CommonLibSSE VS PyNifly

Because SkyrimSE.exe has a Steam-related code inside. There's a solution though, you can use Steamless to disable it. This is safe even for SKSE DLL plugins and SKSE itself, more to say - many authors use this solution for develop purposes because it allows to attach VS debugger. Ryan aka Fudgyduff also mentions it in his CommonLibSSE Getting Started guide.

Since this small class is used by a lot of things (including the ones I mentioned), a lot of classes have also have their size / layout changed. This may be useful to check: https://github.com/Ryan-rsm-McKenzie/CommonLibSSE/commit/84070934c639a4c1eb074a29124387f5c29b600e

SKSE plugin development doesn't get any easier than CommonLibSSE. The NG fork has significantly more documentation and lets you compile SKSE plugins that support Skyrim SE, AE, and VR simultaneously.

That's not correct anymore. CommonLibSSE-NG is a fork of CommonLibSSE that allows plugin developers to build SKSE plugins that support Skyrim SE, AE, and VR¹ simultaneously. No need for separate builds or separate downloads. Plugins that were already built on CommonLibSSE need very few changes, and the vcpkg-centric workflow vastly simplifies building projects.

If you're looking to go for an SKSE DLL plugin in C++, I'd recommend basing it on CommonLibSSE which abstracts the SKSE API pretty nicely.

Are there any resources to get started with SKSE plugin development? I watched this video but it was mostly about setting up the development environment. I also read this from the Creation Kit wiki which led me here but the docs in this tutorial are a little advanced. As far as I can tell, the example plugin doesn't interact with the game itself so I still have no idea where to start 😔

SKSE DLL plugins that base themselves on CommonLibSSE as opposed to basically fully custom reverse engineered don't tend to have nearly as many issues porting to newer builds of the game, FWIW.

My error log looks like this. I have also tried to follow this tutorial, but I assume it is outdated. I got stuck in it in the build phase as well, and the errors were mostly about missing "common_v14".

If you want to try it out, download the SKSE source and try making something with it. SKSE has a decent amount of the game reversed, commonlibsse has a lot more (alandtse also has a version of it for VR). A huge amount of the game is still unexplored, but a lot of it has been figured out. The VR-specific things less-so, because the RE scene for the vr game is very very small. My mods are all open source, but they are probably pretty hard to get to build as they require things like headers that have the havok object definitions.

https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly/releases AFAIK

Not in NIFSkope; you need a real mesh editor like Blender or 3DS, with a plug-in that understands Skyrim NIFs (or something like https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly that can transfer between Blender and NIF). You have to edit the mesh to add the bones that move the mesh, then generate the xml file to control the physics. You can look at some of the SMP jewelry mods to see how it's done.

Not sure if this is relevant, but I also prefer using pynifly for .nif import/export.

I personally find PyNifly much easier to use, so I’m more familiar with that.

https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly use this - it is much better - currently using blender 3.1 and it works great. No scaling or rotation issues - faster and simple - exports in LE and SE nifs - Select all your objects ( weapon and blood fx meshes) and export into a new nif - choose a vanilla weapon with a similar profile and save a copy of the nifs to the same folder (1st person and 3rd person meshes) - open both the nif you exported from blender and the vanilla nif you are using as a template simultaneously - copy the BStrishapes from you exported nif into the vanilla nif one at a time and set all your BSshaderproperties and flags up accordingy, using the vanilla nif as an example - once you are happy with the way the new model looks, delete the original weapon and blood fx meshes and save the nif as a new file and name it accordingly - after that, in xedit, find the records in the vanilla game for the weapon you used as an example - right click and copy the record as a new record into a new plugin - give it a new ID - after you tweak the new plugin, save it and give it a unique name and note the ref ID you gave the weapon - activate the plugin and enter the game - open the console after loading and type player.additem (YourRefID) 1 or type help (YourWeaponName) 4 and get the ref ID there and then add it

PyNifly is probably the easiest for you to use.

You can use PyNifly to import/export NIFs with Blender. It’s under active development and works with the newest version of Blender too. I find it a lot easier to use than the NifTools plugin.

(https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly/releases/tag/V5.10) This is the plugin I was/am using.

You can get more info on using PyNifly on its wiki here: https://github.com/BadDogSkyrim/PyNifly/wiki