Brittainy

As for the 'life is precious' argument, let me add this: I consider it precious enough to protect my own and to also put my money where my mouth is when it comes to my political beliefs (i.e. being 100% anti-war, anti-death penalty, etc.) I would never actively deliberately harm another human being or condone murder (even in 'war'). Nor would I, as long as I am supporting the society I choose to be a part of, deny someone medical care or support. However, I do not owe anyone MY life. Nor do they owe me theirs. Once someone becomes an active burden on me and my life, then it is MY CHOICE whether I take that burden on. I am not obligated to give up any part of my life to someone else unless I CHOOSE to have a child, or CHOOSE to care for an invalid, etc. In the case of an existing burden, I have no right to actively destroy it. But I do have the right to cease to care for it and take it on. In the case of a parastie / baby / fetus, I have the right to kill it while it relies entirely on my body for survival. (How far you carry that is open to debate. Given that most people don't remember a thing until well over a year old, I'm fairly open to that first year being fair game.) Life in non-parasitic forms is precious in the sense I won't actively attack it or condone others destroying it, but on the flip-side I will consider any sacrifice on my side to be optional and not obligatory. Life in heavily disabled / totally reliant on outside assistance forms I will support within society to a fair degree, but will happily condone the plug being pulled when the support has run dry and the carers no longer want the burden.

I think an adult is entitled to end their own life for any reason at any time. Even if they are perfectly healthy. What you do with your own life is entirely your business. And, if you could get a doctor to offer a more peaceful death than many of the forms of suicide available, I say let it be done. As for my personal definition of 'life', it's fairly simple: If you able to function and survive without assistance (either life support or the physical support of another human being) you are 'alive'. If you're reliant on machines in a hospital, you're no longer 'alive'. If someone chooses to maintain you in that state until you recover, that is up to them, but I don't believe there is any obligation for care at that point. If no one wants to care for you, then I think they are entitled to pull the plug. Same applies to those who are disabled. I don't believe they are owed care. It's merely a choice someone might make to help them. The only time care is 'owed' is if you choose to subscribe to and support a 'society'. (Which obviously includes healthcare, etc.) If you are on a machine beyond what your support to society has covered, it's time for the plug to be pulled. When it comes to babies, while they are in the womb - and therefore reliant on an existing 'host' - they are not 'alive' nor do they have any rights. The host has all the rights, including the right to kill the parasite / baby / fetus / person. Call it whatever you want. Even if it is a fully thinking, functioning, feeling human being, I'd still say the host has full rights. Nothing that relies on MY body for survival has more (or even equal) rights. For me, life is absolutely tied to independence / ability. Personally, I'd extend the right of the host to eliminate the parasite / baby even after the birth up to a year or so old. But that's just me. My definition of life is mostly about being 'able'. If you cannot survive in basic ways on your own and are reliant on someone (or a machine), you are not 'alive'. So, to go by my own rules, if I become unable to care for myself, I have no right to expect someone else to care for me - except for the healthcare provided within the society I actively engage in and support. If I choose to no longer support said society, I have no right to expect any help whatsoever. I realise my ideas will probably go down like a ton of bricks with a lot of people, but to each his own. As long as I am prepared to apply the rules mercilessly to myself, I think it's fair enough. Most people love to set down stringent guidelines but rarely seem to actually apply them to themselves. I am essentially the type who believes in - shall we say - the survival of the able-bodied and the mentally functional. I wouldn't actively cull the useless, but I certainly wouldn't support them beyond public healthcare, which is a perk I like for myself and which I see as the primary benefit for everybody of society. Aside from that universal safety net, they will get no help from me and I will expect no help in return. No rights for parasites.

Given that I am 100% anti military and anti war, there's not a government in the world that could make me fight and I would sooner slit my own throat than be forced into a war. However, I say let the cretins who vote for war-mongering governments be drafted. Same with politicians who agree with war. If they want it, they can f*#@ing well fight it themselves. If they aren't willing to join in, then they shouldn't be allowed to condone it / push for it. Put your money where your mouth is. I'm not willing, I don't support it under any circumstances, and I bitterly resent the fact that when it comes to being taxed I have no choice about being forced to financially support a military system I that find to be morally reprehensible. Same applies in reverse, however. Let those of us who don't want war be neutral and have to put up with whoever wins. If I am 100% anti-military, I think that entitles me to freedom from fighting, but also forfeits the right for any 'defence' by the military. Someone wants to invade? You're welcome to it. @^_^@ Anyone who wants a military can pay for it and fight for it themselves. From 'commoners' to prime ministers. Particularly the latter. They want to get uppity and push for a fight? Then let them battle it out directly. As for being patriotic and fighting for freedom, that's a load of horse s#*! that gullible people have bought into for centuries. Every government that has ever tried to 'sell' a war to the public will dish out all the 'honourable' propaganda it can. There will always be a million fools to fall for a trumped up 'cause'. So, go for it and have a draft for the all the idiots who want a military. If you condone politically sanctioned murder, then I think you are fair game and deserve a taste of what you vote for.

I should also add, the one texture you don't have to worry about swapping is the bark. The spt trees will automatically use the correct bark texture, so you don't have to do a thing on that count.

It's actually not a hard thing to swap around yourself ^ And it doesn't involve editing the actual spt files at all. Example (crammed into a really shoddy nutshell): Extract all the spt trees from the Oblivion and SI bsa archives. (I suggest keeping a 'Vanilla' copy of everything you extract somewhere handy on the desktop.) Do the same with the textures. To swap one tree for another (model and textures) here's what you do (using a simple example in this case): Say you want to replace the Yew trees found around Lake Rumare: Pick an SI spt tree model from the Data/trees folder (in this instance we'll use the Mania spt tree: maniatree09.spt) and rename it to treeyewforest.spt. Copy that to your Oblivion/data/trees directory. If it doesn't exist, just create it. Find the appropriate textures you need to swap. In this case you'd need to rename the mtreeleaves04.dds (found in textures/trees/leaves) to treeyewleaves.dds, and the maniatree09.dds (found in textures/trees/billboards) to treeyewforest.dds. Copy them to the appropriate sub-folders in the Oblivion/data/textures/trees directory (trees/leaves and trees/billboards). Again, if those directories don't exist, just create them. Depending on what you know about spt trees and their textures, just to make it clear, the textures found in the trees/leaves folder are obviously your primary textures for the leaves of that tree. The textures found in the trees/billboards are your distant / fugly-looking cardboard cutout / LOD ones :P Make sure you always remember to do BOTH otherwise your distant trees won't match your close-range textures.) Now, while the above is the sort of swap anyone can do, there are other ways of doing something similar in the CS, but personally I prefer a manual method rather than an esp which redirects the trees and models. Some people would probably prefer the CS method, but to each his own. On a side note, if you want to be very fussy, at some point you would be wise to use the CS to rescale the tree billboards, since swapping them around means you'll end up with them sized incorrectly. (It's as simple as checking the billboard scale in the CS of the mania tree and copying those values to the yew tree.) I realise all of the above is very messily explained. If you want a proper private and in depth guide, I'll gladly go over it thoroughly in a pm. At any rate, all I'm trying to say is it is more than possible to use SI trees in Cyrodiil and it's not a hard thing to do. Just takes some swapping and fiddling. (Hell, my current mods wouldn't exist if I hadn't of found a way to swap spt trees around!) :smile:

Once when I was staying in a lodge someone slipped $10 and a note under my door (nothing seedy :happy: ) with a smiley face on it saying I looked down and they hoped it might cheer me up. I was exceedingly low and broke at the time and it worked a treat. And bought me a desperately needed bit of food :biggrin:

Cannibal Holocaust is rather fitting if you feel like being disturbed. However, it's definitely more grotesque / grim than 'scary' :ermm:

Blade Runner (1982) Antarctica (1983) Titus (2000) The Last of the Mohicans (1992) The Lion in Winter (1968)

Australia. Northern New South Wales. Loathe this country and its culture - or lack thereof. Cannot wait to leave it. ^_^

This is a matter of pure curiosity for me: How has your taste in mods changed over time - for any game - and how has your playing style altered, if at all? Personally, as far as playing style goes, I bathed in the orgy of free-roam delights ever since GTA 3 came out and until fairly recently my style was entirely haphazard and totally lacking in interest in following any sort of linear path. I skipped quests and essentially anything that had a 'must do things this way' stamp on it. I was more interested in just wandering aimlessly and exploring the scenery. (Probably a reaction to years of 2D gaming all its constrictions.) Oblivion - which I bought quite a few years after it was released - was the start of a new and more conventional playing style for me. I think it's the first non-linear game that actually got me interested in quests and dungeons. (And I must admit the dungeon exploration has only been in the last year...before that I skipped anything that resembled a ruin or a dungeon and stuck with the main quests.) I've also forced myself to slow down a lot of late. Often I'd rush through main quests and skip any frills or optional side-quests, but now I'm actually bothering to ease up and enjoy things more. I still tend to knock over the biggest quests first though. For one convoluted reason or another, I can't relax to enjoy many of the smaller quests if - for example - Oblivion Gates are open all over the place. Feels a bit ridiculous and unnatural to worry about finding someone's lost daughter when the Daedra are on Cyrodiil's doorstep, so to speak... As for taste in mods, mine has changed radically...again, a very recent event. I initially dived in and grabbed any and every mod I could lay my hands on. Quests, houses, new landscapes, clothes, armour, mounts, all the UL's, etc. You name it. My load order was filled to the brim. In the last few months I've cut back on everything. I've returned to Vanilla clothing and armour (albeit with some personal tweaks) and scrapped literally every armour and outfit mod I was previously running. I've tweaked up my weather, water and camera into a few esp files and scrapped all the fancier ones. I've 'closed' my cities. Almost all the things I once considered essential are now scrapped. Of course, this mostly came with the change in my playing style. The more interested I became in all the things I'd once skipped over, the less extra clutter and enhancement I needed. Nonetheless, I'm a highly visual person, so a race mod and some nice hairstyles were a must. And some better looking flora and fauna will always be a top priority, second only to having the 'right' look for my character. But a lot of the visuals I once went mad to improve (NPC faces and outfits, armour, etc) I just don't care about anymore. Essentially, I'm probably far more linear now than I used to be. 90% of a tiny list of mods I run are my own and my Oblivion seems to have become a much simpler - but very satisfying - place. So, how has your taste changed - if at all - since you started gaming in these very non-linear realms? And how full is your load order looking these days? I'm presently sitting at 40-odd mods, which is the least I've ever run for Oblivion. (The other games I play are probably sitting around 2-10 mods each, which again is very minimalist for me. 90% own mod bias still applies.) 8 'essentials' - camera fixes, no more annoying messages, invincible horses, etc. 10 pose mods - I like my screenies. 14 of my own mods and tweaks. (I like my scenery gaudy and my wild animals passive and my ammo painful.) 8 non-essential but nice additions. (Sirens and Tritons, Natural Habitat, etc.) What about you? :cool:

Wire In The Blood, season 3, final episode of the season Synchronicity. Wonderfully grim show. Wish it hadn't been cancelled :(

I must add to my list Terrence Stamp's performance as Mankar Camoran. I actually think that would top my 'best' list. As to real vs fake accents: I'll take real accents any day of the week. But, I do confess, the only reason I would ever be able to distinguish real from fake is because I can't understand a single word of a genuine Scottish accent. :happy: Point of fact, the same holds true for just about any accent...I have a dreadful ear, even with English, when it comes to understanding anyone. 50% of what people say sounds like gibberish to me. (Though sometimes I question whether that's because my hearing is 50% f***ed, or because people talk s*** 50% of the time. ;D )

^ As I said, my opinion is neither legal nor moral. I stand by it nonetheless. If using someone's else work gets you the results you want, just do it. And it's not as though every mod has to be shared publicly. I do plenty of tweaks that rip things from one game to another, but I do them only for myself and they never see the light of day as far as modding communities go. Obviously it's Ideal and definitely more satisfying for a public mod to be reliant on your own unique textures / resources, etc, but you have to start somewhere. A fair compromise (I think, anyway) is using any assets you want in private, using other people's assets in public releases (with permission), and generally that will give you enough of a beginning to get a feel for how to start creating your own resources. That way you're not breaking any rules on here by uploading 'dubious' works and you're getting much needed practice in. Where you go from there is entirely up to you. By that stage you'll likely be good enough to do 90% of your own work...and what you do to get the remaining 10% is in the air. You'll either be better at finding legitimate resources or you'll be good enough at manipulating illegitimate ones so that they're unrecognizable. The above will never be the popular opinion in many modding communities...but it's practical nonetheless.

:blink: Hmm I thought I was the only one. I like knowing there's a fellow thumb-abuser out there :happy:

Just ignore it and do what you want. If someone puts their images on the internet, they're up for grabs as far as I'm concerned. Mine is far from the moral or legal side, but I say neither of those things have a place in the realm of modding to begin with. On a side note, when it comes to random Google images, by the time you get through modding them and get them in game, it's nearly impossible to recognise the original picture anyhow...especially since you're usually just pinching scraps from an image. *EDIT* Another side note: Depending on what you're working on, I find using my own photographs to be ideal as a source. (Obviously they're perfect for ground textures, rocks, fabrics, metals, plants, etc.) They'll give a much better quality result than most other people's textures anyhow. But, if you can't get your hands on what you want, just grab them from another source, whether it's a random Google image or a texture resource. I personally find random images are better to work with than other people's textures, but that's just me.