SOLVED!!! (Thanks to JDFan)

First off I must tell that I'm a noob at modding.

Now to the problem:

I've tried to retexture the red silk robes (known as robeuc01 by file name) to a blue colour. For the retexturing I've used GIMP and wacthed how it applies on the actual mesh in nifscope http://i736.photobucket.com/albums/xx9/SporeAreyan/Album%201/NifScope-RBRview.jpg?t=1283885132, where it looks fine.

In the CS I have no prolems creating the new set of robes (I do this by editing the heretic robes and change all the nif files to my retextured ones and save it as a new form with an uniqe ID), but when I try to dress up an NPC with these robes I get an error dialoge box reading:


Model Load Error in: meshes\clothes\RoyalBluerobeuc01\f\RoyalBluerobeuc01f.nif.
Will use the default object Marker_Error.NIF.

Continue Playing?
"Yes to all" will disable all warnings this session.


Then I click yes or else the CS closes itself, and then I get a second error dialouge box reading:


Could not find parent node extra data for 'BSAEmeshes\clothes\RoyalBluerobeuc01\f\RoyalBluerobeuc01f.nif'.

(Then the "Continue Playing?" stuff)


Again I click yes and I'm presented with a third dialouge box:


The bipend part 'meshes\clothes\RoyalBluerobeuc01\f\RoyalBluerobeuc01f.nif' should be scinned for 'LCD'.

(Then, of course, the "Continue Playing?" stuff)


When I click yes now I get no more dialouge boxes, but find that the parts of the NPC where my robe should be are completely invisible.

What is it that causes this problem and how do I fix it?! I've tried to solve this problem myself for nearly a week now, but I just can't seem to fix it with my noobish skills.


I have tried to create a normalmap for my texture using the normalmap plugin, but I can't seem to really understand any of it and the 3D preview is just blank, so I have instead used the robeuc01_n.dds file and renamed it to exactly the name of my retextured file with the _n to try and create a normalmap for it.
Can my problem somehow be related to some sort of inverted stuff or that the normalmap isn't linked to my texture or something? If that's the case how do I fix this?

I'm not sure about wether my texture has some sort of alfachannel or something, and I don't really know how to create one.

P.S: If it is of any relevance my computer runs Windows Vista.

(If anyone wonders: this is the second time I post this, but I had to post it again to change the title to something relevant, so that I the right people might read this, as Picador pointed out for me)

You could post a link to your nif file for inspection, that's the fastest way to receive accurate answer without any speculations.

Besides:
- if you have Vista make sure that Oblivion is not installed in default location (Program Files). If it is, just uninstall it, and install in different place (e.g. D:\Oblivion, E:\Games\Oblivion, etc.)
- make sure your nif and dds files are somewhere inside Oblivion\Data directory. Those files can't be outside of it.
- make sure that texture paths in nif start with "textures\" folder

My nif and dds files are in the Oblivon\Data directory and the textures within the textures folder and the paths are at least right when I view my retextured mesh in NifScope.

Unfortunately I have Oblivion installed in th default location Program files (Why is this bad anyway? I'd just like to know so that I may get an understanding of this).

And, this probably sound noobish but: How do I post a link to my nif?

Because Vista treats Program Files as special folder and do not allow any files to be written there from user's account. So files you create for mods are redirected by system to other folders and while Nifskope can read them the game itself can't find them. There's a workaround for this but it requires to have vista's user access control to be disabled and this lowers system protections, so it is not that recommended. The best way is to install Oblivion to other folder, otherwise you can have plenty of problems with mods.

Ok, I'll get it uninstalled and see if there isn't somewhere else I can install it that might be better suited for making Oblivion mods.

to post a link you would either package the NIf and textures into a rar\7-zip file (7-Zip is free if you do not already have a program to compress the files) and then upload theat to a file share site (like http://www.4shared.com/ or similar) so that it could be downloaded and looked over to see what the problem might be (much easier to troubleshoot when looking at the actual files than guessing !)

As for why the default location is bad is MS increased the security of the Program files folder to keep your programs from being changed by virii and the CS is not given the proper rights to make changes to files in that folder - instead it saves the changed files to a user copy of them placed in a virtual folder instead of changing the actual files(unless you turn of UAC) and that can at times create problems since the game will sometimes not find those changed files and will instead use the originals.

Ok, done here they are:

http://www.4shared.com/file/rWYfDI2H/Royabluerobeuc01textures.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/u9PoqSO-/RoyalBluerobeuc01meshes.html

Hope anyone can understand what my problem is now.

One thing I notice right away is the path in your Nif for the hood is textures\textures\clothes\royabluerobeuc01\royalbluerobeuc01final.dds (note the double textures !) Is that where the texture is actually placed or should it be textures\clothes\royabluerobeuc01\royalbluerobeuc01final.dds ? (hard to know if that is the problem since you just uploaded the .dds textures and not the texture path they are placed in ! Seems all of the paths are the same so check the placement and see if either moving them to that folder or removing the first textures\ from the pathing in the Nif fixes things ! (most likely you want to remove the second textures folder in the paths but either method would work) -- If the game is looking for the textures in textures\textures\clothes and they are in textures\clothes the game will not find them and give you the errors you mentioned so that may be the problem !

EDIT : Found another misspelling -- in the NIf path you have the folder name as RoyaBlue but the folder is probably named RoyalBlue (note the l before the B !!) so need to change one or the other so they match !! (LOL you did the same in the naming of you 2 uploads also !)

Thanks, I'll see if it helps to remove that extra texures folder and correct my spelling (more LOL on me: I have checked my filenames and such thoroughly but actually never noticed that. That missing l isn't actually easy to see is missing).

Also when I think about it, I think I've got the same with my meshes, that there's an extra meshes folder...

IF you do you'll want to move the contents of the lower folder up into the norml meshes folder (this happens at times if you unpack a mod that has a meshes folder in the archive to Data\meshes\ instead of just Data\ - and if your Nifs for your new mod are placed in meshes\meshes\ the game will not find them also so check that as well !!

Hurray! You were right! It works now! Thanks a lot

I can't believe my problem was that simple, but that just shows I'm still a noob that has a lot to learn. But hopefully I will soon.

We've all been therE and done that kind of thing -- I can remember spending hours once trying to figure out one where I had left out the i in cuirass (those i's are hard to spot sometimes ) - Glad to hear it is working now !