[Blender Installation - Eggghh]

I don't have a Mac so can't answer anything for them, but for the Windows install the problem there is that you're using the latest version of Blender, Nifscripts only supports Blender 2.49band earlier, no support for the new 2.5 versions yet.

You'll need to install that version before you can use Nifscripts

LOL, that is too funny. I actually looked at 2.49 and said to myself: "If 2.50 doesn't work, 2.49 won't work either . . ."

Thanks you so much, I'll give it a try. Have a cookie for the help. Edit: Both of you.

~ Dani ~

[Blender Installation - Eggghh]

Okay, title says it all. I've put a great number of hours in on a project and now I literally need Blender to finish it. And I cannot get the Blender nifscripts installed. No way, no how.

Background: I have a MacBook Pro with the 10.6.6 OS (Snow Leopard). I have Bootcamp installed (so my 500g hard drive is partitioned with 150g for a Windows installed). I have Windows 7 Professional installed (64 bit) on the Bootcamp. So I can either install Blender on my Windows 7 side or I can install Blender on my Apple. One benefit to the Apple install: All my texture editing software is on the Apple side: so Adobe CS5 Masterworks and a grundle of photo-editing tools (Topaz, onOne, Nik), etc. The point here is I have a number of robust tools for texture editing.

One the Windows side, I have an older version of Photoshop (6 or 7, can't recall which). That's it (but it works ). I'm not heartbroken if the only place I can install it is on the Windows side. Windows side also has NifTools.

Final background note: I've had Blender working on my older Mac (same OS) about a year or so ago. Then I dropped it, broke it, had to get a new one. This is my first install of Blender on this machine. I've tried installing it on both the Windows side and the Mac side, with no success.

1. Apple/Mac Blender Install.

The problem here seems to be two-fold: the lack of current install instructions (the latest full install instructions I can find for a Mac are for the 2.48 Blender release and were last updated in 2009/2010). As you may know, Blender is now on a 2.57 release and the package contents folder structure is now quite different, so those older instructions are basically invalid.

I'm also using the latest versions of Python and PyFFI.

Does anyone have Blender/nifscripts installed on a Mac? What version are you using?

2. Windows 7 install.

This one is particularly frustrating. I was thinking, for certain, I would be able to get these installed in Windows 7.

Again I installed the latest version of Python, PyFFI, and Blender 2.57. When I go to unpack the Blender Nifscripts file (using the .exe). I get an error message that says I need to have Blender installed. But Blender is already installed. I uninstalled it. Reinstalled. Tried an earlier version - even down to 2.50. And so on. Every single time I try to install the nif scripts I get the same message: Blender needs to be installed . . . click on "Okay" to go to the Blender website.

Answer to very obvious question: Yes, I'm installing all these programs as "administrator."

Answer to other very obvious question: Yes, I installed Blender in a C:\Apps\Blender directory. In fact, I followed the instructions on the Blender TESNexus page.

So what am I missing here? Any suggestions? I've spent (seriously) the last 8 hours working on this.

~ Dani ~

[Items disappearing when Player Home Cell respawns]

SPAWN is definately the culprit.

Thanks for all the help; this thread can be closed.

~ Dani ~

[Items disappearing when Player Home Cell respawns]

SPAWN is a mod that changes the automatic 3 day Oblivion respawning to a variable, player set number of hours.

I don't know that COBL is the culprit because I think the bedroll came from Real Fatigue.

Do all cells in Oblivon respawn? For example, if I buy a player house - the Waterfront shack - does the entire cell respawn or just containers within the cell. I opened the CS and I didn't any way to make "cells" persistent, just items within the cell.

~ Dani ~

Edit: thanks . . . I'm looking through SPAWNs .ini now . . .

. . . changed .ini and testing . . .

[Items disappearing when Player Home Cell respawns]

Thanks! That was my thought, too.

SPAWN only changes the time in which a cell respawns, but even in vanilla Oblivion, player home cells respawn, right? Is respawning the same as resetting?

One thought its they dropped through the floor, but an entire water keg? Trashcans?

~ Dani ~

[Items disappearing when Player Home Cell respawns]

There's probably a really simple reason things are doing this, but here goes:

I have a player home. It has four cells: main floor, basement, upper level, magic room. Nothing too significant, just my home. I'm using COBL and COBL Thirst. I'm also using SPAWN.

I go to a merchant and buy a water keg and a bedroll. I put them in my house but, of course, not in a container. A couple of days later, I re-enter the cell . . . and they're gone. Same with the COBL trashcans I bought. Anything in a container is okay. Anything on the floor, like the water keg, is gone.

Anyone have an idea why this happening? Thanks,

~ Dani ~

[[Relz] Morning Glory Madness 1.0]

Wonderful, glad you like them.

Please let me know if there are any problems.

~ Dani ~

[Female face meshes!! Driving me crazy!!]

I use CapsAdmin's smooth egt (which isn't a texture- it belongs in the mesh folder) and those aren't the results I get at all. I don't use Enayla's textures though, I use Navetsea's- the ones included with his body textures. I can't link to them because of nekkid-ity.

Install order for folks who never mess with these things, if they're curious

1- Smooth egt for vanilla races by CapsAdmin. I rename the egt to headhuman.egt and drop it in the meshes/characters/Imperial folder.

2- install IFT by shady tradesmen. This installs good quality age maps, as well as texture improvements for all the races.

3- install Navetsea's face textures. This will overwrite some of the textures from IFT, but not the agemaps, which is what I want.

4- this might be a placebo effect, but I'll post it anyway. I then doublecheck my Archive Invalidation method, and use OBMM to reset BSA timestamps. Then I start a new game to test the results.

Try these steps with Enayla's, and maybe they will help?

Okay, I knew my brain was going to mush but now it's confirmed.

You're correct, I mistyped. Yes, the smooth egt for vanilla races by CapsAdmin is a mesh, not a texture. And I did have it installed correctly - in the meshes/characters/Imperial folder, per the instructions. Otherwise, it wouldn't have worked at all, and I'd see no difference between the two faces.

And, unfortunatley for me, I'm also using IFT by shady tradesmen.

And I'm pretty confident that my Archive Invalidation is working.

So that leaves ... textures. And now that I know a little about texturing, that actually makes some sense. I'll try to find the textures you mentioned and give them a go.

Thanks for the help.

~ Dani ~

[Female face meshes!! Driving me crazy!!]

Awhile back, I posted a question on the Bethesda forum about the shadows on female character faces in Oblivion. I was told it was a texture issue and was referred to high rez Imperial face texture by CapsAdmin. In addition I'm using New Face Textures by Enayla and Beautiful People (Better Redguard edition).

Yes, even with the high rez texture, I'm getting green and gray facial shadows.

Imperial Female face with CapsAdmin texture.

High Elf face with CapsAdmin texture.

Imperial Face without texture.

High Elf face without texture.

The high elf face is the very best I can do to eliminate the gray/green shadow. Most high elf faces are worse, with large paches of green on the sides. And of the races, frankly, these are the best. On Breton Females, it looks like beard stubble. On Nords, it looks have a racoon-eyed sunburn.

Tell me there's a solution for this. Can I open the mesh with NifScope and remove the shadows ...

~ Dani ~

[Changing a mesh]

Take a look over our tutorials here, they'll get you started , To help out a little, here is the edited model

Thank you, that was very kind. Have a cookie.

I have other nif issues on the horizon, so I'll download blender and look at the tutorials.

Thanks again. I really appreciate it.

~ Dani ~

[Changing a mesh]

That doesn't sound good ...

I don't even have blender, let alone a working knowledge.

But thanks for the info.

~ Dani ~

[Changing a mesh]

Thanks. I'll take a look at the .nif in Nifscope.

~ Dani ~

Edit: I just saw IS's response. How hard is a "blender edit". Is this something I could do relatively easily.

The key being "relatively".

~ Dani ~

[Changing a mesh]

The fact that I have to ask this is probably not a good sign.

The vanilla Blades Shield comes with four gold "mounds" on the center of the shield. Suppose I wanted to remove those four mounds so that a bas-relief image could be used instead.

The texture would be relatively easy: I would simply black out the mounds in both the texture and the alpha layer and create a bas-relief image for the shield, doing whatever other texturing I wanted.

The problem is mesh. It has the mounds on it. I'm wondering how much work and what tools I would need to remove those four mounds. Also, would I need to make the bas-relief image part of the mesh.

~ Dani ~

[[Relz] Morning Glory Madness 1.0]

Thanks!

[[Relz] Morning Glory Madness 1.0]

Love it, will definitely use it.

GGDAzura'sStar 02 and 03 need their texture path corrected.

And im working on a gift to add to your next version.

Thanks for the catch ... corrected now.

And a gift? We like gifts ...

~ Dani ~

[[Relz] Morning Glory Madness 1.0]

As the name suggests, Morning Glory Madness adds an insane number of Morning Glory varieties and species to an easy to use .esp as a modders' resource. Simply merge the .esp with your mod and use the ones you like. Delete the rest. Easy as pie. And we like pie.

Includes:

17 color variations of Morning Glory (based on real life varieties) that are identified as "Morning Glory" and drop Morning Glory Root Pulp.

5 color variations of the new species "Star Merremia", which drops Merremia Root Pulp, an ingredient similar to Morning Glory Root Pulp.

A unique merremia "Azura's Star", which drops Azura's Star Petals, a restorative ingredient.

A unique merremia "Moonlight Merremia", which drops Merremia Seeds, an ingredient useful in making poisons – and avoiding your enemies.

This mod does NOT place any plants in-world. If you're not adding the plants yourself, the mod is useless.

This mod is only available from TES Alliance.

Download here.

Official ReadMe included.

Enjoy.

~ Dani ~

["Assert at, [###########] Error]

I'm making a patch mod to resolve a conflict between two mods - one of which is Better Cities. The patch requires that I delete some in-world resources that directly conflict with placement of BC resources. I delete the object, go to save the .esp, and I get an error: Assert or Assertion at, [string of numbers].

Anyone know what this is and why I'm getting it?

~ Dani ~

[Load Order Issue - How to tell if a mod changes X?]

It sounds like all this ESP does for soul gems is change the model paths? If that's the case you should be able to just use Bash and tag it with Graphics, with it loading after OOO. Then have Bash import graphics from it, without activating the mod. You get the visual updates while keeping whatever else OOO wants to do to them and all without eating another slot or having to mess around with a Gecko merge.

Yes, it changes model paths from the all existing Soul Gem FormIds (I must be the only one that like spider soul gems ... ). And that's all it does. OOO, IIR, does change the model names.

And so I did think of this and try it - what I did was set the load at the bottom of my load order, (not directly after OOO), then tagged it with a graphics tag, but the name did not change to green on the Bash file list and when I click on it, I get the "dot" instead of the "cross". When I load the game, the changes are gone.

So I'm not sure why this isn't working. You're absolutely correct; this would be the easiest, least intusive solution.

~ Dani ~

[Load Order Issue - How to tell if a mod changes X?]

Oh sorry Dani! I didn't see your edit.

TES4Gecko is probably your answer.

DUH!!! Just merge them ... of course! Thanks, Hanaisse ...

~ Dani ~

[Load Order Issue - How to tell if a mod changes X?]

Why not just keep the soulgems mod loading at the bottom of your load order?

No reason - except that when StarX mentioned patch, I saw a way to get rid of an .esp (since I'm pushin 225 ...)

~ Dani ~

[Load Order Issue - How to tell if a mod changes X?]

Use either Refscope or FormIDFinder to get the editor ID of the soulgem.

Use TES4Edit to search all your mods for that ID. (Yes, this will take a while) You'll get results of any and all mods that touch soulgems.

You are my hero! That worked perfectly! And the cuplit is:

OOO - wouldn't you know! (Sorry ... feeling poetic ...)

Yup, that's right. By using TES4Edit you can determine which mods change the soulgems. That way you also have the right info to make a patch for yourself to combine the various changes if you want. So you combine mod A (which changes the filepaths) with mod B (which changes other stats like value for example).

By patch, do you mean make a dependent .esp that includes the information and resources from both? So in this case, I have:

GW71_Soulgems.esp (which loads before)

Oscuro's_Oblivion_Overhaul.esp

Since OOO changes it, I would need to make a dependent merged patch. Any suggestions on how to do that?

Edit: What if both mods change the file paths from the original Bethesda file path? So GW71 changes it first, then OOO changes it again? Can I make the GW71_Soulgems.esp a dependent .esp (dependent on the OOO .esp) so that Wyre Bash ghosts it and it doesn't count towards the load order? I've done this with scripts before (for example, a delayer for the Ruined-Tales Tale quest) where my delayer was dependent upon the original mod and loads as a patch?

Are we talking about the same thing?

\

~ Dani ~

[Load Order Issue - How to tell if a mod changes X?]

Well, if the filepath of the meshes is altered in the CS than any mod loading after that will undo these edits. Since it comes with an esp this seems to be the case. So it isn't a simple replacer which only replaces the excisting meshes and/or textures.

Okay, that makes sense ... kind of. If mod A adds new textures and meshes for soul gems, and uses an .esp to direct the game to load those resources, then the only way it would revert back is if another mod specifically changed the path back, right?

~ Dani ~

Edit:

@ Willie: That's good advice and I should have followed it. Luckily, I make backups of any mod I install, so I can go to the backup and figure out what I need to delete to restore the game to normal.

@ Hanaisse: I just downloaded FormidFinder (great tool!) which should tell me the path of the last .esp to "touch" soulgems. I already have TES4edit, I'll just need to figure out how to find those results ... thank you so much for the tip.

~ D ~

[Load Order Issue - How to tell if a mod changes X?]

You need to use Archive Invalidation if you want to replace vanilla textures. Otherwise the textures are pulled from the BSA and NOT your textures folders.

[EDIT] http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10724

I've already enable archive invalidation, but I'll checked again to make sure.

...

Nope, not the problem. If I move the .esp to the bottom of my load order, the meshes/textures work.

~ Dani ~

[Load Order Issue - How to tell if a mod changes X?]

Eggh ... I'm pulling my hair out here - and this is probably a really easy thing to do, I've just never done it before. Here's what I need to know:

1. You change the texture/mesh whatever on an existing in-game item (no, no, I didn't do it, another mod did). In this case, soul gem retexture.

2. I install the mod, complete with mesh/texture resources and .esp.

3. I sort the load order with BOSS. The mod sorts, so I can assume the load order is correct.

4. I enter the game, and no change.

Logically then, some other mod, later in load order, is reverting the change back to the original soul gems. But, sigh, I'm running over 200+ esps! I've spent an hour trying to diagnose the problem and I can't figure out what it's called? Resource duplication? Is it mod confict? Egggh.

I'm betting there's a way to check and see if a later mod changes the same resource. But, newbie as I am, I don't know what that way is. Can someone help?

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

~ Dani ~

["We are a statues", odd problem]

I'm arriving late to this discussion so this may not be of use anymore, but Wrye Bash solves this problem nicely .... providing your computer processor can handle the extra workload.

When you build your Bashed Patch, you can choose how many active NPCs you have going at any one time. With Blood & Mud, Better Cities, & FCOM installed, I had problems around Bravil. I raised the number high ... I think even higher than 50 ... and it worked, although my FPS dropped a bit. Still, despite the occasional lag, those staring, frozen statutes are gone.

Maybe this will help someone.

~ Dani ~