Can anyone recommend me a mod(s)? Thanks!

[oxytamie]

Hello dear community and fellow Oblivion players! I ran into an urgent problem and don't get me wrong here, it's not about my attitude but I'm just extremely mad. I had to reinstall the game four or five times already. It's because I'm low on space so I either need to delete all the mod files by hand (which is frustrating) or reinstall the game which is even faster.

 

Races, armor (haven't tried yet), HGEC and other unknown names for me - I just don't understand, how do you guys even do it. At least OBMM helped a bit. Anyway, can you guys recommend me a sorta mashup or compilation of mods which will run fine together? All I need:

 

1) HGEC seems to be the best animation+nudity, if not mistaken? I need a nude mod and any fancy animation for my female character.

2) Compilation races which will work with HGEC. Are there? Since default races are compatible with HGEC I thought that everything else is compatible with HGEC too - but hell no, some races break the entire game.

3) Finally, just a set of armor compatible with HGEC (so I'll see my actual bouncing(!) cups on it). Would be awesome if there was a compilation of armor mods or something like that.

 

Replace HGEC with anything that's better, I don't care, I just need these things. Any help? Coin for a beggar? Thank you so much in advance!

 

P.S. Is there any way to install MBP++? Is it good mod? I went crazy on all that Japanese readme and could not figure out how to install the mod so simply extracted all the files to Data... And it broke the game (am I doing it wrong).

[Striker879]

Can't give any tips on races, but EVE HGEC Eyecandy Variants Expansion followed by BBB for EVE HGEC stock replacer (in that order) should take care of your bouncy HGEC needs. Edited January 14, 2013 by Striker879

[oxytamie]

Thanks for your post - I'll try that out. How do I find compatible armor sets/races if any? I mean, how do I tell if I can install the race/armor or not. It confuses me by variety of HGEC mods and BBB implications. Thanks!

[Striker879]

As far as races go I'm pretty well in the same boat as you. Read the mod description, paying attention to the requirements (and I know that many mod descriptions and requirements leave a lot to be desired, especially in the races category ... more 'my first mods' there than you can shake a stick at).

 

HGEC is the most popular body, that's why you see so many mods for it. The thing to keep in mind once you go HGEC is that then you can't use other types of armor unless they explicitly say they are HGEC compatible. For example if an armor says it's for Roberts female don't even think about it ... click the back button and move on to the next armor in the list. Even the stock vanilla armor doesn't work with HGEC (unless you don't mind weird skin tones on exposed arms etc.).

 

BBB (Better Bouncing Boobs) is implemented at three levels in the game. You need a BBB enabled skeleton.nif, a BBB enabled body and clothing/armor and BBB enabled animations. Clothing and armor 'become' the body part they cover and all meshes (body and armor/clothing) in the game need to be 'rigged' to the skeleton. By using a skeleton.nif that's BBBed (example Universal Skeleton Nif ControlableSkeleton version) the BBBed body, clothing and armor will bounce if you also have BBB enabled animations installed. Best choice there is NoMaaM BBB Animation Replacer. Without all three elements you'll get no joy.

[oxytamie]

Y no tengo ningunos para esta... I noticed the requirements problem. As far as I understand, this is HGEC+BBB compilation, right? It just works with default armor and you have mentioned that it does not. Or I'm mistaken again. Anyway, thank you! It's way more clear for me now.

[Striker879]

That is the same HGEC BBBed body I use. When you install it using Oblivion Mod Manager (OBMM) select the option for installing without animations. On the first time through it won't really matter, as when you install NoMaaM next it will overwrite any animations that were installed by the HGEC body mod. If you decide to change the body using the OMOD and OBMM at a later date you'll lose many of the NoMaaM animations if you don't select the 'no animations' option (if you read through the mod descriptions of both the body mod and NoMaaM you'll see they both make that recommendation).

 

Rivelle's compilation doesn't come with any replacement clothing or armor for the default vanilla stuff. If you install just it and then NoMaaM you'll see no bouncing of clothed/armored women and any armor/clothing that exposes skin (like chainmail armor for example) will show weird coloured arms. That's because HGEC isn't compatible with the vanilla texture mapping (something called UV mapping, though I can't pretend to understand much about it). After you get Rivelle's mod and NoMaaM installed you need to download and install either a complete armor/clothing replacer (which usually results in all women being the same size) or a mixture of different sized and styled HGEC compatible clothing and armor replacers (which is what I have done). More work but you get more variety and you get to decide what ones will be BBBed and what ones won't (I don't think steel armor would bounce myself ... you may think differently).

 

As far as skeleton.nifs go, if you install Rivelle's compilation it includes an older BBBed skeleton that will work just fine for most BBBed mods. You can install Universal Skeleton Nif if you want later, if you find a mod that needs some of the extras that come with the more recent skeleton (or you can install the latest skeleton after installing Rivelle's mod).

[oxytamie]

Thank you, you made a lot of clearance for me today. Can I get your armor mods or they're completely random (therefore hard for you to put together again)? Anyway, thank you very much because you really helped me. Since you're using the same HGEC that I do - I mind asking if you got any new races installed so I can install them too. Thank you one more time!

 

Is there a good mod or console command to free 3rd person look?

Edited January 14, 2013 by oxytamie

[Striker879]

Oh boy ... now you're making me work (just kidding).

 

For armor replacers I have a variety that includes some vanilla armors (if they don't show skin the vanilla armors are just fine as long as you don't want BBB or I guess if you found a BBBed version of the vanilla armor). Others I've mixed and matched (example for glass armor I've used parts of Clear Glass Armor, BBB Clear Sexy Glass H-Cup and HGEC BBB Clear Glass Armor Replacer E-Cup M-Body ... texture from this one, meshes from this other one ... whatever I can get to work together and look how I like). In general I try to keeps notes of what I've used for what, but that one's an example of where my experiments exceeded my record keeping. At the other end of the spectrum I have Female Steel Cuirass (which isn't HGEC but as no skin shows it works just fine). My past character used some of FLY_femalearmors_remodel_replacer_for_HGEC_with_BBB along with some from VerySkimpyStockClothingArmorHGEC and BBB HGEC and Naughty Armours - Stock Replacer HGEC Std BBB ECup Lbot PPN. Every character gets Saaya's BBBed version of HGEC - Yet Another Armor Replacer Mod - Fur Armor (one of the different options available). Dark Brotherhood on my current character is the one's that come with A Better Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary (again picking one of the many options).

 

For clothing replacers the list is a bit shorter. There are some from BBB H-cup Stock, some from a different replacer in C-cup that is no longer available and a smattering of vanilla clothes (again ones that don't show skin). In the past I've used More revealing Stock Clothes- UC Green Silk and Countess Silks HGEC (and some of the clothing from the FLY series).

 

Enough to get you started.

 

For console commands you can look through Oblivion: Console. Be careful with most of them ... you can mess up your quests pretty easy by trying the wrong ones for example. The one you're looking for is 'tfc' (toggle free camera). One that goes handily with that is 'tm' (toggle menus ... I imagine you're looking for screenshot commands).

Edited January 14, 2013 by Striker879

[oxytamie]

Alright, thanks! It all starts to make sense now. Really, thank you very much! At last, I got only two questions, please, and I'd be really grateful if you'd answer them.

1) You mentioned mixing textures and meshes. It's quite clear for me what are textures - but what are meshes used for?

2) So if I have HGEC with C-cup and armor with H-cup (with BBB, of course), it'll simply switch to H-cup when I wear the armor or I should avoid this (by setting my HGEC skin to H-cup)?

Edited January 14, 2013 by oxytamie

[Striker879]

1. The meshes are what give the item it's shape (think of it as the place the textures get painted on). Everything you see in the game has at the very least a mesh and textures. If the item is also going to move and be animated it will have a skeleton (stick figure) that is attached to different points on the mesh. Animations (like NoMaaM) move the skeleton's 'bones' (picture a stickman's arm) which because it's attached to part of the mesh move that. What you see in-game is the texture (surface bumps, colour, glow or shininess) move as the mesh moves.

 

2. That's exactly what you'll see in-game. Your C-cup character or NPC will suddenly get H-cup when she puts on armor or clothing in that size, and when you take it off will go back to C-cup. Other than being visually a bit unrealistic it doesn't cause any difficulties in the game. Pick the size your prefer to see when women are nude (or in the default underwear if that's the option you chose) and then whichever sizes you decide on for different clothing and armor. I use a mod that gives me a spell to change women to various sizes: BBB Designer body spell. When used alongside another mod (NPCs Yield) I can leave defeated bandits etc. without weapons, armor or clothing (I've made some tweaks to the ini file for NPCs Yield plus a tweak in one of my own mods to allow for more than 3 days for cells to reset ... gives me a chance to drop around for a visit with those defeated bandits).

 

A lot of what I'm talking about is stuff that you need to learn some of the basics before it will start to make sense. Learn where the different types of game resources (meshes, textures, animation files) are located in the game folders. That's most easily done after you install a couple of mods using OBMM, because the vanilla game stores it's resources in compressed archives called BSA files (you'll find those in your Oblivion\Data folder), so without mods a lot of those folders aren't seen. Follow along in some of the discussions on here (past or future) where different problems are worked on (sometimes caused by resources put in the wrong spot in the game folders for example). As more of how things need to be to work makes sense to you, you'll start to understand some of the possibilities like what I mentioned with the clear glass armor. Sky is the limit.