I don't think that they're sufficiently different from existing elves. bg2408 and I are pretty much in sync on when to add new races, so you might look at his link "no unique enough" link above.

How about female version of human (and elves) races. Then you can use unique face meshes and textures to females.
You could also add Eyelashes to them.
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18185

Some head meshes and textures
CapsAdmins Vanity Pack
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20212

Head06 Resource Pack
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20166

New eyes ?
DesuChans Anime Eyes
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21453

I highly recommend to try lattamers corean head mesh and custom ears from throttlekittys Hot Heads with Enayla face textures.
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12038

Wow! These Anime Eyes looks good!

Diffrence is massively (mostly for the white one, there are dark one too)... I dont want to push You, but let you know, that the new elves from those package has massively reworked face model, and the one works with ren hair, so it should be perhaps no conflict with curreny resources...

IDK but there's possible resource "borrowed" from some other project (maybe game rip, maybe popular modder resource)

I have found and I'm using one good compilation (no conflicts there, no missing meshes etc.), but stats don't match "balanced races"...

if you want I may send a screenshot, but now i use internet in public place, so maybe when i got home

I should probably qualify "I want to add more races." to "I want to add more races, but not a lot more. And I don't want to add new eyes/hair." They should be distinct from existing races. (And another race of effeminate looking elves, with hot females is not distinct enough IMO. I.e., we've already got the Mystic, nee Hidden Elves.)

I'm particularly reluctant to add new eyes and I'm fairly reluctant to add new hairs. (We actually discarded some of the eyes that were originally in bg2408's RBP race collection.) One area that I might make an exception here is to add more conservative female hairstyles -- IMO there should be a few more buns, etc. IMO gals in a medievel setting should not be looking like they just stepped out of a modern day hairstyling salon. So, it would be good to have a few more cuts for countesses, elderly storekeepers, etc. (Not a lot, probably just a few.)

Download size is a major factor here. I want the Cosmetics download pack to be (relatively) small. 170 Mb is large enough as is. I really don't want to get much larger than that.

No Anime/Fan Service: I'm not in favor of fan-service races. I.e., if I check out a new race mod and the screenshots are all of hot/fey looking females wearing stripperwear and thong armor, I'm going to be strongly biased against it. To me, the race has to be interesting in terms of lore and character. Similarly, I'm biased against anything with "anime" in the title. I think that it's pretty clear that Oblivion is NOT an anime/fan service style RPG, so I think that Cobl should also not go in that direction.

Common Toolbox: A major factor for anything going into Cobl is: will it be useful as a common toolbox item? E.g. for races, etc. would this be useful for someone adding a mod with npcs? If there's a good argument along those lines, then I'm more likely to be swayed. E.g. sea elves make an interesting lore addition. It would make sense to find them around Anvil, Leyawiin and any other coastal community. Or if the race has a strong lore factor.

I wholly agree!!! There are already so many Anime-like hairstyles, even in COBL, that I have a hard time finding a non-Anime, non-vanilla hairstyle I like, and even one more is definitely not needed. As a rule, I do not dislike Anime, but not on Tamriel. Nice for screenshots, maybe, but not for actually playing. What I do miss is a hairstyle with a longer braid, and yes, some more late-renaissance hairstyles would also be nice.

So, to more lore-compatible mods! :foodndrink:

BTW, is it somehow possible to switch from RBP to COBL in-game? I tried, but when I loaded my saved game after switching mods my character was headless, and when I tried to access the race menu through the console the game crashed. So I started a new game, but it would be interesting to know if switching is at all possible.

See previous page.

Sorry, I'm sure this has been asked but PC is running too slow to check all pages. What exactly is the COBL mod? What does it do? I read the description on PES but the way people praise it it would seem it does much more then listed in the description? Also which do I dl?

Cobl_Cosmetics_Res_01.7z

Cobl_154.7z

Switching from RBP to Cobl: If you play a Vanilla race, simply run RBP's uninstallation command*, then deactivate RBP, use Bash's "Fix hair" command on your savegame, then use the showracemenu console trick to reapply hairs / eyes as necessary.
If you play one of RBP's build in races, don't. As long as there's no formid "repathing" available in Bash that's impossible to do. Switching to a Vanilla race with the showracemenu console trick may or may not work.

* = note: Not yet included . Will be available in RBP 10.

Eyes and hairstyles: I'm a bit less conservatice than Wrye on this one. For the upcoming RBP I've included a few new eyes, e.g. glowing eyes for the Ohmes-raht (they're the only ones without glowing eye styles available). Reason why I like glowing eyes can be seen in the NpcDiversity modules - they're great for enhancing mages and similar NPCs.
What *really* bugs me is that I've discovered a way to cut down a lot of file size, due to a possibility to add the same glowmap to several eyes (currently each eye has it's own glow map). Unfortunately changing this would be too much work for too little gain. Especially since the resources are pretty widespread by now, so it would just cause resource doubling.

Regarding hairs problem is you can only include what's available. Hair modellers must be the rarest people in the community. A lot of the available styles have an anime touch, true. Other possibility is to release none at all.
And here's the catch: What may look odd or totally out of place on one actor, may look strangely fitting on another. E.g. in Corean hair mod there's this totally whacky hair style, which looks like a "loop tower" build out of hairs. On Syl it looks (imho) great, on all other... not so much .

Download size: To be honest I'm a bit shocked about the file size of necessary body mod support. E.g. the update from RBP 9.3 to 10.0 is (zipped) 19 MB large (three new races). The body mod textures for them are zipped 30 MB large. Funky :blink:.

More races: I think the most important question is "what does this race in question offer?"
New races can be used for a lot of stuff. Although only if they offer something behind their appearance. A Dark Elf is a Dark Elf is a Dark Elf, even when it's using some high rez texture and another head model. A Xivilai on the other hand? Many players will prefer the more beautiful Dark Elf variant, that's for sure. Nevertheless it wouldn't offer modders for their mods as much, and you can't include thirty Dark Elf variants for every taste.

Sea Elves: "E.g. sea elves make an interesting lore addition."
Sea Elves are no addition, more an intepretation regarding their appearance. See also http://www.imperial-library.info/pge3/other_lands.shtml, War of The Isle (http://www.imperial-library.info/history/3.shtml).

They are pretty damned rare, I agree. I worked on Better Heads for Morrowind (under a different name then ) and we used Rhedd's of course, but to do a total replacer for all races we needed a lot more hairs and ultimately just had to end up making our own.

It seems for Oblivion other than Throttlekitty the few hair modders there are are all Asian and their style is obviously very influenced by Anime, which is fine but doesn't work so well for this game unless it's something really subtle and more on the realistic end.

Bleh, I need to get off my ass one day and convert some of the Morrowind hairs over. They are pretty low poly though, but I suppose that's a good thing as long as they aren't too primitive looking in the game.

I haven't touched Max in years and am doubtelessly rusty. Also this is a different game with a different engine and some obvious differences in the hairs, like short/long deformations (though I don't think any mod hairs make use of this).

At least you are lucky that the game allows to change color within the game. With Morrowind we had to use a new mesh and texture for each hair color want wanted.




But then is it really worth it to include a hair for such limited use?



Yeah but the body mods make a huge difference though. I would rather sacrifice some other things like extra eyes or something to save space. I won't play a custom race that doesn't work for Robert's bodies personally. Of if I really have my heart set on that race I'll copy Robert's body textures over color match them to that race but that's a bit of a pain.

Oh okay that makes sense to me now. Though I was using the TNR Shivering version that did not remove the helmets (he made two versions). I guess BOSS has no way to differentiate this since both versions use the same name for their ESP file.

In any case, I've completely removed TNR Shivering from my Bash Patch and the esp itself and replaced it with the COBL Races version so I should be fine.

Ren was pretty quick with converting meshes .


Throttlekitty. And... err... nevermind :blink:.

Yes, with hairs it's quite sad, to be honest. So if you would make some similar to the style Wrye requested, I think a lot of people here would be grateful (me included) .

That's my "full package policy" <- if a cosmetic mod gets included, it gets included fully - even the parts I personally don't like. Others may or may not like them, nevertheless those that do like them may feel cheated if a mod is advertised as containing resource X, but in truth only containing parts of X.

I've talked with Wrye if some less liked hairs should be chainsawed (e.g. people seem to love Babehair 2 and 3, but 4 is not really popular), but he too decided against removing them.

You underestimate the problem. For the D-Mesh about 200 eyes take up 10 MB unzipped, but body mod support for the currently used body mods take up (for one race) around 25 MB unzipped. So you need to leave out 500 eyes just to free up space for a single complete body mod support for one race. (Compare: Cobl races includes currently 120 D-Mesh eyes.)

Luckily Cobl races mostly averts this problem as of yet - 12 races (10 Vanilla + 2 SI races) don't need body mod textures coming with them. The third is so popular that it's texture is coming with all body mods, so only 2 needed textures coming with them. Unfortunately if now Cobl races would include new races (like RBP will do with three more races in it's next version), this won't be the case anymore - and suddenly download size will explode. You'd need to keep a lot of eyes out to make up that space .

I thought I was the only one in the world who felt this way......
If you post a normal looking gal, no matter how lovely the features, nobody looks. Slap a little makeup and some boobage, and you've got yoursel a winner!

Hairs: As I understand it, hairs in Oblivion cannot be linked to the skeleton. (And of course are not physiqued either.) This substantially cuts back on the attractiveness of long hairs, which just end up cutting through the body. As I recall, hair nifs that are used as helmets CAN be mapped to the skeleton. This may be part of why flyaway hairstyles are favored by modellers over hairs that seem to flow more naturally along the back.


Coincidentally, my PC is running too slow to answer all of the questions I'm asked. I've determined that the best way to deal with this is to randomly add people to my ignore list. Sorry, but random-ignore selector landed on you. Chomp.

(PC running too slow? Man that's lame.)

Well I am definitely in agreement that we need more conservative female hairs. I would like to see ones along the lines of http://www.beastcoins.com/Topical/RomanWomen/RomanWomen.htm.

I think the main problem is that people tend to mod for the PC and not for NPCs, but my take on that is while it's all well and good to have a lot of PC choices, the vast majority of the time I spend playing the game I am not looking at my character but rather npcs.

Long hair is generally a pain the butt to do and make it look natural and not clip all to hell, or look super hairsprayed, Even if you physique it, it tends to look like one big clump stuck to your back. But if we're going off of lore (and not anime ) then the Greeks/Romans, French/English circa 1700s or so, and Africans tended to favor shorter or updos anyhow.

Meh, I am starting to feel myself getting svcked back into the world of modding. I'll see what I can do. I have a lot to catch up on though.

No questions or commentary here.

I just wanted to leave a simple thank you for this.

I have it neatly tucked away for when I reinstall Oblivion after the Holidays.

Thank You Wrye and Thank You to the originators of these lovely mods, with those who balance them together.

Awesome work Wrye and team. Will be giving this a go as soon as I get around to installing SI again. Is there any way an obmm script could be made for it to make installations easier (with cobl, and/or cobl races) or is it a lot of work?

Anime/Fan Service: I should probably clarify this somewhat... I said "bias" for a reason and that's to distinguish between my preferences and Cobl policy. Quoting from http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes4Mod:Cobl/Policy: "...the primary goal of Cobl is to provide a common library of defined objects, where such common definitions enable other mods to work together more easily or where such common definitions substantially reduce the work load on modders."

There are reasons for putting cosmetics/races into Cobl:
* Expanded cosmetics (eyes and hair) are heavily used in the community. Almost all companion mods and races mods use expanded hair and eyes. And while there's variability, there's definitely a common core of heavily used resources.
* Companion mods (a popular class of mods) would benefit substantially from a single standard set of expanded eyes/hair/races.
* Pre-made savegames would benefit substantially froma standard cosmetics set.
* An expanded set of eyes in one esm can be adapted to different meshes through a fairly simple patch mod, thus greatly reducing eye mesh/texture conflicts.
* Standardized cosmetics allow location (house/village/etc.) modders to use a much greater variety of resources, thus producing more interesting npcs, with a good assurance that the end user won't have too hard a time making things work.
* Single download of what tend to be large resources (eyes, hair, races), thus reducing download size of anything else that wants to use them (since user already has them installed).

Now for particular considerations:
* Much of advantage of Cobl comes from shared cosmetics. As a toolbox races are most important for adding variety. E.g. if I'm adding an NPC character to a quest mod, then one race of dark elves is not going to be that different from another. E.g. if I'm adding some dungeon dwelling dark elves, then they probably don't need to be (lore breach) drow. Dark elves will work fine.
* However... In truth, Cobl isn't just a toolbox. Most users see Cobl as an end mod in itself -- and the addition of races drives it further in that direction. I'm not sure how far Cobl should go in that direction; perhaps a good rule is that Cobl should remain "visionless". If you play OOO, then it's both "different" and "more". There's more stuff, but the gameplay is also different. While with Cobl, there's just "more" stuff -- style remains the same as Oblivion.
* The size of just a race entry (without resource or birthsigns) is trivial, and does not provide a significant performance hit. Having that would still leave a race present in Cobl -- in a way that could be optionaly expanded.
* Race variants (e.g. male/female and/or tatooed/non-tattooed) have several technical problems (e.g. notably race relations), however there are likely some standard things that might be done to help there. E.g. globals like cobPcIsKhajiit to flag that the PC is some variant of the Khajiit race. Or cobPcIsDaedra to indicate PC is a member of a daedric race.)
* Size: Download size is important -- especially for Cobl core.
* If there are strong differences in taste for features, then they should be optional.
* It should be easy to install/use.

So given that, and looking again at say the Lineage Elves:
* They're dark elves. So, not that different.
* They're not lore friendly. And they're anime/fan service, which is contrary to Oblivion's style.
* However, if there were truly a huge demand for them, I'd put them in (and make them optional .

So, back to bias vs. Policy. In practice, Haama and I are the ones who integrate stuff into Cobl. Naturally, we both have way more stuff that we could do then we actually have time to do; hence as a practical matter, stuff that we like/care about tends to happen first.

However, that can largely be overridden by someone else volunteering and doing the work. (E.g. dewshine for cobl food additions; Tashira Ronin for 24 hour clock option; Shawn5150 for NPC diversity.) So that can remove most of the effect of bias. But there will still be policy considerations.


So main point: Even if I have a bias against something (thong armor!), that's not a definitive "No". If it fit Cobl's goals and policy (complicated for races!), and if someone else does most of the work, then it's got a pretty good chance of going in.

Thanks Zero_Phoenix and shadowchao!

OBMM: It would be nice, but it's not close enough to the top of my priority list. If someone wants to take it on, let me know. (Keep in mind that Cobl core updates fairly frequently.)

"elves of lineage" gives two races:
1) white "lineage style" elves, which I like a much, and its mainly difrent of existing race (the nearest in Lore are high elves but diffrence is obvious)
2) "lineage style" elves hardly tweaked to be dark elves, which i don't like (not so much viewable diffrence to dark elves)
so the packages gives either one of them or both

when i said about adding lineage elves, I've fully agreed that the (2)"dark lineage" isn't really worth of work
but Wrye, you probably downloaded the bad version of this race mod, as it's amke inuse of the common public resource
so you probably downloaded "dark elves of lineage" package which is rather poor (don't contain those "white", and have numerous conflicts)

maybe I should link to the resource I think about?

PS: I said that "white lineage" aren't type of high elves, and it could be made lore filling ie. "This is ancient race of elves, came from (really) far north"
PS 2: If you really are against them, I may stop bubling about them

This is probably going to sound harsher than intended, but... meh.

You're doing it wrong - there are no arguments for the race itself. Do not assume that merely seeing a potential race will result in a mental "click", so that Wrye will include them.

You could try to trigger this "click" by e.g. explaining...
- what this race would offer modders using COBL? How can they be used in mods, which other races can't be used for?
- in what ways they are unique for a player?
- which possible lore background is there for this race (note: Better check TIL or UESP before)?
(Only for the last looks should be used - a race can look similar to something found in lore.)

These are the parts that are mostly of interest. Sometimes just looking at a race triggers this "click" automatically (e.g. me looking at Capucine's Aquamer -> "Maormer! Wheee!"), and sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, better explain what's great about the race so that a delayed "click" can happen .

Don't know what to tell ya, it took me forever too post my initial question sometime my internet connection gets tweaky where I live and my PC will go below dial-up. But things are moving fast again and I was able to find the info. So you can continue to be a condescending ass, you and your mod are on my ignore list. But thank you for taking the time to be so lame.

Regarding NPC Diversity, I played last night for the first time using the new COBL NPC Diversity merged with TNR esps. So I walked into an Inn and the Innkeeper was a Khajiit with Babe Hair. I have to tell you, I laughed a good 10 minutes straight over that one.

Now I will preface this by saying it's your mod (duh) do what the hell you want and take my opinions with a grain of salt. IMHO NPC Diversity with COBL hairs creates some situations that are either not lore friendly or race appropriate or both and just generally ruins my suspension of disbelief (though it does make for some good humor at times ).

Probably Beautiful People was like this too, but I never played that mod. I know that when we worked on Better Heads for Morrowind we were really concerned that it not be jarring like that and there weren't any hairstyles that were too crazy over the top, outside of lore or too sixy. Old Eldafire doing the Imperial Legion's laundry in Seyda Neen was not supposed to be sixy. (Wrye, you will probably be the only one to get that obscure reference since you edited that mod )

Anyhow, I think I shall go back to regular TNR, but I am certainly not going to squawk too much about some very optional esps and I do appreciate the other work you guys do.

I was talking with a friend and fellow modder back from the MW days on IM last night (he's also been bugging me to do Oblivion hairs for like 2 years now ) and said to him "Annoyance is the mother of invention" so I am going to dust of 3D Studio Max and see about trying to make some hairs. If I come up with anything presentable I'll post it. I'm snowed in today so not like I have anything better to do anyway.

Khajiit with babe hair: Well, you can blame bg2408 for that! I'm not sure that I agree with that either. But, I think that this sort of personalization is quite difficult and particularly prone to disagreement. E.g. Shingouki is doing a related project with clothes -- most I liked, others I didn't.

It might be best to move the tnr stuff back out of Cobl itself and leave it as a separate mod.

Glad to have annoyed you into going back to modelling. (Sort of. I feel like I've offered a drink to an alcoholic! Sometimes its best to not start at all.)

Actually... there's only one Khajiit with Babe hair in the original NpcDiversity, and that's http://www.tikanderoga.net/bg2408/pics/tes/rbp_npcdiversityahjazda.jpg of the Shivering Isles.

Aside from that yes, as long as there were no graphical issues, I distributed some new hair styles to Khajiit, too. It's not like there aren't any pictures available showing exactly what I did. These files are optional for a reason. Some like them, some don't. Can't please everybody . Especially since this is a "lesser of two evils" thingy. E.g. Ahjazda above, I find that more fitting than the default http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Image:Ahjazda.jpg*.

* = According to lore Khajiit do have normal hair, just keep it short in honor of the mane. They even used to send him their cutted hair. A tradition which various lore sources is said to be dieing out.