Reinstalling Oblivion with MO

[Lamae Bal]

Over the last few days I've been trying to start over with Oblivion with Mod Organizer. I started by installing the unofficial patches and GOSH http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/45214/?and HGEC Better Bouncing Boobs http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/28235/? and installed NoMaam's animations and the universal skeleton. Along with that I installed RGM's Real flails. Then I installed Robert's Male Body 5.2, and OOO and the robert's patch for OOO. Then  I installed Oblivion Character OVerhaul 2. Then I found out about Seamless Equipment, and I got a little confused on how to install it properly, but what I did was I installed EVE, then the HGEC version, then the Robert's version, then the Oblivion Character overhaul version. This resulted in Kahjiits and Argonians not really looking any better, but other races did show some improvements. but I tried BSA alteration to see what would happen instead of BSA redirection; this is when things got bad. The Kahjiit bodies were pink, and the distant land outside had a purplish glow. So then I realized I'm supposed to use some shader from custom races??? Weird how it doesn't link to any of them on the seamless equipment page! But someone on there said it works great with a shader from Oblivion Reloaded, but installing that only led to the textures in distant land glowing even more pink. So wtf happened. I don't understand why I couldn't get these kahjiits and argonians to work even though I followed instructions, and was using BSA alteration a bad move?

[gregathit]

Yes.

 

Use BSA redirection only.  It is the most current and most reliable method.  Basically what it does is tell the vanilla game to use the loose files (if there are any) over vanilla BSA game files.

 

Alteration can have all sorts of unintended side effects and should only be used for a specific purpose (clearly not this one).

[Vaelorian]

Do not use MO for Oblivion; It does not work for it. It never did, and it probably never will unless the programers have a sudden need to add an option to use timestamps to sort your mods.

 

Instead, use TESMM.

[Lamae Bal]

I don't know what you mean; it has been sorting my mods through LOOT fine. Nevertheless, that doesn't solve the Kahjiit texture issue. Thank you Greg for confirming that I should not use BSA Alteration, but I still don't know how come they didn't look like the Kahjiits in the screenshots of Seamless Equipment. I've reinstalled Oblivion now, and I'm working on getting all these mods reinstalled and I'll see what happens on this try.

[Vaelorian]

*Sigh* MO was built for Skyrim. So was LOOT.

Their mod-sorting wasn't designed to work with Oblivion, because Oblivion loads mods based by timestamps. This will cause you issues later on - if you plan on modding Oblivion extensively.

 

On the other hand, BOSS (better OBLIVION sorting software) was designed to work with Oblivion in mind (surprise, surprise). TESMM allows you to sort mods by hand (which you'll need, 'cause BOSS can't sort everything properly). Wrye will let you play around with the dependencies of mods and saves (which can be invaluable if you want to strip a mod from a CM Partners dependency, for example, or remove an unwanted esm from your save).

Wrye also allows you to keep multiple save profiles, to have different mods active in one button (useful, for example, when your family or friends are visiting and you don't want them to see certain mods you have installed).

 

All of those are very important if you plan to mod your game extensively, and I suggest you get the tools that were actually designed for Oblivion, rather than ones made for a game made years after it and which don't have too much in common script-wise.

[Lamae Bal]

Yeah I've used OBMM and Wrye Bash for years, then people were saying MO worked fine with it. That's good to know so I guess I'll Give TESMM a shot. Well thanks for the advice. I'll see what happens with the Kahjiit textures when I install those mods again.

[varenne]

I'm not usually one to be biased against using certain tools when it comes to Oblivion, but TESMM?! I'd never recommend that piece of crap to anyone. Stick to the OBMM & Wrye Bash combo, using BOSS to sort en masse most of your MODs and manually adjust those it doesn't recognize. That very successful formula, last time I checked has not changed in years.

 

I do recall, back when I was reviewing and adding MODs that improved game appearance, I did wrestle with Khajiits and Argonians body textures for a while there. Keep in mind with any MOD, it sometimes takes reading between the lines; finding important stuff that may have been overlooked, or even going into and determining on your own exactly what the MOD is altering. That entails opening up NIFs, reviewing textures and even comparing it to prior versions. Some changes can appear subtle, yet have dire consequences elsewhere in game. I had issues with Robert's Male Body 5.2, so I do recall going back to a prior version (I don't recall fully or partially) and resolved some if not all of them.

[Lamae Bal]

Yeah that was my old solution; just use Robert's version 4. As I remember it didn't really result in me seeing a ton of problems especially with Better Cities. But I wanted to get it to work this time, especially because the Seamless Equipment/Heads mod has a version specifically FOR Robert's version 5.2 and I don't know how well it would work with older versions. So after reinstalling everything, this time I'm seeing the Khajiit textures scattered all over its body when I install Robert's v5.2. So I'm still stumped.

[Vaelorian]

I've used TESMM for over a year now. It's perfectly stable, has identical functionality (and interface) to OBMM and is better optimized.

 

I'd like to know why do you dislike it that much, though.

[fejeena]

varenne TESMM is fine. NOT NEXUS-MM !

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5010/

 

I used it for Skyrim (My Oblivion Installation is old so I still use the OBMM for Oblivion, too lazy to switch )

 

 

[Lamae Bal]

I tried reinstalling Robert's with TESMM and this time I get pink body textures on Khajiits. (I've only been using BSA Redirection). Using the omod script, you'd think it would work... I even installed it with nothing other than the unofficial patches installed.

[fejeena]

Have you read my yellow Link ( http://www.loverslab.com/topic/36443-oblivion-install-gametoolsbodiesbbbmod-sorting-and-cleaningcs-cse/ )

 

Perhaps your Problem is  = Oblivion in C:\ program files .....

 

Have you checked your Oblivion INI if you have the BSA Redirection entry ?

The Oblivion.ini is in My documents\my games\Oblivion (german: Eigene Dokumente\My Games\Oblivion)  ! NOT the Oblivion_default.ini in your Oblivion game Folder !

search : sArchiveList ( sArchiveList is near the end of the ini)

 

OblivionMod Manager archive invalidate entry must look like this:

sArchiveList=..\obmm\BSARedirection.bsa, Oblivion - Meshes.bsa, Oblivion - Textures - Compressed.bsa, Oblivion - Sounds.bsa, Oblivion - Voices1.bsa, Oblivion - Voices2.bsa, Oblivion - Misc.bsa

 

Not sure how the TESMM entry looks like, but I think it is the same as the OBMM entry.

 

You use Roberts Body 52 ?

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/40532/

[varenne]

varenne TESMM is fine. NOT NEXUS-MM !

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5010/

 

I used it for Skyrim (My Oblivion Installation is old so I still use the OBMM for Oblivion, too lazy to switch )

 

Yeah, that was the one I was referring to, didn't know there were multiple. 

[varenne]

Yeah that was my old solution; just use Robert's version 4. As I remember it didn't really result in me seeing a ton of problems especially with Better Cities. But I wanted to get it to work this time, especially because the Seamless Equipment/Heads mod has a version specifically FOR Robert's version 5.2 and I don't know how well it would work with older versions. So after reinstalling everything, this time I'm seeing the Khajiit textures scattered all over its body when I install Robert's v5.2. So I'm still stumped.

 

I think I finally stayed with Robert's 5.1 resources only as you don't need the ESP with I think LAPF or one of the newer version Lover's MODs. All I know is I have the ESP disabled and uninstalled.

 

I had that same exact issue with Khajiit textures. Either the NIFs need to be edited or the Texture folders edited, I forget which it was as it was quite literally years ago. Best thing to do is review the original Oblivion folder structures in the BSA, then compare that to what the Khajiit NIFs are calling as texture paths. The issue is Robert's Male though as I recall, and simply disabling the ESP may do the trick. You may need to rerun BSA redirect and possibly rebuild your Bashed Patch after disabling it, so it uses the right resources.

I've used TESMM for over a year now. It's perfectly stable, has identical functionality (and interface) to OBMM and is better optimized.

 

I'd like to know why do you dislike it that much, though.

 

My bad and corrected by fejeena: "TESMM is fine. NOT NEXUS-MM !"

 

I did a quick search for TESMM and thought it was the later.

[Lamae Bal]

Thanks Varenne, that really helped, but they still have along the insides of their legs (all races) especially noticeable in Kahjiits. Weirdly I got them to look this good before, but it was with esp active. So idk why it's not working that way this time. Ntm when I install HGEC it leaves a foot texture on males and females that is all weird and scrambled (when I install it with or without robert's). But thanks for the help, maybe I'll look into the BSA's later and see what might be off with the texture paths.

[varenne]

For this first issue I believe what you are describing is a mismatching of the NIF vs. the UV mapping, which if memory serves me right is part of the issue with the version upgrades for Robert's male. If you have the time, open the actual NIFs for those that are problematic and review the UV mapping of the texture.

 

For the later issue that again is a texturing issue of sorts. Some MODs went from whole body textures and UV mapping to partial (mirrored UV maps) , or visa versa. NIFs are just dumb files calling up what ever texture resources you have installed, in the texture path location they were structured with. When NIF to textures get out of sync, that is the end result, due to different UV mapping; partial vs. full body. Mirrored UV maps are the worst offenders and often the ones producing body 'lines' or seems in-game. I have gone to culling out those and sticking to whole body UV mapping, where possible.

 

As I recall it took me a while too to track down and fix all of the issues, which is why I no longer just willy-nilly install a body or beautification MOD (but especially .omods) as they tend to alter resources. I want to know up front what gets changed, in case I decide to reverse the process.

 

Here are some screen captures of one possible review process, using NifSkope and CS/E

 

If you installed and are using alternate upper, lower, leg and hand NIFs you can just use NifSkope and review UV maps of the textures. This is an example of a full UV mapping of the body texture, and IMO are preferred over mirrored ones.

 

 

 

 

 

If that doesn't help in locating the issue then CS/E can help. In this example I opened up my Bashed Patch.esp file and reviewed the Khajiit NIF and Texture information. What it reveils is I am actually using the BSA resources and not something I installed into the Khajiit race folder and location. Only thing I use is an alternate Tail NIF and texture as this one is an improved version.

 

 

 

 

 

If you find you do have resources there, that may be the culprit or root cause of what you are experiencing, due to running BSA Redirect via OBMM or Wrye. It will then use what it finds in loose files in the appropriate location specified by the Race information and NIFs, instead of what the BSA archives have. If it doesn't find anything in the loose file location it then reverts to using BSA resources. You may also need to review your ArchiveInvalidate file, to see what it is calling too, which I think fejeena already went over in the above post.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers,

 

V

 

 

[spoonsinger]

Do not use MO for Oblivion; It does not work for it. It never did, and it probably never will unless the programers have a sudden need to add an option to use timestamps to sort your mods.

 

Instead, use TESMM.

 

If you don't use OBSE, then MO is fine. However why you would want to mod it and not have OBSE installed is a different point entirely.

 

Always found straight WyreBash and common sense is good.

[LifeandEd]

I tried to get Oblivion working with MO recently.  It worked, but I had to jump through a lot of obse/omod-related hoops.  I needed TESMM for omods and wrye for the bashed patch.  Then I saw LOOT's sorry attempt at sorting the lovers mods and snapped.  I cleaned out the MO mods folder and went back to using wrye/tesmm/boss.  MO's just an extra utility for Oblivion.  In Skyrim, it's like the modding version of the one ring: one manager to rule them all.  It can't do that for any other game.

[spoonsinger]

 It can't do that for any other game.

 

Actually MO is fine with Fallout:NV. (I have a perfectly happy setup with it).

 

Re:- OMM - yep just looked and I did use that as well WyreBash, basically just for MBP, (at some point want to get rid of), Darnified, Eve & Qarl. However as it slipped my memory it shows how it was a just fire and forget thing before other stuff was installed.

 

[Lamae Bal]

Okay I didn't really get why all the naysaying about MO because it specifically says on the site for MO and LOOT that they're for Oblivion, but then I realized that the archive invalidation path for MO (MO makes an entirely new ini, which is kinda stupid and frustrating) is different. It's some aaaa aaab asbelfnkdslkf bullshit instead of the real paths that were listed above. No idea what that means, but it didn't make any change with either ini (using or not using MO). So at this point I guess I'm gonna try not using MO anymore but mainly because installing mods with textures and stuff like that can not work right (wrong textures being overriden) for instance installing OOO overriding all your manual installs of Robert's/OOO patch. Yeah. It's better just having everything inside of the data folder in Oblivion. It's a shame because MO was so convenient for installing/uninstalling mods really fast, but like with Streamline that convenience doesn't work with Oblivion. I don't really get why LOOT is so different at organizing mods from BOSS... I'd assume the masterlists are the same. BOSS always sucked at organizing lovers mods too but that's a given. I guess after I re-setup everything manually I will also look at these nifs and compare the bsa texture paths. But I have never had this weird foot texture problem with HGEC before. It always worked fine. So I don't see how it could possibly have texture path  problems now when I've installed it hundreds of times in the past. Thanks for all the help everyone it's been invaluable.

[varenne]

 

 

I don't really get why LOOT is so different at organizing mods from BOSS... I'd assume the masterlists are the same. BOSS always sucked at organizing lovers mods too but that's a given.

 

I found this discussion thread very informative, even though I don't have or use Skyrim: 

Differences between LOOT and BOSS for Skyrim load order?

 

 

 

I guess after I re-setup everything manually I will also look at these nifs and compare the bsa texture paths.

You may not need to, depending on what you mean by re-setup everything manually. If you plan on re-installing/rebuilding from scratch some of those issues may go away completely. Just remember, it's BSA Redirection with OBMM.