LadyAubrie

I feel like I'm almost there...and I'm learning a ton in the process...:) I played around some with the suggestions you gave me. I tried replacing the actual leg mesh, and it turns out you were right! There was the texture I wanted...but most of it was dancing around my legs like a lightning storm made of weird brush strokes. Hmm. So I replaced my (apparently modified by Deadly Reflex or DMC) HGEC legs with the original HGEC small legs...and it looked fine except that parts of my legs were sticking out like I was wearing torn pantyhose. I tried going to transform - edit to move the leg mesh around some inside the tights but other parts stuck out when parts of the legs got covered. I'd ask the original author of the mod what legs they used...but they only speak Japanese, apparently...no English. It looks like I'm on my own with this one. So...I guess where we are is that the tights mesh looks like it was made for non-HGEC legs. I tried putting the original mesh's legs back in but for some reason, they just....aren't....there. Like you said, they're tights with no legs. So what should I do? :) Am I gonna be forced to go into Blender and try to make a set of my own? Or is there some sort of miracle we can perform to make this work without me having to watch more unhelpful Blender tutorials on Youtube? ;-) EDIT: I know my problem now. I think I can consider it fixed...I just have to make my leg mesh work with the tights, which is work I have to do myself. Mystery solved. Drake, thank you for helping me understand exactly what was going on.....it had me totally stumped. I gave you kudos. :) Thank you so much!!

LOL....smartphones aren't so smart...I have an iPhone...it's even worse! :-P Actually, you don't! Check out Alternative Start Arrive By Ship by Robert_evrae: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11495 Just run it, look at the book on the table, roll whatever character, go to sleep on the bed, and start in the IC Waterfront. Much faster! As for your house itself - and OBMM - hopefully the vegetation mod fixes the outside of your house. If not...I know it's intimidating and *can* be a little complicated, but I'd urge you to install and run OBMM (my partner's computer is Windows 7, so I have to right click and "run as administrator"). But once you're on the screen, it's painless. Your mods come right up on the left panel, and you can click on one and then click "move up" or "move down"...this helps you a lot because some mods won't even work at all if they aren't loaded in a certain order, and I don't think there's an easy way to do it with vanilla Oblivion. If this *is* the case, then last time maybe you just happened to install your mods in a certain order they worked in...this time, it may not have turned out that way. If you continue to run into problems, this would be the next step I'd take, personally. I don't understand a lot of the coding stuff either...it makes my head spin...but take my word when I say this is easy. :) And if you need help with it, I'm totally here - you can message me on here or at heathengirl.mandy @ gmail.com, and we'll do what we can to get you your house back. :) By the way...what is the "concealed house" thing...does that feature make it invisible? O.o

(double post - internet messed up)

Hey Suzy... I'm kind of new at modding so I'm not entirely sure I'll be a ton of help, but I sense your desperation (I'd be desperate too...I love my house!) and I felt like I should try to help...:) Did/do you use OBMM to run the mod, or did you just extract it straight into your data folder? Did you install it differently on your laptop, when you first installed it? I'd say, and this is only a half-educated guess - try the vegetation mod. Visit the mod's page and make sure you have all the dependencies (which I'm sure you have, five hundred times...I guess I'm just curious). Also, if you do use OBMM, try messing with the load order. Try moving Druid Tree Home up and down, maybe try loading it first, then loading it last. Sometimes Oblivion is funny about the order in which things load, and it really can make all the difference... I'm just shooting in the dark, but I hope you get your house back! :(

(Sorry about taking so long to respond...urgh...last night...I won't even go into it) Thank you so much for sticking around and giving me thoughtful responses. I thought I was doomed to having to tackle this problem on my own, and I'm so, so grateful. :) I wouldn't have known where to begin! I was itching to get home and try your suggestion last night, and sure enough, it did *something*...:) I removed the NiStencil property and when I got into the game, I noticed my character's legs were just semi-transparent now...and the only weird clipping that happens is when you can see one leg through the other. I feel like progress is being made...:) If it would be of any help at all, I'll give you a screenshot of the whole tree... (Oh, and in case you're wondering...the NiAlpha flag is set at 237, if that matters at all...) http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3004/5695306297_8482959f46_b.jpg

Drake, thank you...this is where I'm getting confused... This is exactly my problem, I think. When I add a NiAlpha property to the .nif (even after playing around with the flag values), I still get the floating-shards-of-glass kind of thing happening where my legs are basically invisible except for a few pieces of floating texture. I went in last night and made sure that there *was* a body underneath the clothes (and that it didn't have a NiAlpha property too, and that it was normal) but the same thing still happens. I've messed with the texturing on the .dds for hours and hours (I understand Photoshop a lot better than NifSkope or Blender!) but of course...I'm not sure any of it mattered, really...something else has to be done and I have no idea what. Could the floating glass thing be a result of me saving the .dds in the wrong way? :) Here's what I have, and of course this gives me invisible woman legs in game - http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5226/5693397606_edd5c8cfc5_b.jpg

I don't know if it's just my imagination, but they look a little more sheer. Thank you! I still can't seem to get the sheerness I get with some corset/stockings mods I've found, but I'll definitely take it. Thank you all so much for all your help...I've learned a lot from your instruction. :)

I think these are the original versions of the mod I mentioned. Very nice! I'll have to get this one myself. :)

(double post - I didn't know how to delete it...please forgive me)

Drake: Hmm...okay...I'll go mess around with that some... Dazzerfong: I think that's it!! I tried saving under DXT5, but it just wouldn't save. Then I tried it under 8.8.8.8....and now my photoshop crashes every time I try to load the image! :*-( Is there another way I can try saving it so it'll keep the alpha channel? Edit: Okay, so I saved it as 8.8.8.8 unsigned and got the alpha to stay. So far so good. Drake, there was no NiAlpha property on the mesh. Could that have something to do with it? I've copied NiAlpha values over from other meshes, but my legs always end up looking choppy and semi-see thru (which is getting there, but not *exactly* where I want to be...xD) How do I get rid of the choppiness? O.o;; (edited - double post)

Aww...go get some rest! :) No, no....this makes perfect sense. In between conversation I took the liberty of looking at one of your textures too, so everything you're saying makes perfect sense. If I can't get my edited texture to show up differently in game (or in NifSkope) could there be something else I'm forgetting to do? Thank you so much for the detailed walkthrough (and yes, it was plenty detailed...thank you!)...you've helped me to understand something I never would have thought of...now I just have to play detective and find out what's going wrong on my end. :) Edit: I've tried taking lacy textures from other mods and pasting them across the alpha channel, blatantly inviting some garish texture to show up across my tights. Nothing at all. Grr...what am I doing wrong? *bangs head on desk*

DesuChan: Whew. That's a relief. Blender gives me nightmares...Photoshop is something I'm far more comfortable with. Please forgive my ignorance, but I read your post earlier and I've been looking around online for a description of what you suggested I do. I've added an alpha channel (all black to start with) but it causes my image to turn red! If I save it, with or without the RGB channels visible, it doesn't do anything to the texture I'm trying to edit. Would you be willing - briefly - to describe what it is you do? Regardless, thank you for your response...you've made me a lot more optimistic. :) For what it's worth, the sheerness of the pants in your Macabre Dancer outfit (Abbotsford mod) is almost exactly what I'm going for...:) MarkInMKUK: Actually I have a copy of Photoshop I can work with....but that's something I'll definitely keep in mind! :)

So...I'm a beginner (like most people making their first post on this forum) and I'm trying my hardest to learn this mod stuff... My question is about sheerness. I downloaded Tona's Mod Store and I'm using the tights from that. They're opaque - and that's great - but I'd like to be able to adjust the sheerness; I've seen more sheer ones on some stockings/lingerie for download. I've gone into NifSkope and played with the "cloth" values under NiMaterialProperty. I'm able to make them look a little more like I want that way, but of course loading that .nif in game still gives me the same tights as before. (Yes, I remembered to save it. xD) Is this something I'll have to do in Blender? Thanks so much for your advice...

You're right...cute dresses *are* incredibly hard to find. They're all either really gothy, frilly in a lolita kind of way, or raunchy. The only dresses I've managed to find are in Gabriel's Summer Clothes mod: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34481 But even these aren't perfect...the necklines aren't perfectly round and there's some texture stretching across the legs. Still, they're the closest I've found to a cute, tasteful dress...and excellent motivation for me to keep learning to mod so I can make a whole bunch of pretty ones. :) Good luck! :)