Installing OCOv2 selectively for a few races

[QuiteTheTail]

Is that even possible, I ask?

I always preferred the vanilla/Robert RT4 style for NPC heads, but now that I think about it... this applies specifically to human races. I never liked very much the "potato head" elves (particularly Bosmer, and to some extent also Altmer). I'm a bit undecided about Dunmers. For those I like the vanilla appearance, but the OCO version is also cool because it brings back the Morrowind flavor.

 

P.S.

I wonder... trimming the unwanted race records from the original esp and removing the related resources from the data folder, should be enough to obtain the result. Or is there something else I should be aware of, before creating a bashed patch?

[puddles]

You'd want to open the Oblivion Character Overhaul.esp, 'mark unmodified' the races you don't want to keep, save the .esp to a different directory, uninstall the OCO package via Bain (or whatever), then open the .zip and trim the resources you don't want to replace. Reinstall the package, then drop the altered .esp in and Bashed Patch everything.

[QuiteTheTail]

You'd want to open the Oblivion Character Overhaul.esp, 'mark unmodified' the races you don't want to keep, save the .esp to a different directory, uninstall the OCO package via Bain (or whatever), then open the .zip and trim the resources you don't want to replace. Reinstall the package, then drop the altered .esp in and Bashed Patch everything.

 

At the cost of appearing completely stupid I want to make sure I understand to avoid mistakes:

I have to 'mark unmodified'  the races I don't want to keep in OCO esp, hence the races I want to keep?

 

[puddles]

I guess that is a little confusing, come to think of it. Okay, yeah anything you mark as Unmodified in the OCO esp will retain its vanilla/altered appearance, instead of using the OCO appearance.

[QuiteTheTail]

I guess that is a little confusing, come to think of it. Okay, yeah anything you mark as Unmodified in the OCO esp will retain its vanilla/altered appearance, instead of using the OCO appearance.

 

Thank you puddles. I had a feeling I had reversed the meaning of your suggestion.

NO, I got it right.

 

Now, would someone be so kind to post / link a screenshot of OCO2ed Golden Saints? Within six pages worth of images on the nexus page, no one posted Aureals. I'ts a bit strange, come to think of it. Dark Seducers I've seen them, and they look great. I'm considering also OCO2 Orcs.

[Vaelorian]

The cleanest way to remove something from an esp is to toggle the ignore flag. This is done before the mod is even loaded (and if it is done after, the mod has to be reloaded for it to take effect, then saved to... Well, save it). See posted screenshot for how to access menu.

 

You can remove pretty much anything from an esp in this fashion, and as long as you can bring up the menu you can turn even "ruined" mods fully functional ones that way.

It's also a way in which you can clean certain mods of edits you did not wish to make, if the undo button does not help or you do not wish to press it (for example, if you've performed multiple desired actions since the unwanted edit).

 

Of course, this is given that you know what records need to be removed.

If you don't, but can load the esp, you can check with it and mark down which records you'd like ignored, toggle those, reload the esp and save.

-V

[fejeena]

What's with the nexus picture ?

ugly!

[QuiteTheTail]

OMG. I had thought they were vampires... No-no-no-no!

Presto, bring the garlic!

 

Thank you all for the useful hints. Let's get this started!

[QuiteTheTail]

The cleanest way to remove something from an esp is to toggle the ignore flag. [...]

 

I tried the method, but the window looks to be read only, apparently there's no way to set the flag. I'm using CSE 7.0.8 if that matters. I tried the "mark unmodified" method, then. I think I've taken the necessary steps, but when I tested the fresh created bash installer the results were rather disappointing (I managed to screw even Lovers... certain mesh swaps do not occur when they should). [SOLVED: the source of the problem was entirely different]

I expected no more at the first try, this is a rather complex mod and choosing the right resources requires also a certain degree of knowlegde about Blockhead magic.

 

What I DIDN'T expect is that my character could be also influenced, and at a first glance this was plainly absurd for me (even admitting that my editing was done poorly) because it's from a custom race. Well, a custom race that uses almost entirely vanilla assets, though. Not so surprising, after all.

 

Sifting through the "faces" folder to select those for orc, bosmer and altmer NPCs was tremendously boring.

The more I look into it, the more I realize that Nuska put really a lot of work in this mod. Nearly every aspect of the character generation process has been explored, and exploited to the limit.

 

 

 

 

 

[QuiteTheTail]

I have a favor to ask: can some one please attach here or send me by PM the file:

Data\Textures\characters\eyes\eyebosmer_violet.dds ?

Apparently it's missing from the 2.0.3 package.

[fejeena]

Why don't you use a violet eye texture you like from another Mod?

Does OCO2 use "one-eye" textures? ( the old version used "one-eye)

eyes.7z some "one-eye" textures.

[puddles]

OCO uses "one-eye". There's a patch floating around for OCO2/Comprehensive Cosmetics, though. I have double-eyes of all the OCO2 eyes.

[QuiteTheTail]

OCOv2 uses vanilla eyes, if that's what you two mean by one-eye textures.

Thanks fejeena, but I'd rather prefer the original OCO2 eyebosmer_violet (I'm a bit of a purist, sometimes). Good news: my orcs, bosmer and altmer are OCO2ed. I repackaged the resources in a slightly different way, so they won't overwrite my resources for the other races (skin textures, EGTs and so on), and I'm using my favorite Imperial skin texture also for Altmers (instead of Golden Saint's).

The results are not bad, I will post some screenshots soon.

 

P.S.

Excuse me fejeena, the eyes I wanted are indeed contained in the archive. Thank you.

[QuiteTheTail]

Now that's a problem I had not considered!

Having two different head meshes, removing the neck seam from both at the same time will be impossible... I guess I'll have to live with it.

Or find a head mesh for human races compatible with OCOv2 (same vertex locations).

I've always been using Robert's RT4.

[puddles]

You could open one of the heads in Blender and juuust slightly adjust the neck...

[QuiteTheTail]

You could open one of the heads in Blender and juuust slightly adjust the neck...

 

Thanks for the input. I will try to conform RT4 to OCO standard, since it's the mainstream head choice nowadays.

 

[puddles]

RT4? I haven't heard of that one, loool. If you post it here I can try to tweak it.

[Nepro]

You should install also Seamless Edition by junkacc. This is why in the end I decided not to remove Khajiit from OCO as I hate how they look in OCO but seamless Khajiit I hate win over those with neck seams.

 

[QuiteTheTail]

RT4? I haven't heard of that one, loool. If you post it here I can try to tweak it.

Robbing me of the pleasure of doing it myself?   Anyway, thanks for the offer.

As for RT4, the head is contained in Robert's Male 5.2 archive (headhumanrt4.nif)

 

You should install also Seamless Edition by junkacc. This is why in the end I decided not to remove Khajiit from OCO as I hate how they look in OCO but seamless Khajiit I hate win over those with neck seams.

I do have the files you mention, but for my traditional combo body textures/head mesh they simply don't work.

In my present condition, they WILL work, but only for the races replaced by OCO2.

I have to make a point of learning more about EGT files and try to figure out a personal solution.

And who knows, perhaps writing a tutorial, in case it turns out to be good.

 

Once you get a "OCO-compatible" head, setting different head related files (nif, tri, egt, egm) for a race is easily done thanks to Blockhead.

[QuiteTheTail]

This again!

I renounced to replace Altmers, so now I'm dealing only with Orcs and Bosmers.

 

Basically I moved the needed resources into the "characters\nuska" folder (to prevent other races from being overwritten), and adjusted the resource paths for Bosmer and Orc races in TES4Edit accordingly. Race records for other races have been invalidated (marked as unmodified) in CSE, so that vanilla appearance is preserved.The new esp is loaded right before the Bashed Patch and merged (but kept active).

 

As a result, Orcs are replaced flawlessly, both the vanilla NPCs and those added by mods.

 

As for wood elves, I noticed something wrong instead. To be more specific, vanilla bosmers like Methredel or Gundalas are somewhat different (because of the custom "Faces" texture subfolder), but head geometry seems unchanged. Wood elves added from mods (like CM companions) are definitely the same as vanilla/robert. This is also true for new characters, in the facegen/racemenu screen. There is something preventing the head mesh replacement from taking place. Still the head is set properly in the esp (I think). I'm not sure it's a Blockhead thing or simply I screwed the Bashed Patch settings. What do you think?

 

This is my current esp (race names have been translated):

Oblivion_Character_Overhaul.esp

 

P.S.

The main difference between Orcs and Wood Elves in the vanilla game is that Orcs have their own head mesh, while Wood Elves by default use the "headhuman" imperial resources. This is no doubt the source of the problem, but I can't see why it should matter, since the head mesh path has been overridden at Race level.