Not a lot to report project wise. Prepared and installed a few more BAIN packages for the new PC's experimental Oblivion install, which remains far from the stage where my avatar can leave his Imperial Prison cell corner. This morning I copied all BAIN packages in the i7-930's BAIN installers folder to a folder shared between the two computers. That way those packages which do NOT need updating or modification can and will be easily added to experimental install.

Created a Win10 Partition Master Pro boot disk for emergencies. Took ages to write the CD. Not that that matters much these days when the process can be done in the background while I use the PC for other things.

Barring the unexpected (or my decrepit memory) I'll mow the lawn right after lunch. It'll be a bit warmer than I ideally prefer, but that's to be expected this time of year, and the day is forecast to be cloudy, which should help.

And now I depart for my daily exercise-walk...

Part 2:
Mowed immediately after lunch. Was supposed to be overcast. It was...for the first half minute I left the house. Was more sunny than cloudy from then until the end of my mow. Still, it got done, in more comfort than will be the case once it gets super hot.

Added a few more texture replacement BAIN packages to my experimental Oblivion install. Going with different textures for IC and Anvil than those used in my 2nd play-through install. Added a texture package for Leyawiin, which I've not done before. It's slow going, as at the very least I must double check each 2nd play-through mod I want to keep for updates before dropping it in the experimental install's BAIN installers folder. Still haven't decided on adding OR and/or an ENB. Too many mods still come BAIN unfriendly. It's usually an easy matter to convert 'em, but it takes time. So does cleaning ESPs with TES4edit. At some point I face the scary task of trying to convert an old patch to work with a mod which has had its name changed. My hope is that there are no "actual" changes in the areas the patch touches. I've never done anything with CSE other than create LandscapeLOD textures, so worry I'll botch things up royally.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jun 29 2017, 06:43 PM

Aside from a morning exercise-walk, my entire "productive" day has been devoted to the in-progress experimental modded Oblivion build. For all the work I've put in to it outward results are slim. Lots of work has gone on behind the scenes but that doesn't translate into a lengthy Load Order. At the moment mine's still quite small:


My Install Order is larger, but I'm not quite ready to show that yet.

There are no real surprises above. The main change thus far is switching from a variety of face enhancements to OCOv2. I also at long last made the jump from Roads & Bridges + West Roads to their combined successor, Roads of Cyrodiil. I held off as long as I did become I prefer the the old Roads & Bridges + Fort Akatosh Redux patch (created by the fort's author) to the newer Roads of Cyrodiil + Fort Akatosh Delux patch (created by RoC's author.) I thought about trying to update the old patch to work with RoC, but can't for the life of me figure out how to change master dependency.

Down the pike I'm swapping my old Giskard Fighters Guild Quests mod for a more feature rich alternative. Vampire Hunting - Order of the Virtuos Blood mod has been significantly improved since the early version used in my second play-through. Other old standby quest mods have newer versions available, but those are mostly tweaks. (I'll install them none the less.)

Unique Landscapes is gonna be work. All have newer versions than those in my second play-through. I sure hope those don't need TES4edit cleaning! Not yet sure which UL's I'm install beyond the seven or nine in my second play-through. I know of two for-sure additions. Beyond that????? We shall see.

My RAEVWD BAIN package collection is a mess. Gonna have to do something about that soon.

I need to figure out how to incorporate my many self-gathered coordinates into the latest version of tes4ll (LandscapeLOD generator). (The version I've used until now is rather ancient.)

Still haven't made up my mind as to Oblivion Reloaded and/or an ENB, or neither. (Seems almost a shame to not at least try 'em.)

Back to the build process, I have a decent number of Texture and Mesh replaces installed, but not nearly enough. I wouldn't mind if, by when done, not a single original Bethesda texture remains. Ain't gonna happen, but I intend to give it my best shot.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jul 1 2017, 10:59 AM

Got in my daily walk by waiting a while longer than ideal to miss our off-again on-again rains. Hearts reading afterward in line with my norm.

Been procrastinating ever since. What I need to be doing is figuring out how to transfer my many self-gathered landscape coordinates into the latest version of tes4ll. These things don't come as easy for me as they did when I was creating LandscapeLOD mesh sets with a now ancient version of tes4ll four years ago. I also need to relearn how to create decent quality LandscapeLOD color maps. Maybe normals too, but I'll see how tes4ll handles those first.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jul 1 2017, 07:38 PM

Project Fix Cavator's Fan and Heater is on hold; mechanic is on vacation...

Some people have all the luck!

Spent the entire afternoon tracking down two visual anomalies on the Imperial Isle bridge linking Market District to Imperial Prison. One, four hanging banners floating in air along the bridge, ended up being caused by a Roads of Cyrodiil / Region Revive - Lake Rumare patch that isn't needed. I should have caught it sooner than I did, but no other patch in my collection covers that exact mod combo. Apparently what needs patching between the two is now handled by other Imperial Isle patches. I certainly hope so!

The second issue, two flames floating in air along the bridge, did not go away after removing the not needed patch. Unlike the banners, Refscope can not identify which mod controls those flames. This one had me scratching my head. At long last a dim memory came to me of having faced this same issue back in 2009, when I first began modding Oblivion. Having a somewhat functional brain back then, I discovered the anomaly's source by taking the flames' coordinates then using TES4edit to search my several mods effecting the bridge. Sure enough, one of them placed a pair of flames in those exact spots. Their references were removed, again with TES4edit. Solved.

My mistake was in downloading a fresh copy of the mod to use with the experimental install. My saving grace is in having retained the old corrected esp, still in use in second play-through.

No walk today due to rain.

Grocery run late morning, Bought a somewhat different combo of vegetable hoping to improve my supper salads, which I grow increasingly tired of.

My old Windows XP box died of motherboard issues. Since I have had it about 14 years or so, I cannot complain. I decided to replace it with a laptop instead of another desktop. I have been considering moving my computers from the living room to bedroom, and that would make it much easier. And if not, it still works just as well where my old desktop was.

Today I brought home an MSI from Micro Center. Pretty powerful, though Freya is not impressed. It has been updating Windows 10 for hours. That I was not thrilled with. But it is impossible to buy anything new with Win 7, and I doubt 7 would have the device drivers for all the hardware on the laptop.

It does not have an optical drive at all. How technology changes. It is like the Grand Cherokee I bought back in January. It does not have a cd player. They don't make them for cars anymore. I ordered an external blu-ray burner to go with it. I would have bought one at Micro Center, but the only one they had was USB 2.0. Since the laptop has USB 3.0 ports, I don't want to go slower than necessary. So I found a USB 3.0 writer online. Hopefully Windows will be finished updating by the time it comes in the mail...

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jul 4 2017, 04:29 PM

Yeah. While deciding on a case for my new PC build I needed to eliminate several otherwise acceptable candidates because they lacked 5 1/4" bays on the front. You've been using an old XP computer all this time? I gave mine to GoodWill (minus its hard drives) not a month ago. It wouldn't boot, or rather in turned on but shut itself down almost immediately. Didn't even make it to the BIOS screen. Not sure what's up with that. I'd not used it in years. It might have bit the dust like yours, or just at likely I may have at some now forgotten point stripped out some essential component to reuse in a later build.

Speaking of computers, my new build is now fully assembled. There are other things I want to buy for the setup.... external storage, maybe a UPS, a real desk for the secondary PC, and so on... but none of those are absolutely essential.

Freya is too classy to be impressed by a glowing keyboard unless it is Alienware!

Did someone say bedroom and computers?

http://photo.foter.com/photos/341/computer...n-wheels-31.jpg


What I was looking at when my son and I first moved was some kind of mobile desk that I could take the computer from the living room to the bedroom with ease = something like this:

http://photo.foter.com/photos/309/desks-ca...orage-and-1.jpg

Back then, they wanted an arm and a leg for them so I ended up with something much bulkier and not mobile at all for a lot less. And of course, now the price has become reasonable on these mobile computer stations! This one would hold both my computer towers, too! Urk.




This post has been edited by mALX: Jul 4 2017, 04:17 PM

Not much to report, Oblivion build wise, though I put a lot of time and effort into it today.

At long last figured out how to get TES4Gecko to work with Windows 10. I can now (but haven't yet) experiment with transforming the old NRB + FAR patch into a ROC + FAR patch.

Added Elsweyr and supplements to my Load Order. Had to re download everything, as my second play-through uses a now obsolete Elsweyr build. (The most recent is Mar 2014.)

Created new sets of LandscapeLOD meshes, normals, and color maps. I'm not ecstatic about the color maps. I used to be able to create color maps I prefer to these. But I can't for the life of me remember how I did it. (tes4ll did NOT have that function at the time, so it can't be tes4ll.)

Launched the game only once thus far today, to create a new save after added Elsweyr. I'll likely play a bit again to ensure all's well once the final LandscapeLOD BAIN package is in place.

Creating all these LandscapeLOD packages is in a since needless, as I'll be adding mods that make these obsolete within a day or two. But I need to get back in practice.

O yeah, either early this morning or sometime yesterday I took coordinates to fix a landscapeLOD anomaly at the north end of the Imperial Isle North Bridge. (The road didn't extend to the Bridge.) I don't understand why the anomaly was there in the first place. In my second play-through install tes4ll fixes it, and I transferred all self-gathered coordinate files to the new install.

Woke just after midnight. Living room light still on, which meant the computer was too. Reluctantly got up and shut everything down. Went back to bed. Could not fall asleep. Gave up the effort and returned to the computer circa 0115, breaking a cardinal rule of never turning on the PC earlier than 0330.

The bulk of my day was spent installing mods into my experimental Oblivion build. I was more successful than yesterday, when few installs pleased me. (I backed out of most of them.) I'm still a long way from the beginning of true play-through.

I very much like the new IC textures I installed. Very different from what I'm used to. Took a while to adjust to them.

I've mixed feelings toward the Imperial Arena mod I installed. It's more than just a retexture, including an esp. Not sure what the esp does. I believe spectator cheering is more "spectacular". The textures don't blend well with the rest of IC...being colorful and not overly hi-res. That bothers me, but for now I'll live with it. (My avatar bet on Blue and won.)

Trying a Leyawiin texture pack, first time I've retextured that city. I believe all other cities keep textures they used in my second play-through.

Trying Real Lights. Like it for building interiors. The combo of it and Cava Obscura might be too much (darkness wise) for "dungeon" interiors. VERY small light radius holding a touch, otherwise total blackness (assuming no light source nearby).

Discovered that OCOv2 offers more race choices at Character Creature, including several bearded Nords. Created a bearded Hamfat. Don't think I saved it. Sad thing is, I was happier with his unbearded portions than with any previous creation attempts this build.

Needed to call AT&T customer service right after supper to figure out why I couldn't check email. It proved to be a quick, easy fix.

Screens so we can ooh and aah over them?

Yes, pics or it didn't happen...

Someday I'll be far enough along to want to save more than the occasional token image for prosperity. At the rate I'm going let's hope I hold up into my 90s.

(There's a new capture in the What are you playing? thread in which can be seen a bit of Imperial City outer wall with new texturing. All else is transfered from my second play-through. Well, grass is vanilla. I hope to rectify that before too long.)

Making us work for the view, huh?

There another new view in the Oblivion Screenshots thread, though it shows the Imperial City only from afar.

I did notice how good the road looked in that IC from the distance shot; but it wasn't as outstanding an example as the Anvil one you posted on here was.

Anvil? I must be extra senile today. Can't for the life of me recall what shot you refer to. Refresh me please.

I'm not finding it now, and when I saw it I was viewing it in my email inbox. It was taken in Anvil and showed a unique thing that may or may not have been around the tree/bench area. The graphics were positively stunning; I drooled all over my keyboard! I'd most def recognize the shot if I saw it again, just can't find it now, or even where that post went.