Custom Clothing Problem

[GiaK]

I have been retexturing some clothing mods and have a couple of items that, although are visible on my player character, will not show on NPCs. I thought at first that the problem was with my retexturing but when I tried to equip an NPC with the original item the same problem occurred. I downloaded nifscope this morning (I'm assuming the problem is with the nif file) and have spent the day reading tutorials but can't find a solution. I understand that, given my level of expertise this is likely to be difficult, but could someone please give me a pointer as to how to solve this.

[bben46]

An NPC will always wear the best armor they have. But some custom armor doesn't register as better. As for clothing, they tend to wear their default outfit. To force them to wear something else, you often must take away their other clothing/armor and leave them no choice in what to wear.

[GiaK]

In order to see the outfits in-game I have been removing the NPC's (First Mate Malvulis) default clothing and adding the new with an esp. This works for most of the clothing I have retextured but with two outfits she is naked and there are no missing body parts.

 

Edit: I've just tried them out on Vilja and they work fine so I guess that the NPC I was trying them on before would rather wear nothing than equip them. I will see if changing the value will work. Thanks for your help l was really looking in the wrong direction.

Edited September 30, 2012 by GiaK

[Hickory]

Do the two outfits you are having problems with use non-standard equipment slots, ie. tail slot? NPCs will not equip clothing like that without a script.

[GiaK]

No just upper and lower body

[GiaK]

I have found a mod that provides an example of the problem I had, http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/20054 CanadianIce Morrowind Robes and Dresses. The only way I found to address it was to apply new textures. However I still don't understand why the original textures don't show on NPC's but will show on my player character and Vilja, is it some limitation of the game?

 

I am also having some difficulty with creating normal maps. The guide I found suggested using DDS converter rather than using Gimp (doesn't do a very good job for normals) but I can't get it to run on my system. I believe Photoshop should work or is there an alternative program? I am using Windows 8 Release Preview as it has proved to resolve the problems I had with running other software in Windows 7.

 

Not connected to the above - How can I find out what exterior cell I am in in-game? I have found a spot where I would like to try out a custom building but I am having difficulty finding the location in the CS.

 

Thanks for any info.

[Striker879]

This is from the UESP Wiki page for SetDebugText.

 

Open the console using the tilde key (~) and at the prompt type 'sdt 0' then hit Enter (no quote marks and that's a zero after 'sdt'). Now type 'tdt' and hit Enter then close the console. Others you can try are 'sdt 31' and 'sdt 33'.

 

- Edit - A shot in the dark ... check in NifSkope and see if the texture paths are absolute (i.e. C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\textures\JoesCoolMod\cuirass.dds). Absolute texture pathed rextures will only show for people with the game installed in exactly the same path (though that doesn't explain why you and Vilja can wear it and it shows I suppose).

Edited October 3, 2012 by Striker879

[GiaK]

Thanks for the link that worked perfectly. Re texture, it 's not the path, it seems to me to lie in the way the various textures of the dress are combined and applied in one dds file.