TK's Mod Questions Thread, Got mod problems, or are you just lost with a tool? Options

[Thomas Kaira]

Why not save yourself the trouble and download 7-Zip?

And that is correct, BAIN will do all the "un-stuffing" for you.

[Thomas Kaira]

In case anyone is wondering what I'm doing with Brina Cross, Here's a taster.

I think I am nearly done with the exteriors now. I've got my market, my farms, and my fancy schmancy street lighting (toggles based on time of day, you know something so exceedingly basic as that). I need to get to work on the interiors now, I've got five new structures to clutter and one in need of a bit of a spruce-up.



This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 19 2011, 08:44 AM

[haute ecole rider]

By the time I got your message about BAIN installation of Cobl, I had already done a manual install of it. Oh boy, never again. I will look to see if BAIN can install the next ones. I did want the races for the new textures, so I installed the races (but not the race balancing thingy yet) and the cosmetics resources file using Wrye Bash. That was a lot easier. Then I went into the game to start playing around with it, and walked into Cloud Ruler Temple Great Hall to see a huge, yellow starburst hovering over one of the tables there. "WTF? I'm missing a mesh???" Ooops, those numerous subfolders I saw in the Core --

So I manually moved the textures and meshes from the Core subfolder into the OB data directory. I haven't gone back into the game yet to see if it worked, since it was so late last night *yawn*. But I hope I did the right thing?

[Thomas Kaira]

Yuppers... you didn't put the meshes folder in the right place.

It gets filed under (route to Oblivion directory)/Oblivion/Data. Same with Textures. any time you have a folder named meshes or textures or sounds or menus, those all go into the Data folder.

Best you learn BAIN quick, though. It can be quite painful managing a full manual install. Don't worry about previous manual installs, though. Just reinstall the mod with BAIN and it will pick up the pieces for you.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 20 2011, 08:04 AM

[haute ecole rider]

So far everything is running well.

I did load a mod that caused the game to CTD repeatedly. As others had reported similar problems with it, I uninstalled it, and now the game runs just fine.

Currently this is my load order:
Oblivion.esm
Cobl Main.esm
UOP.esp
DLCSI.esp
USIP.esp
Command Mount.esp
Cobl Glue.esp
Cobl Tweaks.esp
RedBag-Friendly Animals.esp
RedBag-Dangerous Animals.esp
Cobl.Races.esp
OHDHPlay.esp

The last is my own mod that I'm creating in the CS. Every time I change names, NPC heights, etc, it gets saved to this file. So far I haven't run into conflicts, and I'm now at the point in the MQ where the Bruma Gate is about to open and I have to take Burd and two tyros in there.

I let Wrye Bash and BOSS set the load order, and it seems to be running fine.

But now I'm looking at Better Cities versus Open Cities. At this time I'm not terribly interested in OOO or MMM. I am also trying to find a decent saddlebag mod - the one I was using was the one causing the CTD's.

So which is better - Better Cities or Open Cities? ImpREAL City looks interesting too, but seems to be compatible only with Better Cities. I liked the screenshots of Open Cities, though. The cities seemed to blend in more organically with the landscape without the big stone walls.

[Thomas Kaira]

What mod were you having trouble with? Perhaps I could take a look at it?

You mis-heard. ImpeREAL Cities is actually INcompatible with Better Cities... because it's already integrated. Kinda pointless to add a mod you already have, right?

ImpeREAL City is fully compatible with Open Cities. Although I'm not too sure about the Outer Districts, but I don't use that option, as I don't like the idea of the IC being only partially open. Open Cities doesn't touch the IC proper, though, so ImpeREAL City is still very much compatible.

Now, as for your city desires, I will say this: If you want your cities to be more beautiful and artistic, go for Better Cities, but take note that it carries a heavy performance hit in some areas, particularly the Waterfront. If you want immersion while retaining the original style of Oblivion and minimal performance loss, go with Open Cities.

If you choose Open Cities, you then have two further options: do you want to keep the original cities or do you want to have the cities redesigned so that they make more tactical sense (and get rid of the enormous stone walls for several of them)? If you want to keep the cities as they were in Oblivion vanilla, you will want Open Cities Classic. If you want to have the cities redesigned to make more logical sense, choose Open Cities Reborn.

Also, while we are on the subject, let us discuss the castles. There is another mod out there called ImpeREAL Empire - Unique Castles which makes the castles a lot more regal looking and adds many new turrets and windows to them. Again, this mod is already integrated into Better Cities, but if you want Open Cities, I have made a special version specifically for Open Cities users. You will find it is compatible with both the Classic and Reborn versions, as well.

Oh, and for you horsie fans, do not overlook Slof's Horses. You have no idea how much better she made the horses look from the vanilla models. She even made special versions for the Legion patrols complete with clipped tails!

Please do note that the current version is incompatible with the Official DLC Horse Armor, but you know what, who cares about that? I know I don't.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 23 2011, 07:32 PM

[haute ecole rider]

You're right, I had forgotten that BC includes ImpeREAL Cities. But it works with Open Cities, huh? That makes the latter even more appealing to me.

Better Cities is beautiful, and as I don't really expect to be doing much battling in towns once the MQ is finished, the performance hit wouldn't bother me. But I love the idea of the city walls being modified (Bruma gets a wooden palisade! Cheydinhal gets low stone walls that look just like those in my home town! Bravil relies solely on its moats for defense!) and the districts being reorganized.

I may down load both of them and play Open Cities Reborn with Julian, and Better Cities with a different character (obviously not the same world or the same group of mods).

The mod I was having trouble with was MD Saddlebags V3. The saddlebags never showed up in the traders (a recognized problem), the console command recommended by the creator never worked, the patch didn't fix anything, and the game just kept CTD while I was galloping along the road. Since I removed the mod, the CTD hasn't been an issue at all, and I've played about six or eight more hours since then.

Since Julian travels so light, I really don't need the saddlebags. I just thought I would try it out and see how it worked. I'd much rather have Julian get camping gear, especially as she has to camp out in the high Jeralls while she recovers the armor of Tiber Septim. A portable bedroll would be nice to have. I did find a few camping mods, but they are much too fancy for me and Julian. So we use bandit camps instead, after clearing them. Free food, a good fire, cooking gear, and a bed out of the wind. What more could a wandering soldier need? .

I did look at OOO, but decided against it when I read that starting a new game after loading it was strongly recommended. I don't want to restart the MQ. As a matter of fact, for my next character, I would rather skip the whole MQ/dungeon tutorial and have my character start somewhere else, and update the MQ in the background (but not with my PC as the Hero of Kvatch - for me, only Julian of Anvil can have that honor). If I could figure out how to bypass the Prison start, I would then reconsider OOO for a different PC.

I am interested in Slof's horses, and have downloaded them. I had tried out the DLC Horse Armor on the XBox, and hated it. As far as I could tell, it did nothing for the horse's welfare. I also hated the way they looked on the horses, too. So I have not used it on the XBox since, and did not download it for this. So Slof's Horses will be loaded sometime when Julian is on the road to Anvil.

I'm not terribly interested in castles for my PC. I'm sorry but Julian and I are just too blue-collar for the castles, or even the fancy manor homes. I'm already creating an alternative interior for Gweden Farm for Julian when the Sirens are cleared out. I've got the upstairs done, and will be working on the basement next. It's small, cozy, and doesn't need much stuff. My favorite house in the game is Benirus Manor for its aesthetics, but it's just too big for me. And it's not Julian's taste at all.

I am also very interested in Kvatch Rebuilt, as the city plays a huge role in Julian's future beyond the MQ. My only peeve is that the PC becomes the Count/ess, when I firmly believe it should be Savlian Matius who gets to sit in the fancy chair. I'm wondering if that can be modded so the right person (IMO) gets to sit in the right chair.

[SubRosa]

If you want a bedroll mod, try this one. It is very simple and straight forward. It makes all the bedrolls you find in the world objects you can pick up and carry and put down anywhere you like. It also adds a few for sale by merchants. But it is easier just to walk over to Vilverin and pick one up from the bandits.

You might try this for an alternate start. It seems to be the most popular one. Or just start the game from a save at the sewer exit (you did make a save there, before you are asked to confirm your stats?). After that it is simple to just make the Amulet of Kings a non-quest item and put it in the barrel.

If you would like a nice, blue collar home in the Imperial City, try this. It adds a simple, one-room apartment to the IC Market District. Much nicer than that nasty waterfront shack, and being in the Market District, it is right where all the merchants are that you probably want to trade with anyway.



This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 23 2011, 08:29 PM

[Thomas Kaira]

Alternative starts?

I'd have to say this one would be the best now. It is very flexible in the choices you are allowed to make, you can start as an old retired legion soldier (hint hint), or as an immigrant, or as a resident of Cyrodiil, you name it. Without a doubt, this one is the most popular, however, and I know for a fact you can start as a legion veteran with that one, too.

But it is entirely up to you what you want.

As for OOO, starting a new game is recommended, but not necessary. All you need to do is install the mod, rebuild the Bashed Patch (which since you have COBL, it would be a good idea to have that), and follow these easy steps ingame:

1. Open the console, type coc testinghall.
2. Wait for 24 hours four times.
3. Exit to Hawkhaven and fast-travel back to where you were previously.

What this does is transport you to an isolated cell and allows the game to refresh the spawn points with OOO's new leveled lists. Once you do that, go onwards and enjoy your brave (and dangerous) new world.

By the way, the sole purpose of Unique Castles is to make the city castles look better from the outside. It does nothing apart from adding new turrets and windows. Consider it in the same league as those city mods, it simply makes the world look a bit more believable, that's all.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 23 2011, 09:33 PM

[haute ecole rider]

Okay, I think I'm missing a step somewhere . . .

I downloaded Open Cities Reborn and installed it. It shows active in both OBMM and Wrye Bash. Here's the load order as set by BOSS.

Oblivion.esm
Open Cities Resources.esm
Cobl Main.esm
Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp
DLCShivering Isles.esp
USIP.esp
aaaBorsBedrolls.esp
Command Mount.esp
Cobl Glue.esp
Cobl Tweaks.esp (merged into Bashed Patch)
ImperialCityApartment.esp
ImpeREAL City Unique Districts - All the Districts - Merged.esp
Open Cities Outer Districts.esp
Open Cities Reborn.esp
ImpeREAL Empire - Unique Castles - All the Castles - OCR.esp
RedBag Friendly Animals.esp
RedBag Dangerous Animals.esp (merged into Bashed Patch)
Cobl Races.esp
Bashed Patch 0.esp
OHDHPlay.esp

The problem is when I look down on Bruma from Cloud Ruler Temple, I'm still seeing the stone walls and the vanilla layout. I can see the buildings inside the walls well, and it seems like the north gate is open as well, so it looks like I would expect with Open Cities Classic. But I'm not seeing the castle in the center, nor am I seeing the wooden palisade that is supposed to be there.

What am I missing? I haven't yet gone down to the city.

[Thomas Kaira]

That's because you are still seeing the vanilla LOD visuals for the cities. Oblivion does not actually refer to the actual mesh data for the cells for the Distant LOD, it uses separate files generated per-cell that tell the engine where to put the LOD mesh data, and these need to be updated for such mods as OCR that significantly alter the city layouts. ESPs cannot modify the LOD data for this game, that's the simple truth.

Use this to regenerate your DistantLOD data in order to see the city walls properly from a distance. It's very easy to use, just drop it into your Oblivion directory, let it run, and it will do everything you need for you.

EDIT: Also, if you want to see the actual city buildings form a distance, you will need this mod, as well. It provides LOD mesh data for a good deal of vanilla meshes (the Distant LOD system in this game doesn't even use the same mesh data as the rest of the game, it's really pretty clumsy) so that TES4LODGen can place more VWD visuals every time it updates your D-LOD data. The cities as they are will not actually have any buildings in them, because Bethesda didn't provide proper LOD data for the city buildings (just some haphazardly placed ultra-low-res house meshes for the vanilla game). You can get proper VWD City buildings here, along with a number of other things.

WARNING: The above mod can MURDER performance if you are not careful, so be conservative with it for now.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 24 2011, 03:43 AM

[haute ecole rider]

Okay, so I'm following your advice and downloading the two mods and running them.

Question though. How often should I run them? Do I have to do it every time I install a world-altering mod (say I switch from Open Cities/ImpeREAL Empire to Better Cities)? Or more often?

Thanks for answering all my noob questions. And SubRosa, thanks for pointing me to the bedroll mod. I just about jumped up and down in my chair when I got the message "Pick up this bedroll?" in the Cloud Ruler Temple barracks! I said no, because I'm not taking one of those! There's that unmarked bandit camp in the Jeralls on that back road to Cheydinhal that would be handy! Of course there are plenty of other camps on the way as well. I will also check out the apartment mod, though I think Julian will stick with her Waterfront hovel for now.

[Thomas Kaira]

You'll have to re-run it every time you install a new mod; those files it generates are Load Order dependent. Good thing it only takes a couple minutes.

[haute ecole rider]

It did just fine. Still, it's a bit disconcerting to see the stone walls disappear as I approach Bruma and the palisades appear. But I enjoyed walking through the town with Paint following! And the Mages Guild now has a little garden with plants that are uncommon to the Jeralls. Perfect!

I downloaded RAEVWD as you suggested, but the download seems to be faulty, as it is not showing up anywhere on the computer (though Firefox insists it's there). I will try the download again.

I'm back to work helping Julian guide a couple of tiros through an Oblivion Gate. Huzzah!

[Thomas Kaira]

Erm... you mean you wan LODGen but the stone walls are still visible from the distance? Because that's not right, those walls should be gone and you should be able to see the palisades from a distance, too.

Do you have a DistantLOD folder in your data directory?

[haute ecole rider]

Okay, when you say Oblivion directory, do you mean the data folder?

I have LODGen's folder at the same level as the Data folder, and the application outside of LODGen's folder in Oblivion.

I do have DistantLOD folder in my Oblivion Data folder, it contains .cmp files for Anvil Castle Courtyard, Talos Plaza District, Temple District (and Temple District MQ 16 which I assume contains the wrecked Temple), the Arcane University and Skingrad.

Oh, by the way, succeeded in getting those two tiros out alive. Needed to spend a lot of time regenerating magicka so I could heal them. Idiots! Huzzah!

This post has been edited by haute ecole rider: Apr 25 2011, 12:08 AM

[Thomas Kaira]

First off, Schrodinger's Kitty seems to have fled back to his box. You may need to coax him back out again with some catnip.

EDIT: Never mind, he's come back.

Directories: The Oblivion directory is where the base game files and folders are installed. You will find Oblivion.EXE here, as well as all the .DLL extensions the game uses; OBSE goes here, and the Construction Set EXE goes here, as well.

The Data folder is the folder within the base Oblivion directory that contains all the BSAs, ESM, and ESPs the game uses.

In short, the Oblivion directory I refer to is the Oblivion parent folder (the Data folder is a child of the Oblivion directory).

Now, based on your description, you are missing quite a lot of files. You are missing the CMP file for the Tamriel worldspace, for instance, and you also have no .LOD files (which those contain all the VWD data for each cell in the game).

Try again, but this time make sure you run TES4LODGen from the Oblivion directory. Several of the Oblivion modding tools need to be where the game files are located in order to function. This one is no exception, as it needs to check every ESM and ESP you're loading for the objects occupying the cells and which of them are visible when distant, search the resources you have installed for matching _far.NIFs for the VWD meshes, and write the LOD data so that it all displays properly.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Apr 25 2011, 04:24 AM

[haute ecole rider]

Fixed!

I still haven't installed RAEVWD yet. I think I'll play for a while with the new meshes/textures loaded, and see how things play out.

Leyawiin is far more impressive than the vanilla version! The city now fits Count Caro's bloated ego better. And yes, I'm seeing the walls from a distance as they should be.

[Thomas Kaira]

Glad to hear it! Enjoy the game!

[haute ecole rider]

This calls for a celebration!

I have modded Gweden Farm (after the completion of the Siren's Deception quest) into Julian's retreat! The door is now unlocked (and owned by Julian), the interior is brighter and cheerier without all the heavy red drapery, she has a spot for her alchemy and a spot for her studying (two actually, one upstairs and one downstairs) and a nice clean bed to sleep in. I left the decor a bit sparse, mainly because I thought Julian would want to fill it up with all her artifacts and such from her quests (such as Thornblade).

The exterior will have a new garden, but I'm leaving that for when she gets done with her University studies and moves back to Anvil for good.

There's still a detail or two to tweak (such as changing the map marker to reflect the change in name).

Julian loves it!