started modding, there is a good amount of info on how to get started in our FAQ, here.
After you've read that and installed everything, I would read:
I've been trying, I will try again, but....when I was just born, they had to rub my throat to get me to suckle. That's been my whole life: without someone holding my hand, I don't get it. ADD out the wazoo, low frustration tolerance, zero failure tolerance. Failure doesn't teach me, it only discourages me. And the worst thing you can ask me to do is work or learn alone. I must have a teacher. The anxiety and stress mean that being self taught isn't worth it. I need someone with me, until I learn it. Then afterward, watch me fly. But I need a teacher until that point. Please.
[quote=charwo]
.... Low frustration tolerance and zero failure tolerance .... I need someone with me, until I learn it.
[/quote]
Or perhaps what you really need to learn is to have the patience to teach yourself? 
Low frustration/failure tolerance is a serious problem that will hamper your success in life over and over again (ask me how I know haha). I recommend that you overcome it as rapidly as possible - it's worth it. 
[quote=thermador]
[quote=charwo]
.... Low frustration tolerance and zero failure tolerance .... I need someone with me, until I learn it.
[/quote]
Or perhaps what you really need to learn is to have the patience to teach yourself?
Low frustration/failure tolerance is a serious problem that will hamper your success in life over and over again (ask me how I know haha). I recommend that you overcome it as rapidly as possible - it's worth it.
[/quote]
You're preaching to the choir, buddy.
Yeah, even I thought about asking for help with making mod at some point, but I've discovered that it's not very plausible for a these reasons:
*Unless the modder is a paid teacher/tutor in real life or they shared a tutorial to help others.
My suggestion is the same as Thermador's. I'm starting to teach myself the basics of modeling and texturing, and while it's not exactly the most fun or exciting stuff to read, I'm willing to do it. You've gotta find some self-motivation and you've gotta really want to reach the goal.
Some personal information about me: I'm currently a music major, but I'm leaving college. I've seen my goal for years, but I don't want it anymore. So I'm setting new goals, goals that I want to achieve. I've had a lot a people push for me to reach my old goal, but somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting it. I could go into more detail, but its needless information.
The Internet has a ton of good information, and Thermador already gave you some links. Start reading and good luck!
As I said before: I will be trying. As I have tried off and on for almost a year. There are methods and teaching methods that simply do not work for some people and work really well for others. I do not want any cheerleading regardless: results are the only thing that ever matter. I am not getting any results trying on my own, and without real time instruction and feedback I don't expect to.
That said, its not like it'd be done for free. On a long term mod I can do the legwork. For instance, if I were under chucksteel and doing DCInteriors, he could, once I'm taught, lay out the basic idea for a building interior, give me the specs of the outside of the building, what he wants broadly, I do all the of the basic assembly, and all he'd have to do is come in and edit the thing. I'm almost competent with the level builder, the issue is I need to figure out whether all of the assets I want are, compile them into one accessible file I need to hook up in the GECK, then reprocess it so it can be downloaded and added via FOMM and wouldn't cause a CTD.
Beyond Point Lookout, the best way to teach me is to have a prebuilt interior asset and say make it look pre-war. More than a teacher, my primary need, I need feedback, timely feedback before the anxiety reduces me to a crying fit. Patience and psychological stability comes from competence, and in my case, from competency alone. Youtube tutorials cause me to go into spasms, I do better with IKEA instructions. The online tutorial is not, I repeat NOT a productive fit for me.
Right now I got ideas, lots and lots of ideas. But there are good ones. Some of them very simple to do with training. I have not been asking for a hand out, I'm asking for an apprenticeship to be paid for in work on the teacher's mods. I do not think I can learn this kind of thing but by apprenticeship. That means I work off my training.
You make it sound like it's easy... We aren't trying to discourage you or put you down, but what you're asking is just too much.
Nobody here has the time to hold your hand and walk you through things. People here can guide you a certain way, like look up a location of something in the geck, or scripting something.
The main people who build and run TTW are quite literally almost always working on something for TTW and all of them working on multiple projects. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out the geck alone, and I still don't have it mastered. Having someone walk you through it would take even longer, and nobody with exceptional qualifications has that kind of time.
You say youtube tutorials don't help...I don't know how people here would be much better. There are a few experts, but with youtube you can stop, pause, go back, AND you have a visual. Taking direction through messages almost seems harder.
We are all encouraging you to learn for yourself, because I believe the ideas you have are great, but the fact is, this isn't really a training site. If you had a majority of your mod put together or laid out, maybe someone could help, but this really isn't the site for people to be giving you homework or "taking you under their wing". No one here can apprentice you and give you the attention you need. It would just be too time consuming.
Now if you want someone to MAYBE make a mod for you, or you think you have an amazing idea, then you can make a thread about it and maybe someone can make it happen. But this is TTW, almost all attention is directed at modding it and support for it. You could try asking around the nexus for help.
You say that everyone is real busy. I completely understand that, but that also means that you're short handed. Also, self taught people, beyond being elf motivated, aren't always great for working on collaborative projects. I've seen this in real life: there's a lot of ego. But even when there's isn't ego and drama, you're still short handed.
Someone like me is an investment: its not just teaching me to fish so I can feed myself, its so I can fish for you too. On a simple project, your concerns are absolutely justified. On a long term project where it's mostly about enduring the hump, I'm the girl you need.
Now as far as a fleshed out project, I have one in mind that I should be able to do simply in the GECK. My long term projects are very visual: re-fur the pitbuls, use the trader's dog's to make wolves, someone's already beat me to making healthier Bears, adding fish to the FO3 watershed, adding American flags to pristine variants of the Riot Armors, the FWE Heavy and Light Combat Armors, fixing the Washington Monument fixing the Wright Flyer and putting it in the Capital Preservation Society, and of course, creating a healthy one headed cow alongside the two headed Brahmin.
I could do one of two things, if someone would be willing to look at them: one is taking the Cleaned Museum mod as a template, recreating its cleaned lobby, then adding the other wings. If I have time I will find the rough layout of the real American History Museum and design it with that in mind. Otherwise, simply it will be cleaning it up and making it look like the rough neck arcology it is.
The other is an interior hotel thing for the Point Lookout project. This one will again be a town in a building, no people as I can't do the scripting yet, but with the assets properly credited, Create a Madre -like interior, lobby, chapel floor, school, marketplace, hydroponics, administration and a refugee level where I plan to later put in Swampfolk refugees as there will be a quest involving and emphasizing the Swampfolks syncretism between Christianity and well....Elder God Worship, The issue is coming to a head as the LW arrives and the Refugees are the more or less unbending Christian folk. Because its already set to raid the bad temple, this is be an insertion that will make the Swamp People into Allies, possibly opening up Swamp folk Small town with any undamaged brick building assets I can find.
What I could also do, which might be simpler, is do the exterior. But that would depend on if there are exteriors of the Hotel that one could walk right up to. I don't know if those exist, but if they do, I will need to download them and directions (a link will be fine for something this simple) where I can import all the Dead Money Assets into Point Lookout. From there, beyond the Hotel, I will mod the whole Pier to look inhabited and if it actually is something of a tourist draw, if only for the Point Lookout Tower folk. Making a living Pier compatible with the inbuilt quests of PL, which requires no changing of scripts due to lack of ability, is a challenge I look forward to. Fortifications supply vehicles, what they would do with nearby leveled areas would be included and quite visible from the current parameter of the Pier buildings.
Would anyone by willing to look at the assembly? It might be a couple of days, but I thrive on commission and a deadline.
