IkeCoast

Then here you got (GIMP also can export in that DXT5 thing!). Cheers!

As far as I know, yes, there is. If you're using Paint.net, then my tutorial is useless for you. Cheers!

My Goodness, normalmaps are VITAL for your object. Without a normalmap, the object will apperar pitch-black in game. And no, not all normalmaps are so simple. Most of them are really elaborate. Normalmaps serve for two purposes: one, give the object its reflective and refractive properties (that is, how light reacts when hitting the mesh), and two, give its surface a 3D appearance, with carvings, wrinkles, cavities, et al. They are really easy to make. But you need the normalmap plugin for your image editor (Photoshop or GIMP). If you try to make the normalmap by hand (it's possible) you will spend the next four or five months with it. I have a tutorial on how to create proper normalmaps for Oblivion, let me see my Favs... Cheers!

Not exactly, the neck, wrist, waist and ankle seams are not caused by the UV-Mapping, but by the very edges of the meshes, where they join with the adjacent mesh. If the vertices of the neck on the torso are not exactly aligned with the vertices on the neck on the head, bam, neck seam. However, a low quality texture (like the original vanilla textures) can cause a seam in the place where the UV-map was created, yes. You remember the seams at the shoulders? There are no edges there, but you can see where the UV map was cut because the diffuse map is really poor. With high quality textures, you will not see the "cut" on the UV map. Compare the female textures of the Abysmer (or Aquamer, since I took these textures from the Aquamer race) for RobFem (absolutely seamless in the body) and for HGEC (impressive seams along the arms and legs). Capucine, as hard as she tried, could not align the UV-"scar" on the HGEC UV-map because the original texture was created for the RobFem UV-map. Cheers!

Me. How are your ruler collision and havok, by the way? Cheers!

Your hierarchy tree is wrong. It needs to start with 0 NiNode -- SceneRoot. Where did that NiHeader came from? Do you mean the rules IS NOT there, or rather it is there, but invisible (its icon and name appear if you place the cursor over the spot it should be)? Cheers! EDIT: I will NOT disregard anything and I will remember EVERYTHING. http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5ru5zEEoN1r283euo1_400.gif "Striker? You wouldn't believe what Lupis just did right now..."

It's the normalmap. You don't need to set it on NIfSkope, the game engine will pick it up automatically. Cheers!

Of course. Now you need to set the texture on the nif file, and be sure the texture is in the correct format. Also, the texture will not show in the nif file if the texture path is relative (starting with "textures"). For the texture to be visible in NifSkope, you need to set it with its absolute path (starting at C:\). Click the flower icon next to the texture path, navigate to the file texture, click open, and if the UV-mapping is correct, then the mesh will appear textured. Could you post a screencap of your NifSkope window, with the NiNode-Scene Root tree unfolded so we can see all the branches, especially the NiTexturingProperty? Cheers! By the way, you do not import it into NifSkope. You export it from Blender as a Nif file. EDIT: TESAlliance doesn't open for me, I cannot check the tutorial from this computer!

Oh, the thing Striker told you and you didn't catch refers to the skin TEXTURE. The exposed skin parts of an armor or clothing are, like all objects in the game, composed by TWO parts: the 3D mesh and the texture. The 3D mesh of the bare skin parts of the mesh have a hardcoded texture in themselves. This means, you can change the textures of the clothing, but not of the skin. The skin part of the armor or clothing mesh will "read" which body texture it is replacing, be it Imperial, Khajiit, Argonian, Dark Elf or Abysmer. And will take the same texture file as the body part it replaces. If the armor is an HGEC armor, and you have the HGEC textures installed, everything will look ok. But if the armor is a RobFem and you have the HGEC body textures installed, since RobFem and HGEC have different UV-mapping, the HGEC texture will not be correctly applied to the exposed skin mesh. And will look warped. UV-mapping is the "Unwrapped Vertices Map" of the mesh. You take the mesh, cut it with a knife, lay it flat on the table and use this template to create the texture for it. Depending on how you cut it first and then iron it out on the table, the map will be different even for the same mesh, not to mention for different meshes. Cheers! Edit: yep, UpperBody includes the arms, but not the hands, like Lowerbody includes the legs, but not the feet.

Yep, now, the Archive Invalidation standard is BSA Redirection. Oblivion Reloaded is a system library of FX effects, just as its predecessor, OBGE, was. SKSE is not for Skyrim? I thought you only could use OBSE on Oblivion. Cheers!

Hey, Rangaros! Actually, OCO is meant for vanilla heads and bodies. It includes the body textures for the vanilla bodies. And since the texture for the feet is named identically to the Robert and Exnem variants for the whole body, these things happes. Because yes, the footmale.dds and footfemale.dds contained in the base OCO package are just the foot texture for vanilla bodies. Let's see how applying body textures works on Oblivion: Heads take the headhuman.dds or headargonian.dds or whatever headvermin.dds you have set in the texture asset. Torso takes the Upperbody(male/female).dds Legs take the Leg(Male/Female).dds Hands tahe the Hand(Male/Female).dds Foot take the Foot(Male/Female).dds Each vanilla body part mesh is UV-mapped to the corresponding texture. When the diverse Body Replacers were created, it was discovered that you can use just ONE texture file for all the four body parts (not the Head). But the only texture slot that was suitable for that was the feet slot (Exnem decided to use a separate texture for the hand, and it remains like this nowadays). But that uncovered a miscalculation made by the game developers: the Khajiit race uses the very same foot texture for both males and females. In order to apply the correct body texture, now set to the feet slot, it's needed to redirect the asset in the Oblivion.esm (hence the Khajiit female fix and Robert's use of the RTfootmale.dds texture file). It's a feature hard-coded in the game engine and cannot be bypassed: you need either four texture files, with each mesh UV-mapped to one specific texture file, or you use only one texture file, with all the meshes UV-mapped to it, but it needs to occupy the feet slot. Period. Nuska created textures for the vanilla and Robert female Khajiit, but the HGEC texture is a lot of a hell of work due how the UV-mapping is created (ask Movomo and Junkacc, and also Capucine, all of them still have nightmares about it). But before she could finish it, Real Life stormed on, grabbed her by the neck and flown away, and Nuska was nowhere to be seen again. I remember this issue being addressed eons ago in the comments section, and I think I recall it being addressed in the now non-available first drafts of the readmes and description, but with time we grown used to it and forgot abou (like I did here). So yes, you were right: installing HGEC-OCO-OCO texture patch will "break" the female Khajiit texture and force you to overwrite it with the one provided with your HGEC version or another one of your choice. You can combine HGEC and DMRA as you please, since both body types share the same UV mapping. If you combine an HGEC body with a full set of DMRA clothes or armor, your character will look full DMRA and vice-versa. I don't know how to explain it simpler than I have done before: the exposed body parts you see when equipping skimpy or revealing equipment IS NOT THE BODY YOU HAVE INSTALLED. It's the body INCLUDED IN THE EQUIPMENT. When you equip a cuirass, the game swaps the Upperbody nif with the Cuirass nif. Same for the rest of the body (when you equip a helmet, the game swaps the hair you have with the helmet). Each body part (Torso, Legs, Hands and Feet, and also Ears, Hair, Eyes, Mouth, Tongue and Teeth) are "slots" the game fills with predetermined meshes, and you can swap these meshes by means of equipping specific items or changing the asset paths on the CS (body parts from the neck down only can be swapped by Blockhead). WHat was I talking about? I forgot!!! About the rest of your questions, sorry, I am still lost here. As far as I understand, you're doing things right, your game would look really pintoresque if you didn't. Cheers!

Rangaros, OCO's footfemale was designed to work with the VANILLA female Khajiit. The HGEC Patch does not include any footfemale.dds file. It comes from the Core package, intended to be used by the vanilla meshes. I don't use the HGEC body replacer, I'm a RobFem user, so I overlooked this issue. In fact, I was even oblivious that OCO HGEC patch did not include the Khajiit female texture. A great deal of all this mess is probably my fault. I mean, I originally knew that, but had completely forgotten until you had this issue. That's why I instructed you to install Luchaire's texture on top of OCO's. Well, at least, your installation survived the ordeal, didn't it? I could give you a Master Class on how the different texturing choices (Vanilla, Robert and HGEC) work, if you want. This would give you ammunition enough to fine-tune even more your current setting, if you want. Just a recommendation: if you find a pretty HGEC Texture Replacer that comes bundled with its own installer, DON'T USE IT. You will most likely ruin your Seamless installation. Do it manually, back-uping firrst your current textures before adding new ones. Cheers! PS: I'm rignt now in the East Coast of Spain. I don't know how it places me in relation to you, in the future or the past. Ohhhhhhhhhh, we are time travellers between us! Cool! *me mouths the TARDIS flying sound*

Rangaros, I think the problem was caused because you installed OCO last and then did not install any HGEC Khajiit texture on top of it... and when you did with the original HGEC texture (with seams) or Luchaire's texture (without seams) the problem was fixed. Yes, fixed, the las paragraph in your post is EXACTLY HOW TO FIX this issue: installing the appropriate footfemale.dds file. If that's not the case, I can think about another possibility: your bashed patch depended on the Khajiit Fix to tell it which texture use, and ignored OCO's esp instructions, so the female Khajiit mesh reverted to using the texture hardcoded in its nif file, that is, the vanilla one. Which is not designed to be applied to HGEC body UV mapping. Putting a correct HGEC texture gave the mesh an alternative to that texture and the Archive Invalidation allow it to pick that texture, even if the bashed patch did not know what to tell the mesh to put on her. I think it would be advisable a little lesson on how the game engine applies textures to body parts... but it's 3:00 on the morning (due to the switch to Summer hour here at CET), so perhaps it's better to leave it for later. Cheers!

I have been trying to find the source of your issue with the female Khajiit texture problem, originally I mean, but every time I try, I get lost with so many BAIN, merging, unmerging, BBBs and whatnot, I'm sorry. The main problem was that you merged Robert Males and the Khajiit Female Fix with OCO in the Bashed Patch and they prevented OCO from applying the correct texture path for the Female Khajiit. Moreover, the texture the Fix included wasn't seamless. Neither was the original HGEC texture you like. Luchaire's one is. BAIN, Omods and other guided installers are a really useful and convenient ways for mod installation but they are not enough. In order to have a really good setup of your game and your mods you definitely need to know how the game engine works and what each different file type does, so you can manually swap them to match your desires and even use Blockhead Asset Overrides. A quick and basic summary of files used by the game: MESHES .nif are the 3D "physical" form all objects in the game have. It not only includes the geometry, but also the texture path and collision and havok properties, and, when needed, emissive and reflective properties of the object. Failure to load this file will cause the game engine show the Miising Mesh warning sign (a really big yellow triangle with a red exclamation mark in vanilla game, a really big yellow star with the "WTF I'M A MISSING MESH" when the UOP is used. .tri and .egm files are the two files the game engine uses to know how to morph a nif mesh to create effects such as head and face features change in the CharGen, changing the length of hairs, et cetera. When a mesh (namely the head mesh) needs it, failure to load the .tri file will cause the game to crash to desktop. failure to load the egm will make the mesh non-morphable, so the head will not change shape, the lips will not move, an helmet will not adapt to the head, those things. .egt is actually a texture file, but it's stored with the corresponding .nif file. It contains a set of special textures used to change skin tone, apply make-up, et al. Until the arrival of the Seamless series, these files were absolute poison for the neck seams. Failure to load this file (or a blank file, or the complete absence of this file) will make the game rendering only the colormap. TEXTURES .dds (no suffix in the filename) are the basic texture maps, the color or diffuse map. When people say "texture" usually mean this file, but this file is only one part of the complete texture we see in game. It only adds color to the mesh, nothing else. If the texture is as photo-realistic as possible, it can fake volume and other 3d features, but it's not its main purpose. Failure to load this map will show the mesh as purple or blue. Icons for the inventory menu also are simple .dds files, but created with different settings. _n.dds is the normalmap, the file that tells the game engine how the mesh reacts to light (refraction and reflection). It is used to give the mesh a 3d surface texture, like carved details, wrinkles, et al. Technically speaking this is not its function (that would be for bumpmaps), but it works. Failure to load this file will show the mesh as pitch-black, with no highlights at all (note: Nuska's Bosmer eyes include a completely black eyeball that more often than once is mistaken for the missing normalmap effect; that's not the case, because these completely black eyes have highlights and reflective properties). _g.dds are the glowmaps, that is, the file that tells the game engine which parts of a mesh with an emissive material will glow in the dark. The color of the glow is not controlled by the textures, but by the material color set on the nif file. _h.dds are hue maps. I'm not really sure what they do exactly, because I have tried to load a mesh without this file and I see no difference. the _m and _f suffixes are labels for Blockhead to know for which gender is the file intended. The game engine does not recognize them, so it ignores them. This is why the same _n.dds can be applied to both male and female textures, and the same egt, egm and tri files can be applied to both genders meshes. There is a special case of an object, namely a weapon, clothing piece or body part, not showing at all in-game, that is, being completely invisible. Usually this is caused by lack of both color map and normal map, but it also can be caused by an incorrect skeleton applied to the mesh, or an incorrectly named material property inside the nif file. It is essential for a modder to know these files, how they work and react together, and where to place them. Usually you only need how nifs and dds files work, even if we don't know how to create them. This is Lection One. Let's see if you have any questions (I would be really surprised if you didn't). Cheers!

Yep, except the specific single-race mods like Luchaire's Khajiit or Drake's Argonians (among others), it's difficult to find whole Overhauls which include Beast (and even Orcs) races. Let's see, as far as I have understood, the only thing that itches you right now is the female Khajiit texture problem. And as I told you, the only way to fix it is searching for a third-party high quality texture like Luchaire's one. You could have a look at the diverse retextures Alienslof made for them, just put Khajiit in the Search box at the Mods site and have a look. If you uninstall OCO you will be presented with the same problem. You will need the third-party female Khajiit texture. So, what are we about to do now? By the way, I will tell you a Great Modders Secret: *me whispers and looks side-to-side distrustfully* Always open a mod package and have a look at what it contains before installing. This way you will save yourself surprises like this. And get used to manually install specific portions of a mod to use with a different mod. Cheers!

Anytime, matey! Cheers!

What is that "TR (texture replacer)" program you mention? Did you set the Texture Paths on the Nif file for the meshes? And the relative path (filepath starting with "Textures"), not the absolute (starting with "C:\ProgramFiles") one. Cheers!

Konnor, it's not a matter of "trying", it's the way this mod must be installed: you take that esp and place it inside your Data folder, where all the esp files need to be, and then you activate it using your Mod Manager or the Data Files tab of Oblivion Launcher. Besides not having the extra dialogue, does the Main Quest start for you? And the Unofficial Oblivion Patch not working for you... Are you under Steam or Retail Disc? if Retail Disc, which version number of your game appears in the lower left corner of the Main Menu? I think it's not that this mod or the UOP are not working right, I suspect you haven't the game itself installed and patched properly. Note: do not use Nexus Mod Manager for Oblivion. This game is too old and does not work with tools not designed specifically for it. Cheers!

Ehmmmmmmm, Rangaros... Uninstalling OCO will completely ruin your current installation. Most of its meshes and textures have been overwritten with Seamless and BBB ones. The Seamless series does not include textures for the Beast Races. We know that. This is why you need either EVE HGEC variants or the original HGEC texture you like so much, but this one is seam-ridden and it's not possible to have it without the seams. The Seamless Series gets rid of the seams by means of replacing the original meshes and textures with new ones, seam-mended and seamless. But it does not includes textures for the Khajiit HGEC female. Sorry, but it's a One-or-The-Other situation: you either use the original HGEC female Khajiit texture you like, but has noticeable seams, or do as I instructed you and replace the textures you have in your Khajiit\Female folder with Luchaire's ones (or any other texture with less noticeable seams). And as I said at the beginning, uninstalling OCO will throw through the window all the work you have done so far. Cheers! EDIT: since the Seamless Equipment does not include Seamless textures for the Khajiit females, it needs third-party seamless textures, like Luchaire's, in order to work with Khajiit females.

It's a simple esp file. You take it and place it inside your Data folder, that's all. Yes, do it manually. However, if you were using the Unofficial Oblivion Patch (which I strongly reccomend) you wouldn't need any Custom Race Fix because the UOP fixes it. Cheers!

Rangaros, let's see if we can fix your female Khajiit texture problem. You have overcomplicated the thing, I fear. I remember having explained in a previous post how the texturing works for vanilla, Robert and HGEC bodies: Separate textures for separate body pieces (torso, legs, hands and feet) are for the vanilla body. One single texture is for Robert Bodies: footmale.dds Two textures are for HGEC body: footfemale.dds and handfemale.dds What you need to do in order to fix your female kiities is: as instructed by Striker, if you have not done that yet, un-merge the HGEC Khajiit fix from your bashed patch. Then, delete this esp file from your Data folder. Now, go to your Oblivion\Data\Textures\Characters\Khajiit\Female folder and delete EVERYTHING you see there. All dds file you see inside the Female Khajiit textures folder, BURN IT AT THE STAKE. Now, locate and download any female Khajiit texture you think you like, let's say, this one: take the Khajiit, not the Tabaxi, but if judging from the screenshots you like more the Tabaxi, that's your choice, matey. Optionally, you can also grab the modified head texture for female Khajiit-HGEC by Wynxombil and see if it goes well with the aforementioned suggested texture. Once you have all the textures downloaded, do not "install" them. Take the body textures package and unpack it to your Desktop. Open the folder where you unpacked the package. You will see it contains two folders, Meshes and Textures. You will see also that it contains two ReadMe files. Contrary to what I always say, this time DO NOT READ THEM. IGNORE THEM and do just what I instruct here to do. We will NOT install this whole package. Instead reading the Readmes, navigate to the included Textures\Characters\Khajiit\Female folder, select all the SIX files it contains, and RIGHT CLICK-COPY them. Open a new Windows Explorer window and there in, navigate to your game Oblivion\Data\Textures\Characters\Khajiit\Female folder (now empty), RIGHT-CLICK ON IT-PASTE. Now the six files are in your Textures\Khajiit\Female folder. That's all. Really. Now, if you want to use the included head texture, go to the unpackaged package Textures\Characters\Khajiit folder, locate the headkhajiit.dds file, RIGHT-CLICK-COPY It, and then RIGHT-CLICK-PASTE it in the very same place, so now you have a file called more or less "Copy of headkhajiit.dds". RENAME IT to headkhajiit_f.dds Place both Windows Explorer windows side-by-side so you can see the unpackaged package window and your Oblivion\Data\Textures\Khajiit window. Notice that in your game's Khajiit folder there is already a headkhajiit.dds file, but not a headkhajiit_f.dds file (if there is indeed a headkhajiit_f.dds file, rename it to xheadkhajiit_f.dds). Take the headkhajiit_f.dds file from the unpackaged package and DRAG AND DROP it to the game's Khajiit folder. If you don't like the head texture we have placed there and prefer the one I linked before, repeat that same procedure with it. For this mess to work it is imprescindible you un-merge the Khajiit Female Fix from your bashed patch, get rid of its esp file, and make sure all the body and head assets in your bashed patch come from OCO v2 and nowhere else. Other thing: the Setbody Reloaded Blockhead Edition will not replace your installed body. It will equip a fake body, like if it were clothing, on top of it even when your females are naked. Don't be afraid to ask anything about all this "My God what intends this psycho me to do????" thing. Cheers!

By the way, Striker, which thread was that where you explained our condition of ex-conjoined twins in a former life? I'm starting to lose track of all the threads the both of us have ruined so far. I want to mention that, even now in our current, non-twins lives, psychiatrists have still a really hard time trying to determine which one of us is the Good Twin and which one is the Evil Twin. Sooner or later, one (or both) of us does something funny that flat out demolishes all their thoroughly constructed and documented theories. But that's not what I came here to say. What was that... Oh, yes. Lupis, be sure to check out all the tutorials at the TESAlliance (follow the link I provided), I have been perusing them and there are lots of juicy information. Cheers!

I knew I had somewhere the link to that collision thing. http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/tutorials/article/37-blender2oblivion-part-2/ Ow! "New reply"! Striker teached you how to ninja me, didn't he? Cheers!

I was about to ask you if, since you said you knew how to put collision using Blender, you could edit the faulty tiles to have proper collision and then make the nif file working. This way you wouldn't be forced to re-do everything, the CS, and the game, would take the new mesh in place of the old. I think I recall having read something about not using Blender collision, but NifSkope one instead, but I'm not sure what this means. Damn it, Jim, I am a physician, not an architect! Cheers!

Anytime, matey! Helping you allowed me to learn a thing or two for myself, too. So all of us took benefit of it. I will greatly appreciate your credit to us in your mod. For my part it would be unnecessary (sending me a box of Château Laffitte vintage of 1780 bottles would have sufficed), but I will be happy to see my name on the credits of anything non-related to carrotheads, psychopaths or undersea-dwelling murder-prone creatures. And helping you was lots of fun! You can count on me to test your mod, of course. Cheers!