NocturneNight Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 Hello everyone! I'm about to start playing Oblivion soon (for the first time) and I feel I need some advice. Although my aim is to not overdo the modding bit and instantly add hundreds of mods that'll mess up my game (Like I did in Morrowind - yay!), from what I have seen, the vanilla style faces and bodies of NPCs are pretty terrible. So for starters, I was considering adding some type of beauty mods and body mods (HGEC and Robert's Male). Yet I am abit confused as to what those mods would be. As mentioned, I have already downloaded the body mods so that's no problem, but on TESnexus I have found several images of beautiful characters that I don't really know what was used to make them. I'd prefer some type of graphical converter rather than a "race mod" since I intend to roleplay my character and want the game to stay true to TES (Meaning pref no made-up races like the Cute Elves etc). But maybe it is possible to set your race to the appropriate one(s) by using the console? Anyways, in Morrowind there was a wonderful addon called "Visages of Vvardenfell" that converted ALL the NPC faces into updated, prettier ones - is there something similar like that for the NPCs of Oblivion? Also, how stable are the Oblivion save files? Do I need to add all of the mods BEFORE I start a new game, or, is it safe to add and remove mods from savegames as you please? I was thinking about making a new char, running through the sewers, saving her there and then messing around with the mods. Finally, I am uploading some pics of some images that I've found to help you get a better idea of what I'm looking for. I suppose a mild nudity warning is in place here, and, if these images are found to be inappropriate please inform me so I may censor them. Thanks in advance / NN. :) http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/857/1353011194934337.jpg/http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/193/2131451229854587.jpg/http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/402/2131451236124595.jpg/http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/151/11072501267719787.jpg/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LFact Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 (edited) - Such images all use custom races(some may use Ren's head mesh, and others may use Head06). - For NPCs, there're better-looking-face mods such as Tamriel NPC Revamped or Beautiful women & Hansome Gents(and revised). Of course, you need better facial textures for stock races.- However, for making your face look decent, it's all up to you. Many people use custom races because that's easier than tweaking stock race face(although it's possible to make an anime face with stock human head mesh, it's just hard if not impossible)- Some custom races are quite(or a bit) TES lore-friendly. They can be either recreation of races from past games or races that is present in the lore, but not appeared. Some of them are completely new race, yet they can have place in the lore according to the author's explanation(some kind of weasel-lore, well). Edited May 16, 2011 by LFact Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
efikmalydoskonaly Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 Oblivion tends to be crashy. I had some giantic problems with save game corruption and random crashes or crashes on saves before.Now my game is 100% stable. You can add all mods at once, but it's better to add them one by one and see if everything's ok. Just don't overdo it. Don't use many drastic overhauls, as it can end really badly. Don't think that "a little random crash now and then is fine", cause it may lead to totally destroying your save games (and it can be frustrating with a 100+ hours character). As for aesthetic mods - as you know, there's plenty of them. I would recommend you Quarls Texture Replacer for general game improvement. As for the body, right now the HGEC is most popular option and it has most support in clothing, armor etc. You can use the high-res textures mod for them, they really make a difference. If you want to improve the standard races use Natural Faces or any other texture replacer, but don't expect a radical change. I'm also a roleplayer type, but sadly I think that trying a vanilla race to look nice is too much hassle. There is one mod at planetelderscrolls that changes the looks of all NPCs drasticly (making it all pretty, shiny and manga-styled), but it just confilcts with pretty much everything in the world. There is another one, check "TNR". This one gives some diversity to the NPCs while still looking quite lore-friendly, but then they're not so ultra-pretty ;) Also check the Unique Landscapes collection. Expect some conflicts, but since it's modular, you can turn the conflicting parts off. About the races... well, my solution is just to pick some lore-friendly looking custom race (like lineage elfs for dunmer and altmer, etc) and manually edit it in TES Construction Set to give the same name, stats and powers like the lore-race (some custom races tend to be overpowered). I feel less like cheating this way ;) This solution is not perfect, as you are not recognised in game by your race (for example there are no comments form NPCs about your race), but that is not a major part of the game anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LFact Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 About the races... well, my solution is just to pick some lore-friendly looking custom race (like lineage elfs for dunmer and altmer, etc) and manually edit it in TES Construction Set to give the same name, stats and powers like the lore-race (some custom races tend to be overpowered). I feel less like cheating this way ;) This solution is not perfect, as you are not recognised in game by your race (for example there are no comments form NPCs about your race), but that is not a major part of the game anyway. Actually there's a way to be recognized. But it requires OBSE, and a bit of scripting(not really hard, though). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NocturneNight Posted May 16, 2011 Author Share Posted May 16, 2011 Ah, thanks guys, a lot of useful advice, there! :) I believe I shall start then by looking up those mods that LFact suggested and see how they look. About the save files; I am more concerned if there's a similar problem to Morrowind's save files - where if you added and/or removed mods too often/haphazardly the savegames would generally deteriorate into an unplayable mess of duplicated item entries and all manner of nasty stuff. No, I'm not going to add all mods at once, I'll add them one at a time, my fear is just that this may create some bogus values in the save files that'll inadvertly mess up my game at a later stage... perhaps I just worry too much. :P About the races... well, my solution is just to pick some lore-friendly looking custom race (like lineage elfs for dunmer and altmer, etc) and manually edit it in TES Construction Set to give the same name, stats and powers like the lore-race (some custom races tend to be overpowered). I feel less like cheating this way ;) This solution is not perfect, as you are not recognised in game by your race (for example there are no comments form NPCs about your race), but that is not a major part of the game anyway. Aye, I had something like that in mind! I don't know much about scripting, but altering the basic stats for the race(s) as efik suggests doesn't seem that hard. Oh well, I think I'm going to try to create a standard character first, and if she ends up too bad (or not what I had in mind) I'll have another look at this option. Thanks again, guys. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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