Oblivion Character Overhaul

[http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/43612]

OCO 1.2 is out! Refined skin textures a lot and rebuilt some normal maps. Things generally look nicer now.

OCO is pretty much the amalgamation of all the things I've seen people wishing for in terms of improvements to Oblivions' character system. It's a huge, comprehensive visual revamp of all playable races and NPCs in the game. I've built the mod from scratch only using Bethesda meshes as starting points and a few essential resources such as Throttlekitty's eyelashes.

What does OCO do?
-Splits the nonbeast races up into using their own unique headmeshes and individualized face texture sets
-Refines beast races' looks and introduces sculpted HD normal maps and detailed textures
-Elves are pushed into looking more distinct, with angular facial features, longer ears and cultural details
-Overhauls the age slider to a more gradually paced aging for all races, with prominent wrinkling overlays starting later
-Adds a large number of new face textures built out of HD photos and handpainting
-Adds facial fur pattern options for Khajiit
-Introduces black-sclera eye options for Wood Elves and more eye colours for Khajiit
-Rebuilds over 80% of Oblivion NPCs' faces to take full advantage of the new assets

-Builds on the visual canon and art direction established in Morrowind and Skyrim

-Adds eyelashes to human and elf races

-Makes creating appealing playable characters quick and effortless

I can with full sincerity say OCO completely changes how Oblivion looks and feels. All NPCs are now easier on the eyes. The ones that were previously ugly are still ugly, but I've vastly reduced the amount of plainly disproportionate cartoonishly exaggerated heads.

OCO works straight out of the box and requires no other mods to achieve the looks shown in the screenshots, but I've also provided optional extra files for neckseam compatibility textures for the more popular body mods. Unfortunately due to the nature of the mod (textures being shared between genders) some seams will inevitably be there - but I've integrated parts of both Luchaire's body seam replacer and Optimized Fagegen Files into OCO.

Compatibility notes

This is where I have some bad news. OCO is a different kind of beast than most visual mods and does a lot of things at once, so expect compatibility problems with other mods that do any of the following:

-Face texture replacers

-Racial stat modification
-Adding hair or eyes to vanilla races
-Modifying vanilla NPCs

-Altering filepaths or any other appearance features in vanilla races

Hair and eyes aside OCO is designed so you don't need to run any other vanilla-altering racemods. It's a necessary tradeoff for the degree of changes OCO does, and it merges a lot of the changes you'd usually have to use 10 different mods for. I do however strongly encourage user intiiative in making compatibility patches - I would gladly host them under OCO's files.

Going forward: OCO 2.0
Version 2 of the mod is in the works. It will take full advantage of ShadeMe's OBSE Blockhead addon and is essentially a completely rebuilt mod. Only the ESP will use version 1 work. I'm not giving an ETA as everything is subject to change and I'm going to iterate the art until I'm happy with it. Right now all the pieces are in place and the mod is fully functional - it's just art asset work now.

What 2.0 will change:

-Female and male heads will use separate model and texture assets instead of Oblivion's vanilla unisix head system

-All nonbeast races will have totally redone art

-Elves will resemble their Skyrim counterparts much more

-Orcs are getting a massive facelift with reduced mouth size (equivalent to Skyrim) and adjusted facial proportions + new textures

-Golden Saints, Dark Seducers and Dremoras will be included with totally new looks

-Beasts will be polished but will continue to use unisix heads

-3 (for the time being) new hairstyles, 2 of which will replace the conical Mer haircuts, possibly more if time allows

-Neck seams will be reduced

-Possible bigger changes to some races encompassing body textures for better looking skin colours (biggest offenders being High Elves, Orcs and Dark Elves)

2.0 preview screenshots so far:

http://31.media.tumblr.com/04a6aaf2621a63d7148b7af34c9a29bd/tumblr_msxce1Vy6X1s8q3l4o1_500h.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/f7bee23ade11a8ea2b280f2d562a6c38/tumblr_mswnn9YQb51s8q3l4o1_1280.jpg

http://31.media.tumblr.com/26c0c579a5a6c8abc43d3a9a71347133/tumblr_mswwqzcnIy1s8q3l4o1_1280.jpg

http://31.media.tumblr.com/8617af8cf8e0b7cbf6f565869bd08fd5/tumblr_mq3skrExi51s8q3l4o1_1280.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/KLYsiOF.jpg (subject to change)