Striker879

No problem ... my guy is at 100 sneak and 100 for lockpicking too (but I have plenty of saves at lower levels). Can't say I can commit for 10 hours of lockpicking though. Would lesser amounts of time have any value for you?

A question ... does the current player character level in sneak and skill level for lockpicking matter?

Hope you're right ... I've been helping out around here long enough to go through more than a few times that Steam did something that broke some aspect of the game (most frequently getting OBSE to work with Steam Oblivion). My opinion of them is that they love to meddle.

The shaders are very specifically named files ... can't see any way they could change other lighting. Now I haven't extracted the Night Eye Replacement OMOD to see exactly what files it includes, but I'd be surprised if somebody like Timeslip had anything like dirty edits etc. The one I linked uses an ESP, does Night Eye Replacement also have an ESP?

OK, know this from the start ... I am working way way above my pay grade here ... Have a look at Night Eye Shader Switcher to see if anything there helps you out. I believe it offers a way to create your own shaders. I use Detect life effect and Night-eye shader myself ... it comes as a 7z download that extracts to normal files and folders (could be a way of working out what you need for folder structure). - Edit - I used to use OBMM's utility for extracting stuff from the vanilla game BSAs ... now I use BSA unpacker (which is just the utility from OBMM as a standalone).

Not many people use the wrist irons once they have any armor available, and all of those outside of the leather bracers cover the entire hand. Probably makes it less likely for any anomalies to be noticed, plus if it is like the situation that I ran into it would only be seen under particular lighting conditions (also reducing the likehood). The only advantage the wrist irons offer (which is mostly only applicable for mage types) is that they are considered clothing, and as such if you enchant them they offer the only vanilla clothing item that can be worn on the hands that won't affect your characters spell casting effectiveness. They are ugly though, so if that's something that would be of interest to you I'd suggest Jovs Mages Gloves as an alternative.

I believe that you may need to go through the correcting the dates thing any time Steam does any sort of update on Oblivion in the future (I've seen such reported ... I'm a disk guy myself so I have no direct experience with Steam).

Hmm ... I suspected so but had to be sure. In the past I have run into a particular mesh that showed similar symptoms that could only be seen under certain lighting conditions (it was a HGEC mesh and only exposed skin on the legs was involved in my case). I narrowed it down to some property in the mesh NIF file but couldn't ever find the culprit (but I had the same mesh in a different HGEC body style from a different author that didn't have the problem ... even changing all of the parameters I could find in NifSkope to match the good one didn't resolve the problem). I know that the lighting in the tutorial cell is abysmal. You could try finishing the tutorial and check outside in various lighting conditions (daylight, night, different interiors) to see if the problem persists. Another option would be to install RobertMaleBodyReplacerV52 to see if it changes the situation. Something else that occurs to me ... try unequipping the wrist irons to eliminate them as the culprit.

What body mesh do you have installed?

The latest version of COBL (ver 1.74) is available at The Assimilation Lab.

Have you tried installing the OMOD with Wrye Bash? I haven't tried it myself but I believe WB is supposed to be able to install OMODs itself. In the past I've always just used Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) to extract the OMOD to a folder when I wanted to install/check out a mod that is only available as an OMOD (I'm a manual install dinosaur).

Those changes that the UOP makes to textures requires archive invalidation, and the recommended method is BSA Redirection. BSA Redirection works when the loose files are newer than the original game's BSAs (e.g. Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa). Steam has a habit of changing the vanilla game BSAs to a modern date, so then the loose files are older than the BSAs ... which means the game will use the "newer" files stored in the vanilla game BSAs. The net result is Steam likes to break BSA Redirection in Oblivion. Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) has a utility that easily corrects the vanilla game BSAs at the same time it enables BSA Redirection (Utilities -> Archive Invalidation -> select BSA Redirection -> click Reset BSA Timestamps -> click Update Now -> done). It's also possible to use a utility like File Date Changer 1.61 to change the Steam version vanilla game BSA files to their proper date (year 2006 works fine). The other thing I notice is the order you have for your sArchiveList in Oblivion.ini ... ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa needs to be first in the list (so sArchiveList=ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa, Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa, etc).

Troubleshooting is a process ... what ENB are you using? - Edit - Is there a reason you're using an outdated version of COBL?

Try turning off OR's skin shader.

Do you use Oblivion Reloaded?

The first two digits need to match the mod index of the mod (DLCs other than SI are just mods). You can use Wrye Bash to get the mod index from the list on the Mods tab. Another trick I use is to just open the console and click on something that you know was added by the mod/DLC (but not coming from a levelled list). Note the first two digits displayed in the refID at the top of the screen ... that is that particular mod/DLC's mod index number. Use those two digits as the first two digits in your player.additem xx008c37 <n> command. Note that any particular mod/DLC's mod index number can possibly change if you add any new mods and they are sorted into your load order above the one you gifted yourself an item from. Won't affect any item you've already got through the console ... it'll just change those first two digits for the next time you are feeling generous to yourself.

LOL ... ya, sure ... I believe you (mind staying in front of me though and please keep that sword sheathed). If worst comes to worst you can always disable him again, but who knows ... maybe he can now be glitchy in some new and fun way, livening up dull old Cloudruler with some novel antics!! Hmmm ... MVP ... Multiple Vexing Personalities. Not so sure about this. While I admit to having multiple personalities, and yes some may be vexing, that is only on odd days (oh wait ... today is the 31st ... that does not bode well).

I'm not real well versed on diagnosing crashes. To me that appears as a generic Windows generated crash dialogue, which in general have zero useful information (for me anyway). In my own game I was a pretty regular crash on exit guy, but those have become quite rare these days since I've started using the OBSE plugin EngineBugFixes (version 1.7 had the most effective combination of exit crash fixes for me). It includes a wide variety of fixes and may be worth a try. Back to Baurus ... you may need to give him some further "moveto help" if you want him along for the big battle at Bruma or the finale in the Imperial City (or leave him chillin' at Cloudruler so he doesn't get hurt). - Edit - Ohh ... I just reread what you posted. Remind me to not count on you to have my back (poor Baurus). If you want to try getting the original Baurus back using the console do this: prid 32a17 enable resurrect 1 moveto player If all goes well he should just head off to Cloudruler. If you don't want him running into a mess with somebody he can't handle on the way there, but don't feel like babysitting him all the way there it's: setessential 23f2a 1 He'll then be essential (unkillable), which is one less thing to fret about while you're trying to keep Martin alive later on.

I'm generally not a big "clean everything that can't hide quickly enough" type myself, but if you have mods other than the DLCs that's where I'd start if I was going down that road. If some of those mods that BOSS suggests cleaning were also ones that seem as possible candidates for interfering with Baurus I'd have a good point to start cleaning one at a time and testing how Baurus behaves on a test run new game. I've never had any issues with him myself, beyond the documented problem stemming from an old alternate start mod I'm using in my current guy's game, and those problems were all related to the tutorial quest stages not properly triggering (so then Baurus wouldn't get his next stage either). It was simple to resolve by setting the appropriate quest stage at the appropriate spots using the console. Which leads me to another thought ... if you have your saves from when Baurus first started acting up in the tutorial dungeon you could do a series of console "getstage MQ01" and compare the result to the UESP Wiki page Oblivion:Tutorial. Might give some insight into what is happening (that is how I found the exact place the alt start mod was chocking on and that gave me the necessary quest stages to bump through the problem).

OK ... that is what I would have suggested if you had been using some other method. You have quite a few mods in your load order I'm not familiar with, so I don't have much I could offer from a mod conflict perspective. Something that did jump out at me when I was looking through the UESP Wiki for Oblivion:The Path of Dawn is something from down in the Bugs section: "If you dawdle before reporting to Baurus after procuring Volume 3, he may come and find you instead, and his range extends even outside the Imperial City. This can prove annoying, as you will be forced to manually travel with Baurus the entire way back to the sewers. Using fast travel to speed up the journey will not work, as Baurus does not follow you. More annoying still is the possibility that Baurus will get stuck. If you meet him outside the Imperial City, he may not be able to figure out how to get back. This fatally crashes the main storyline." I'm not suggesting that this is how you wound up in the spot you are in, more pointing out that he is one source of getting painted into a corner that offers no escape. I'm wondering if the advice to disable him and then placeatme him has you firmly into that corner. A quote from the UESP Wiki for the placeatme console command Oblivion:Console: "This command should not be used for unique NPCs" The reference ID for the Baurus you now have in the game is not the same as the refID for the original Baurus, and though I haven't examined the quest script for The Path of Dawn I'm fairly confident it will be looking for the old Baurus not your new guy. As to why he was glitchy at the very start I can't offer much, as my intuition says mod conflict but even I don't put much stock on my intuition.

What are you using to sort your load order?

In Oblivion the textures are assigned via properties of the mesh. Invisible is the game telling you it can find neither colour map nor normal map (so it can't find <NameOfTheTexture>.dds and <NameOfTheTexture>_n.dds). Those can be assigned using NifSkope (expand the NiTriStrip to expose the NiTexturingProperty and expand that to expose NiSourceTexture). An important note when setting the path to the texture file ... do not use absolute paths (so do not start with C:\Program Files (x86)\Bethesda Softworks\...). The path shown next to the little purple flower should always start at the Textures folder (so Textures\Armor\MyCoolArmor\MyCuirass.dds). Normal maps must be named exactly the same as the texture and be in the same folder structure (so using the previous example the normal map would go in ... Data\Textures\Armor\MyCoolArmor\MyCuirass_n.dds). Because the game uses "_<x>.dds" to denote different types of special textures (_n.dds is normal map, _g.dds is glow map etc) avoid using conventions like MyCuirass_r.dds for a red cuirass texture name but rather use RedMyCuirass.dds or similar. Skin is a special case for texture naming. To accommodate a simple way to assign proper race specific skin textures to meshes the material property "skin" is used for NiMaterialProperty and the Imperial texture will always be assigned for NiSourceTexture (so Textures\Characters\Imperial\Female\Footfemale.dds for all HGEC body parts except hand for example). The game then replaces the Imperial texture with the appropriate corresponding race texture assigned via the race record in the Construction Set.

These are textures for the HGEC body meshes and are completely incompatible with the vanilla game body. The reason is because the HGEC changes how body textures are mapped onto the body mesh. In vanilla each body part mesh has a separate body texture, so the foot texture covers the foot mesh, the legs plus lower body texture covers that mesh etc. In HGEC (which is a replacer for the vanilla body meshes and textures) the entire female body with the exception of the hands is covered by a single texture which is named footfemale.dds (so the foot mesh, lower body mesh and the upperbody mesh). If you look very closely you'll find nipples located somewhere on female character's feet when you try to use HGEC textures on a vanilla female body. Install a HGEC body (e.g. EVE HGEC Eyecandy Variants Expansion), then if you want install your Hi Rez. - Edit - I'm not 100% clear on what you mean by "looks like I'm using HGEC 1.2 version". If you mean you have in fact already installed a complete version of HGEC (i.e. meshes and textures) please give a link to what you have installed.

What exact HGEC version are we talking about (preferably give a link to the mod page)?

Do you use a dedicated sound card or one of the sound chipsets that are integrated onto your motherboard (e.g. Realtek)?