Hi,i'm new here and want to recolor the steel shortsword purple
i downloaded gimp but dont know where to find the correct file to open.
If i recolored a weapon can the originial still exist or will all steel shortswords be purple?
All i want to do is recolor so is that meshes or textures?
Please tell me how i find the file(s) i need to use.
Thankyou!
-Kitty_Pisces

You'll need both if you don't want all Steel Shortswords to be recolored. You want the textures to change the color. Specifically, you want Steelshortsword02.dds for the texture. Recolor that and save it under a different name or save over the original.

Hi kitty !
you will need to unpack the bsa's - the sword model is in Oblivion - Meshes.bsa - edit the sword model (nif) in gimp or nifscope or 3dsmax (I know few on modeling), assign a new texture to it and save it as a new nif (mypurplesword.nif) - then make a mod, make a new sword (by copying the steel shortsword), assign the new nif you made to it and place it in game - bingo

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/GIMP:Retexturing_Oblivion
linky ^

Simple tutorial for retexturing for tes4 using all free programs. This is the one that taught me how to do it =]

good luck!

I always get that the size is too big and needs to be smaller

What program is giving you this error and what is the exact error message? :read:

This and what size are you making the textures ?

500x500

That would be the problem -- for dds formats you need a texture that is a power of 2 on both sides (ie. 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048) because in game they use mip maps which are downsized versions of the texture (Oblivion uses 4 levels of mip maps) for various resolutions as you approach\walk away from items - so the texture must be divisible in order to create these downsized images properly (since you can not draw 1/2 pixels) --- try resizing you image to 512x512 instead of 500x500 and it should save properly !! (NOTE: some programs will allow textures that are just divisible by 4 and not just powers of 2 (ie. 756x756, 500x500, etc.) but other programs will have problems with non power of 2 dimensions so best to stick with them where possible !! (and IIRC Oblivion is one of the programs that restricts them to powers of 2 )