Category:Tooling

A reference to all the various tooling that may be involved with developing Fallout 4. This page will include official, community made, and third-party software projects.

Armor and Clothing Design

 * Marvelous Designer: A 3D digital painting and sculpting software for Mod:Creation Kit/Model Files, specifically for clothing and armor.
 * Marvelous Designer
 * As of this writing, offers perpetual licensing as well as monthly subscriptions.
 * Outfit Studio: A 3D digital sculpting tool for Mod:Creation Kit/Model Files, specifically clothing, armor, and body creation/conversion.
 * BodySlide and Outfit Studio
 * Used for bodies, outfits, armors, and static Mod:Creation Kit/Model Files.

Audio and Dialogue

 * Audacity: Open source, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Mod:Creation Kit/Sound Files.
 * Audacity
 * Exports into XWM format.
 * Creation Kit ESM Version Check Patch: A patch to remove the ESM version check from 32-bit Creation Kit so that lip files can be generated after patch 1.10.162.
 * Creation Kit ESM Version Check Patch

Character Design and Animation

 * F4Biped Animation Rig: An animation kit for first person, third person, and vanilla animation import for Mod:Creation Kit/Actor Mod:Creation Kit/Model Files.
 * F4Bipid Animation Rig
 * Face Ripper: A tool to transfer the player character face from one plugin to another.
 * Face Ripper
 * Used for the creation of companion mods or unique NPC mods.
 * Fallout 4 Animation Kit: A detailed guide with tools and plugins for importing and exporting animations for Mod:Creation Kit/Actor Mod:Creation Kit/Model Files.
 * Fallout 4 Animation Kit

Documentation, Planning, and Promotion

 * Canva: A web-based multimedia design tool with which one can generate visual content for websites and social media.
 * Canva
 * Google docs: A web-based word processor.
 * Google docs
 * LibreOffice: An open-source office productivity software suite.
 * LibreOffice
 * OBS - Open Broadcaster Software: Open source software for video recording and live streaming.
 * OBS
 * Pastebin: A web-based text editor.
 * Pastebin
 * Scrivener: A word processing, metadata, note-taking, and outlining management software suite.
 * Scrivener
 * Trello: A web-based list-making application for projects.
 * Trello
 * Project boards are set up similarly to GitHub projects.
 * WordPress.org: Free, open-source website management software.
 * WordPress.org
 * WordPress.com: Free and paid website hosting service using WordPress.org open-source code.
 * WordPress.com

Plugin Management

 * Stupid Simple Plugin Manager: A plugin management software.
 * Stupid Simple Plugin Manager
 * Used for quickly enabling/disabling plugins during testing and debugging.
 * Wrye Bash: A plugin management software.
 * Wrye Bash

Textures and Models

 * GIMP: An open source image manipulation software for Mod:Creation Kit/Texture Files.
 * GIMP
 * Inkscape: A free vector graphics program for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
 * Inkscape
 * Used for complex paintings, illustrations, logos, poster art, HUD elements, etc. Adobe Illustrator's free competition.
 * Material Editor: An editor for Mod:Creation Kit/Material Files, both .bgsm and .bgem extensions.
 * Material Editor
 * There is also a Material Editor that came with the Creation Kit in the tools folder.
 * Materialize: An open source PBR texture generation tool for creating custom Mod:Creation Kit/Texture Files for Windows 64.
 * Materialize
 * Mudbox: A 3D digital painting & sculpting software for Mod:Creation Kit/Model Files and Mod:Creation Kit/Texture Files.
 * Mudbox Subscription
 * Mudbox Student
 * Used for texturing, re-texturing, creating or editing diffuse(.d), normals(.n) and spectacular(.s) textures.
 * Quixel Mixer: A PBR texture generation tool for creating custom Mod:Creation Kit/Texture Files.
 * Quixel Mixer
 * Integrated into MegaScans, but you can import your own for generating new ones.
 * Substance Painter: A 3D digital painting software for Mod:Creation Kit/Texture Files.
 * Substance Painter Subscription
 * Substance Painter Perpetual
 * Texconv.exe: A command-line texture compression and mip-map generation utility.
 * Texconv.exe is found in the Mod:Creation Kit/Elric folder under Tools in the Fallout 4 folder after installing the Creation Kit.
 * Microsoft Texconv documentation
 * TexconvGUI: A simple GUI for Microsoft's Texconv and can be used for grayscale heightmaps among other things if one does not have access to Adobe Photoshop.
 * TexConvGUI
 * XboxDDSTextureLoader: For use by qualified Xbox One XDK developers, allows you to see Xbox textures ("XBOX" FourCC pixel format) on your PC.
 * XboxDDSTextureLoader

User Interface

 * SoThink SWF Decompiler: A Flash decompiler to convert SWF to FLA and extract SWF resources. Windows and Mac versions.
 * Sothink SWF Decompiler
 * There's a 30-day free trial.

Utilities

 * 7zip: A free data compression tool for Windows and Linux. It supports RAR 2, 3, 4, and 5 formats as well as ZIP format.
 * 7-Zip
 * Champollion Pex to Papyrus Decompiler: A command line tool to decompile PEX binary files into human-readable PSC files.
 * Champollion
 * HxD: A binary file editing software for raw data manipulation.
 * HxD
 * Notepad++ and Visual Studio Code have plugins for viewing raw data.
 * Inspiration Pad Pro: A random data generation program.
 * Inspiration Pad Pro
 * StringBuilder: A utility for building incremental strings upon copy and pasting.
 * StringBuilder
 * WinRAR: A Windows data compression tool that focuses on the RAR and ZIP data compression formats for all Windows users.
 * WinRAR

Version Control and Bug Tracking

 * AFKTrack: A bug tracking application designed for mod authors.
 * AFKTrack
 * GitHub: A web-based GUI for Git that provides hosting for software development version control.
 * GitHub
 * You can also make static websites and have a wiki for your mod project.
 * Perforce: Free version control for up to 5 users and 20 workspaces.
 * Perforce Helix Core

Worldspaces

 * terrain.party: A web-based tool for real-world height map data.
 * terrain.party
 * Wilbur: A fractal map generator for terrain data height maps.
 * Wilbur
 * WorldMachine: A procedural painting and sculpting tool for generating terrain height maps for import into the Creation Kit.
 * WorldMachine
 * Free version produces height maps that are 512 x 512.