27 replies to this topic

[fikula]

Hey guys,

 

First thanks to everyone who helped me getting OCO and my hair mod work together. Especially IkeCoast, Drahenne and nuska herself. As they know that, I would like to create a real Conan, the barbarian character. And now I'm closer to my dream with my hair pack working. But I would like to use Room207's Bodybuilder Male Body Replacer to get the Real Conan look. And this body replacer looks...well bad with Character Overhaul. I would like make them compatible somehow if that's possible. So if anyone knows anything about things like that, and would be able (and willing) to help me with that....well I would apprecite it. Thank you everyone.

[IkeCoast]

Hey, Fikula!

 

First thing, hooray for having now your hairs working with OCO.

 

Now, Rooms' BodyBuilder Body is a variation of Robert Body Replacer. It should work fine with Nuska's testures, just like all the other variations of RMB.

 

What do you mean, exactly, that it looks "bad"? Some screencaps would be really useful.

 

And you know what? We could use this thread as your Official Conan Mod WIP and troubleshooting, and discuss here all the difficulties you stumble onto.

 

Now for the body: as I said before, it's a variation of RMB, so it needs RMB v5 installed first to work over it. But it will act as a regular Body Replacer. This means that ALL the males will have Conan's built.

 

I think I'll teach you how to have ONLY your player character to be buffed up. Conan must be UNIQUE, no beggars should have his stupendous built.

 

But before going further in the matter, tell us what have you done so far to use the BodyBuilder Body and why it looks bad with your OCO.

 

I have been using several variations of Robert Bodies with OCO v2 and almost all of them work flawlessly (the only exception being the Female Athletic one, because something in the UV mapping was incorrect and made normalmaps go crazy).

 

Cheers!

[fikula]

Hey, IkeCoast!

 

Let me tell you how happy I am, you have so much interest to help me get this character.

 

I didn't know it's a variation of Robert's male replacer, so I didn't even try to use "Robert's Male Body Replacer texture compatibility addon" (Jeez' that was a long one), but if you're right maybe that will solve the problem.

 

And when I say it looks "bad", I mean it looks very separeted at the neck, and there's a gray stripe around the characters shoulder, that separates the arm from the body. So it looks bad

 

So you say that, I should install Robert's v5 first, then the bodybuilder, then OCO, and after that the texture compatibility addon, and it will be fine?

 

You know what? Forget my last question. Tell how would you do that, and what should I know to make Conan unique. Because I love that idea.

 

Oh! And to answer your last question, I didn't do anything special. Only installed the Bodybuilder body replacer itself, and it was okay, until I have installed OCO.

 

By the way, thanks for all the help!

[IkeCoast]

Hey, Fikula!

 

Yep, as I suspected, you were using Rooms Body as standalone, when it depends on Robert Males to function.

 

But since you're interested in having Conan unique, I'll tell you how to apply the Buffed Up Body to just your character.

 

But let's go step by step.

 

I'm not sure if you mentioned it before, but, which version of Oblivion do you have? Retail disc or Steam? There's big difference. Until you say otherwise, I'll assume you have the Retail disc, because that's what I got.

 

In order to create our Conan, we need a full-working installation of OCO v2. Well, actually, what we need is a full working installation of just OBSE and Blockhead, but having OCO v2 up and running is good.

 

Now the surprise: if you haven't done it yet, UNINSTALL ROOMS' BODYBUILDER BODY. We don't need it installed. Really, we don't need it. What we need are either VANILLA BODIES or ROBERT STANDARD BODIES. The BodyBuilder Body will be exclusive to Conan and so I don't want to SEE IT INSTALLED IN YOUR GAME! Get rid of the BodyBuilder body and revert to Vanilla bodies or any of the other Robert Body Types, other than BodyBuilder.

 

So, if you're happy with the way NPCs look with vanilla bodies thanks to Nuska's textures, you don't need Robert Bodies.

 

Summarizing:

 

Before we start building up (pun intended) Conan, we need a full working installation of OCO v2, this ensures that OBSE and Blockhead will be OK. Having male Vanilla or Robert bodies is unimportant. What is important is that Rooms' BodyBuilder Body IS NOT INSTALLED IN YOUR GAME.

 

If you install Robert Bodies, DO NOT ACTIVATE IT. Leave its esp unckecked, we don't need it.

 

As soon as you confirm that your installation meets those prerequisites, we'll proceed further.

 

Cheers!

[fikula]

Yeah I'm playing the disc version of the game, with Shivering Isle of course. So we can countinue  Oh and after you finished, I will reinstall Oblivion, And start "modding up" carefully, step by step. Just to be sure it will work as I want it to.

Edited by fikula, 08 February 2014 - 08:56 PM.

[IkeCoast]

Well, folks, time to roll up our sleeves and go for work!

 

I will post the process of creating the Cimmerian Race in separate, consecutive posts, so I can take some breaks and you can follow the process more easily.

 

The process is actually easy, but requires some handwork. So, without further ado, let's go! ¡Música, Maestro!

 

Note: if you're running under Windows Vista or higher, be sure to NOT have your Oblivion (nor Steam if applicable) installed on C:Program Files. This causes lots of trouble with UAC. Move your installation to an external folder out of Program Files, preferably directly on C:

 

STEP ONE: SETTING THE ENVIRONMENT.

 

Tools needed:

 

NifSkope, The Construction Set Extended, your OS File Manager, winzip or winrar and internet access.

 

Game requirements:

 

Latest Oblivion version (1.2.0416), latest Stable Release of OBSE, latest version of Blockhead, latest version of OCO v2 (version v2.2). OCO is required to ensure that OBSE and Blockhead are properly installed and running. Also, we'll take some assets and resources from Nuska's work.

 

Having Shivering Isles and the rest of DLCs is not necessary, as wel it's unnecessary to have the Unofficial Patches. If you have all of it, good. If you don't have any of them, don't worry.

 

Let's create our folders structure to accommodate our mod. We need to have the following folders:

 

(Main Game folder, usually Oblivion)\Data\Meshes\Characters\Cimmerian We will put here all the files needed for the heads, as well all the shared meshes for our race, the gender-irrelevant ones, if any. If we're going to use custom hairs, we will put them here (or create a separate subfolder for them, Data\Meshes\Characters\Cimmerian\Hair).

 

Data\Meshes\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides This is the main folder where all the meshes used by Blockhead are stored. It's vital that the folder is named exactly like this, the name is case sensitive. if you name it other than BodyAssetOverrides Blockhead will fail to work.

 

Data\Meshes\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerRace This is the folder where all the meshes used on a whole race are stored. There are other folders that can be used, like PerNPC, but we don't need them now.

 

Data\Meshes\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerRace\M In this sub-folder we will put all the meshes that are to be used by Male characters of our Race.

 

Data\Meshes\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerRace\F Same as before, but for Female characters.

 

Bear in mind that Blockhead doesn't know if you put the correct mesh in the correct folder. If you put a femaleupperbody in the M folder, all our Cimmerians will sport Angelina Jolie-like frontals.

 

Data\Textures\Characters\Cimmerian We will put on this folder the textures for the head pieces, as well all the shared, gender-insensitive textures used by our Race. As with the main Meshes folder, if we're going to use custom hairs, we will put them here (or create a separate subfolder for them, Data\Textures\Characters\Cimmerian\Hair).

 

Data\Textures\Characters\Cimmerian\Male The folder for our male textures.

 

Data\Textures\Characters\Cimmerian\Female The folder for our female textures.

 

STEP 2: GATHERING RESOURCES

 

Now that we have the folders to store our resources, we need to pick them up. In order to it, we need Room207 BodyBuilder Male Body Replacer v52 or Robert2 Male Body Replacer v52 (only Rooms' one contains the Wideneck version. For the Widenck version textures, we will also need the Robert Body Resource Pack v5 available as an optional download for RMBR v52)) and Robert2 Female Body Replacer v13 (if we want our Cimmerian Chicks to have different breast sizes than the Average included in RFB, we need Aridale's ANB Roberts Cup Sizes). If we want our Cimmerian babes to have HGEC Body, we need any of the HGEC-based Body Replacer availables. The same for Fantasy Figures. It's irrelevant if it's installed on our game or not. We can have Robert Females for vanilla women and SuiGuts Triple Watermelons body for our poor Cimmerian women. Your choice.

 

For Male Cimmerians:

 

Failsafe files: we need some files to be sure that, if Blockhead fails to work, our game will not crash. The files needed are all the ones related to the head that will be overriden by Blockhead. So, we go to our Data/meshes/characters/imperial and select the files

 

headhuman.nif

headhuman.tri

headhuman.egt

headhuman.egm

mmouthhuman.nif

mmouthhuman.tri

mmouthhuman.egm

 

(mouths do not use the egt files because they are not affected by the complexion slider).

 

and copy and paste them inside our folder

 

Data\Meshes\Characters\Cimmerian

 

we can rename the files as headcimmerian.nif if we want, but it's not necessary. These files are also mandatory to set the meshes paths in the CSE if we're not using the vanilla file paths. And we're not.

 

Now, to our custom meshes.

 

Head:

 

If we want to use the Wideneck version (head with wider neck, as real bodybuilders have) open Room207 zip file with winzip or winrar and navigate to Resource\wideneck\head. Select all files on it and drag and drop them to a temporary folder in order to avoid overwriting the equally-named failsafe files.

 

We will use these meshes only for Conan! Valeria will not be able to use them due the different neck size. In order to tell Blockhead that these meshes are only for male Cimmerian, we will rename the files to match the Failsafe files, adding the _m suffix to them:

 

headhumantk7bodybuilder.nif = headhuman_m.nif

headhuman.tri = headhuman_m.tri

headhuman.egm = headhuman_m.egm

headhuman.egt = headhuman_m.egt

mouthhumantk7.nif = mmouthhuman_m.nif

mouthhuman.tri = mmouthhuman_m.tri

mouthhuman.egm = mmouthuman_m.egm

 

If you decided to rename the head pieces as headcimmerian and mouthcimmerian, just rename Rooms' ones the same way, with the _m suffix.

 

As soon as you have these files renamed, drag and drop them into our

 

Data\Meshes\Characters\Cimmerian

 

WARNING: The Wideneck version is a modification of Throttlekitty's Head06 head and is INCOMPATIBLE with the vanilla or Nuska's head textures. We will address this later.

 

The standard neck version is just the vanilla head, or Nuska's human head. If we want to use the standard neck version, go to Data\meshes\characters\imperial and select all the files that already have the _m suffix on them (4 in total), and paste them in our Data\Meshes\Characters\Cimmerian folder.

 

For both wideneck and standard neck versions, we don't need custom eyes, ears, teeth nor tongues, so we will use the ones already set in the CSE.

 

Body:

 

Fortunately, there are only four files needed for bodies, so this section is shorter and less time-consuming.

 

The Wideneck version is located inside Resource\wideneck\body of Rooms zipped file. Take the two files contained there

 

handwristwide.nif

upperbodyneckwristwide.nif

 

and drag and drop them to

 

Data\Meshes\Characters\BodyAssetOverrides\PerRace\M

 

and once there rename them

 

Cimmerian_Hand.nif

Cimmerian_UpperBody.nif

 

Now go back to Rooms zipped file, and navigate to Data\meshes\characters\_male and take the files

 

foot.nif

lowerbody.nif

 

and drag and drop to our PerRace\M folder, and once there, rename them

 

Cimmerian_Foot.nif

Cimmerian_LowerBody.nif

 

Be careful: Blockhead naming convention is CASE SENSITIVE. You need to rename the files EXACTLY as I've put them. After the Race name goes an UNDERSCORE DASH _ NOT A STANDARD DASH - (I made this mistake several times). Note that we've not put the _m suffix. Blockhead will know where the male mehses are looking at the folders.

 

Now a warning: I don't know how did Nuska implement her egt. files (the ones that control body texture sliders), and the ones I tried for my Abysmer race seem to not work. My Abysmer, however, seem to work fine with the vanilla ones (the game will apply the vanilla egt files if no other are set) even if I delete my custom egt files and leave the game on its own. So we're going to skip the egt files for our Cimmerian body.

 

If we're using the standard neck version, we just go to Data\meshes\characters\_male of Rooms zip file, take the FOUR files there, drag and drop to our PerRace\M folder and rename them as instructed.

 

Now a break, and then we're going for the textures.

 

To be continued.

 

Cheers!

 

POST DATA: If any of you more experienced modders see errors, omissions or ways to improve this tutorial, please feel free to point it to me and help me to make it better.

Edited by IkeCoast, 11 February 2014 - 11:21 PM.

[IkeCoast]

I discovered a rather serious mistake on the first part of this tutorial: I failed to realize that the Wideneck version of the body uses a variation of Throttlekitty's Head06 head mesh, and is incompatible with the vanilla or Nuska's head textures. I have modified the tutorial accordingly.

 

From now on, I will refer ONLY to the Wideneck Version (quite frankly I don't see our Cimmerian boys with Arnold Schwarzenegger's ham-shaped limbs, but with Brad Pitt's slender neck and wrists). Specific instructions for the standard neck version will be given if requested.

 

PART 2

 

GATHERING THE RESOURCES - THE TEXTURES

 

Remember, our textures will be located in the following folders:

 

Data\Textures\Characters\Cimmerian

 

Data\Textures\Characters\Cimmerian\Male

 

Data\Textures\Characters\Cimmerian\Female

 

HEAD:

 

We need Roberts Resource Pack for the Head textures. Open the v5Resource-40532 zip file and navigate to its textures\characters\imperial folder, take the files

 

headhumanTk5.dds

headhumanTk3.dds

headhumanTk_n

 

and drag and drop them to

 

Data\Textures\Characters\Cimmerian

 

and rename them to

 

headhumanTk5.dds - headhuman.dds (this will be the failsafe texture)

headhumanTk3.dds - headhuman_m.dds

headhumanTk_n - headhuman_m_n.dds

 

now, you need the failsafe normalmap for the headhuman.dds. Simply copy and paste here the normalmap (it's now headhuman_m_n.dds) and rename the copy headhuman_n.dds

 

These are the textures for failsafe and male, the textures for females will come later.

 

BODY:

 

For Robert Male, there are several, LOTS OF, different body textures, both shaved and hairy. We will stick to the textures Room choose for his Body. So, open Rooms BodyBuilder zip file and navigate to its Data\textures\imperial\male folder and take the files

 

footmale.dds

footmale_n.dds

 

and drag and drop them to

 

Data\Textures\Characters\Cimmerian\Male

 

With this, we have all the files we need for our Cimmerian Males.

 

We will build our Cimmerian Women later, for now, we're going to test if we REALLY have all the files we need to create half of our new Race.

 

Let me take a break, please.

 

Stay tuned.

 

Cheers!

Edited by IkeCoast, 14 February 2014 - 12:58 AM.

[IkeCoast]

In response to post #11876385. #11880285, #11880725, #11885070, #11885445 are all replies on the same post.

Oops, thanks for the clarification, Striker, I was thinking on Robert's Female, the ESP of which does not manage the clothes and armors replacement (I have been playing with RFB esp deactivated since OCO v2 and all the clothes and armors show up fine in game). My bad.

Cheers!

[fikula]

Hey!

 

One question: we don't need anything from the "Hair" folder of the Resource pack?

[IkeCoast]

WHAT THE?!

 

Where's the third part of the Tutorial? I posted it aroundabout 2:05 on the morning, and instead of it, all I see here is a response I posted in the OCO v2 thread.