» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:56 am Abstract
Because there are several improvements to vanilla horses in Oblivion, using more than one of those horse mods at a time can break functionality of another one.
This project proposes an integration of new ideas with some of the most popular vanilla horses improvements: horse equipment, (re)textures and behaviour (AI).
Introduction
I started modding after dev_akm's attempt to bring the AlienSlof's textures to OOO. Even then, I thought it could use some more work and started my Ulrim's Horses mod. It added more compatibility pluggins for other mods. Later, when I started knowing more about Qarl's Harvest and the ability to "heal" horses by feeding them with hay, I had the notion that it would take more that compatibility patches to make the mod fully compatible with the vanilla horse mods repertoire out there. At the time, Maboroshi was still working on his latest horse saddle bags, with dynamic speed adjustments. It was getting more and more difficult to cope with the scripting involved to make the compatibility plugins for the more complex horse mods I had been playing with. I decided to leave the Ulrims Horses mod in a halt and started working on a personal vision: horse equipment you could carry in a custom bag (to pack each type of horse equipment), equipable on any vanilla horse you own (anywhere and anytime), with custom horse AI, horse commands and ability to name horses. This, of course, using AlienSlof's textures and fully compatible with the
Essential improvements can be divided into horse equipment, (re)textures and behaviour (AI). With this in mind, being one of the most popular of the essential improvements, AlienSlof's Oblivion Horses is, most often than not, considered by modders when they add compatibility patches. For those who purchased the Official DLCHorseArmor Plugin, several beautiful horse armor re-textures can be found at TESNexus or other modding sites. However, these new textures usually replace the default ones and you get no diversity. This is where Horse Armor Revamped saves the day. Besides those armors, different and new forms of horse equipment are already available, i.e., by another talented modder: Zira. So far, so good. But it gets even better when Maboroshi released his Saddle Bags. These mods could be easily considered the basis of vanilla horse improvement. But wait, where's horse commands and AI? Apart from overhaul-centric mods that add new diversity to animal behaviour (such as Martigens Monster Mod), the cherry on top of the essential horse improvement list would be the ability to give commands to your horse. There are a few - but none flawlessly compatible (that I know of) with the other vanilla horses mods, so we get to sense those certain trade-off doubts again.
Speaking of trade-offs, as you know, there are several mods that improve vanilla Oblivion horses. Each one of those mods was made by a different modder that envisioned a different improvement. However, when using mods that change the same thing at the same time, some features of the mods are overrided. This is why some modders usually make compatibility patches, allowing several mods to work together.
Every time a new idea comes up, usually in the form of a mod, compatibility patches have to be done again. To help mitigate the effort that has to be made, this project welcomes the participation of people interested in making a mod that integrates work already done by talented modders, with new ideas and improvements for the vanilla Oblivion horses.
Motivation
Making or adding patches for texture mods is not so hard compared to more complex mods. But even then, there is no mod out there that lets you have customised control of your horse, while at the same time being able to equip and un-equip your mount on-the-go, with several choices of armors. There is also the bonus feature that, since you don't have to use other horse mods that change vanilla horses, it is currently compatible with any mod out there.
Oblivion Horses Revamped project is my intention to end the essential/popular horse mods incompatibilities; a centralized place to provide all-in-one horse equipment handling and commands. Also because, in my opinion, these are the hardest to make compatible with simple patch add-ons for multiple mods due to scripting and other modding techniques involved.
(Some may say it is sort of a "COBL" version for horses.)
Problem
Although there are patches that allow AlienSlof's textures to work in other mods, it gets more serious when complex mods appear. It is hard to blend mods such as Maboroshi's Saddle Bags because of the scripting involved. Horse Armor Revamped had a patch for Maboroshi's at one time or another, I believe. Creating patch add-ons for a mod like "The Horse Gear Bags" for different mod combinations would require much more effort.
Talking about the copyright issues, I had to make different copies of the original DLCHorseArmor meshes to use the respective textures for each of the vanilla armor retexture. I don't know how to pack the mod like, i.e., Horse Armor Revamped, so it can be legaly distributed. The re-textures are also done by known talented modders and since this mod was built for me I haven't asked for their permission yet.
Then there are the current limitations of the mod. This mod only works with vanilla horses. Support for Maboroshi's Saddle Bags involves more planing and thinking and I simply do not have time to do it alone. It is feasible but requires a certain level of expertise and cunning to make it elegant. The horse hay feeding should not be very hard though.
Approach
The objective is to achieve the reunion of the essential improvements I have talked about (horse equipment, (re)textures and behaviour (AI)) with the idealised horse gear bags.
On the technical side, since it is already a working mod, the "building blocks" of the mod are already set. A knowledgeable modder should have very little effort digging in.
Adding or tweaking some custom AI - such as drinking near water (a-la MMM) - should be easy.
Mods that add new equipment (namely, horse armors or armor re-texturing) should be integrated in this mod for the sake of simplicity (also because it's the way it was meant to be). Authors of armor re-texture and other horse equipment are welcome to contribute to this project.
Results
The mod is built uppon integration with several mods that alter, in a form or another, the vanilla horses. The end result is a tight integration of several pieces of work made by talented moders. The best part is that it works well and wihout hassle. The worst part is that without "manpower" help, I cannot release the mod or continue the work on the mod's limitations.
Conclusions
After a couple years, here I am with this concept. This is where you can help me. There's a lot I don't know but I don't have the time to support this alone any more. If you help me finish this project, it won't make Planet Earth a greener place, but you get the opportunity to customise your
Other considerations
Even though the mod "just works ™", there are a few wishes I always had in mind in terms of "immersion" and completeness.
These are: adding merchants to sell the armors (the horse gear bags just drop in front of you as of now and the command switch is "delivered" to you as it is... LOL!).
