So I've been playing around with NifSkope, learning how to manipulate meshes and their textures based on this http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Morrowind/NifSkope_Alchemy. I use this http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7151 that adds shields to the Royal Guards in Mournhold. It's a retexture of the iron shield, and it looks great, except the back of the shield is still from the iron texture. Makes the guards look like they painted iron shields! So I used NifSkope to change the texture to match the front, and it looks great!

Using this http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7024 I'd like to reskin the iron shield into some wood shields. The images come 350x350 .jpg. I scaled them to 512x512 and converted them to .dds. When I apply them in NifSkope, everything looks great. However, in the game, the shield appears as a textureless mesh. I'm guessing there is something else I need to do to the image files to make them work in game.

Can anyone offer advice?

you might need to make sure when you save it as a DDS file that it is DTX1, DTX1a, DTX3 or DTX5. if it's not specified than the game wont show it

Thanks! I reconverted the .dds to DTX1 and it works!

It seems there's more work to do, the shield texture is leaving a black border around the edge of the shield . . .