How to track down missing textures in the planes of oblivion?

[xander2077]

Hey everyone, i have been modding on and off for a long time, and sometimes i just like to experiment a bit to see if i can combine different texture mods, however the problem usually arises that someone has replaced a nif that targets another texture, and sometimes the texture it will reference is missing, or something similar.

 

I have a pretty simple issue to fix but i cant remember for the life of me if there is a console command where you can target a mesh in game and find out what it is called, or figure out what debug console commands to use to find the error. i already did some guess work to fix the textures on one nif, but i am having trouble with just this last one. other than that the combined texture mods are looking good. it is part of the rocks sticking out of the canyon walls on the sides of paths or just under the plateau where the deadra castles and ruins are in the planes of oblivion.

 

if the only way to figure it out is through the CS then i am out of luck, not sure if i can even install that using wine, and i have not had a copy for years. i can use nifskope, but first i have to know what nif to import.

 

i cant even really blame it on a mod at all, because i was the one who mixed the texture packs.

 

the only thing i can figure out right now is that the reference number when using the console and clicking on the nearest purple object is this:

 

0003e69f

 

does anyone have any idea what model that is? it would sure help me narrow it down a whole lot.

[Surilindur]

You could track it down like this, I think, with TES4Edit and NifSkope:

• the form ID is 0003e69f, so it comes from the plugin (esp/esm) file loaded at index 00, which is Oblivion.esm
• load Oblivion.esm in TES4Edit and find the form with that ID, 0003e69f, which will be an object reference under a cell record somewhere
• if the load order index would have been something other than 00, then it might have been necessary to adjust the load order index (when searching) based on the "load order" within TES4Edit, like in-game "08" with "Oblivion.esm" and "OtherMod.esp" as masters would end up being "02" in TES4Edit (00 Oblivion.esm, 01 OtherMod.esp, 02 SourceMod.esp)
• selecting the object reference in the left side tree, in the right side panel, there should be the base object listed for that object reference
• find the base object, it will most likely also be in Oblivion.esm, and see which mesh/nif file it used, there should be a path starting with "meshes/something/" just like in the Construction Set
• depending on how your mod setup is set up, find the corresponding nif file that you are seeing in-game somehwere and open it with NifSkope
• select the part of the mesh that was purple in-game and find the texture path (should start with "textures/", has a purple icon in NifSkope) - this is where the texture should be when the game looks for it

Something like that, if it helps. There is a new version of NifSkope (version 2) available at Github that works fine, too, for inspecting Oblivion meshes.

[xander2077]

yes i agree with your observations, it is a pluginless replacer so there are replacement nifs, and archive invalidation is active in my load order as well, but as far as i know this nif or nif group only references oblivion.esm so it will be easier to track down. i have not tried yet, but i installed another tool in oblivion called form finder, which is supposed to be able to give detailed info such as the nif path and the texture path as well, which is what i really am looking for. AFAIK this is the only mesh group (i say group because it appears to all be looking for the same missing texture) that has a missing texture in oblivion. it was not that way before i decided to mix and match with textures, and i was careful to completely overwrite everything by choosing which replacers to paste and in what order, but cant always get the best results i guess. there may be one pesky niff that was somehow missed, or has no texture references at all, and then i can simply create a patch.

 

i will give form finder a try and see if it gets results. i have had less than great results with tes4edit because of its "nice factor" with wine so i probably have to steer away from that method.

[Surilindur]

Oh okay, and yes, if you can find the mesh path directly then that is great. I did not even have a look at your mods before posting. Looks like you know your way around meshes and textures already. :blush:

 

Good luck with your investigations! :thumbsup:

[xander2077]

well it seems like formid finder is no longer being supported by the author, and there is a bug for certain systems, where the IsKeyPress3 wont work and has to be manually edited to recognize IsKeyPress2 in the esp itself, but there is no patch available for those who have no way to edit it. So i am still at an impasse. I also found out through the refscope plugin that the static reference for the mesh i keep looking at is 00022f92 but that doesn't help me much if i cannot look it up in oblivion.esm.

[xander2077]

ok, i was able to find a copy of the construction set, and find the form ids models, which allowed me to solve the issue. i simply deleted the mods nif files associated with the ones missing textures and they defaulted back to the original nifs in the bsa. i had to do the same thing for some textures i did not like simply because the mod author chose textures i did not care for on the bridges and walkways, which allowed me to use a hi res pack instead of their proprietary path in the nif.

 

here are the results, i may post a tutorial on how to get all the textures mixed the same way i have them since there are a few oddballs that really worked well with the overall atmosphere (IMO)

 

 

 

 

i think the results are quite nice since the lava rock textures you keep seeing that look rippled actually kind of tie it back into the morrowind style a bit, which was something i kind of altered from another texture pack for the oblivion planes, and simply put it in gimp and used the "make seamless" filter. the only real gripe i have are the obelsiks with the daedric runes on them, which are not very clear, so i am not sure how to remedy that. it doesnt quite match the detailing of everything else.

 

the texture packs are listed in this brief tutorial:

 

first install the daedric terrain texture pack. But a few tweaks need to be done prior to it working 100% with other packs. namely deleting a few nifs, and the folders that can be done away with are:

meshes/rocks/oblivionplane/ledges
meshes/oblivion/architecture/ruins

this fixes two things for my texture build, one is missing textures on the rock ledges, and two is the mashed skeleton texture covering a lot of stuff i didn't really like it on, so i just got rid of the nifs pointing to a proprietary texture.

then install (overwrite) with the oblivion realm HD, and that will fill in some other textures without overwriting the coolest ones from daedric realms.

then use the oblivion caves re-texture (overwrite)

the final full pack would be the hires oblivion textures (overwrite)

one last texture replacement, but only partial:

from the giger style total conversion, and put through the "make seamless" filter in gimp.

terrainhdoblivionrock01.dds
terrainhdoblivionrock01_n.dds
terrainhdoblivionrock02.dds
terrainhdoblivionrock02_n.dds
terrainhdoblivionstoneflow01.dds
terrainhdoblivionstoneflow01_n.dds

these can be copied into the /textures/landscape/oblivion folder (overwrite)

and that is how i got all these texture replacers to work together with my personal preferences and taste.

 

if someone wants to do a mashup of these packs like i did, and post them in the nexus then make sure you get permission from the mod authors. it might actually cut a lot of the fat out of the data files, and i think a few of the ground textures also need to either be remapped for better resolution, or maybe some of them redimized a bit (could be better if there were a few optional packs of different sizes like 1k-2k) it would also be cool to see some of the obelisks clarified a bit with better details, but that might simply be because of my settings.

 

ok, so i had to do something with the pillars, the resolution on them was way too grainy, so it seemed like looking at the larger textures someone just enlarged the vanilla ones ans applies ome kind of texture to them, like sandy or something, so i had to put them through several different operations to enhance the details and match them to the rest. so now they are fixed.

 

i also decided to add the lush and gaudy demonic frippery weather esp only to the game, and then modified the textures by enlarging and replacing those with darker versions of the oblicion vanilla sky textures. the only ones missing are a few of the other cloud layers, but i may or may not edit the esp to point to the other vanilla style textures, who knows, it looks pretty ominous already.

 

i just may release this yet, but i have to talk to a few authors to see if they are cool with a combined mod.

 

i also took the glow maps and made them more detailed so they glow in more of an outline instead of filling the whole rune pocket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

not saying this has not been done before, but i kind of like the complete results so far. not sure if this will expand any, but this is finally about on par with the other texture replacers.

Edited July 26, 2017 by xander2077