What goes in my mod-building toolkit?

[KaiserElectric]

I have always been pretty handy with computers and I have a couple ideas for some pretty cool mods. However, I'm not sure exactly what tools I need to build a mod. Can someone give me a list of the essentials for mod-building?

 

[Lord Tirian]

Definitively Notepad++ - it makes life easy as it's a pretty good editor for all things text.

If you want to do pick & mix with other people's mods and mod components, you'll want WinMerge. Heck, I recommend it anyway just to trace your own changes.

You should have some sort of image editing software, like Photoshop or GIMP, simply because you'll most probably at least do some buttons or new icons for this and that.

From here... it sort of depends on your skills and what you want do to. If you want to modify the SDK, you obviously need a C++ compiler, if you want to do your own models, you need a 3D programme. But the three things above will go a long way and will probably remain your bread and butter, even if you do more sophisticated things.

Cheers, LT.