Hey all,

I'm a complete and utter noob when it comes to texturing, but the cave walls in Oblivion have always bothered me. They're shiny and gross and I'd like to do something about them. After educating myself a bit on what causes the lighting issue, I have a few questions:

• Is there any way to make particular surfaces less shiny without manually editing each specific texture?
  
• If so, are there any mods that automate the process?
  
• If not, are there any mods that tone down the alpha channel for certain problem textures? What about for common texture packs?
  
• So long as I'm careful to make backups of my backups, am I okay to manually edit the textures myself?
  
• Is it even worth the time spent manually adjusting the levels? Taking into account the fact that I'm a total texturing neophyte, how much work would I be looking at here?

To be honest, caves actually look like that; the kind of cave you take tours has been dried out due to human exposure, or has been carved out by the wind, whereas a cave that you find out in the wilderness would be damp and glossy when you shine a light inside. But if you are looking for a way to cut back the shine, my suggestion is to go into the mesh files, find the material blocks, and set it to a higher number to "focus" the phong/specular shader.

I suppose my number one problem with the caves would be the glossiness. If they were textured to look slimy, I'd be okay with it. As it stands, it just looks plastic and unrealistic.

Anywho, if I were looking to take you up on your suggestion, how would I do it, how much time would it take me, and how likely am I to catastrophically ruin my install?