Merging mods

[Nunda]

So I have 4 stock clothing and armor mods because I like the robes from one the clothes from another and some of the armor from the other two. naturally they all conflict with each other so I've been turning them on and saying yes or no to what outfits I want overwritten when I want them to be by what mod in OMM. but this gets tiering each time I do it and it gets annoying when I make a mistake.

 

How would I go about making a new mod out of these 4 that has the costumes that I want? or where is a good tutorial that explains this?

[razorpony]

Make a couple of empty folders on your drive, say temp1 and temp2. Unzip your first mod in temp1. Pick the clothes you like out of it and copy them to temp2, keeping the directory structure intact. (example: temp2\meshes\clothes\upperclass\etc\etc) When you have all the clothes you want out of the first mod, delete everything out of the temp1 folder and unzip your 2nd mod there. Repeat the process. Once you have all the clothes out of all the mods, You can zip up the contents of temp2 or make an omod out of it. Copy the meshes directory to your Oblivion\Data directory and you're done. Should be all there is to it.

 

 

-Razorpony

 

PS If the mods are alredy in OMOD format then right click them in OBMM and select extract to folder.

[David Brasher]

I am sure razorpony knows exactly what he is talking about but I really couldn't follow it.

 

I am a CS man myself. I would create a new mod. I would then open up one or more of the clothing mods in the CS. (If you open all four at once, it might or might not crash.) In the new mod which is the active file, I would copy or create new clothing items with unique form IDs. So if mod A has UpperShirt03 being a cool robe and mod B has uppershirt03 being a piece of clothing that resembles light armor, then I would make two pieces of clothing with two form IDs and set it up so the computer refers to the proper meshes for the two distinct pieces of clothing. I would also make it so that the vanilla Oblivion Uppershirt03 isn't messed up. If you are using replacer mods with no .esp, then you would have to change the directory structure in Windows Explorer so the new clothing is not conflicting with and overwriting vanilla Oblivion. You would change the setting on the individual custom clothing items in the CS to refer to the mesh at the new location in your directory structure.

 

You would then save and go on to do this with all the items from all the mods that contain them one or two at a time until your single mod has everything and you don't need those other mods anymore.

 

And if you are not a modder, my instructions probably don't make a lot of sense. If that is the case, sorry about that.

[razorpony]

Hopefully my post wasn't too confusing. I just made the assumption that since these were stock replacers and you were currently overwriting them every time you install a different mod that there was no .esp involved. The main difference between my method and Davids is that I say copy the files you want to the vanilla locations and he suggested keeping them in a seperate directory and using the Construction Set to tell Oblivion where to find them. I supose I prefer the lazy way with no time spent editing FormIDs. :tongue: It just seemed to me that if you're using replacer mods that you WANT the vanilla stuff over-written.

 

Whatever you decide just remember if you make all those new clothing items in the CS they need to go somewhere, like a merchants chest or something, Good luck.

 

-Razorpony

[alex2avs]

you can use TES4Gecko to merge multiple mods. after the merge open the new mod in CS , locate the items you want , and drop them somewhere ;).

 

the merging interface is user-friendly so you shouldn't meet too many problems :wink:

 

later edit : oups , my bad . I didn't read carefully enough.

 

now.

Install one of the sets by placing everything (meshes, textures) into your data folder.

from the next sets take just the meshes and textures of the armor/clothing sets you want and place them in the data folder.

no need for OBMM , it will just get messy.

 

and a little question : do you have any esms,esps ?

[TodaY]

Lol. gonna try to explain this in a way that won't confuse anyone.

Create a new folder on your desktop. Then unzip mod 1, and open mod1 folder, and the new folder.

Let's say you want the armor from mod1. Open the meshes folder, and you should see a folder named armor. create a folder named meshes in your new folder, and open it. Then copy the armor folder to your new meshes folder. If you're lucky, mod1 doesn't have any textures. If it does, Create a folder named textures in your new folder and follow the same procedure as with the meshes. You can do this for all your mods, and go into subfolders, as long as you keep the file path intact (the maps names have to stay the same)

Everything should be named understanable, so this should go ok. Hope this helped!

[Tomlong54210]

So I have 4 stock clothing and armor mods because I like the robes from one the clothes from another and some of the armor from the other two. naturally they all conflict with each other so I've been turning them on and saying yes or no to what outfits I want overwritten when I want them to be by what mod in OMM. but this gets tiering each time I do it and it gets annoying when I make a mistake.

 

How would I go about making a new mod out of these 4 that has the costumes that I want? or where is a good tutorial that explains this?

First of all, I have to say that "OMM" irks me to no end. The utility's acronym is "OBMM". It's only one more letter guys, come on...

 

Secondly, doing what you are doing would be so much easier with BAIN, seriously... Everything I have seen in this thread so far sounds tedious or is not a complete solution. With BAIN, you could be as thorough about this as you'd like (i.e., give every set of armor and clothing its own folder.)

 

 

A simple example with BAIN:

 

Before I proceed with the example (as you do not even need this spectacular functionality of BAIN with the method I am about to describe), BAIN allows for prioritized installation, so it would be very easy to see which version of a file is installed, and you would not be dealing with answering "yes" and "no" to override prompts.

 

For simplicity's sake: Let's say you have a replacer "test1.7z" that contains four outfits, #1-#4, and "test2.7z" that contains four outfits, #1-#4. Now, you want to be able to easily install or uninstall a specific outfit (version). So, you repack test1 and test2.

 

Current packaging (test1.7z and test2.7z):

 

\meshes\\clothes\\A <-- where "A" is the folder that contains outfit A

\meshes\\clothes\\B

\meshes\\clothes\\C

\meshes\\clothes\\D

\textures\\clothes\\A <-- where "A" is the folder that contains outfit A

\textures\\clothes\\B

\textures\\clothes\\C

\textures\\clothes\\D

 

Then you repackage it for BAIN, so that each outfit is in its own subpackage...

 

Current packaging (test1.7z and test2.7z):

 

\outfit A\\meshes\\clothes\\A

\outfit A\\textures\\clothes\\A

.

.

.

\outfit D\\textures\\clothes\\D

 

Now you can install individual outfits with BAIN, and you can swap easily too. Let's say you start out wanting to use test1's outfits. All you do is highlight test1.7z in the Installers tab, put check marks next to each outfit's subpackage, right-click on the package (test1.7z) and choose 'Install'. Done.

 

Now let's say you want to compare test2's A outfit. Let's also say that you have test2.7z sorted after test1.7z in the Installers tab. In order to install test2's A outfit, you just select the package, put a check mark next to the "Outfit A" subpackage, right-click on the package (test2.7z) and choose 'Install'. Done.

 

Finally, let's say you want to uninstall test1's B outfit. All you have to do is select test1.7z in the Installers tab, uncheck the "Outfit B" subpackage, right-click on the package (test1.7z) and choose 'Anneal.' Done.

 

 

OBMM people: Yes, this can be done with OBMM in a more automated fashion. You can write a script that allows you to choose each outfit (which would be a pain for a large replacer, not that separating every outfit could not be just as painful.) Why is BAIN better for this? Let's start from the top (sticking with just the programs' functionality, no quick deleting something in the Data folder to correct anything.)

 

Repackaging step: You do not have to do this with OBMM. A script can take care of installing selected files.

Scripting step: Unnecessary with BAIN. You would have to write a very long script to mimic the repackaging, at least three lines per outfit, excluding the general Select and If dialog for various parts of the installation process.

Install specific outfit 1: BAIN users simply need to check the subpackage containing the outfit(s) that they want installed. If the package is not installed, they use the 'Install' function. If it is already installed, they use the 'Install Missing' or 'Anneal' function, to install the additional files. OBMM users simply have to select the outfits they want when prompted. If, however, the OMOD is already installed, OBMM users have to reinstall the OMOD, which is bothersome if the file is large, and reselect every outfit again.

Install specific outfit 2: The same applies here.

Uninstall specific outfit: BAIN users simply have to uncheck the subpackage for the outfit(s) and use the 'Anneal' function. OBMM users, again, have to reinstall the OMOD, and reselect every outfit.