Thank you for taking the time out to chat with us. Before we talk modding, can you tell us a little about yourself?
Hey there, thanks for the interview, I'm a west coast American who takes hobbies very seriously.
How did you first get into video games?
I was a Starwars book nerd, and that sort of led into it. The first game I have a ton of memories from is Jedi Knight II.
How would you describe the mods you create?
In a word: customization. I like the idea that everyone gets something a little different out of my content. The ability to customize a player character in video games is super important to me when I play games, so its only natural that I forward that to my content. I really get a kick out of seeing screenshots of characters using my content in ways I never thought of.
When you’re not modding, what other hobbies do you enjoy?
I've been into sculpture since as long as I can remember, clay/wire that sort of thing. I only really got seriously into the digital side of sculpting because of Fallout 4. Learning and figuring out new things is my real hobby. Picture that kid that breaks all their own toys, that's me, because I'm more interested in how they work than what they do.
When you think about making a mod, what do you take inspiration from?
Most of my mods are branched off of previous mods in some abstract internal way. When I make a mod I tend to experiment a lot and those experiments open doors to make stuff I previously thought impossible. A good example: I started the whole Blades/Crucible project as a way to mess around more with what I learned from the Cryolance. As far as inspiration for the raw content goes, it's tough to say. Fallout's weird post-apoc brutal-deco-scifi aesthetic is easy to expand on so there's tons of ideas that can work. Sometimes I like to do stuff just for the challenge, and then make it fit in with lore-gymnastics (like the Recall Collar).
All your mods have "CROSS" in the title, what does that mean?
This goes back to Skyrim. When I play Skyrim I play exclusively with Requiem, and anyone that knows Requiem knows it can be pretty polarizing for a balance overhaul. I would make tons of small tweaks to Requiem with TES5edit/xEdit, and each tweak would get its own ESP; that way I could easily toggle them off and on when new versions of Requiem released. And of course, every mini-mod would have the CROSS tag to keep things clean in my load order. Fast forward to Fallout 4 and I still used the tag for my own mods, which I eventually started releasing, and now here we are. The word 'CROSS' itself is just my real name, in all caps for visibility, it's not some absurd acronym.
You’ve been making mods for Fallout 4 since 2015, are there any mods in your collection that you’re particularly proud of?
CROSS_Crits. I still do a double take sometimes when testing newer stuff in-game and seeing the aftermath from the new critFX. Its scary in an unintended way.
CROSS_Crucible, one of your newest releases, is your first mod for Skyrim. Will you be working more with Skyrim or was this a one-off?
It depends on if I start up another Skyrim playthrough (before ES6 at least). I'm sure once I get back into it I'll get a shot of inspiration, and then we'll have another 'CROSS_' Skyrim mod. I do enjoy The Elder Scrolls more than I do Fallout, so it will probably happen eventually. My biggest deterrent to messing with Skyrim is the lack of customization Skyrim offers, I'm totally spoiled by the Fallout 4 crafting system and all the possibilities it provides.
What tools do you use when crafting your mods and why?
Photoshop for general concepts, Zbrush for the high poly, Substance Painter for textures, Nifskope for special FX, and then xEdit/CreationKit for the ESP. Photoshop/Zbrush/Substance are basically standards of video games art production, and they're all really good, well documented, programs.
What are your thoughts on Fallout 76 and are you interested in modding it?
The game itself looks neat, folks have been dreaming of a co-op Fallout/Elderscrolls experience since Morrowind, so its great that they're finally doing it. I didn't get much time with the BETA, but the core gameplay loop seems like it will hold people's attention for a very long time. I need a ladder/rating system to stay interested in PvP, so I don't know how much time I'll spend with that aspect of the game. Internally the game seems very similar to Fo4, so any content I make going forward will probably work on both platforms, which is pretty cool.
Do you have an upcoming content you’d like to tell us about?
We don't have an official name yet, but I'm working with TheKite on a weapon inspired by the New Vegas Helios One quest. The plan is to give it two modes: A more traditional point and shoot laser mode, and a target designation mode that lets you mark an area and call down some orbital firepower. I posted a preview of the orbital strike FX recently.
If you could give one piece of advice to a new modder who wants to make content like yours, what would it be?
You have to want to learn, more so than you want the end result. It's the journey, not the destination, that sort of thing. And if you really do enjoy this kind of thing don't hesitate to spend money on education/tutorials. It's a hobby after all, any hobby worth doing is worth over-doing.
Is there anything else you’d like to say to the Nexus Mods community?
Please forgive me, Todd.
A big thank you to Niero for answering our questions. If there's an author or mod project you'd like to know more about, send your suggestions to BigBizkit or Pickysaurus.
41 comments
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A moderator has closed this comment topic for the time beingThis game is a walking dead. Just look at the downloads numbers for even the most popular mods. I honestly can't name a single reason to play this game on a regular basis and I consider myself a fan of the series. Even made a few mods for Fallout games including this one. Don't shill in such an obvious way at least. XD
Leaving her out of the discussion entirely feels intellectually dishonest, and makes it seem like Niero is calming all the credit for success that they earned through collaboration. I'm not gonna accuse him of sexism or censorship, but it's nonetheless very rude to pretend that you didn't have a partner when you did. The fact that said partner was a female NSFW artist makes the whole thing worse. This seems like a Edison/Tesla situation, or a Stan Lee/Jack Kirby situation, where only Niero is benefiting from what was in reality a joint effort.
Yeah... stuff. One little mention.
She deserves equal credit for the success of Niero and his mods, without her he probably never would've gotten this interview or his Bethesda contract! A single mention is hardly sufficient. Equal work should result in equal credit, and the 2D concept art takes just as much work as the actual 3D modelling does.
As for "desperate zealots", I've seen none of that, not even at LL, but I have read many folks expressing their disappointment that many of the high-quality mods created by Niero and TheKite are no longer available from the Nexus. Fortunately, I was already using most all of the ones I wanted when they were taken down, but I absolutely agree that it's a shame they are no longer available for new folks, or those with corrupted/lost files.
It would also have been nice to get Niero's take on how his gumroad site has been performing for him. I've read comments on the Nexus from peeps bashing him for charging for high res textures when clearly that's not the case. Most of those people don't even bother to visit his gumroad site because they'd see that all of those 2K/4K textures are still free and donations are optional. Personally, I'm happy to pitch in a couple bucks for those awesome textures because it's still way cheaper, much higher quality, and far more original than anything on the Creation Club!
Overall, I'm glad you guys interviewed Niero and thanks for it, but next time, maybe try more in-depth and significant questions if you are able, please.
Cheers!
For other mod authors it's going to hinge on who they are, what type of content they've produced, and any potential controversy surrounding them. You'd be able to tailor specific questions, targeting their unique circumstances, and then make sure to have quality follow up questions so you can dig down a little bit for us readers. For some generic questions, in addition to the great ones you guys already asked, I'd like to get their take on Vortex, are they using the Donation Point System, if not, why not? If so, is it helping? As fans, how can we best support their efforts either through donations, points, endorsements, paypal, or Patreon? How do they see the current state of modding? What studios are most supportive; Bethesda, CDPR, BioWare, etc.? What's their take on the Creation Club, Bethesda's new Atoms, FO76 not being on Steam, micro transactions in general, and whether modding is threatened by any/all of them? Would they do this fulltime, as a profession, if given the opportunity? How much time do they spend modding? How much time playing? How long did mod "x" take to complete? Do they prefer the CK or FO4EDIT (if applicable)? Why? Do they have any secret tips or tricks to share with fellow modders? Who is their favorite mod author and is there a question they'd like to ask him/her?
I'm sure the readers here have much better questions than mine, and in fact, I'd love to hear what mod authors would like to ask other modders. Thanks very much for taking the time to engage and get ideas from us regular Joe's! These interviews are awesome, please keep them coming!
ps. Completely unrelated but thanks for uploading the Vortex theme mod. Now I can have my Fallout green like Todd intended
Hopefully themes will be part of the next update because it's a nifty QoL feature. Now that I've got the hang of it, I'm really digging Vortex!
I would prefer that 'other sites' not link and/or host to those mods anymore, but I have no real power to demand threads be deleted and links removed.
As far as Gumroad goes, I'm much less of a fan of it now that they make users jump though so many hoops to get stuff for free. It's a great system that offers tons of bandwidth and bypasses the tyranny of Paypal, but I feel bad making people go though the extra steps to get stuff free. I'm not sure what you mean by performance, I feel like I get more donations with Gumroad than I did the 'paypal beg' via the Nexus, but that could just be overall increase in popularity, or people just not wanting to setup and use paypal. A lot of the people that complain about the high-res textures are just people that aren't patient enough to read the mod page/sticky comment, there's really no getting through to those folks though text, so I don't put much weight in their complaints.
Some hot-takes from your seconds post:
Ive never used Vortex, manual downloads and MO2 have always worked for me and its a 'not broke, dont fix' situation.
I enable the DP system, and it works, though I feel bad taking anything out of it knowing Robin has to manually process every transaction so I've only 'cashed out' once.
Supporting authors by any means is always helpful, I'd rather users support me in the way they are most comfortable with, rather than the way I prefer.
Modding is in a great spot, professional grade software is relatively cheap these days for single licenses, and one-off tutorials have gotten extremely high quality with sites like Gumroad that offer direct reimbursement for tutorial authors.
I don't think any company can beat Bethesda in terms of mod community support, the CK is such an amazing tool to give to fans.
I like the idea of the CC, it's great to let modders add official-ish content to the FO/ES IPs.
I don't think modding is threatened by Fo76, or micro transactions in general.
I would mod full time in a heartbeat, making cool stuff that people enjoy as a regular job? hell yeah, sign me up.
I go in shifts, I will create for months at a time while looking for new things to play, and then I will spend months playing while thinking about what to make next.
Its hard to put a timer on a mod, they all have their own hurdles that end up taking longer than I expect.
I use xedit/Fo4edit, I only use the CK when I have to do stuff xedit cant do. I like prefer the spreadsheet format.
Secret tip is in the interview already, you have to want to learn more than you want the final result, or else you will burn out.
Favorite mod authors are Registrator2000 for his technical mods, and m150 for his wacky stuff.
I have no clue how to delete posts on this forum OMEGALUL
If I may Niero, the rumor mill has been pretty crazy surrounding your removal of those particular TheKite mods on the Nexus. Your answer makes perfect sense; who could begrudge you taking down a couple of your more lewd contributions if it meant a real opportunity to score a legit job with Bethesda? But were you ever contacted outside of official channels and told that those past mature themed mods would, in fact, blacklist you from any sort of contact with Beth officially? I think that's a huge bit of information lots of mod authors would like to know, particularly those with aspirations to work in the industry professionally. For me, as a fan of your work, I thought it was a great trade. Sure we lost some sexy mods, but one of our own here on the Nexus was making it to the big leagues, and that was pretty damn cool! Unfortunately, it sounds like you took those mods down as a hedge against perceived or possible Bethesda discrimination based on their content, not any real directive from Beth clarifying resume requirements or disqualifiers? That sucks because that means the rumors of your new job with a Zenimax studio are sadly not true; but can you confirm? I completely understand if you don't want to comment though. I have to say, the thought of your talent and creativity with the backing of the actual studio, really had me excited for Creation Club content for the first time.
As for my gumroad "performance" question, you are correct--I was asking which donation method had been most successful for you. Whether between gumroad, paypal, Nexus donation points, patreon, etc. did it seem that fans were more drawn to one system over the rest. It's interesting to learn from your response that gumroad appears to provide more donations, because it feels like that's also where the most complaints come from. As a fan, I actually like that it "reminds" me to consider a donation right as I'm looking at those beautiful textures. It's also convenient because, assuming that I log into gumroad, it tracks my donations. I think I've "accidentally" given to a couple BodySlide updates from the Nexus because it always asks me, and I never can remember when/if I last donated!
To my knowledge you don't have a Patreon account; have you considered this as a way to increase fan support, offer exclusive content, and more directly interact with your fan base? And of course increase your monthly loot?!
Glad to hear that your collaborations with TheKite will continue, even if they will be a little more SFW in the future. Thanks again for all the great mods, and the memories, those unique creations have given us fans in our play-throughs. I don't run a single Fallout 4 game that doesn't have your work prominently embedded. Here's to many more Niero and TheKite creations in the years to come; cheers!
I really think its just paypal that people don't like. Nobody wants to manage an extra 'internet bank' if their regular bank card works just the same for 99% of the internet, it just sucks that small personal donations land in that 1%.
Ive considered Patreon. My biggest hesitation is community management. I want to spend my free time doing mod stuff, not managing pledge goals, timed releases, discord and all the stuff that comes with private content communities.
I feel like I might have missed something that happened in the industry. If no one at Beth ever indicated that NSFW mods would be an impediment to your hiring, what makes you think Bethesda is adverse to them? Those mods you made in collaboration with TheKite were around for quite a while after the CC launched; I think me, and possibly other fans, figured that something specific recently happened to cause their removal. I'm wondering if Beth published a statement somewhere about lewd mods, their creators, and how that could impact employment opportunities? Was it something like that?
Understood regarding Patreon. I'm still going to stay on the lookout just in case!
Anyway, that's all the questions from me! It's been very gracious of you to provide the time to tackle these rumors and fan based questions about your work and career. If Bethesda doesn't hire you, they're giant fools, but from a selfish fan's standpoint, I'm exceedingly happy that you're still working on mods for Fallout 4! Thank you very much.
I like using Gumroad to donate to you though, so please do keep using it. I feel it's a fair system as I don't make much money myself but I pay what I can trying to base my amounts off of what I would expect to pay for cosmetics or DLC for other games.
Agreed. I feel the current approach you're taking is the best way and allows you to just do what you do best. It's not a business relationship like customer & business, we view you solely as a 3D artist and can feel free to support you as desired/reasonable for us. Money is tight for me right now but I do plan to donate at some point, right now I am buying software and then plan to spend on Gumroad tutorials & maybe Flipped Normals too since they've got some great ZBrush tutorials. First I need to decide on all the programs to specialize in as there's so many I saw from looking at the Gumroad tutorials. 3D modeling there's 3DS Max, Maya, Blender, MODO Foundry, Marvelous Designer, ZBrush, Cinema4D, Allegorithmic's got one too IIRC. Texturing there's Photoshop, Substance Painter/Designer, 3DCoat, Quixel, GIMP, Corel Painter plus probably tons more as I don't yet know much about them. It seems the only way to learn is to own a wide variety of them and follow tutorials for any of them to improve general skills. I think the best way I can give back is by becoming an artist too someday and making something you might also like, the best reward for you is probably if people also get inspired to create high quality outfits and your level of quality gets us to aim for similarly high quality. Imagine you create the great outfits & then 10 people decide as a result they want to create outfits too. I'll keep in mind desire to learn more than desire for an end result. It may be slow going but it's basically my hobby now.
I view you as someone who's chasing the ultimate outfits & weapons basically forging the ultimate mods which to me is the opposite of the guys who are chasing my wallet. With businesses I have to always remain skeptical because it's only about the exchange of money & in reality creativity does not play any role. With Patreon there's the concern that it turns into a business of selling mods & at that point we have to worry about greed overtaking creativity. There's the concern it turns things into money-centric approach which when min-maxed becomes exploitative. This may result in decisions like:
AAA are not trying to simply just get by, they are trying to get very rich. Lead devs get revenue/profit sharing so one very strong quarterly could potentially have them end up set for life if they're on the next Fortnite or even Star Wars Battlefront 2 collecting share of the proceeds from the lootboxes. I read a Cliff Bleszinski interview and it made me realize that probable many are not there for simply a love of video games, they are hoping for the big payday. I suspect devs with this mindset are favored for having similar mindset as the publishers and those who love games may get pushed out.
I'm a careful observer and I do see signs that some who use Patreon as a platform to sell mods do appear to be trying the very same approach. With the heavily commercialized "AAA-like" approach it may lead to short term gain but when that approach is taken to the logical extreme people are getting a bad deal so they don't stick around forever. My approach as a consumer is to slow way down & stop with impulse buys, I've simply learned that when I get asked for money for gaming related things that 90% the time I'm getting ripped off so I've slowed right down and put a lot more time/thought into every purchase. This has saved me from getting 76 day one, as even though I'm always excited for new Fallout games past history has taught me to hold off & wait. I suspect many others will do the same as they're continually and repeatedly left dissatisfied. Part of this approach for me was getting into modding rather than buying most every AAA. I buy only a few now and alternate them with mod projects or just trying out the coolest new stuff on Nexus. I get far more enjoyment from carefully buying 3-5 games in a year rather than buying 25 on impulse and hating 20+ of them.
Therefore I think the current route will be better for you in the long run. The creative approach & just making whatever you want is going to be a lot more fun for you. The community management is basically just marketing & customer engagement. As one of the top 3D artists on the Nexus you'll be able to get regular support from fans just by doing what you love to do.
There's one hidden irony I suspect may be there. I suspect in knowing about those outfits that Todd or whoever from Bethesda/Zenimax corporate may possibly have been likely to actually be someone who personally installed & used the outfits on their own game. How else would they know about it, other than being actively participating in Fallout 4 modding? They were popular outfits(The newer non adult stuff being way more popular though) to be sure but it wasn't like they'd pop up on Gamespot or on Facebook/Twitter feeds of people who are not into Fallout 4 modding or only very casually, not viral where Community Managers would be reporting to Todd/Bethesda that "everybody's talking about it". Point being that IMO only avid mod users who also are interested in adult content would be actively familiar with them. The new stuff you've made would be more likely to be talked about and I'd have thought they would be what Bethesda would have thought about. I see them in the Image share all the time so I'd suspect them to pop up elsewhere. I think I might've seen some on Twitter, Bethesda had a tweet "3 years later, post your favorite memory of the Commonwealth" though for me I always have the outfits & Cryolance/Ruger/Blades.
The silver lining is that at least nobody is telling you what you can & cannot make. They're not forcing you to make something you don't want to do or vetoing your ideas you want to make. I am a bit disappointed in Bethesda however, if they refuse to deal with you over something like that. I would have thought rather than CC they could hire you fully as a 3D artist for Starfield, TES VI & Fallout 5, maybe as the main armor/weapon designer. I did wonder what your take on TES armor would look like, for instance if you did a set of replacers from Iron to Daedric or your take on Daedric Artifacts. Poor form IMO if this is something forever impossible because of past outfits. I get that they may be concerned about the media outlets but I think the facts are we don't know who people's real identities are. The outlets wouldn't know if you were hired fully as a Bethesda dev unless it got some kind of announcement "Niero hired as TES VI's Armor Designer" which never typically happens for devs being hired unless it's a well known Director or big name like Chris Avellone so pretty much only game industry celebs.
I don't buy things from the Creation Club, don't even let it through my firewall. But even if I bought stuff from it regularly, none of your mods would ever see a penny from me if you ever did get signed up there. This was a crap thing to do to the community, Niero. Have a blessed day.
I was one of them. I admit I was wrong. Damn the CC.
Seriously, you know who has the hardest time on the web already? Who does Tumblr, Pateron, and every other outlet like to bully? NSFW artists, that's who. Modding has always been a safe haven, one of the few such safe havens, for NSFW artists, and now the CC has put that safety at risk. Corporate culture wants to kill all NSFW art, and the CC seems to be part of that larger agenda. IDK if 20 years from now, there will even be any NSFW artists left on the web, it's very very very hard for them to earn money in the current climate.
I really do love your NSFW works because they add an harder edge to the Fallout world I want to play in that I will never see out of Bethesda. I can understand wanting to clean up your name and make yourself more presentable for Bethesda but I can only hope that if they never come around with a offer for you that you would consider letting someone else "re-release" your work.
Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas, Skyrim, and Fallout 4 all taught me that some of the best work and most passion comes from the makers of NSFW mods and help add to the customization that like you I crave to the point that I have largely moved away from some games because I can't get mods for them.
No matter what content you release in the future I look forward to it and if you just so happen to do something risque all the better.
You don't know how eye-opening and refreshing it is to see a mod author comment on stuff like this without a heavy dosage of drama & hyperbole. Keep on keepin' on, Niero! You set an example for so many authors to follow.