jamochawoke

Hey guys I kind of failed in my attempt to make my Vanilla Drops mod as it was just way too much work at once. The idea of the mod was to add hundreds of atmosphere tweaks and also to include several mods already done once I got permission which don't work together and make them do so in once nice little mod you can install when you just want to start a Vanilla game but with nice changes to the atmosphere (all lore friendly and largely seamless with Vanilla experience). So what I've decided to do is take all of the little atmosphere tweaks I was going to do and release them individually (if they are compelling enough to warrant their own .esp) and then merge them all later for the final project. Here is my first release. I was really upset that Traven and Camoran looked just like any other mage so I decided to take Kafei's resources and make them special according to their rank within the Mage's Guild and the Mythic Dawn cult respectively. I also enchanted the Arch Mage's Robe based on Xanthan's mod but I tweaked the values a lot to make them so they weren't game breaking and fit the flow of the game while retaining the status of a guildmaster item. Here's the mod, please test it in-game and tell me if everything is working properly as it should! http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37743

How do you add Unique NPC dialogue WITHOUT making a custom playable race? Can't you just add your dialogue some other way? I've seen how alot of modders do it, but that usually ends up making a new playable race with a "DO NOT USE, IS FOR VOICE FILES" warning on it. If I wanted to add 5 NPCs with unqiue voices I don't want to end up with 5 unqiue playable races either. One of the main reasons I want to learn this is so I can edit out some of those from mods I already have (like Mannimarco Revisited) but also to learn how to do it for my up and coming mod "Vanilla Drops". Any help would be extremely appreciated. I've seen how to add dialogue tutorials but they don't seem to cover this.

I've never had that big of a drop even when using: 2.8ghz dual core CPU 2GB RAM 250GB HDD ATI Radeon HD3650 AGP 8X Windows XP sp3 and using a few texture packs. Nothing should be wrong with your hardware setup. Something is wrong with your software, either how Oblivion is setup, your graphics driver, or Windows 7.

Anyone care to help me with this or at least offer some advice?

Hey guys, I can't seem to get ahold of anyone who actually knows what they are doing via email or PM so I'm asking here. I've been trying to edit Seph's Hand to Hand replacement idle. The one in here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J6qip0Pkkk At 0:28 to 0:31 you can see what I'm talking about. As you'll notice the shoulders are not squared and the body is at an angle. This is actually a good thing in many MA's. But for some reason I've noticed Bethesda made the models really squared and not using body mechanics to punch. This was sort of fixed with Sinkpoint's punching replacers. The main thing that's bothering me about the idle though is that Bethesda had set the punching animations to only use the arm that's punching as the animation, launching the punch from the shoulder. When you punch from Seph's idle stance it goes off to the left every time. I'm using 3rd person animations in 1st person view mod so it's REALLLLY noticeable and quite annoying to have all your punches go off the screen and sometimes miss the opponent you are trying to hit. So I've been trying to learn Blender on my own. It's been very slow progress as I really just don't have time for it. However, I did learn how to import an animation, rotate a limb, and set bone priority. However, it always ends up wonky when I export it and I have to start all over again. I've been trying to adjust the shoulders to be more square in the idle stance. Yet, I think I know of a better solution... if I could perhaps edit bone priority in all the other punching animations to have the shoulders as "1" would that help? IE, would that force the engine to use the squared up shoulders in the punching animation (just importing the skeleton and punching animation the shoulders are squared) instead of launching the punch off to the side like it's been doing? I am really in over my head. Thanks.

I think he's asking for a mask that is attached to a hood, so it would use the head slot. I'm thinking he means something like The Masque of Clavicus Vile or Dark Magician's Hood (or whatever it was called from the Mannimarco Revisited mod).

This is the official thread for "Vanilla Drops", a comprehensive immersion mod with the end goal of improving the Vanilla Oblivion experience. Main Goal of this mod: Were you frustrated with some of the quests, NPCs, or encounters in Oblivion that left you hanging? The goal of this mod is to provide simple and subtle immersion additions to the main game. I realise that much of this has already been done by other modders, however in ways that are not modular or in parts of other comprehensive or just plain "not lore friendly" mods that change the Vanilla game far too much for my tastes. I am a really big fan of Bethesda's work and want to keep any changes I make subtle, but appreciable, so as not to distract from Bethesda's work. I am currently in progress of asking those modders permission to use their files and have already taken advantage of several free to use modder's resources available here on TESNexus. Sub-Goals of this mod: - give extensive credit to any modders who made resources or decided to let me use pieces of their mod in Vanilla Drops - keep extensive changelogs of what I've done and anything I've changed from the modding resources or others' mods - Make all changes to the game (including other people's mods or resources) seamless with the Vanilla game world, hence the name Vanilla Drops (like you are just "dropping in" a change) - be compatible with others' mods so that even if they change something I've done that the load order will fix it. This way even if I've included someone's mod or resources in my mod but the user wants to use an upgraded version of that person's mod for example they can simply load it after mine and not have any issues - be modular (have versions for base game, each of the DLCs, Shivering Isles, and other options) with compiled .esp's for each version that can be added or removed at will - keep .esp's as small as possible to increase loading times and decrease any gameplay lag - provide someone who "picked up Oblivion and wants to try mods" with an exceptionally easy to use and lore-friendly "firsty try" mod that can be plugged into the main game without a hitch and show what modding can do without drastically changing the game My skillset: - Excellent drawing and painting skills that I am slowly moving over to the digital world (photoshop mostly) - limited nifskope abilities - a fair knowledge of the TES Construction Set by Bethesda - limited scripting abilities (cut+paste with ability to modify existing code and small amount of troubleshooting skills) If anyone would like to help me on this mod I am in dire need of an animator right now and some people with scripting knowledge. I'll post requests as I can on the technical help board (I already have posted 2) and if you want to work more closely with me I can be reached through this forum and will check messages daily. This mod aims for these changes to Vanilla to be included in a comprehensive esp: - Make the end bosses more of a challenge (Grey Prince, Mannimarco, Mankar Camoran) with slightly better rewards to compensate for the upped difficulty - Make some of the lesser known quest encounters more interesting and the NPCs involved less puds (Pale Lady, Seridur were vampires but easily slain for example) - Make some of the non-named boss-level encounters more interesting (Dremora guarding sigil stones, Bandit Bosses et cetera) - Have unique NPCs wear unique clothes so they stand out a bit more from the crowd - Revamp the Arena armors so they don't look so hideous and strange (and possibly add a robe option) - Add a rewards system to the chapels of Tamriel for making a pilgrim/priest roleplayer more interesting - Add some "alternate options" to some quests or choices in the game for more roleplaying immersion. Try to include new voice dialogue with this using the original game voicework (much like Romancing Eyja did with their new Eyja using sampled voicework) - Retune some quest rewards but keep them balanced with the game - Rather than revamp the entire levelling system, keep it so certain monsters/npcs simply don't dissapear from the game world as you level (keeping them on the spawnlists thus making some encounters easier as you level and preventing things becoming too easy for the player as levelled npcs still spawn for the majority). This should be easily overwritten by mods that influence the levelling system. - Make some unique bandits in some of the random bandit camps to give some better bandit encounters - Revamp how bandits choose to engage you, making them a bit smarter - Empty some of the bandit camps. Honestly there are a bit too many. - Make some of the bandit camps have friendly "camper" NPCs that you can share the camp with in the wilderness instead of having to empty the camps of bandits first so you can rest. - Increase the appearance of adventurer NPCs and add in some non-orc versions - Make wildlife more natural and abundant, so you don't feel like the world is so empty. - Add some fish and scenery under the waters of Tamriel and fixing the vision issues while keeping things looking as naturalistic as possible, just slaughterfish is boring (and annoying) - Revamp how some of the clutter looks in-game and in-menu - Make the Hackdirt town even more spooky, add similar simple immersion changes to the small towns and settlements to give them a bit of local flavor while not really changing any of the landscape (subtle, remember?). Basically making them not "flyover states" as it were. - Make inns have a bit livelier of business and adding some bar-room brawl type NPCs. - Change the Vanilla animations to be more realistic (seriously? spinning and exposing your back during a sword fight? only using straight crosses in a h2h fight?) or interesting (a few flashy but realistic moves, better casting anims for staves) - Incorporating these animations into the 3rd person in 1st person mod and incorporating that seamlessly into this mod - Perhaps add an "unconscious state" to general town NPCs so if you get into a h2h fight with them (or a bar brawl) you can knock them out before killing them (and they'll stop attacking you instead of getting up and trying again once they get more fatigue). This would also wipe out assault bounty in some circumstances. - Make some of the Knights in the game ride horses around. - Make NPCs less picky about grabbing objects and giving you stealing bounty - Make guards less psychic - Fix the Bruma Mages Guild - Put out the fires of Kvatch after you complete the quest - Make Kvatch citizens a little more hopeful after you save them from annihilation - Make a higher summoning cap (around 2-3) but increasing cast cost of summons - Add ports to other cities in the Mage's guilds (for a cost) usable by anyone - Add some more unique Mage's Guild spells as you increase in the ranks and a few buyable from vendors - Change the way necromantic spells are gotten, and have some necromantic spells gotten from Necromancer caves - Fix some of the minor graphical issues with the game (levelled items not always using same model, some weapons being held oddly, etc) - Add lights to the cities of Tamriel - Make thieving a bit more of a challenge and more worthwhile (it was incredibly boring in Vanilla) - Make some of the other areas where you jump into "Oblivion realms" more unique. It annoyed me to no end that they looked exactly the same as Mehrune's Dagon's realm. - Change a few of the armors to look a little less "wonky" / fix some clipping issues in Vanilla This mod aims for these changes to Knights of the Nine to be included in a comprehensive add-on esp: - Make the encounter with Umaril the Unfeathered more difficult (he was a major pud) - Add the ability to summon the Auroran daedra-creatures for summoner type roleplayers - Add the ability to wear Auroran armor This mod aims for these changes to Frostcrag Spire to be included in a comprehensive add-on esp: - Fix the port to Bruma Mages guild - Fix the port to Kvatch's Mages guild (this one might be not doable while maintaining compatability) - Make the long term summons a bit more fiesty in battle... thus making losing those precious alchemy ingredients worth it - Add a unique spell or two in the mage's quarters to be found later - Add other unique Daedra summons to the long-term summoning chamber This mod aims for these changes to Horse Armor to be included in a comprehensive add-on esp: - Add legion horse armor to all those Imperial Legion patrols - Add a few more horse armor types to be found as loot - Add the ability to buy horse armor blueprints, but at a very very high price - Give some of the knights in the game some nice steel horse armor for their steeds This mod aims for these changes to Shivering Isles to be included in a comprehensive add-on esp: - Same levelling "anti-extinction" changes to Vanilla applied to SI npcs/monsters - Add the ability to summon Knights of Order creatures - Add the ability to wear Knights of Order armor - Add the ability to wear Dark Seducer and Golden Saint armors - Expand the powers of Sheogorath - Add lights to New Sheoth - Make Jyggalag a rougher but balanced encounter (he actually should be insanely hard lore-wise, but he did just wake up...) I may or may not release a Vanilla Drop for the Thief and Assassin based DLC, although I would like to. I will release a few of these changes that I do personally as individual mods because I know that some people would enjoy them better as such. Although, the main purpose of this mod is to be a comprehensive immersion change. Note that quite a few of these (I'm guessing a majority as I haven't searched for every single one on every single site) are already done as seperate mods by people, as I have mentioned. I will be asking all of them for use in my comprehensive mod and giving them extensive credit/praise/thanks and if I cannot I will try to emulate their effects as best I can. I will be updating this list as I work on the mod showing changes and progress. I've already completed alot of these things (about 30%) but right now just writing this has used up too much of my time and I need to get ready for work :).

*BUMP*

Thanks a ton for helping me though! Now I at least have a pre-existing thread to bring to the developer forums so they can see exactly what I'm talking about.

Sinkpoint's is more Kung-Fu (I noticed many moves taken straight from Shaolin Temple moves). If you are looking for more Japanese and East-Asian oriented style go with Seph's: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13051 And the stylish stuff definitely has "flair"... think more along the lines of Berzerk and other anime-styled games. Not realistic, but it is fun. *SHAMELESS PLUG* Personally I am working on all of these aspects of fighting in my extensive mod "Vanilla Drops" which adds an extremely subtle overhaul to the entire game while maintaining the look and feel of Vanilla Oblivion (Vanilla meaning unmodded) but... [i[better[/i] in every way. I'll probably be done with the mod in 5-6 months time with a working beta around 3 months. Right now the main problems I'm running into are using resources. Alot of modders who make resources but request you ask them before using them simply don't answer their emails lol. *SHAMELESS PLUG*

I figured something out just now and tested it. It's not in any way an elegant fix but it works (causes some problems that really go against my modding ethics though). I would however, really want something else to work with, like an ini fix or a script.. If there is an ini setting I would seriously love to know!!!!!

Wow that post was enlightening though! I haven't found anything in the ini files. Is there something specific I should be looking for? Do you think if I asked on Bethsoft forums I could get a dev response (not likely)? I'm wondering... I know there is a "unlimited rings" type mod. Do you think I could set the amount of rings that can be worn to 3 and then go through the CS and mark all boots to take a foot and ring slot to get them to show? I know this could create an oddity of people running around without boots and wearing three rings but if it works it might be a more... elegant fix than some of the others I've seen. It would take an arse load of work in the CS to pull off but if it works I'd try it. Right now I'm working on getting a particular animation to work (I really suck at animations) with nifskope so can't really be bothered to try this at the moment. But if it could theoretically work I'd give it a shot. I don't know how to set how many rings or jewelry can be set to be worn by the player though. Any help on that? Any other suggestions? For this fix I really am all ears as it is personally driving me nuts!

Ok, while working on my Mod, Vanilla Drops, where it increases the Vanilla gameplay by seamlessly adding things to the game world that are extremely subtle but appreciable I've run across a problem. I've already emailed a few of the animation people I know of that do mods for Oblivion but haven't gotten any responses for quite a few days now. Perhaps someone on the forums here can help me out. When using a kick I got from Seph's hand to hand animation replacer mod resource (I am also using 3rd person animations in 1st person mod which allows me to really add any 3rd person ani [altho I've found some have clipping issues with camera] to the game) I notice that feet from the kick will display when wearing "one piece" armors like Arena Raiments or Dark Brotherhood gear. However, I have also noticed that the feet WILL NOT display when wearing any multi-piece armors. I have been told that the game engine for some reason does not render feet except for the oddity of one piece armor sets. Here are some screenshots from my testing save file: Wearing the Arena Raiment: http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/2591/screenshot2dh.jpg Wearing complete Leather Set (I'm doing a kick I promise!): http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/9941/screenshot3xr.jpg I was looking for a workaround for this and found this: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13426 However, you will note that what that mod does is simply make EVERY armor in the game a one piece suit and puts them for sale in the Imperial City. This, to me; and especially for my mod's goals, is really a terrible workaround to get feet to show. I have been pondering another workaround for this for quite some time. I found Loup's immersion beta which forcibly adds a floating body to 1st person view although it's extremely buggy and requires OBSE (I'm trying to not use it as OBSE also kind of goes against my mod ethic). I was wondering if any of these fixes might work (please excuse my noobliness in understanding this game's engine, and my horrible understanding of using Blender/ Nifscope): - Take every boot, shoe, or foot armor in the game and load them into Blender; make the boots one-piece armors but the rest of the armor "invisible" like this tutorial: http://www.tesnexus.com/articles/article.php?id=363 but somehow editing it so you can also wear your armor on top? So basically it would look the same but as long as you are wearing boots it would force the game engine to render the feet during a kick animation? - Add "invisible feet" to every armor in the game but make it so that it doesn't take up more than one slot in the CS? Would the invisible feet show or what you are wearing on your foot slot show while doing the kick? If anyone more experienced than I wants to take this on I would be extremely extremely grateful as this is the most annoying thing I have found while modding so far and have been really wracking my brain to figure this out. Also to do my proposed fixes I would basically have to learn Blender and Nifscope from the ground up (all I know is how to change an animation to a certain power attack in Nifscope) and I'm not even sure either of my fixes would work at all.

Hello all. I've been hoping to find new staff and casting animations that provide a better stave and magic experience than the Vanilla Oblivion ones. I've found some decent casting anims, but not many and to be honest the vanilla ones are pretty decent. However, the only ones I can find for the staves are the anime type ones which really don't fit and also really mess up targetting and the lich casting animations which all have the lich floating effect. I'm really against breaking the Vanilla playing "experience and feel" when installing mods and I'm actually working on a compilation right now called "Vanilla Drops" that simply increases and adds depth and more immersion to the Vanilla Oblivion gaming experience. The goal of the mod would be to make the game play about 99% the same but with fun surprises and better tuning / fixing some of the things Bethesda overlooked. With that same mod-making spirit in mind I was hoping I could get an animator to edit the casting animations of the lich with the staff to not float when using the staff or walking (keeping the walking animations on the lower half of the player body model) but allowing some of the really fun casting animations to be used while keeping the player character on the ground. I'm basing my mod off of the 3rd person animations in 1st person mod so I don't require any special 1st person anims made, just the standard 3rd person ones would be fine :) If anyone could do this for me, I'd be really appreciative! If I do end up using any work you do in Vanilla Drops I will of course give full credit and a detailed overview of what you did to help mod the Vanilla Oblivion experience.

Actually I never thought of contacting the modder except to ask permission to use the resources in the first place. That's an excellent idea! To this day I still don't know why legs are only displayed on certain armors like the raiments and dark brotherhood stuff. But I aim to find out how those were done and make it work off of the basic skeleton so it works for everything if I can.

*Bump* Anybody able to figure this one out or give me any tips, pointers? Will check back in a few days after I try some stuff.

Hey guys, I am trying to get Seph's hand to hand animations working with the 3rd person animations in 1st person view mod. I've experienced great success so far by moving Seph's hand to hand 3rd person animations into the 1st person meshes folder after I installed the 3rd person to 1st person animations mod. However, I can't get feet to show up unless I'm using an armor set that has the feet built in like Arena raiments or Dark Brotherhood armor. What the 3rd person to 1st person animations mod does is mock up a new skeleton.nif that uses the 3rd person animations in 1st person view. The result is quit stunning. With a bit of work I've been able to get Seph's kicking animations to work in there too. Yet, if I don't use the raiments or brotherhood armor I'm missing feet in my attacks in 1st person. There is a mod that makes all armor sets like the arena raiments so you get feet using Seph's animations in first person but makes it just one piece so you only have one piece of armor to enchant and it also adds an immersion killer by making all those 1 piece armors available on a vendor or barrel at level 1. It's really a terrible fix but I noted how it does work. What I would love more than anything is to be able to see the player character's feet in these animations in any armor (even without any armor on, just clothing or in the buff) when in 1st person view. Right now it's limited to only working with the Raiments and Brotherhood armor types. I was looking at how that guy added feet to all those armor sets and I was wondering if it would be possible to simply add feet to the skeleton.nif in the 1st person folder and if that might actually work (or if its even possible). I'm not the greatest at editing these things so any help at all will be awesome! EDIT::: I've also seen the OBSE version where they force the camera to go into an extremely close 3rd person when in "first person" mode... however, it's a terrible workaround and is extremely buggy (and laggy). I'm looking for a more direct fix.

Ok it seems I was able to fix this on my own. What I did was save the game outside of Traven's tower. Then when I entered the tower to find him again he properly loaded with the hood on his head. I'm guessing when you do mods like this you have to reload the area any tim you change an NPC's inventory.

Ok, I'm actually trying to do something very specific. I wanted Hannibal Traven to wear the Arch Mage's Hood along with the Arch Mage's Robe he already wears. I am also changing the Arch Mage's robe and hood to have different textures. I have a mod where it enchants the robe and hood so I figured I would just edit that instead of loading up Oblivion.esm and making a new .esp file for this little personal mod. I loaded up the mod, went to the Arch Mage's Hood section and easily changed the texture to the .nif file I wanted. I used OBMM to launch the game and VOILA! It worked! Traven is wearing the new robe. Everything good so far right? Well I then wanted him to wear the hood from the same set. I changed the Arch Mage's Hood to the hood .nif file (it works on the player and other npc's). No conflicts, everything going smooth. Then I dragged the new Arch Mage's Hood into Hannibal Traven's inventory. He is not originally wearing the original Arch Mage's Hood in vanilla anyways and doesn't have it in his inventory to start with so I just dragged it in to his inventory. Anyways, I went into the game again and loaded up the save I have by Traven. He's not wearing any hood. I double checked I saved the file and the hood is still placed in his inventory. I notice other NPC's wear hoods easily enough. But not Traven. What gives?