amycus

Depends on what you mods, but from what I understand it's supposed to be fairly similar. And even if it does change, if it is custom content like armor that you wish to be able to do in the future, you will still need to know how to use softwares like blender (or 3ds max and similar) and gimp (or photoshop) EDIT: check out the tutorials on 3dtotal.com for how to learn the basics of said programs. That is, if it reallt is custom content you which to make later, and not solely quest/adventure mods that only make use of the vanilla items.

So, if I understand it correctly there is no problem to use a pic as reference to an armor as long as the mesh and everything else is made from scratch (and you can show that it wasn't just ripped). Is that the case even if the pic is of an armor from DLC? Reason I ask is that I liked the concept of the "fugitive armor" DLC for DA2, but would like it for DA:O. I know how to do it from scratch myself, but could I later release such a mod to the public without getting yelled at? EDIT: Usually I don't mind at all if the developers wishes to earn extra money by putting up new armor as DLC. Its just that I want to use it in DA:O, not DA2.

Your link doesn't seem to work, but for those here interested: copy and paste http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39357 As for how it works, I cannot say since I don't have oblivion installed on my current computer.

I'm unsure if you want instructions on making all the parts, or just the uneven sofa with the buttons. I will only give instructions for the latter for now, and if you wished to know the whole process for all the parts, please write that and I will try to give more detailed instructions later (need to go to bed soon), Frankly, I would have ignored modelling the buttons and the small "bumps" on the sofa for the time being. Just make a mesh of the sofa without that extra detail. THEN you can add these details through a normal and displacement map. If you are planning to get this into a game later, make sure to find out if the game engine supports displacement maps (normal maps shouldn't be a problem). Now you probably ask yourself: what the heck is a normal and displacement map? A normal map gives information of how light should be reflected and can as such give the ILLUSION of shape. It's thus great to add extra details like wrinkles. It doesn't change the silhouette of the mesh itself though. Here is a recent example I helped another person with earlier. The mesh wasn't made by me, but I added a UW map and made a normal map to give the mesh details like the scales and the eye on the sword hilt. http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm200/amycus89/sample2-1.jpg Displacement maps pretty much does the same thing but goes one step further: It DOES change the silhouette of the mesh. Best results are usually received when combining this with the normal map though. You could of course make all the shapes part of the mesh itself, but that would require quite a large number of extra polygons. It's takes a lot less memory if you add the smaller details with maps instead. So: 1) Make a very simple mesh of the sofa. Ignore all the details that doesn't affect the silhouette of the object is my rule of thumb. 2) Make a UW map (there are a lot of tutorials about this though, so for now I won't add any extra details about that) 3) Make the normal map. This can be done in several ways, but a good one is the nDO plugin for photoshop. 4) Just apply the textures on the mesh and you can render it in its full glory. (Once again, it's getting pretty late over here. I will fill in more info tomorrow, right now the instructions are very abridged)

Instead of PLAYING a stupid barbarian, I plan on beating my head against the wall repeatedly during my first playthrough. Luckily for me, my head is already in the right mindset of a stupid barbarian without me having to beat my head against the wall :thumbsup:

You do realize that oblivion was too? I'm actually pretty sure that morrowind was too.

The bodies are shared, so if you edit the mesh for morrigans body, it will aslo alter all human females in the same way. If one really wished to do this, I would have edited the female body and then exported it as an armor, which she could wear. Granted, you would have to make sure that the textures doesn't differ. I don't think anything like this exists yet though.

I dunno why the pic doesn't work now, but that's the hood I was looking for. Thx! ;D

Here is a mod thet will let you update your looks: http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1734 As for the screenshot you posted, I'm not sure exactly which hairstyle it is, but if you look in the toplist of "hair and face" mods you should find something you like. Oh, and welcome to thenexus :thumbsup:

I assume this is what you are looking for? http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Age_Wiki

I'm actually using 3ds max too. If you want me to look at it you can export it as an .OBJ an send it to me with a pm (others have sent me their .max scenes before, but there is usually always some trouble when opening them). I really need to go to bed now though, so I won't be able to take a look until tomorrow.

In That case: Let me first just stand in awe of your skill in making those scales into the actual mesh itself. I don't think I could have recreated that (into the real mesh itself) even if I tried. Sadly (or lucky for me at least :dance: ), those details can be recreated with maps that requires much less memory in comparison. And if you think you will miss the sweet details, Don't. You can recreate them through either normal or displacement maps (or both). If we take the previous picture I discussed: If Oblivion does support displacement map then I could easily recreate that result to 100% when rendered. If it doesn't, I would rely on normal maps, and be able to recreate it to 99%. The 1 % missing would be the scaly edges. It can't alter the Silhouette in other words. As for the rest of the detail of the sword.:Just keep it simple for now, and then you can add cracks and other details to the sword with a normal map so it looks less like plastic. EDIT: AND NO :facepalm: , I didn't say that you should just work from a plane mesh. Let me explain it like this: Do the mesh so that it shows the Silhouette of the weapon no matter how you turn it. The rest can be added with normal maps. So as far as I can see the sword looks like it should now, except for that scaly piece I already told you about. Make another that looks exactly the same but without the scaly pattern. You only need to redo that specific piece. And again if you show me the actual wireframe I can give better comments about the rest too.

I'm not a modder for oblivion specifically (found this thread in the field of the most recent created ones), but that sounds like a very, very high poly count, especially for a sword. And you should always aim to have a low polycount number. Since oblivion isn't my main field as already stated I searched around and found this from Vagrant0 (http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/134031-polycount-question/): "My general rule of thumb with poly counts is based on what it is you are doing, and how many instances of that object there will ever be. Although the game makes use of instancing when multiple of the same mesh are being displayed, there are some cases where this doesn't always get factored, such as the same weapon being both on the ground and being wielded. There is however a limit to how much resource saving can be done with repetitive elements, especially with statics. For weapons, it's best to try and stick below 1500 tris if the weapon will used by more than just the player, 2500 if there will only ever be one instance of the weapon." Some general tips: 1) it will be easier to give you advise if you show us your reference pic, and a screenshot of your current wireframe. 2) You can reduce the poly count by adding all the smaller details with a normal map (and a displacement map for even more detail, but considering oblivions age I doubt the engine support it). I usually only let the mesh show all the detail that should be seen in perspective, that is, details like smaller bumps, inscriptions and other patterns in the armor is added with a normal map. Here is an example of the effects of normal map and displacement map: http://www.cnjmultimedia.com/genetica/tutorials/Tut_02-Normal_Bump_Maps_1/All%20maps.jpg And note, the mesh itself is a simple plane Edit: I see you have updated with screenshots. A wireframe would be good too, but I have a feeling that this piece in particualer is the main culprit: http://s4.postimage.org/7ln4r8g2r/Mana_Shifter_close_up_2.png about 99.9% of those "scales" could be created with a simple normal map. I would in fact have assumed that it was a normal map if it wasn't because there isn't much detail in the other pieces and you said it wasn't done, so I assume it doesn't have a UW map yet.

well there is one talent for blood mages in the vanilla game that does something similar to what you are describing. Think it was named "blood control" or something like that. Is that not what you are seeking?

I'm not really against the size restrictions in any way, but when I was checking my profile I noticed this below the signature editor/creator (copy-pasted): "Signature Restrictions Your signature may contain: Any number images Images of any size Any number of URLs Any number of lines" Might be an idea to update these lines to avoid any confusement? EDIT by LHammonds: Those are IP.Board software restrictions...meaning that if we configure ANY of those restrictions, they will be automatically enforced. For example, if I change it to "one image only" that means you cannot have two images even if they are very small. Get it? So we have to basically ignore the software restrictions and allow YOU to choose however you want to setup your sig...except we have limitations on use...which cannot be enforced using the software rules. Basically, you are free to configure however you want (we won't make the software pick for you) but in the end, you need to conform to our posted restrictions. It would be nice if I could "hide" the restriction notices if we are not using them but sadly, I cannot. PS - confusement --> confusion ;) Example in the google search box type (without the quote marks) "Define NSFW" Try it, you'll like it :thumbsup: Let's hope he isn't at work while reading that tip :facepalm:

Glad to hear it's working for you now. Happy modding :thumbsup: And no, these things aren't always easy to get at first. We have all been beginners (aka noobs :teehee: ) once and I would probably have been in your situation if I had downloaded mods for the first time with opera. - And now we others know that opera isn't too friendly with dazip files.

What Darkewolf said - I will just add that if you are running win 7 (might be like this for vista too), then the file extensions for files will not be visible by deafult ( don't you just love the changes they made from xp guys? :wallbash: ). Here is a tutorial to change the settings so you can view and edit them: http://malektips.com/windows-7-view-file-extensions.html Oh, and the simplest way to avoid these problems alltogether is probably to not get them saved as a .7z at all. What browser are you using? Personally I'm using chrome, and it automatically starts downloading after choosing which server to use when downloading a mod from thenexus.

I did have some suspicions before, but if all these files that ARE SUPPOSSED to be DAzip files but come out as just a zip file, and the content is as described then it sounds like it just changes the file extension on its own. Download one of the files you have trouble with, and change the file extension (.zip) to .DAzip. The reverse process, changing .dazip to .rar is actually commonly used when for example a modder want to look at the content of anothers custom content. And yes, that might sound like a surprisingly easy action, and should work if the content of the file is as you described. I didn't say it before though since it's just plain weird if the file extension is changin itself on its own when you download it (I still find it hard to believe, but that's the situation you have described).

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately, my problem has come no closer to being solved :( I'll give you another example - for the Extra Dog Slot mod, when I extract the files using winRAR, I am given two items - one folder titled "Contents" and a text document titled "Manifest." Where do I go from this point? Do I simply just throw that into the Override folder, or is there something huge I'm missing? This particular mod doesn't say anything about DAzips, but the majority of mods that need extracted are coming out this same way. err, once agian, when I downloaded that mod to check what exactly the installation process should be, I get a dazip file. As I'm sure you know, if it's a dazip file you should just drag the file (.dazip) to DAMM. IOthwerwise, yes there are some files with no Dazip, and in those cases they should give you instructions on the installation process if you read the readme. It's weird if there is neither installation instructions or a dazip file, but in those cases you should probably just need to extract and place in your override folder. If you have another example, please post again. Just please double check that there really isn't any dazip file to save us both some time :)

Any source on the number? 50 sounds like a lot...

hm, I looked at the side for the "quest and legends" mod and they did indeed warn about the installation process being different from usual, but from what I read they have now uploaded a DAzip version: "NOTICE! Thanks to Dark0ne and the crew here at the Nexus, Quests and Legends v1.5 is available for the first time as a single complete DAZIP download! No more complicated installs!" Might save you some time. Post here again if you meet any other problems with other files (it helps though if you list the other specific mods you are having trouble with)

Welcome, hope you will enjoy... wait, you mean that there isn't supposed to be smoke and parts falling out of the computer? :blink: D*rn! :facepalm:

What does your specular map look like? EDIT: Sorry, seems like the specular works a bit different in oblivion. I did a search though and found this thread: http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/214112-problem-with-normal-maps-please-help/page__p__1876903__hl__%2Bspecular+%2Bmap__fromsearch__1#entry1876903 Check out heavywaters response in particular

Which is why you should always read the instructions for installation in the readme: AND: Basically, there is no need, and you shouldn't put these mods in DAModder. I assume you didn't try to run the game and check if the mods were really installed and working before posting here? Also, for (almost) all mods you should only need to use one of the 2 stepts you wrote. Either drag the downloaded mod to DAModder, OR unrar the zip/rar file to the override folder.

I would suggest looking at http://www.gamersnexus.net/bgr-home yourself and then check up on their forums. Not trying to be rude or anything, I just quite simply think that it is better that you read their posts yourself than that I write my speculations :thumbsup: EDIT: their latest update seem to be from only 4 days ago, a post about their newly created troll