Building Oblivion

Building Oblivion

Introduction

[Difficulty: Hard]

[Not for the Fainthearted] This guide is technical and involved, mainly because modding Oblivion is technical and involved. The aim of this is to give you a good idea of how to approach modding and an understanding of the tools and processes you need; you will have the benefit of my many many hours of testing. You are expected to follow the links, read the readme files and posts - this isn't a simple step by step guide, because a simple step by step guide is not possible. There is a simplified guide available at http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18291473 - if you apply the tuning and 4GB patch to this, it should mostly be okay. If you follow this guide, you should have a platform and the understanding to apply mods of your choice yourself and a game that will make a grown PC cry.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released on March 20th, 2006 on the PC and Xbox 360. At the time the game itself was widely praised for the open world it provided, but was also something of a beast to run. In the 5 years since the game has been released, PC Hardware has moved on a great deal and with the announcement of Skyrim and the frequent cheap availability of Oblivion on Steam I thought now would be an appropriate time to put together this guide to making the most of this game. If you don't have it already, I highly recommend getting "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition Deluxe" from the Steam store. This includes all of the DLC and at the time of writing is £19.99. (The Bethesda pack includes this Deluxe edition, Fallout 3 Game of the Year and Morrowind Game of the Year also for £37.99 also a good deal).

I’ve purposefully chosen not to drastically overhaul the gameplay, the aim of this is primarily to beautify the game and increase the immersion of the world. There are a few optional mods that fix things that I think are flaws in the game. I also haven’t added a great deal of new content to the game, just a couple of new areas that I think add to the world without changing it unduly. By following this guide, you should become confident enough in using mods and the tools needed for them to explore other available content. Wherever possible, the authors of the content have been attributed.

With all of these mods installed, the game will push a modern PC hard. All of this was performed on an i7 920 overclocked to 3.6GHz with an unlocked 6970 2GB & 12GB RAM. Usually the graphics card is maxed out, when it isn't the game is CPU bound. Oblivion is principally designed for single core computers there are some engine tweaks to offload some of the work onto other cores but don't expect miracles. I am considering going 6970 crossfire as the GPU is hitting 95% use frequently with Shaders.

Recommended System Requirements:


This guide was written against the Steam version of Oblivion with all of the DLC, if you are using a different version then there may be different steps.

Register yourself an account at http://www.tesnexus.com/index.php - you will need to be registered to download files > 2MB (and you will download a lot ). I also strongly recommend upgrading to premium. It's a couple of quid for a month and lets you skip the annoying videos before downloading.

This is what we are working towards, click individual pictures for 1920x1200 resolution.






A quick thank you to ImageShack.us for providing Image hosting for this article.

Image Notes
1, 2: Animated Window Lighting System adds smoke to chimneys and lighted windows during night time/storms.
3: Immersive Interiors allows you to look out of Windows (and see the weather outside)
4: Clocks of Cyrodiil adds numerous working clocks to the game.
6, 7: Some shots of the new Physics Sky.
8: Better Cities, Crysis shaders (and if you look carefully a flock of birds migrating)
9: Crysis shaders, Frostcrag Reborn
10 & 11: Better Cities & OBGE Water
12: OBGE Parallax Shaders add a lot of extra depth to a scene.
13: Tamriel NPC, HGEC, Real Lighting
14: Let them Drink!
15: Darnified UI, HGEC, DK Imperials
17: RAEVWD
19: Unique Landscapes
20: Better Cities, OBGE Water

Installing Oblivion

Installation & Patches

Install the game as normal, if you have a disk based Oblivion install into c:\tes\Oblivion and then download the appropriate patch from http://www.bethsoft.com/downloads_01.html & install it.

Once Oblivion is installed you will then need to get Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE) from http://obse.silverlock.org/. Current version at the time of writing is v0020. OBSE allows a number of very clever people a way to extend the original Oblivion engine, this build requires it for two main reasons; Stability and Eye Candy. Unzip this and copy the contents into your Oblivion folder so that the *.dll and *.exe are in the root of the installation.

The 2GB Limit

One of the key limitations with Oblivion is that the game can only use 2GB of RAM. With a few of the larger graphics mods installed you will often push towards this limit and when it does Oblivion will crash to desktop. Fortunately we can fix this.

[Steam]

Make a folder C:\tes. Browse to C:\Steam\steamapps\common\ and Cut the Oblivion folder. Paste it in C:\tes so that you have C:\tes\Oblivion\ You can then uninstall the game in Steam itself.

Run Regedit and browse to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bethesda Softworks] (this may be in a different place on your machine, this is for Windows 7 64bit)

Under Oblivion, edit the Installed Path variable.

[/Steam]

Note to mods: I tried all kinds of different ways to get the 4GB patch applied to the Steam version but it would not stick, so in the end had to go with a NOCD. If you think this is too explicit, PM me and i'll change it.

Looking through the code for OBSE I noted support for [1.2.0.416 w/ no-CD patch by pwz "osi6"]. Find that on the Internet, back up your original Oblivion.exe and use this version. SCAN FOR VIRUSES

If you are stuck, send me an email via trust with your steamid (so I can verify you own the game) and a request for a nocd link, or friend me in Steam. Same username.

Now get a copy of the 4GB patcher from http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php & patch Oblivion.exe.

Create a shortcut to obse_loader.exe and put it on your desktop, and then run it. Oblivion should start up. Exit out of the game and check for obse_loader.log

Graphics Settings

Start Oblivion up and go to the graphics settings menu.

* Do not use AA, do not use Bloom, do not use HDR - these all interfere with the Shaders we will plug in later (that add better AA/HDR)
* Change Texture size to Large. This prevents the game engine (badly) downscaling textures.
* Turn all Water settings to minimum, we are using a replacement Water shader.
* Turn off Self Shadowing as it looks crap.
* Everything else to maximum.

INI Tweaks

Edit Oblivion.ini, on Windows 7 this is in My Documents\My Gamers\Oblivion

bUseBackgroundFileLoader=1 - Offloads loading textures & meshes etc to another Core. Reduces bottlenecks on IO.
uInterior Cell Buffer=12 - Keeps more areas cached in RAM, cuts down on loading times
uExterior Cell Buffer=108
iPreloadSizeLimit=104857600 - We have more memory with the 4GB patch, may as well use it

Wrye Bash

Wrye Bash is the essential Swiss Army Chainsaw of Oblivion modding. It's a daunting piece of software built around a design ethos that a streamlined & intuitive interface is something you should set the dogs on.

Download both the Installer version & Wrye Python 04a from http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22368 then install Python, then Bash. Choose Python version at the prompt during the Bash install. Choose not to turn lock times off when you first run.

If you are missing shortcuts at the end of the install, they are in C:\Oblivion\Mopy

[update]Version 293 currently available at TES Nexus has some bugs with how it handles & characters in wizards, version 294 should fix those. In the meantime you can try the beta version linked to in this post: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1206478-relz-wrye-bash/page__view__findpost__p__18015743

BOSS by random007

Better Oblivion Sorting Software, this integrates into Bash nicely and has one simple function which it does well. It organises the load order of mods to prevent things clashing with each other.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20516

Oblivion mod manager by Timeslip

This is an alternative package manager to Bash, with some helpful features built in - but is mostly inferior (and now very outdated). You should get this to help with working with OMOD & BSA files.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2097

7 Zip

A lot of mods come in 7z archives, Winrar can handle most. 7z can handle all.

http://www.7-zip.org/

Oblivion Essentials

Anatomy of a Simple Package

When you download a mod, it will most likely be in a 7z or Rar archive. This archive may need some work depending on how the original author packed the file. The structure you need is such that if you placed the file in the Oblivion\Data folder and extracted it then it would overwrite existing files. You would expect to see maybe an ESP file (mod) at the top level of the archive and some combination of folders that may include Textures, Meshes & OBSE. If the archive has a top level folder of the Mod name, or Data then it will need repacking.

Stability & Support

A collection of OBSE plugins that make Oblivion run a bit smoother and less crashy.

Windom Earle's Oblivion Crash Prevention System

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22282

Oblivion Crash Prevention System is an OBSE plugin, that tries to keep your game running in case something went wrong because of different factors (bugs mostly). Note, this is an example of a mod that needs repacking. I made a temporary directory called weOCPS, and unzipped the file inside it. I moved the contents of the Data folder to the top level and deleted the now empty folder. I made a new folder called Docs and moved the txt files inside it as I don't want millions of loose files in my top level Oblivion directory. I then selected both folders in explorer, rightclicked and made weOCPS.rar.

It looks like this:



Installing a Simple BAIN Package

Copy the weOCPS.rar to C:\tes\Oblivion Mods\Bash Installers and in Wrye Bash click the installers tab. Choose to enable Installers. It will do some processing, getting CRC's of all the existing files then present you with the Installation screen. I right click on the bar at the top left where it says Package/Modified and choose to sort by Order. Enable BSA Redirection. Disable Skip OBSE Plugins.

Now Right Click on the left pane and Add Marker, rename that to something like 00 OBSE Plugins and drag weOCPS.rar underneath it. Right click on weOCPS.rar and select Install. That's it, you've made a package to be installed in Wrye Bash and installed it. Simples.



FastExit 2 by skyranger-1

Fast Exit catches errors when you are quitting Oblivion and prevents them. As soon as you slightly mod Oblivion it will crash on Exit leaving you in Direct X mode with no mouse cursor. Again this needs repackaging, so package this up, place it just after weOCPS in your install order & install.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22410

Oblivion Stutter Remover by skyranger-1

This plugin makes Oblivion not "stutter" as much, and generally feel smoother or perform better. It prevents or mitigates a number of issues related to stuttering and framerates, and can reduce the frequency of stutter related crashes. Download the OSR_4-1-24_RC version.

There's an some ini tweaks i'd suggest making before packaging this up, so unzip to a temporary folder and edit obse\plugins\sr_Oblivion_stutter_remover.ini.

By default, OSR caps your framerate to 30fps. The reason it does this is partially because Oblivion is single threaded, and thus has to manage all of the AI, weather and graphics in a Single thread. By capping this, the engine has room to breathe and handle stuff other than graphics. If you don't want capped FPS then:

bManageFPS = 0

The other setting to consider is to do with memory management, Oblivion has a lousy, poor performance implementation. OSR can replace this - some people say it causes crashes, personally I think some people are full of ****.

bReplaceHeap = 1

Package up and install in Bash.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23208

Elys Universal Silent Voice

This OBSE plugin makes Oblivion:
- plays a 8 seconds duration silent voice for any missing voice file.
- uses generic lips moves for 8 seconds for any missing lip synchronization file.

This also needs repacking, unzip to a temp folder make an obse folder, then a plugins folder inside obse. Move the Elys files to obse\plugins & zip the whole lot up.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16622

Unofficial Patches

There is a set of Unofficial Patches made by the Community that fix all sorts of issues that Bethesda should have fixed in the game. These are all essential. Get the Manual version of each (full not hotfix)

Unofficial Oblivion Patch - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=5296
Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10739
Unofficial Official Oblivion Mods Patch - http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9969

All of these need repacking, right click and extract into a new folder for each and rename the new folders something sensible, then move the contents of Data to the top level of your new folder, and rename the other folder (contains html files) to docs. Repack all 3.




Drag the new archives to the installers folder for Bash. I'd suggest creating a new marker ==01 Unofficial Patches==

It should look like this:



Note the bottom right has an Esp/m Filter. For the Unofficial Oblivion Patch make sure the "UOP Vampire Aging & Face Fix" is unselected. For the Unofficial Official Mods make sure the "DLC Thieves Den - Unoffical Patch - SSSB" is unselected.

After the install, the Unofficial Oblivion Patch icon turns yellow. This indicates that some files from a later install have overwritten ones from this Package. You can see what they are by clicking on the conflicts tab. In this case it's just the readme files so nothing to worry about. One of the most powerful features of Bash (and the reason I no longer use Version control) is that if you uninstall a later file it will replace the conflicting files with something earlier in the load order. In this case if you uninstalled the Shivering Isles patch, the readme's from the Unofficial Oblivion patch will be reinstalled.

Unofficial Oblivion Patch Supplemental

The Unofficial patches are no longer updated so Quarn,Kivan & Arthmoor have continued to add bug fixes to the game. Once you have the core Unofficial patches installed grab the supplemental patch from TES Nexus. This doesn't need repackaging as it is already packaged in a format suitable for both Bash and OBMM so you can just drop it in the installer folder. However this is a complex package, so it's worth having a peek inside to see what makes it special.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27710

Anatomy of a Complex Package



So you can see a bunch of folders inside the package, starting with 00 Unofficial Oblivion Patch Supplemental. The idea is that each of these numbered folders is a standalone sub package. You will see a new work area in the Bash installer tab corresponding to each of these, so you can pick and choose which pieces to install. The omod conversion folder is there to provide support for OBMM, it contains a script that OBMM will run when you install the package (it's details on how to make this package an omod). There isn't one here, but sometimes you will see a wizard file - this is basically the equivalent for Bash, it's a script to ask users details during a complex install.

For now just select all of the sub-packages in Bash and choose to install. Note how all of the other Unofficial patches have turned Orange - this indicates that game related files have been replaced.

Tweaking & Optimisation

Enable Packages

You've learnt how to make & install packages, but there's some other tasks that need to be done after you've installed the patches to make sure everything is loading in the right order and integrated properly into the game. Switch to the Mods tab in Oblivion.

You will be presented with this, some mods are selected, some aren't and there's big red warnings indicating conflicts.



Right click on the main window and select:

Sort by -> Load Order
BOSS Disable Lock Timers
Auto-Ghost
Always Update BOSS Masterlist

Go through all the mods and make sure they are all selected.

Running BOSS

Click on the small BOSS icon on the bottom left, this starts a new BOSS run which will create a hint file for Bash and create some output in a HTML window for you (which you should have a read through now). BOSS amongst other things has told Bash exactly which order to load mods so that they don't conflict with each other - it does this by checking a database of over 12,000 mods stored on the web. Once it has run you will see the following in Bash, note the file dates have all been changed so that files loaded later are dated later - this helps avoid some issues with Oblivions file loader. We'll look at this a bit more later.



Dirty Edits

One of the things BOSS 1.7 introduced was notification of Dirty Edits, I think this is typically stuff that was not deleted properly in the Editor when making a mod, or unneeded references to objects. I'm not sure how much of an impact on the game they have but the text annoyed me enough to learn how to fix it The biggest culprit for these are Bethesda themselves, their mods are particularly bad for it - third party mods are typically cleaned properly - whereas Bethsoft just half-arses stuff out of the door.

You'll see some text like Contains dirty edits: 11 ITM, 2 UDR records. Needs TES4Edit cleaning when it needs fixing. To do so we'll need a copy of TES4Edit by Elminster.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11536

This is another daunting tool, start it up and you'll see this. Right click and select none - then select ONLY the file you wan't to clean. There's a bunch we'll have to process, but for this example I picked the useless Horse Armor.



Wait a bit for it to parse stuff.



Right click on the DLC Horse Armor esp file and apply filter (Not Oblivion.esm!) - you git a big ugly screen. Make sure only "Conflict status inherited from parent" is checked - NOTHING ELSE! (It will remember this setting next time). Wait a bit more.

Right click on the Horse Armor esp file again and "Remove Identical to Master", wait for the warning and say yes you are sure. Right click and "Undelete & Disable References"

Close TES4Edit, choosing to save the changed file. Repeat this process for each file that BOSS has said is dirty. Run BOSS again to make sure you have got them all, then browse to the Oblivion\Data directory. Copy all of the DLC files + their backups into a temp directory, make a backups subdir for the original files and create a package of the whole lot. Back in the installers tab of Bash drag the new package right to the top before all the OBSE stuff and install it. (Doesn't strictly need doing, but will save you time in the future).

The Bashed Patch

This is the thing that glues everything together and ensures compatability between all the mods you have installed. Regardless of whether you use OBMM or Bash, you need to build a Bashed Patch. A nice side effect is it can import some mods, cutting down on the number active and has a whole bunch of bug fixes to Oblivion built in.

Before building a Bashed patch ALWAYS run BOSS

Right click on the Bashed Patch and Rebuild Patch. When it prompts about disabling stuff click yes, we can merge these mods into the patch. This time it's just the Spell Tomes Unofficial Patch. You are presented with another scary screen.



It's not so bad really, on the left hand side is general groups of settings - they need to be selected if anything on the right hand side wants changing. On the right hand side is individual options. Select the ones you specifically want, the shot above is an almost fresh Bashed Patch where I have enabled the Merge Patches group and chosen to import the Spell Tomes mod. Only stuff I can actually import is listed in this tab.

There are a few general rules of thumb that you can apply when building a Bashed Patch, but if you install something complex that changes the game a lot like FCOM then YOU MUST READ THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THAT MOD CAREFULLY. Nothing in my list of mods needs special attention.

Alias Mod Names - Nothing
Merge Patches - All
Replace Form IDs - Nothing
Import Actors - All
Import Actors: AI Packages - All
Import Actors: Animations - All
Import Actors: Death Items - All
Import Actors: Spells - All
Import Factions - All
Import Graphics - (depends, used to resolve conflicts between graphics patches)
Import Inventory - All
Import NPC Faces - (depends, definately use for TNR if you use it)
Import Names - All except *.csv
Import Relations - All
Import Roads - All
Import Script Contents - None
Import Scripts - All
Import Sounds - (see Graphics)
Import Spell Stats - All
Import Stats - All

Some specific settings:
Tweak Actors -> Vanilla Beast Skeleton Tweaker
Tweak Assorted -> Bow Reach Fix
Tweak Settings -> UOP Vampire Aging & Face Fix.esp
Levelled Lists [enabled]
SEWorld Tests [enabled]

(more in depth discussion here: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1202320-relz-wrye-bash-thread-69/)

Click Build Patch and wait a minute or so, you'll get a popup telling you all the stuff that has been fixed. Note that DLC Spell Tomes - Unofficial Patch now has a green + rather than a tick in the Mod list, indicating it has been merged.

Start up Oblivion and have a quick run around to make sure nothing has gone awry.

BSA Redirection

A lot of people have problems installing mods, textures don't show up and such. This is down to Oblivions funky file loader and the bugs in it. Theoretically it's supposed to work like this: Load the file with the most recent date from loose files in Data or packed in a BSA file, so if you have some Textures unzipped in Data but the date on Oblivion Textures - compressed.bsa is newer then the ones from the BSA file will be used. In practice there's all sorts of funky bugs with this. Bash fixes this by creating an ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa file in Data and mangling the dates on BSA files and stuff it drops loose in Data. OBMM also has a solution (but it doesn't quite work so well). Another reason manually installing mods is a bad idea.

[Optional] Optimise Meshes

Continuing the theme of Bethsoft half arsing stuff out of the door, almost all of the Geometry from trees to chairs to hills in the game is really poorly optimised drawing at times twice as many triangles as are needed. To be a little bit fair to them, the state of the art has moved on a great deal in 5 years. The upshot of this is that there is a great way to boost performance in Oblivion (and it is a SERIOUS boost). The downside is that it's complicated, technical and CPU intensive. On my quad i7, one of the files took an hour or so to optimise - and this is a very multicore friendly process, so the CPU was pretty much pegged at 100% leaving the computer virtually unusable. Doing this on an Athlon X2 or Core2 Duo etc is going to take some time!

You can apply this technique to any meshes in the game, but my experience suggests the biggest wins are with the core game meshes - most of the mods are fairly well optimised already. Also restrict this to landscape stuff, definitely don't people / monsters / armour / weapons as it can and will screw up animations.

Download the following:
Windows x86 MSI Installer (64bit if relevant)
blender-2.49b-windows.exe
PyFFI
Oblivion - PyFFI Optimization Kit

I'm not going to repeat the good instructions, I got my info from the OPTIMISING MESHES WITH PyFFI at:

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index...ted-modded-steam-oblivion-reinstall-adventure

Note there's some information about speeding up the process of Patching the main Oblivion Mesh file on the Oblivion - PyFFI Optimization Kit page.

BACK ALL BSA FILES UP BEFORE YOU DO THIS!

Textures, LOD & Shaders

Landscape Colour & Normal Maps

You can add much more detail and depth to medium to distant range landscapes by replacing the stock Oblivion colour map and normal maps, these don't add a great deal of GPU load - but can require a large amount of VRAM. The stock settings in Oblivion are 512x512, but replacements are available in 512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048 and 4096x4096. You can mix and match sizes for the colour map & normal map - but it makes little sense to have a colour map that is larger than the normal map. The VRAM required for each file is as so (remember you need 1 of each)


If you can spare the VRAM (1.5GB+ onboard) get the big files, otherwise scale down a bit. You will need a QNxxxx file (Normal Map) and a BTQ (Colour Map).

Grab them these sites:
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=oblivionmods.Detail&id=1928 (BTQ2048, BTQ4096)
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11441 (QN512, QN1024, QN2048, BTQ512, BTQ1024)
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=2246 (QN4096)

My recommendation if you can manage it is QN4096 + BTQ2048.

(For more info see: http://devnull.sweetdanger.net/lod2.html)

Really Almost Everything Visible When Distant (RAEVWD) by Arthmoor

This fantastic mod adds a huge amount of optimised graphics to display everything from statues to towns in the far distance, be careful as it's all too easy to completely destroy your framerate with this. Grab RAEVWD & RAEVWD SI Edition. Both of these can be dropped straight into the installer folder, and both have Wizards - so right click and choose Wizard rather than install. To start with I would choose not to install City Architecture, Imperial City Architecture, Cities Plugin or Imperial City Plugin and see how you get on with that.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20053

Qarls Texture Pack 3

This is the big texture pack for Oblivion, it replaces almost all of the textures in Vanilla with much better high resolution versions with improved normal maps. Normal maps might not mean much to you (it will later!) - but high resolution is worth having. Bomret and dev_akm went through this by hand, and optimised all of the textures on a case by case basis making it smaller and lighter without reducing apparent quality.

We are going to build our own custom package for QTP3.

Get both the main pack (1.7GB) + the patch (Rapidshare page sadly) and set them aside.
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=3813

Get PyFFI Optimised Meshes for QTP3 and set it aside (or you can build your own!)
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=26756

Get Reduced Normal Maps for Qarl's Texture Pack 3
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?id=2724&view=OblivionMods.Detail

Get QTP3 Reduced
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14057

Get RAEVWD QTP3 Texture Pack
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20053

Copy all of this to a temporary folder, and extract each to its own folder. Apply the QTP3R Patch to the main QTP3R folder. Move the lite2.exe into the lite1 folder. Unzip the self extracting exes using whatever path they suggest. Flatten the structure so no "Data" subfolders exist (move Textures / Meshes). Move all the text files into the very top. You should have something like this:



Rename the folders, and create so that you have:


Zip it all up and put it in the packages folder. When you come to install it, i'd stick to 00, 01 & 02 for a modern graphics card with plenty of VRAM. If you are struggling then 03 & 04 are probably okay. 05 & 06 will have a noticeable reduction in quality.

[Recommended] Bomrets Texture Pack for Shivering Isles

Basically the same thing as Qarls for the SI expansion. (Overlay the RAEVWD texture pack from http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20053 over this)

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=28378

[Recommended] Improved * by miknemel1

This is a series of Texture replacers covering a variety of areas, i'd consider Improved Doors and Flora, Improved Trees and Flora and Improved Trees and Flora 2 to be essential. The other packages are merely excellent. You should make your own package along the lines of the QTP package for this.

http://www.tesnexus.com/modules/members/index.php?id=153868

[Recommended] Koldorns Ayleid Ruins

This Texture Replacer will change the Ayleid Ruins to look a little more aged and rugged imo. Gates, walls, Welkyd stones, everything has been touched up.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8277 + RAEVWD textures from http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20053

[Optional] TES4LodGen

This Optional install works with the meshes RAEVWD installed to regenerate all of the Distant LOD in the game. This will make all sorts of stuff visible from a great distance, at the cost of a largish framerate hit. It's generally okay on a modern graphics card.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15781

If you find the hit too big, just delete the *.lod files in C:\tes\oblivion\Data\DistantLOD

(I'm putting together a script that clears all but essential things, so no power is wasted drawing a statue you can only see from fairly close)

[Recommended] OBGE Shaders

Grab OBGE Core, OBGE Standalone Effects, OBGE Luminance HDR, OBGE Parallax Occlusion Mapping from http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30054

Make double sure you have the latest versions of each as there are multiple files on the page.

Grab OBGE Water from http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37825

There is also a OBGE Physically Correct Sky in development which certainly looks promising, but had some issues that annoyed me a bit too much to use. You may not mind them. There are currently some annoyances with Fog, should be fixed in the next version. Finally there's apparently an improved cloud shadows mod coming soon. OBGE is under rapid development at the moment so check frequently for updates.

I made a package with the following contents:


I ran Oblivion one time to generate the file OBGE.ini, and chose not to install Oblivion Graphics Extender Support.

I then browsed to My Documents\My Games\Oblivion and made the following changes:

oblivion.ini

obge.ini

To enable individual core shaders you need to edit the file: Oblivion\Data\Shaders\shaderlist.txt - Best to read the OBGE documentation for this. Mine is currently this (It's fine on my 6950, I can't run any on my 8600 - they do take a big chunk of GPU horsepower):


[Optional] Ambient Dungeons

This mod combines TheTalkieToaster's You Are Here resource with Scanti's Oblivion Graphics Extender v2 to tweak the atmosphere of Ayleid ruins, forts, caves, etc.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18385

I'm going to quickly run through some (what I think are) good mods)

Clocks of Cyrodiil

Adds a bunch of clocks to the world, some small ones and some big ones. They show the in game time. No need to repackage anything here, just drop it in your install folder.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=11778

Night Sky

Pick the pieces (moons, stars, nebula) you like from any combination of the following mods and recombine them into a package.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16617
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12709
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2234

Natural Habitat

Adds butterflies, birds migrating and such. You'll need to do some work with this one as it also has a bunch of stuff in the archive you don't want (conflicts with other, better, not prone to crashing mods). Unzip and Delete:


http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2536

Enhanced Vegetation

Much better looking textures for distant trees. Choose either high resolution or normal resolution texture pack and download the plugins also. From the plugins zip you want to pick the Enhanced Vegetation [100%].esp file from the timescale 30 folder. But read the instructions, they are clear.

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23783

Rainbows in Tamriel v3

The mod simply adds working rainbows to the world of Tamriel

http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8927

Unique Landscapes

A collection of modifications that does pretty much what it says in the title. There was a compilation made a while back, but it's massively outdated so the best way to get this is to go to the official thread and download the ones you want. At the time of writing the URL for this is:

http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.ph...andscapes-project/page__hl__unique+landscapes

But you may need to go to the bethsoft forums and search for unique landscapes directly.

Anyway, I downloaded each of the Unique Landscapes and unzipped each to a seperate folder in a temp directory and faffed about renaming them all into a Mod friendly format. In the Rolling Hills folder there are 2 esp files, so I deleted the one with no wheat in the title. Packing it up and moving it into Bash gave me this:



[Optional] New Content

Just a few things I highly recommend:

Frostcrag Reborn - If you have the Frostcrag, definately get this. It completely replaces the paint by numbers DLC with an awesome new base of operations with a story. If you use this disable the Unofficial Frostcrag Patch

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9769

Kvatch Rebuilt - A follow on to the early main story quest, rebuild the town of Kvatch and become the Duke/Duchess. I deselected the OOO & Levelled Guards esp's.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15412

Glenvar Castle - Adds a proper castle you can reclaim for yourself south of the Imperial city. It's not levelled so you need to be around level 20 to do the quests. There's some optional recorded voices for it so get those too.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8235
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19520

Better Cities

Rejigs all of the areas of all of the cities in the game, essential but some areas can be very resource heavy. There are some special instructions if you have not applied the 4GB patch / nocd and are using QTP3 & RAEVWD.

Download Permanent Resources, Resources & Better Cities. They are all ready to be dropped straight into your installers folder. They should be activated in the following order:

Better Cities Permanent Resources
Better Cities Resources
Better Cities

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16513

[install notes]

Install the two resource packs. Use the wizard to each. (right click, select wizard). For Resources, choose core & core EV (English Version).

Better Cities itself.

The wizard seems to be broken currently, so you need to manually select options. With 4GB patch go for Unified, separate otherwise. Open cities again only for 4GB patch. View when distant if your comp can handle it. If you are using separate then don't install Anvil or Imperial City Waterfront.

My install looked like this on a 4GB patched machine.



A 2GB should look like this

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16513

[Optional] Let the People Drink!

"Let the People Drink" breathes life into the very dry Imperial City, it adds multitude of fountains as well as a Great Aqueduct running from Charcoal Cave to the city. This Aqueduct was built by none other than Tiber Septim himself. Discover what Bethesda's Imperial City should have been like; take a drink from the fountains and enjoy the view from the aqueducts, this mod is for you!

(The Aqueduct conflicts with Glenvar Castle, so install the fountain only version. We don't use COBL)

You should make a package with the Meshes, Textures, Sound folders only & LetThePeopleDrink-fountainonly.esp

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10223

[Essential] Weather - All Natural

All Natural combines a robust custom weather system that allows the use of weather types from all existing weather mods with custom versions of Natural Interiors and Real Lights in order to provide the greatest weather/environment experience possible.

Download main file and patch, combine and use Wizard.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18305

[Essential] Animated Window Lighting System

Adds Windows that light up at night time or rainy weather. Requires All Natural. The installer Wizard for this is broken on Wrye Bash v293, it does work if you download the SVN version (mentioned above). This will be fixed in v294.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19628

[Optional] Immersive Interiors

All Naturals spectacular Natural Interiors came along, which allowed you to see through the windows of interiors, and the light levels and weather depended on the weather and time of day outside.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34199

LOD files for Unique Landscapes

This is no actual mod but additional files for Unique Landscapes mods. They are needed to have correct LOD when using specific UL mods together. Pick the specific combinations that most closely match what you are running in Bash.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27495

Unique Landscapes Compatability Patches

This is a collection of patches for UL and various other mods, the wizard will autodetect (use autowizard not wizard) what other mods you have that collide with UL and apply fixes. In our case I think the only pacthes should be for Kvatch Rebuilt and Frostcrag. You should keep this at the end of the install order, and rerun the autowizard whenever you change something.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13834

Resorting the Load Order

Another great feature of Bash is the ability to change the install order of mods, basically in the Installer tab just drag mods to where you want them, select all and right click -> Anneal. This will make sure that in case of a conflict the file from the mod lowest on the screen is installed.

I did some tidying up at this point, this is what my Installers look like:



Now go back into the mods tab, activate everything and run Boss. There will be a few mods that have dirty edits so will want cleaning. Assuming BOSS reports no errors, rebuild your Bashed patch using the guidelines mentioned earlier and rerun Tes4LODGEN

Rens Beauty Pack
DK High Imperials
Elves of Lineage II
Tamriel NPC's Revamped
HGEC
Roberts
Maximum Compat Skeletons
Hires Textures for HGEC
NoMaam BBB Animation Replacer
Undies Underneath
Eve HGEC BBB Stock Equipment
Capes and Cloaks


OSSO, Symphony of Violence

Darnified UI.
Minimap

Gameplay
Alternative Start
Quest Award Leveller
Reneers Guard Overhaul
My Install Order
My Load Order

Im looking forward to this. I was looking at a morrowind mod similar to what your doing but it looked really hard to install.

*has never heard of Git before*

Sounds like it could be handy. Is it only possible to revert to the fresh install or can you revert to different stages of 'modded' too?

Ooh, I like the idea of using a versioning system to manage builds!

Indeed, would be nice to have a version with nothing installed then another with FCOM installed. Installing FCOM takes forever.

Will certainly keep an eye on this!

Should be good when its done! I ran into loads of problems trying to mod Oblivion years ago and ended up giving up on it!

Evilsod said:

*has never heard of Git before*

Sounds like it could be handy. Is it only possible to revert to the fresh install or can you revert to different stages of 'modded' too?

Click to expand...

That's the point, it will store the incremental changes then you can revert to whatever version you like

sldsmkd said:

That's the point, it will store the incremental changes then you can revert to whatever version you like

Click to expand...

I'll have to look into it the next time i do a fresh install of Oblivion in that case.

Will be watching this post. Just about to graduate from Games Tech course at uni and need to build up my portfolio, would be fun modelling some oblivion weapons etc.

Any time I mod Oblivion I make sure to use OOO and Oblivion XP. Makes the game so much better, less advancement cheese.

Using Git for mod install versioning is simply genious - well played!

Not that i'd ever install oblivion again, Yeh right give it another 5months!

But this is very useful, THANKYOU

Ewaf said:

Will be watching this post. Just about to graduate from Games Tech course at uni and need to build up my portfolio, would be fun modelling some oblivion weapons etc.

Click to expand...

This is more of an end user guide, although you'll certainly be familiar with the tools used and such by the end of it.