Striker879

Don't think you can use your 20 - UVII addition Skyrim style with the vanilla base (but I could be wrong ... never messed with anything UV related before). Just looked and it turns out I used WB BAIN to install HUD Status Bars (one of the dozen mods I've used WB to install) ... the only packages I have ticked is 00 Core and 01 Vanilla style. I believe if you want to use 11 Optional Orb Compass you will need to use 01 Orb style instead of 01 Vanilla style (likely the same with your 20 - UVII addition Skyrim style ... you would use that if you selected 01 Skyrim style instead of 01 Vanilla style). - Edit - Installation instructions (admittedly a bit sparse) are found about halfway down HUD Status Bars readme.txt ... look for ========= (UN-)INSTALLATION

When you start the Construction Set how are you doing it?

Have a look at the topics Odd Search Results, Is anyone else's supported game list... stuck? and My Download History is gone a bit further down this forum ... could be related to the stuff that they are working on outlined in those topics.

I use HUD Status Bars (it's a must if you use Basic Primary Needs). Which theme did you choose (e.g. vanilla, Skyrim etc)? - Edit - The readmes for HUD Status Bars are found on the 99 Docs\docs folder of the extracted download.

So what you are looking for is your custom NPC doesn't use any of the racial (Breton) dialogue and only your custom dialogue ... correct??

The key thing to installing mods is to install one at a time and test thoroughly in between (or if one mod requires another to run you'll need to install the dependancies at the same time). What this does is it gives you a good idea of how each mod affects your game performance wise, and more importantly when things go awry it will give you (and us) a good starting place for troubleshooting. That said another great asset is the two readme files that come with Wrye Bash (WB) (found in the Oblivion\Mopy\Docs folder ... look for Wrye Bash General Readme.html and Wrye Bash Advanced Readme.html). There is a section that explains what WB is telling you with the colours and symbols. For example in your second screenshot showing the Installers tab the pink box on Better Cities v6.0 tells us that some or all of the files in the package are not installed as configured and the + (plus) sign tells us that the package is installed. The plus sign and the pink box are not telling a good story for Better Cities as things stand right now. Wrye Bash is a good tool ... I have used it myself to install some of my mods (I prefer to manually install, so most of my mods are installed that way). It is invaluable for it's bashed patch but like all mod managers you need to learn how to use the tool as well as learn how to install mods (and I'm afraid that none of the mod managers teach you that).

You don't start the Construction Set (CS) using TES4_Construction_Set_1.2.404.exe if you want OBSE support ... you start it with obse_loader.exe while adding the -editor switch. If you have a desktop shortcut for the CS already setup (possibly during the CS installation) you will need to edit the Target field. Right click the CS desktop shortcut and select Properties from the right click menu. The Target field will probably already have the entire path to the CS highlighted ... single left click anywhere in the field to remove the highlight. Depending on where you have your game installed the first part of the path will vary from my example (I have the game installed on a separate hard drive). So my CS shortcut showed "G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\TES4_Construction_Set_1.2.404.exe" when I first installed the CS. Once you have clicked to remove the highlight you will use either the mouse or cursor/arrow keys to move the selection point to just behind the 404 part of TES4_Construction_Set_1.2.404.exe and backspace over all of the TES4_Construction_Set_1.2.404 part to remove it (leave the .exe" part including that apostrophe). Type in obse_loader (so now your complete path will read "G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\obse_loader.exe" (of course starting with the drive letter and top level folders corresponding to where you installed your game). We finish off by adding the -editor switch that tells OBSE to load the CS. The -editor part gets added after/outside the apostrophes so in the end it will look like this ... "G:\Games\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\obse_loader.exe" -editor and all other options and fields in the Properties dialogue box left as they were.

The other detail that can lead to problems with icons is if you don't have an icon for each texture size setting. In the BSA you'll be looking for the same icon in the Menus, Menus50 and Menus80 folders. Which of the three crowns was the problem one?

Sums me up quite succinctly!

There are slight and subtle differences between some implementations of BSA Redirection (which is the recommended method to use, and is what OBMM, Wrye Bash and ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated all use by default). The differences come down to the exact file name for the "empty" BSA used to fool the game (I believe ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated and WB use the exact same file name ... it's OBMM that changes the empty BSA file name slightly from the one the other two use). Why I bring this up is the other piece to the BSA Redirection puzzle ... the part of Oblivion.ini that lists the "empty" BSA before the vanilla BSAs. Can't say I ever recall reading anything about putting some other filename first ... but I'm certain you could use Google and find any and every advice possible in the known universe. Google is not my "top of the list" first choices (as you may get the impression). The point is the file name listed in Oblivion.ini must match exactly the file name given the "empty" BSA, which can get messed up when you are trying OBMM as well as WB/ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated (a good part of the reason I rarely open OBMM anymore ... it commits whatever changes it thinks you wanted to do when it closes ... I'm the type who prefers a menu option saying "Yes I Want To Change This So Do It Now").

The "extra folder" is often a result of copy/paste errors while transfering from the extracted download resource and your game folders. The rule of thumb I always use is ... for folders you paste one level higher (so if you copy a folder named Meshes from the source you paste into Data in your game). You'll know you've got it right when Windows warns that there is already a folder with that name (and the correct answer in that case is always Yes as what you are doing is merging the contents of Meshes in this example and all of the subfolders below Meshes in the source). The only time you will have file level overwrites is if you have previously installed a mod that uses exactly the same folder path and file names (a common thing when you are dealing with "replacer" mods that replace vanilla assets with their own version ... an example being armor replacers for different mod added body types). Of course when copy/pasting files the rule is paste into the folder with the same name as the source (so if you copy from the Meshes\armor\iron\f folder you will paste into the game's Meshes\armor\iron\f folder (and if that folder does not exist already you need to create that folder path). Keep in mind ... the "mistakes" made, found and corrected are the ones that will spring to mind most easily down the road. I prefer the word "lessons" for that reason.

Of course thanks will be appreciated, but in no way required. I'm like you as far as the aversion to spaces in file/folder names goes (if you look at my downloads folder you'll see plenty of top level folders with names like Joes_Really_Cool_Mod where I've put an underscore in place of spaces ... usually I just drop the apostrophes so Joe's becomes Joes). Old habits born back when certain characters were not allowed in file or folder names. Once a dinsoaur always a dinosaur, in my book at least. Now if you look at the extracted download folder names we're talking a different story all together. Even a dinosaur isn't going to go into NifSkope and change all the folder paths to match. Too much like work.

The problem with doing that is the mesh itself (the NIF files like ocrown_gnd.nif etc) all have the path to the texture they need incorporated as part of the info used to display the NIF in game. The NIFs are expecting the spaces to be in those folder names. Two ways you can tackle the situation ... one is to change the folder names back so that the spaces are exactly as you find in the extracted download. The other is to change the path to the textures for the mesh in NifSkope ... I'll use rubycrownh.nif as an example as it is the simplest. Expand the 0 NiNode Scene Root in the left hand pane and you'll see 1 NiTriStrips RubyFlawless02 and 11 NiTriStrips Circle as branches off the Scene Root. Expand 11 NiTriStrips Circle and you'll see 13 NiTexturingProperty and when you expand that you'll see 14 NiSourceTexture with the expected path to the texture for that part of the NIF shown beside the little purple flower icon. Double left click on the texture path that is currently shown and you'll be able to edit it to exactly match the folder path you have changed the DDS files to. Note that the texture path must begin with the textures folder no higher (so no C:\Program Files\... or Oblivion\textures\... as then your users will have problems if their game folder structure is not exactly the same as yours ... the problem is called "absolute paths").

No I wasn't asking to suggest ... I looked at the three crowns that come with that download in NifSkope trying to find any possible "gotcha's" and that is the only one I've found. If you tell me the exact NIF file names you are using I can look at that particular NIF ... no promises I'll see anything I haven't already looked at though. The other thought that came to mind while I was poking around is ... are the spaces in the texture folder name preserved (so Textures\Objects of Desire\Crown Jewels not Textures\ObjectsofDesire\CrownJewels or any variation that omits one or more of the folder name spaces).?

Are you using the Lighter Gold version of the textures and the ocrown.nif and ocrown_gnd.nif version? If so is the purple texture just located at the small part at the top of the arch that holds the diamond (the little claws that hold the diamond in place ... in NifSkope the NiTriStrips for Circle.001). If the answer is yes and you only installed the textures from the Lighter Color Gold folder you are still missing ocrownmount.dds and ocrownmount_n.dds from the regular version Textures\Objects of Desire\Crown Jewels folder.

From what I can see there are no EGM files Pekka (probably the reason they are slotted for tail slot ... the old "no The Conformulator required" method). That means they won't conform to different head sizes/shapes. Blue ... do the gems show on the crowns when they are sitting on the ground or is that the "source point" for the purple error shapes? Tracing those errors back to the exact spot on the ring was what made it easy for me to know what to start looking for (first in NifSkope to see the exact file name that part of the NIF was looking for, and then in my case I was lucky as I had already downloaded another mod that had the same texture file I needed). - Edit - Hmm ... just downloaded and had a look in NifSkope but nothing seems to be out of place to my untrained eye. The gems are all vanilla assets using vanilla textures as far as I can tell.

I extracted Thadon's crown from the SI meshes BSA and looked in NifSkope but I didn't see anything different between the ground mesh and the worn mesh aside from the collision added to the ground mesh (texture paths are identical, meshes look the same and material is the same for both). Of course for Thadon's crown there is also an EGM file so that it will work on different heads. Does the crown you are using have gem stones or the like? I ran into a case once with a ring that was missing some texture files for the gemstone ... the game generated error for that was long spikey purple rays to infinity (but very thin ones because I guess the gem mesh was very small on the ring ... though that wouldn't go along with the rror not being there when worn and only appear with the ground mesh).

On this (the Nexus Forum page) click on the down arrow next to your user name (top left) and select My Profile. On your profile page click on Edit My Profile (top right, just down from the very top). It should come up on General Settings and on the left you'll see a number of options listed ... select Notification Options. At the very top of the list of things you can personalize you'll see Auto follow topics I reply to ... put a tick mark beside that. Right next to it on the same line you'll see options for how often you give you a heads up (the drop down selection box next to Notification frequency). That section has a number of other options where you can select what notification method is used. Most are self explanatory, and any can be changed whenever you find need to make a change. - Edit - Also note that there are some changes being made to various systems that may temporarily affect notifications (perhaps ... I'm just a plain old Joe around here) ... read the threads about search results, download history and supported games lists etc.

It is my understanding (from reading the Wrye Bash Readme.html files) that WB will install OMODs ... providing they are just simple installs, not requiring an omod install script to select options. After getting my feet wet installing mods (yes, I too required Oblivion Mod Manager to get my first mod installed and working) I moved away from using OBMM except to extract mods that were only available as OMOD downloads (I would then use the omod install script as a guide to create my own custom manual install). To each his/her own, but I for one wouldn't know nearly as much about installing mods had I not dedicated myself to manual installing. I think even HadTo would admit that it was lessons learned while manuall installing back in the day that allowed the transition to Vortex in Oblivion.

From any game's Nexus Mods page click on your avatar (top right) and select Site Preferences. On that page's Preferences tab select Global Preferences and right below where you can set your timezone you'll see Remind me about file ratings ... from the dropdown selection box you can pick Never and you won't see that prompt again. You will still be able to endorse mods you want to endorse, but it will be up to you to remember to do that.

In my experience NPCs (including at least dogs ... I rescued Pumpkin from that tent in Rockmilk Haven to keep Mazoga company at White Stallion Lodge, along some of the aforementioned "new friends") have an absolute affinity for doorways or any other "choke points" in an area. They quite simply can't not stand there. The only thing I could suggest in the case of your critters is to try moving their editor locations a bit further away. Another idea is to place a marker where you'd like the group to sleep and give their sleep package that marker with a moderate radius (then the "fun" will be watching them all want to be "the guy" who gets the ground zero location). I have Pumpkin sleeping close to where Mazoga usually picks to sleep (they bunk down at the same time, except Pumpkin is an old girl and also needs her naps ... she prefers the wolf pelt by the door for those). Her sleep package is for the marker I placed with a small radius (about 10 or so if I recall correctly) yet she will always go right to the marker. The small radius makes it less likely she'll get up and move back if an NPC happens to push her away from the marker while they do their usual mill about. You don't need to sweat giving very much "random behavior" to NPCs/critters ... the game engine comes pre-equipped in that regard.

My "house guest" NPCs (i.e. befriended bandits/marauders/conjurers and necromancers) have the same behavior, at least to some extent. My guy will sit down to take a load off for a while and they just love to come over for a chat (well the ladies do enjoy showing off their dance moves too). It doesn't even to seem to make much difference what their disposition is towards the player either (I like to leave some with an intense dislike for the player as well as some who think the player is the greatest guy to grace all Tamriel so that I get a nice wide range of comments/snide remarks). Now with these NPCs they will also wander off and have their own conversations amongst themselves or execute their assigned packages. Do your critters have just a single wander package, or do they have ones that assign a wander at different locations from time to time?

Animation Fixer is the old way to fix the stuck animation bug. The Wrye Bash method is more recent, but the most modern and "hands off" way is EngineBugFixes (see GlobalAnimTimerFix in the readme).

I'm one of those sad souls whose only recourse for "immersion" at this time of year is to fill the bathtub (Lake Huron is far far too cold right now for this old guy). Not saying I don't have fun with mouse and keyboard in hand ... it's just that I'm always aware that I'm playing a game (or often a "game" set in a game ... the infamous Striker's mini-games ... I always have "stuff" to do). The leftover from auto-generate that I have trouble with "unseeing" is the NIF rotation thing. Even when they took the time to move the tree/whatever they didn't take the couple of seconds required to rotate some so that they all aren't oriented exactly the same way. If there's a nit I'll pick it.