Using Other's Custom Meshes in New Mods

[Milna]

Hey everyone.

 

I've been using Growlf's custom armor/clothes/jewelry and I really like some of the items. The trouble is that the hundreds of different options and palette swaps really slow down my machine when I go to the respective merchants. I only really use about 5% of the new armor, so I was looking to take the items out that I do use, tweek them a bit, and put them in a new, smaller mod.

 

For example, I attempted to do this with Growlf's Dwemer suit. I opened the construction set, loaded the oblivion.esm, built the armor, and went into Growlf's data folder for the meshes. When I started my game after saving the new mod, the mesh didn't show up in-game. Just a floating head when I tried to equip it.

 

I figured it might be because I turned gowlf's mod into an omod, so I went back and copied all of the meshes I wanted from growlf's folder, renamed them, and put them into a new folder. I again tried using the construction set to make the armor, but then when I tried to buy it in-game, the game crashed.

 

I don't know if I have to activate growlf's .esp in the construction set, or even use wrye bash to convert it to an .esm, but wouldn't that make my new mod dependent on activating growlf's? I'm trying to avoid that so I don't have to deal with the shop slowdown... Do I have to extract all of the files from the growlf omod and work with them that way?

 

Any help would be appreciated!

[myrmaad]

Hey everyone.

 

I've been using Growlf's custom armor/clothes/jewelry and I really like some of the items. The trouble is that the hundreds of different options and palette swaps really slow down my machine when I go to the respective merchants. I only really use about 5% of the new armor, so I was looking to take the items out that I do use, tweek them a bit, and put them in a new, smaller mod.

 

For example, I attempted to do this with Growlf's Dwemer suit. I opened the construction set, loaded the oblivion.esm, built the armor, and went into Growlf's data folder for the meshes. When I started my game after saving the new mod, the mesh didn't show up in-game. Just a floating head when I tried to equip it.

 

I figured it might be because I turned gowlf's mod into an omod, so I went back and copied all of the meshes I wanted from growlf's folder, renamed them, and put them into a new folder. I again tried using the construction set to make the armor, but then when I tried to buy it in-game, the game crashed.

 

I don't know if I have to activate growlf's .esp in the construction set, or even use wrye bash to convert it to an .esm, but wouldn't that make my new mod dependent on activating growlf's? I'm trying to avoid that so I don't have to deal with the shop slowdown... Do I have to extract all of the files from the growlf omod and work with them that way?

 

Any help would be appreciated!

 

How did you map the textures? I suspect the textures are the trouble.

[Milna]

I'm not sure what you mean by mapping the textures. I've never dealt with textures and meshes before and have only recently started fooling around with simple mods using just the vanilla files. Do the textures automatically get loaded with their respective meshes? Is there a certain file path I should save them to to let the game know which textures go with which meshes?

[myrmaad]

Growlf's armor would have already had texture files mapped to them.

 

You would have to change them in Nifskope if you moved Growlf's texture folder.

 

I would assume you didn't move or disturb his texture folder.

 

In the mapped texture folder, the meshes require both a texture and a normal map. If the pointer inside the mesh (viewable in Nifskope) is not finding both the texture it's mapped to, and the normal map, then you will probably get that crash. If it was not finding any texture though, it would probably just look purple.

 

Another thing it might be, then, is what biped slots you used (foot, hand, head, amulet etc). It would also probably crash if you mistakenly used the "Ground" models. (They are normally designated by having the suffix "_gnd" in the name.)

[Milna]

I see.

 

So what if I created a folder, "My Mod" or something, and moved both the mesh and texture folder from Growlf's mod from the "Growlf" folder to the "My Mod" Folder. Would the textures still match up with the meshes, or does changing the folder affect this?

 

I suppose the alternative would be to load Growlf's mod in the construction set and go in and delete everything I didn't want...? I wanted to avoid this so I could add some other custom items from other sources into the same mod.

[myrmaad]

I see.

 

So what if I created a folder, "My Mod" or something, and moved both the mesh and texture folder from Growlf's mod from the "Growlf" folder to the "My Mod" Folder. Would the textures still match up with the meshes, or does changing the folder affect this?

 

I suppose the alternative would be to load Growlf's mod in the construction set and go in and delete everything I didn't want...? I wanted to avoid this so I could add some other custom items from other sources into the same mod.

 

 

Changing the texture folder will effect the meshes.

 

You have to follow Oblivion's folder structure or things will go badly.

 

You don't have to use Growlf's esp, but unless you understand Oblivion's mod folder structure, you should leave the meshes and textures folders as they are (in Oblivion/Data/Meshes/ and in Oblivion/Data/Textures) and everything *should* work fine.

 

Do a search on "Folder Structure" in the Oblivion forum using the Search button (Advanced) at the top of this page on the right, and you should find a bunch of discussions about how to set up a mod if you'd prefer to do your own folders, BUT, then you must also download and use Nifskope to fix the texture paths, AND you MUST be sure you have a normal map for every texture, as well, in the texture folder.

 

The most important thing is that all the folders need to be in your Oblivion Data folder, not some place else, if they are to function in the game.

 

It will look something like :

 

...Oblivion/Data/Meshes/MilnasMods/Armor/GrowlfRemix

...Oblivion/Data/Textures/MilnasMods/Armor/GrowlfRemix

[Milna]

Thanks a lot! Organizing the files this way worked great!

[myrmaad]

Thanks a lot! Organizing the files this way worked great!

 

That's great! Glad I could help, and glad you're so sharp! Have a kudo!