GenMod Overview

GenMod helps you create new interiors for Bethesda's Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. GenMod generates ESP modification files ("mods") containing one or more interior cells. GenMod supports over a dozen architectural styles, can create new containers, and can place furniture, lights, rugs, tapestries, and creatures into the new level(s).

The goal of GenMod is to do as much of the repetitive drudge work as possible, so you can focus on high-level mod design and final tweaking. GenMod does not eliminate the need for hand-crafting of interiors, but it does speed up the process. By automating room layout and basic item placement, GenMod can reduce the time it takes to create new interiors by as much as 50%.

Your two main choices when generating an interior are whether to generate a static or a random interior. Static generation creates an interior using a single pre-defined layout that you select, for when you are creating a new house or other building interior. Random generation randomly places rooms and connects the rooms with hallways, for when you are creating a dungeon.

Appending Not Supported

Be aware that GenMod always creates a new ESP file every time you generate. It will ask you to "confirm overwrite" if you are trying to write to an existing ESP file, but if you tell it to go ahead, any information that used to be in that file will be overwritten. (TESAME is a great utility for combining ESP files together, and GenMod does not attempt to duplicate that functionality.)

Capabilities

Creates new interior cells, placing walls, halls, stairs, lights (such as lanterns and torches), and decorators (sounds, mist, ash pits, debris, etc.).
Sets the light level, fog color, and fog density of the cell.
Generates house and building interiors based on customizable layout templates.
Generates dungeons via random generation (room tilesets only) of one or more connected levels
Creates new types of creatures using existing model and sound files, but with new attributes, spells, and inventory.
Places static contents: furniture, pre-defined containers, and pre-defined creatures
Creates new containers (barrels, desks, crates, chests, etc.), with variable contents.
Adds items with scripts attached ("effect items")--useful for creating traps.
Adds locks and traps to some containers and doors. Occasionally creates a "skeleton key" that unlocks most doors/containers on that level.
When randomly generating more than 10 levels at a time, creates doors that move the player up or down 5-10 levels at a time (depending on the depth of the dungeon).
Customizable via XML files (GenModData.xml, CreatureData.xml). You can define new Tile Sets, Layouts, Furniture Themes, Container Types, Creature Types, Inventory Sets, etc.

Terminology

Term	Definition
Cell	An interior; the inside of a building or cave. Each interior cell must have a unique name.
Container	A chest, crate, barrel, etc., that can hold other things. GenMod can place pre-existing Morrowind containers (with pre-defined contents) into a cell. It can also create new containers (with randomly generated contents).
Contents	All non-tile information placed into a cell. This includes containers, furniture, creatures, and effect items.
Creature	Monsters that will try to kill the player (mostly).
Decorator	Decorators include tapestries, rugs, ash pits, mists, and sounds.
Effect Item	Effect items are objects that have scripts attached to them. Typically, these are trapped objects, similar to the gems found on Daedric altars that summon a Daedra when you pick them up.
Fog	GenMod lets you control the type of fog for each level. Fog in Morrowind is specified as a percentage "density" and an RGB color. GenMod provides a number of pre-defined density/color combinations, and lets you select them by name. You can define new fogs via GenModData.xml.
Furniture	Furniture includes beds, tables, chairs, and other objects that are too large for the player to pick up, but which are not specific to a TileSet. Our definition of Furniture encompasses Morrowind activators (ex., beds), statics (ex., tables), and pre-defined containers (that is, containers that GenMod will place inside a cell but will not add contents to).
Layout	A Layout represents a room or set of rooms with a specific shape. A layout defines the arrangement of walls, halls, and stairs. GenMod can use Layout to create the inside of a house, via Static generation. It can also include Layouts inside randomly generated levels, to provide more variety and complexity to the level. Layouts are defined separately from their contents (furniture, containers, etc.). And Layouts are generally independent of a particular TileSet, which means that a Layout can be "realized" using any of the known tilesets: Hlaalu, Redoran, etc. Layouts can be nested inside each other to provide for multi-story buildings.
Level	(a) A single Morrowind "cell," as in dungeon level. You can generate 1 to 100 levels in a single ESP file using GenMod. (b) Experience or difficulty level, as in player level. You can specify a player range of 1 to whatever. When GenMod creates a dungeon, is assigns the minimum player level to the first dungeon level, the maximum player level to the last dungeon level, and interpolates for all levels in-between. The difficulty level determines how difficult the monsters will be and how nice the treasure will be.
Light Level	GenMod lets you control the light level for each level. Light level in Morrowind is specified as RGB values for ambient light and sunlight. GenMod provides a collection of pre-defined ambient/sunlight combinations, and lets you select them by name, so you do not have to mess with RGB values. You can define new light levels via GenModData.xml.
Light	Lights include chandeliers, torches, floor-standing lamps, and candles.
Platform	A raised wooden floor, used inside of cave layouts so that large furniture such as beds, tables, and dressers can have a flat surface to rest on. The floor of cave tiles is too curvy to allow for general-purpose furniture placement without platforms.
Theme	A theme represents a collection of items (containers, furniture, creatures) that make sense together. Each Theme has a name, a set of items that make up the theme, and a "ratio" associated with each item that controls how often the item shows up on a level.
Tile	We refer to a single slice of a room (a single wall, hallway section, door, etc.) as a Tile.
Tile Set	A Tile Set maps to an architectural style from Morrowind: Hlaalu, Imperial, Telvani, Redoran. To "work" with GenMod, each TileSet must define a set of standard, required Tiles, including Tiles for walls, room corners, doorways, doors, halls, and stairs.
Treasure	Treasure is anything the player can pick up and walk off with. Treasure selection (what kind of treasure shows up) is controlled via InventorySets in the XML files. Treasure frequency is controlled from the GUI. Effect Items are currently the only "free-standing" treasure that GenMod places into a cell. All other treasure is placed inside of containers or into the inventory of creatures.

Future Enhancements

Here are some of the enhancements we are thinking about making to GenMod.

New Types of Treasure
NPCs
Furniture Layouts, in support of chairs around tables, books inside bookshelves, wine bottles in wine racks, etc.
Water
Random Generation of Caves