Some Clarifications Please..

[DarkImpulse]

Hello everyone,

 

I recently built a new rig and decided to buy Oblivion to go with it. I got the Game of the Year edition, but oddly I can't install the newest SI 1.2.xxx patch for some reason. Anyway not a big deal as I believe I have at least v1.2.

 

After playing randomly for a few hours, I decided to look at all the mods available, and there were some "Must have mods" that were floating around that I grabbed, namely BTmod, Natural environments and Elven maps.

 

It all looks great now ... except my randomly generated character is an awful blue dark elf lol.

Since it was only a few hours of a test run I've decided there's no harm in restarting the game with a fresh character, so I started looking at the face/hair/body mods available.. this is where things get tricky.

 

What/where exactly are the appropriate mods? I see that Ren's Beauty Pack, Soya's Hair pack, and Exnem's body replacers (nude and otherwise) are the most popular but there are at least a dozen different versions by different people attempting to combine them in different configurations.. this is wholly confusing and I'm unsure of which one to download. Along those lines, there are also several versions of soya's hair pack, and mind boggling numbers of exnem's body stuff.. This mod searching doesn't feel very newbie friendly.. :(

 

The Mystic Dark Elf looks great if that's the Dark Elf but without the horridly Blue skin.

 

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

[Vagrant0]

First, the 1.2 patch which ships with SI and probably GOTY is bugged to hell. You really want that latest patch if you plan on playing the game.

 

As for race/hair mods. Due to how the game works, you can really only have one of these mods active at a time without conflicts happening. If you are unsure on what to do, just go with Beautiful People. BP contains some hair styles, as well as a few new races. Exnems and any related retextures are a seperate matter since body meshes are shared by all races. Exnems itself is primarily just a new mesh, although it comes with the normal set of textures, as you are aware, there are different ones you may want to use. You will of course need a Mystic elf body texture for exnems should you decide to use both.

 

As for the soya hairpacks. I'm probably mistaken in this, but I believe they aren't defined in chargen, but are worn as wigs, allowing them to be weighted and not create conflicts when added the the game. A quick look at the description would peobably prove this (too lazy). If not, I believe there are other hair packs which use the wig method.

[SickleYield]

I only know of one wig-style hairpack with new meshes, namely It's A Wig! by Sshodan and AlienSlof. Soya's hairs are chargen, like most new hairs for Oblivion (including the Babe and Corean hairs and throttlekitty's). As such longer styles will clip in some poses.

 

I'm always looking for new wig packs because I strongly prefer that method to chargen, since it allows for actual rigging.

[DarkImpulse]

Thanks for the replies guys.

 

I'm not sure how to install the 1.2.0416 patch though, I downloaded the english one but it fails to install due to not finding old files or something.. which doesn't make sense as it's a fresh install of Oblivion GOTY. Is there a way I can verify what version I have installed currently? The readme appears to say version 1.2.0416 but I'm not sure if that's because the update failed after copying that file or something.

 

As far as all the technical aspects of the mods and hwo the game works, I must admit I have absolutely no idea what anything means as I've only installed the game less than 24 hours ago. The other mods I downloaded (BTmod, Natural Environment, etc) I simply dumped into the /Data/ folder and enabled them under Data Files in the Oblivion Launcher. I thought it would be the same with these other mods, but then I see issues about compatibility?

 

I did take a look at the Beautiful People pack but it seems to include more things than I need/want, with no way of choosing what to enable. I also have no idea what the difference between having a wig and a chargen is.

 

What I thought was good was basically getting one of the exnem nude packs (eye candy?) along with a clothed (underwear?) pack, his complete clothing pack, throw in Ren's Beauty pack for the Mystic Dark Elf, and use some of Soya's hairs. I'm really just looking for very nice visuals without too much fuss and no game-altering mods since I have yet to experience Oblivion for what it is yet. If there's something wrong with what I'm trying to accomplish, please feel free to tell me as I'm trying to get the hang of this modding stuff.

 

Thanks in advance.

[SickleYield]

No such thing as "something wrong with," especially when asking politely. :D Oh, how I adore people who understand capital letters.

 

Anyway: Chargen means hairs that you select in character generation, such as Ren's and Soya's. Wigs are equipped as if they were helmets and will be found lying around in game somewhere (the testinghall is where Sshodan's are in that mod).

 

The thing with cosmetic mods is that for some reason, Oblivion will only load the very last-loading set of eye and hair modifications. So if you want to use more than one thing that adds eyes or hairstyles, you have to merge the .esp files together using something like Tes4Gecko. It's not very hard to do and can make lots of fun things possible. ;)

[bben46]

There are TWO separate English language versions of Oblivion, US & UK - you must use the patch for the one you have or it will not work. Check that you got the right one.

 

US version is dated 04/30/07 and is 5.1 MB. UK is dated 05/07/2007 and is 4.8 MB

 

If you use Shivering Isles, there is only one English patch. Do NOT install either of the Oblivion patches if you use Shivering Isles, ONLY use the Shivering Isles patch.

[DarkImpulse]

Thanks for the explanation, SickleYield.

 

So you're saying I can easily bypass all the conflicts by using that program and merging all the various mods that I want into one? Or is there a catch to what can be done?

 

Also, I hear OBMM and OBSE are other good utilities to have, but I'm not sure if I need them or not, and what they would do to the other mods I already have. Also they appear to require the latest patch which I can't install for some reason.

 

Thanks again for all the replies, good information to be gleaned.

 

Edit:

Oops, for some reason I didn't see bben's post when I was replying to mine - sorry about that.

As I understand it, I have the GOTY here and it comes with 2 DVDs. The first one (Disc 1) is Oblivion. The second one (Disc 2) I installed immediately after contains KoN and SI. After that was done, I downloaded the English SI patch because that was supposed to be the only patch I needed. I ran that and it said couldn't find old files or something. Problem is.. what old files? I just installed it, there can't be any old files. So, either I already have it but didn't know, or something's wrong.. I'm unsure which it is.

[DarkWarrior45]

Thanks for the explanation, SickleYield.

 

So you're saying I can easily bypass all the conflicts by using that program and merging all the various mods that I want into one? Or is there a catch to what can be done?

 

Also, I hear OBMM and OBSE are other good utilities to have, but I'm not sure if I need them or not, and what they would do to the other mods I already have. Also they appear to require the latest patch which I can't install for some reason.

 

Thanks again for all the replies, good information to be gleaned.

 

Edit:

Oops, for some reason I didn't see bben's post when I was replying to mine - sorry about that.

As I understand it, I have the GOTY here and it comes with 2 DVDs. The first one (Disc 1) is Oblivion. The second one (Disc 2) I installed immediately after contains KoN and SI. After that was done, I downloaded the English SI patch because that was supposed to be the only patch I needed. I ran that and it said couldn't find old files or something. Problem is.. what old files? I just installed it, there can't be any old files. So, either I already have it but didn't know, or something's wrong.. I'm unsure which it is.

 

If you can, I would at least get OBMM, as it's a god-send. Especially when it comes to archive-invalidation, which is something you do upon installing a texture replacer such as Qarl's texture pack. It can also be usefull in troubleshooting conflicts as well as editing load-order. In addition, OBMM actually makes it easier to install some mods, such as Depth of Field. With Depth of Field, the zipped version does not work with the 1.2 patch. However, if you use the OBMM version, you can use it with the 1.2 patch because of how the shader files are handled. So, OBMM = big help.

 

I would only install OBSE if and only if you had a mod that required it, such as Deadly Reflex.

 

As for your problems with the patch:

 

Frequent Crashing possibly due to old system file

Some users may experience frequent crashing due to an older system file. These crashes may be attributed to the 'mpeg2dmx.ax' file. Simply renaming the file to "mpeg2dmx.ax.old" may correct this issue.

 

This is a direct quote from the release notes for the latest patch.

 

EDIT: May I also add that another utility to look into when you have a larger mod list is WyreBash, which is like the swiss army knife of the OB modding community. It is a big help in resolving conflicts between different mods that don't behave themselves.

[DarkImpulse]

Thanks for the reponse.

 

Okay, I will grab OBMM and try that out. Hopefully it doesn't conflict with what mods I already have though. I also downloaded that TES4Gecko but I'm unsure of how to use it.. I suppose I should RTFM first though. I've downloaded Ren's Beauty Pack but I'm trying to figure out what other packs to download to merge with it.. Most Likely Soya's hair pack, but the body replacers and stuff are enormous in terms of choices. There's a bunch of exnem's floating around, then Growlf's and Corwyn's and Eshme's and they all seem to be incompatible with each other. I'm hoping to choose a good one if I can only choose one. Is it as simple as downloading the packs I want to merge, unzipping them to a location and click merge, then move to the Data folder, or is it more complex than that?

 

Is OBSE a last resort kind of program? That comment makes it sound as if it comes with some bad stuff.

 

As far as the patch goes, I'm not experiencing any crashes - the problem is I can't install the patch to begin with. I don't know how to verify what version of Oblivion I am running though, I don't know if I have 1.2 or if I already have it patched from the fresh GOTY install.

 

Thanks again, this is very helpful. I'm sorry for all the questions..

[DarkWarrior45]

Thanks for the reponse.

 

Okay, I will grab OBMM and try that out. Hopefully it doesn't conflict with what mods I already have though. I also downloaded that TES4Gecko but I'm unsure of how to use it.. I suppose I should RTFM first though. I've downloaded Ren's Beauty Pack but I'm trying to figure out what other packs to download to merge with it.. Most Likely Soya's hair pack, but the body replacers and stuff are enormous in terms of choices. There's a bunch of exnem's floating around, then Growlf's and Corwyn's and Eshme's and they all seem to be incompatible with each other. I'm hoping to choose a good one if I can only choose one. Is it as simple as downloading the packs I want to merge, unzipping them to a location and click merge, then move to the Data folder, or is it more complex than that?

 

Is OBSE a last resort kind of program? That comment makes it sound as if it comes with some bad stuff.

 

As far as the patch goes, I'm not experiencing any crashes - the problem is I can't install the patch to begin with. I don't know how to verify what version of Oblivion I am running though, I don't know if I have 1.2 or if I already have it patched from the fresh GOTY install.

 

Thanks again, this is very helpful. I'm sorry for all the questions..

 

There's nothing wrong with OBSE, in fact some people swear by it and encourage it. Me personally, I don't see the point of installing if you're not going to use it. That's what I meant. It's not a last resort, but instead it's meant to expand OB's script language to work more like a formal programming language such as C. Basically, it expands on what a mod can do for your game. If you want a mod that requires it, then by all means, don't hesistate to DL it.

 

In regards to body replacers, you can only use one at a time. Most people use Exnems, and it's the most popular and has a good "library" of sorts of clothing mods. Bab is also good, and it's also what I personally use and prefer; It has more realistic "racks" in my opinion. In regards to installing one, just unzip it to your data folder.

 

And OBMM will not interfere with the game or anykind of mod, so you have no worries in regards to it.

 

In regards to the patch, I would maybe see if you can find that file they're talking about, and then doing the corrective action they suggested to see if that relieves your problem. On an added note, back that file up before you mess with it.