Skin-toned Mannequins

1.0 release, 4/13/10

Requires: CM Partners. COBLized version also requires COBL Races (not just COBL Core).

Download at: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31218
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=6238


* Fourteen mannequins of each humanoid race, and each six, with uniques faces.

* Fourteen mannequins total, each for Argonians and Khajits.

* Poses with sneak, weapon and/or shield raised, multiple free-hand casting styles.

* Can wear any armor and clothing, and handle any weapon and shield.

Introduction

A while back I complained about the fact that Morrowind has possessed skin-toned mannequins for all races and both sixes via mods for years, and Fallout 3 gotten them recently, too--but Oblivion only had wooden and marble mannequins. It seemed unfair. I mean, here you are, a moderately wealthy inhabitant of Cyrodil, with an enormous clutch of weapons and armor bravely liberated from its former owners, and you can't display them on a reasonable facsimile of your race/six? Magic can send you hurtling across the land, turn you invisible, and steal the souls of your opponents, but it can't do this little thing? When there was no response, I decided to actually do the mod, myself, instead of simply helping out on other people's mods, which I've done occasionally in the past.

This is the result. Skin-toned Mannequins is a hive-off of the original, excellent Reznod's Mannequins. Instead of 64 wooden and marble, male and female mannequins a piece, you'll get 14 mannequins of each six for each humanoid race (including Orcs). For Khajits and Argonians, you will find 14 mannequins, total--but I innovated just a bit, so that when you purchase any three mannequins in succession of either of these, you'll see three different faces and hair styles. I could do that, because it's much easier to come up with reasonably attractive Khajit or Argonian features in the CS, versus humanoid ones.

Skin-toned mannequins will do all that Reznod's mannequins did. That means you can:

Pose it. (Some poses will only "take" after you leave the cell and return.)
Change its facing.
Modify its inventory.
Pick it up.
Drop it, where it will assume the same facing you had.
Toggle it to equip or unequip a weapon you provide.
Toggle raising or lowering of a shield.
Order it to gesture as though casting a spell.
Cast left- or right-handed, on self, touch, or target.
Cast two-handed on touch.

Note that if you provide weapons or armor with scripted continuous visual effects, these will show up properly on the mannequins. Hotcha.

Skin-toned mannequins will not:

Fight for you, or with you.
Alert others to your crimes.
Grab your food or other objects nearby, as companions sometimes do.

Nor can you harm them. They can be purchased in the same locations as Reznod's could, which means The Fair Deal (Bravil), Novaroma (Bruma), Borba's Goods and Stores (Cheydinhal), Northern Goods and Trade (Chorrol), Three Brothers' Trade Goods (IC), Best Goods and Guaratnees (Leyawiin), and Colovian Traders (Skingrad). They cost 500 septims, a piece, but that will be higher if you aren't a master in Mercantile.


Installation

The mod uses a ZIP archive format. Simply open it with any suitable archiver. This will display two folders, COBL versions, and Vanilla versions. Clicking on either folder will reveal two ESPs. One is marked "no sleep," the other, "sleep."

If you're running COBL Races, try out the COBLized versions. These provide some nicer hair and subtler eye choices. That's the only difference. If you're not running COBL Races, stick with the Vanilla flavors.

The "sleep" versions are there to put the mannequins in a state of unconsciousness. This is because, as Reznod discovered after issuing his original release, NPCs, even NPC mannequins, will 1) sometimes make comments, and 2) will swivel their upper torsos and move their heads, to follow your progress. The sleep versions don't speak, and don't move. They also have closed eyes. If you give your mannequins helments, you'll never notice.

The "no sleep" versions have opened eyes, and are suitable for non-helmeted mannequins. They do occasionally make bland, basic comments. I've found no way to turn that off. On a 1-10 irritant scale, I give that a 1. As for the swiveling part, I like it. To me, it says that there's a bit of magic inside these mannequins I've purchased. That they've got the tiniest bit of sentience, and are following the doings of the person who owns them. So I use the eyes-wide-open version, comments, swivels, and all, even without helmets.

It's really up to you. Just take the ESP you prefer, and drag it over into your Oblivion/Data subdirectory. Check it off when you run the game, and that's it.

Once again, just so we're clear:

SkinMannequinVan: This requires only CM Partners to run. It uses that mod as a master, because Reznod set up the mannequins as NPCs who take their instructions from you.

SkinMannequinCOBL: This version requires both CM Partners and COBL Races--not COBL Balanced Races, mind. COBL Races is used for cosmetic effect. That's all.

The faces and coloration are otherwise the same. If some mannequin faces seem familiar, I did a crash course on creating decent NPC faces using some of what I consider the best mods for that purpose: the fine work of Apachii, Spiralunix, Abriel, and Ashara, to whom I acknowledge a debt. I noted down values for each of the dozens of facial structural and textural changes, then tried them out together, modified, and re-started. Nothing was copied, but some appear a clear homage to one or another modder. For myself, I'm most proud of creating the female dark elf and redguard--the latter in particular, since gamesas did a lousy job on texturing tools for Redguards. (They simply copied the Imperial settings.)


Load Order

Skin-toned Mannequins should be placed relatively early in your mod list, after patches, mods that must go early (such as The Underdark), and others that affect the environment-at-large (sound, weather, etc).


Incompatibilities

Since this mod uses the same holding cell that Reznod employed, you cannot use both his mannequins, and mine. This also goes for any of the mods out there that offer Reznod with a retexturing job. Running Skin-toned Mannequins with any Reznod variant will almost certainly result in the loss of mannequins and the items you've stored on them. I had considered keeping some marble and wooden mannequins in my conversion, but that would have meant removing some of each of the races. I'm also inclined to think that stylistically, the marble-and-wood types don't go together well with the race types. But maybe that's just me.


Removal

Uncheck the mod, and delete it. If you've run it through Wrye Bash's Bashed Patch previously, you'll probably need to rebuild the Bashed Patch again.


Final Notes

These mannequins will look as good as other NPCs, and that means having an effective facial texturing mod helps a great deal. I personally use Daikon's Natural Faces, but there are several as good out there. It's all a matter of taste. Similarly, if you want your mannequins to look more muscular and curvy (or alternatively, less muscular and more stick-like), consider different body type mods, such as Roberts, Exnem, and/or HGEC. Skin-toned mannequins will conform to the body types you choose for males and females.

On the matter of updates, don't expect any. My real interests in modding are building characters through dialog. I'm a writer. I've some elaborate dialog and items written up for a merchant, and no knowledge how to mod it, so that will probably be my next task. So unless you find some bugs in this content, that's that. Hopefully, Skin-toned Mannequins will be something you can use; and in any case, it's my way of giving back something to the modding community that has done so much to make a competent game into a fantastic one, and served all our needs for so many years. If you want to take this and use my mannequins as part of a mod of your own, I'll only ask that you let me know, and give me credit.

And I'd personally like to extend thanks to LHammonds, Showler, and Zornac, for helpful suggestions. And of course, Reznod.

What no replies!

Anyhow, 1st, thanks for this mod, it was well, well, well overdue. Having been using the new mannequins for a while now a couple issues have come to light, which weren't apparant in Reznods original. The 1st is not much of a biggie, just annoying. When changing the poses to spell casting, the poses aren't realised, but then do so when you leave the room/cell but do once you return.

The second is a little more serious. Basically, the mannequins will not equip a bow as their weapon. I've tried several different types of bow (all vannilla too) on different ones, but they just stand there, hand out holding nothing. Odd

The mod's done moderately well. There have been nearly 1000 unique downloaded alone on TES Nexus: certainly not revolutionary, but not bad for a mod about a lot of mannequins.

On the matter of updates:

Just an update on updating. I've been thinking about issuing another version of this mod, with different races, but there are drawbacks.

You see, the sheer number of mannequins is very close to the limit allowed by the game engine. If any mannequin mod goes over that limit, the results aren't good: items and mannequins themselves can and will vanish at odd intervals. This already happened in the past to one promising mannequin mod. So it's a no-go zone. I can't simply add more mannequins.

My alternatives are three in number, if I want to add more races. I can cut back on the number of mannequins for each race, cut out some races, or do a combination of both.

When you factor in that there are literally more than a dozen modded races in regular use by players, the idea of creating a second mannequin mod version with just the races everybody wants, while getting rid of the races they don't want, sinks to almost nil.

Plus, it isn't simply a matter of my typing in a few numbers, hitting ENTER, and having races replaced. There's a good deal of work involved in creating this mod. Each mannequin, each of the 240+, has to be individually added with their own reference number, and placed in the virtual space I've created in the game. That takes a good deal of time, too.

So...as I hear on a semi-regular basis from people who want the X and Y races added, and wouldn't mind the elimination of A, B, and C, all I can urge is: get together with all your friends who like the mod. If you can find 500 or more people who want the Moonshadow Elves or the Chocolate Elves or the Auriel Elves or the Tabaxi or a demonic race added, and want the Orcs, or Bretons, or Wood Elves, or whatever, removed, I'll consider doing a version that does just this. Otherwise, producing such a version is simply spinning my wheels, since it will be used by a few people, and call forth cries that I create yet-another version, and another, and another.

Oh...wow...I missed this one...glad you updated/bumped this thread...I can really use this! :foodndrink:

Regards,

Hem

Hope you enjoy it, Hem. My current character has a full selection of your salespeople's fine capes.