Character Mods? Options

[Kane]

Hi folks -I'm finally making a big dive into Oblivion, and I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions to help with face and looks textures. So far, Melora (Dunmer) is running these mods:

Blockhead
Natural Faces
Oblivion Character Overhaul

Any help is appreciated!

Melora

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Wow, she already looks like a big improvement over the vanilla Obliv peeps. Khajiit has only used the mods you mentioned for Oblivion so this one won't be any help.

[Kane]

You really think so? I've only invested time into Skyrim thus far, so maybe my expectations were a little too lofty.

[monkeyemoness]

And the screenshot is with Oblivion Character Overhaul? Nuska's OCO? I'm guessing Natural Faces is overwriting a few things (I've never used Natural Faces), because that doesn't look like a Dunmer from Nuska's OCO. I'd ask if it was v1 or v2? but it seems that OCO v1 is gone now (and Nuska's banned from the Nexus????)

I wouldn't use both, since Natural Faces is meant for Vanilla and OCO is, well, an overhaul. Unless that's what you were going for.

But yeah, I vouch for OCO. The latest v1 offered a decent alternative to v2 before it was gone. v2 has its issues but overall it makes character faces A LOT better than vanilla. You may need some patches to fix some NPCs because it's pretty obvious the mod was thrown in as-is with no regard to what the NPC's look like with the new visuals.

Compatibility Patches?

A friend went and fixed some NPC's herself and shared the patch with me but I haven't seen her in a while so I'm not sure where to get it from. :V

This post has been edited by monkeyemoness: Aug 2 2017, 03:35 PM

[ghastley]

I haven't been back to Oblivion for a while, but I recall that there were a few more options like a replacement head mesh that you didn't mention. (Head06 by throttlekitty) Just like Skyrim, you need texture replacers that map to the heads and bodies you choose, and you could make your own using some Photoshop layer kits (also worked OK in GIMP). I did the latter, and mixed and matched layers from multiple mods.

It was also possible to use a body replacer as "clothing" to have one NPC a different shape from another when naked, and of course the clothing could include a variant body size.

Extreme example

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

You really think so? I've only invested time into Skyrim thus far, so maybe my expectations were a little too lofty.

Yeah, in Khajiit's opinion, you aren't going to get a great looking character in Oblivion. The system Beth instituted for character creation is just... off. This one really does think that she's a whole lot better looking than vanilla though.

[Kane]

And the screenshot is with Oblivion Character Overhaul? Nuska's OCO? I'm guessing Natural Faces is overwriting a few things (I've never used Natural Faces), because that doesn't look like a Dunmer from Nuska's OCO. I'd ask if it was v1 or v2? but it seems that OCO v1 is gone now (and Nuska's banned from the Nexus????)

I wouldn't use both, since Natural Faces is meant for Vanilla and OCO is, well, an overhaul. Unless that's what you were going for.

But yeah, I vouch for OCO. The latest v1 offered a decent alternative to v2 before it was gone. v2 has its issues but overall it makes character faces A LOT better than vanilla. You may need some patches to fix some NPCs because it's pretty obvious the mod was thrown in as-is with no regard to what the NPC's look like with the new visuals.

Compatibility Patches?

A friend went and fixed some NPC's herself and shared the patch with me but I haven't seen her in a while so I'm not sure where to get it from. :V

Nuska indeed. Didn't realize natural faces was an overwrite - wouldn't have added that one.

I haven't been back to Oblivion for a while, but I recall that there were a few more options like a replacement head mesh that you didn't mention. (Head06 by throttlekitty) Just like Skyrim, you need texture replacers that map to the heads and bodies you choose, and you could make your own using some Photoshop layer kits (also worked OK in GIMP). I did the latter, and mixed and matched layers from multiple mods.

It was also possible to use a body replacer as "clothing" to have one NPC a different shape from another when naked, and of course the clothing could include a variant body size.

Extreme example

Thanks - I'll have to look into this, too.

You really think so? I've only invested time into Skyrim thus far, so maybe my expectations were a little too lofty.

Yeah, in Khajiit's opinion, you aren't going to get a great looking character in Oblivion. The system Beth instituted for character creation is just... off. This one really does think that she's a whole lot better looking than vanilla though.

I think she just needs more tweaking (and less blue).

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

You really think so? I've only invested time into Skyrim thus far, so maybe my expectations were a little too lofty.

Yeah, in Khajiit's opinion, you aren't going to get a great looking character in Oblivion. The system Beth instituted for character creation is just... off. This one really does think that she's a whole lot better looking than vanilla though.

I think she just needs more tweaking (and less blue).

Yeah in vanilla you had to seriously play with the skin tone sliders to get a Dunmer that didn't look like a smurf. Khajiit actually did have some success with this, turning his Dunmer characters a dark, slightly greenish grey color.

[Kane]

Made some progress!! I removed Natural Faces, and installed Compatibility Patches, and Seamless. This was the result:

Melora

[Kane]

I also changed "bFaceGenTexturing=1" to "bFaceGenTexturing=0" in the .ini.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

There you go.

[Decrepit]

Lots of folks have beat me to the punch on this one. Looks like you're getting there!!!! OCOv2 is indeed the way to go, imo. Bevilex devotes a section of his Oblivion Graphics Modlist? to OCO and add-ons. I followed its body/face recommendations to the letter for my experimental Oblivion build. You can see the results in my recent screenshots posted in the appropriate Oblivion sub-forum thread. Bear in mind that almost all experimental build captures also feature Oblivion Reloaded, which further improves graphics. More recent shots feature both Oblivion Reloaded and an ENB, though with that combo I've still got a number of graphical kinks to iron out.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Aug 3 2017, 12:21 AM

[Kane]

Lots of folks have beat me to the punch on this one. Looks like you're getting there!!!! OCOv2 is indeed the way to go, imo. Bevilex devotes a section of his Oblivion Graphics Modlist? to OCO and add-ons. I followed its body/face recommendations to the letter for my experimental Oblivion build. You can see the results in my recent screenshots posted in the appropriate Oblivion sub-forum thread. Bear in mind that almost all experimental build captures also feature Oblivion Reloaded, which further improves graphics. More recent shots feature both Oblivion Reloaded and an ENB, though with that combo I've still got a number of graphical kinks to iron out.

ooh, thanks for that link! I'll have to go check your screens, too.

[Kane]

So, OCOv2....anyone have it working well? I can never seem to get results like they show on the mod page, and the last few times I tried to install it, I could not get it running.

Serethil is attempting it, too, and is also having issues getting it to play nice.

Any tips or tricks?

[Renee]

So, OCOv2....anyone have it working well? I can never seem to get results like they show on the mod page, and the last few times I tried to install it, I could not get it running.

Any tips or tricks?

Isn't that what Decrepit's been using?

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

I don’t know if anyone is needing this currently (I might in the next couple of days), but there is apparently a new version of Oblivion Character Overhaul that someone took the time to clean and what not. I’ll probably give it a cursory whirl. OCO has traditionally been a bit finicky, so if it gives me too much trouble I’ll probably just stick with vanilla faces. Given enough time, I can make something I can live with.

[Lena Wolf]

OCO tends to mess up faces of NPCs added by mods because, well, it messes up faces. That is, faces need to be redone to look good with OCO. You may want to check whether there are OCO patches for the mods you want to use, if you are looking to install quest mods in particular. You'd notice those NPCs more than some random bandits.

There are also a number of new mods that modify vanilla heads by gently changing the mesh. They are designed to work with vanilla faces, that is, they don't deform them. The results are quite impressive! It is suprising how little the mesh needs to be changed for the face to look different.

For example, see this:

Undeformed Potatoes - fixes up vanilla NPCs without changing the mesh.

Enhanced Vanilla Faces - changes the mesh slightly which improves vanilla faces. Works well with Undeformed Potatoes.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

There are also a number of new mods that modify vanilla heads by gently changing the mesh. They are designed to work with vanilla faces, that is, they don't deform them. The results are quite impressive! It is suprising how little the mesh needs to be changed for the face to look different.

For example, see this:

Undeformed Potatoes - fixes up vanilla NPCs without changing the mesh.

Enhanced Vanilla Faces - changes the mesh slightly which improves vanilla faces. Works well with Undeformed Potatoes.

I don’t see a huge difference with the first mod, but that second one does make a good difference! I can see how together they could be very beneficial.

[Lena Wolf]

What also makes a big difference is face textures. Some of those mods are referenced from the two I listed, but there's more. So if you wanted to try something different than OCO, there are actually quite a lot of options for the vanilla heads.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

What also makes a big difference is face textures. Some of those mods are referenced from the two I listed, but there's more. So if you wanted to try something different than OCO, there are actually quite a lot of options for the vanilla heads.

I’ve actually decided against bothering with OCO. I had forgotten how drastically they change the faceshape of some of the races (Like the Dunmer, eesh ). If I feel the need to, I will look into face texture mods. I’m trying to keep it mod light, so I’ll probably just stick to vanilla in this area.