How to use EHT well, even as a beginner

StabbityDoom

From watching my extremely talented friends and working hard myself, I would like to share some tips on how to use @R_K 's (Cardinal05) program well.

Stabby's top ten hints for EHT (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER):

1. Watch Cardi's videos. These are easy to find with a simple search on Youtube or even through the program itself.

2. watch [edit due to twitch being stupid]

3. On that note, start with fx, they are easiest to learn, then move on to building. Animation should probably be last because it's the hardest. When first using the program, mouse over the wand icon to get the list.

4. When placing fx, the best way to make them look less fake is to lower the brightness of the item 2-3 levels. This is KEY. The fx come out at their brightest for those instances when you need that, but most do not need that level of brightness.

5. How not to flicker: try not to layer fx, as it can cause flickering. If you have no choice, try moving one forward a few pixels. This also works for when you perfectly align furnishings and the base ZOS game flickers.

6. Don't be afraid to play with size. Ships for example could be ginormous, but also ships in a bottle.

7. After you are familiar with fx, try playing around with maybe your storage house, selecting all and using the build option. Here you can fiddle with numbers and build constructs. This is how many people (myself included) build our freestanding buildings. This requires patience to learn, but you will learn it, just by doing it!

7. You can get really precise on how much you move things with custom precision moving (check settings to set this)

8. Hitting q when an item is selected opens up the details on the item and lets you play with numbers. For advanced users: Keep in mind that when you have Q open that's ALL that moves when you move things with the directionals, so if you have a ton of stuff selected, it won't touch it. This can be a blessing and a curse. Just close Q and go back to what you are doing to continue.

9. Burying an npc underground lets you give anything the ability to speak

10. Try select by radius. It's amazing. Also try select by distance to grab that stupid wall you put out in God Knows Where.

11. TRY OUT THE OPEN HOUSE FEATURE! This lets you tour other homes that people have opened for viewing, and also lets you open your home to viewing as well. Touring other homes can give you ideas and understanding of how to use EHT.

12. Watch @JHartEllis stream - especially his contests and housing hike on Fridays. Don't be intimidated to have him tour your house, even if you are a beginner. He is incredibly kind and gentle, and frankly, so is the WHOLE housing community. You will get nothing but support. People are at all levels of ability and knowledge about house building, and you can learn something from the very newbiest newb to someone who can build amazing things out of nothing.

13. If you are the kind of person who prefers not to use fx because you feel it's kind of cheating (I don't agree, but hey, I gotcha) keep in mind you can put in small touches. My Three Little Bears house works just as well without smoke coming from the porridge. Small touches can completely transform your home.

14. Send @R_K your love and appreciation for giving us this tool that has changed my entire building experience.

To my fellow EHT zealots, feel free to add your own.

StabbityDoom

See this lovely jacuzzi? It's gone now (I redid my tel galen), but it had fx water. Going under fx, you can select "water, round" of different types, like coldharbour water or aquarium water or all sorts. You pick that, place it simply with the arrows that will pop up, and you now have a full jacuzzi.

StabbityDoom

This house, too, has been removed. (Don't worry, I saved a copy ... with EHT)

However, it's a perfect example of one of those times where full brightness of fx helps! This is candyland, where I wanted bright, shiny candy.

StabbityDoom

This is my Coldharbour, and for once, is still there. If you have the EHT community app installed (you will find the exe to install within the addon's folder) you will see my fx when you go there.

EHT has animated fx. Hopping frogs, farming npcs, and here, fish. But the fish can vanish when you are trying to layer them on top of another fx (like water), or look fake. How to fix? Put them directly up against a rock, and they work like a charm.

StabbityDoom

This is my dawnshadow and is available on eht community app if you'd like to see it with fx.

Here, I wanted an over the top, ritzy and gaudy look for a Khajiiti home. The textures provided as fx in EHT can be pasted over walls, floors, and ceilings, even furnishings, changing what they look like.

StabbityDoom

Here is a before and after fx for my sugar bowl suite (yes, it's available to view and yes, that is a giant sugar bowl.) If you paste a giant painting (Yes! EHT has tons of paintings that are contained in the game, but you barely ever see because they are loadscreens for obscure areas) behind it, it makes an illusion of a further room behind it.

StabbityDoom

This may not be your cup of tea as some of these are pretty drastic, but you can put in a sky. Here in my Alinor estate (open to visit, but this sky has been removed), you can see an example. There are also night and day skies, and so much more (ends commercial voice)

StabbityDoom

This is my bouldertree, available to tour.

You can put in weather. Here, I chose falling ash and fire. You can add snow, rain, falling leaves, and more. Just look under fx, weather. May I suggest you combine this with a sky - for example, pulling the storm sky in white/grey over a heavy snow fx can take a bright area like Strident Springs a snow paradise. Here I used a painting in the background and a red fiery looking sky.

StabbityDoom

This has been temporarily removed, but it was in my tel galen. It's a glass-bottomed cafe. Basically, you can use EHT to perfectly align items, such as display cases or curtains. Sometimes the item's hit box is larger than the item itself, so you may have to do -1 to some of the measurements. For example, select floor while you have your display cases selected. Put the number in, then in spacing, hit -1. Then press build. Voila.

StabbityDoom

This too is my Bouldertree. You can add text (place the "text" effect then just type in what you want it to say!) as well as portals. Portals are amazing. You can link the portal to either your other homes or to other people's homes - back to the start of the house even. Simply edit the portal effect and it guides you through. Easy peasy.

StabbityDoom

Subtlety. This is my cliffshade, open for viewing.
This is also one of @JHartEllis 's favorite textures (the backsplash). It takes nothing away from the house to not have the backsplash, but add it and you get a whole kitchen feel. Tiny details like that or cherries on top of sweetrolls, steam coming from a cup of coffee, so many gorgeous tiny details that make your home come alive.

Krainor1974

Great job @StabbityDoom

StabbityDoom

Non-obvious sizing. This is my grand psijic. I wanted to make a bonsai garden, and here I took tree effects and shrunk them down, put them in a pot, and I have bonsai.

StabbityDoom

Krainor1974 wrote: »

Great job @StabbityDoom

Krainor is a master at EHT, check out some of his houses for vibrant and alive builds full of life. He uses text, moving npcs, and more, to build exciting homes. I mean it.

StabbityDoom

Here's another cool thing EHT can do. The builder doesn't let you put items that far out of bounds of your property. With EHT, you can push items way, way out in the distance.

StabbityDoom

That's all for now, I'm sure I'll come up with more to annoy you with. But until then, everybody feel free to posts your tips and screenies explaining EHT, or just look at these.

Please also ask me any questions! I'm happy to try to answer.

MornaBaine

I am a HUGE fan of the various skies. Especially the ones that have some movement as the static skies always end up looking a bit odd to me. My greatest dream though is for @R_K to figure out a true day/night toggle because even with a "night" or otherwise dark sky you still get the LIGHTING from whatever time of day it is in the game and that can look really jarring. I'm always hoping for NEW skies as well! LOL Especially a stormy dark one with lighting!

Krainor1974

lol that was my request the thunderstorm , Malestrom and your fav. I asked him if me can make stormy cloudy skies cuz rain n snow just wasn’t right with blue skies and like two days later it was added

StabbityDoom

I think for the moment we need to work with what we have. Cardi is still very new on the job and miraculously has found a little time to fix bigger bugs, but I doubt he will have time to add a lot for a while. For now, I recommend you using pervasive darkness with dark skies, that should help.

StabbityDoom

Oh, and there is a stormy one with lightning! Go check it Out, you may need to update with minion

Sylvermynx

Wow, thanks for all this! Such wonderful stuff, Stabs, serious!

StabbityDoom

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Wow, thanks for all this! Such wonderful stuff, Stabs, serious!

You are very welcome. I love our housing community and want to help! I’m working on a normal non eht guide too.

MornaBaine

StabbityDoom wrote: »

I think for the moment we need to work with what we have. Cardi is still very new on the job and miraculously has found a little time to fix bigger bugs, but I doubt he will have time to add a lot for a while. For now, I recommend you using pervasive darkness with dark skies, that should help.

"Pervasive darkness?" Tell me more please!

StabbityDoom

@MornaBaine so happy you asked ! i love this feature. You can change the lightness and darkness of a home - I don't think @Chryseia will mind me using this pic she took of inside Hundings as an example as dark as you can go. (pic 1) You play with this under "global brightness"

However, there is then pervasive darkness under light fx as well. This is pretty darn cool. Picture dark fog swirling in and out of view, slowly you can see everything around you, now you can't as the darkness comes back. This is UH-MAZ-ING for halloween homes. It is next to impossible to properly show in pics, so I will put it in my Ald Velothi so you can see it in action (pc-na, not my primary so use port to friend or eht hub). Edit: it is now available for anyone to visit to see the effect in action. It's subtle, because i put it on the lightest setting (I should have gone darker) so just stand there looking forward for a bit and you will see it.
Pic 2 and 3 are showing it moments apart, but it doesn't do it justice.

Cloudtrader

Excellent post, @StabbityDoom !!

Also, a comment: EVERY time I go to a random housing using the EHT community tools/housing hub, and I sign the guest book... you've been there first. EVERY. TIME. LOL, your dedication to housing is admirable!

StabbityDoom

Cloudtrader wrote: »

Excellent post, @StabbityDoom !!

Also, a comment: EVERY time I go to a random housing using the EHT community tools/housing hub, and I sign the guest book... you've been there first. EVERY. TIME. LOL, your dedication to housing is admirable!

There's a deeply-held reason for that. I spend a few hours every morning making sure I tour all the new ones. This is for one reason alone - because I want people to know that someone cares. I care about the work and creativity and passion that goes into each of their builds and I want them to know that their art is seen and appreciated. There's nothing sadder to me than when I had a house nobody came to see when I busted my butt on it. So I don't want --anyone-- to feel that way.

tsaescishoeshiner

Thanks for the informative post!

1 Question: Is EHT the best tool if I'm just looking for a way to adjust, rotate, and move furnishings better?

(I keep having this problem—no addons—where "flat" objects like carpets and floors are very noticeably angled when tilted upward to use as a tapestry or wall, and the rotational increments always overshoot being truly flat)

Krainor1974

Most of us have homes posted to share with community for any eht user to visit. My homes have been posted and should be available for anyone wanting to visit

Krainor1974

Mine are under my @KrainorBlackthone

R_K

I don't know what I did to deserve all of your help (looking at @StabbityDoom this time), but thank you... thank you so much.

You all are the reason that I write these tools and you never give me a reason to second guess the decision to do so.

Feendish

StabbityDoom wrote: »

There's a deeply-held reason for that. I spend a few hours every morning making sure I tour all the new ones. This is for one reason alone - because I want people to know that someone cares. I care about the work and creativity and passion that goes into each of their builds and I want them to know that their art is seen and appreciated. There's nothing sadder to me than when I had a house nobody came to see when I busted my butt on it. So I don't want --anyone-- to feel that way.

You are the only visitor in the vast majority of my homes (that has signed the log, at any rate), and because of this, I'm very grateful. Thank you.