I was looking to add a few armor mods yesterday to my game, and suddenly realized that there are now so many different codes for body types: UFF, HGEC, BAB, BBB, Robert's, LightGUTS, DMRA, TGND--and it goes on. Two or three are apparent to me by use, but not most, and I also don't know if there are any compatibility issues, such as running a ABC body, but using an XYZ armor. It seems like it might be useful to have either something like that, with visual examples and a statement of what each aims for and achieves, either in this thread, or up on the Web. If you know of something like that which is uptodate and exists, that's great! -Let us all know where it is. If you don't, perhaps we could start one up.

I just found out that Exnems is slightly different than HGEC. Go figure. I guide would be usefull. Perhaps there is a thread somewhere, I seem to recall discussions about this when people asked what body replacers to use. Perhaps a search is in order (good luck with that!).

I've found a few sites discussing different body models and offering advice, but these were all old. Many body models weren't even mentioned, and others they discussed have pretty much fallen by the wayside.

The problem is you can't really link to most of them due to advlt content rules, so discussing it become difficult.
However , I use HGEC due to being the most widely covered by all mods thaks to EVE

There are a few things to keep in mind:

1. If a piece of clothing or a piece of armor shows no skin it will be compatible with any body type. Only the shape might be slightly different than the body you're using, but no texture oddities or similar bugs. But you might get gaps, especially between legs and feet and upper body if you equip only a part of equipment made for a different body type.

2. If the opposite is true (armor/clothing shows skin) it will only be compatible if the body type it was made for is based on the body type you use. Like Exnem's body armors are compatible with HGEC for example since they both use the same UV maps. Only the shape will be slightly different. But BAB for example will not be compatible with skin showing armors made for HGEC.

3. Armors that show skin and were made for the vanilla body are compatible with any body mod, but you might get gaps where the armor connects to pieces from your body type (like HGEC hands and a vanilla type cuirass).

I'm thinking that a discussion of all these body model types, minus links, would still probably be possible. Most people know that the best source for the files is up on TES Nexus; nothing else need be said about that. So yeah, it would lack something by not showing examples, but perhaps somebody could host that elsewhere--and in the meantime, the discussion could be placed here.

Phitt, very good points. If I understand you correctly, this means that a single piece of full armor will look exactly as it's designed, regardless of the body type--correct? As long as it shows no skin, it creates the visual effect of morphing the body underneath it.

But a suit in several pieces, with skin showing, that's intended for ABC, may show tears if used on an XYZ body, unless XYZ used the same UV maps as ABC.

I was doing the same for the same reasons until a couple weeks ago, you'd be amazed how many things have been converted to UFF/RM.

The original Exnem's body and the derivative variants should be compatible, you might want to start by making a tree graph that shows the history of the common body mods.

How do UFF/RM and HGEC differ, specifically?

On a separate matter, just an observation to pass along to people changing the structures of some body mods (larger/smaller tops/bottoms): once you made the change, be sure to reinstall any skin and cosmetic mods you previously had in place, as these will be overwritten.

Or use BAIN...

I've used Wrye in many ways for some time, but never BAIN. Perhaps because of its limitations when it first appeared. I've almost always gone the manual install route, save for a few omods. Is BAIN that easy, these days?

...and again, if anybody can elaborate upon the basic differences to appearance of UFF and HGEC, we can start to compile our guide.

It makes managing, installing and uninstalling mods incredibly easy and straightforward. If I could do away with OBMM entirely, I would - not that that is a bad app, by the way... simply vastly inferior to BAIN in almost every single way. The only thing I need it for is installation of certain things (e.g., dll files) that BAIN won't touch at all. But for the vast majority of mods, BAIN will be *by far* the best option. Hopefully, soon, it'll also be capable of handling those corner cases...

Imagine never having to worry or keep track of anything whatsoever when installing, updating, reconfiguring, reinstalling, replacing, over-writing or uninstalling mods. Being able, literally, to install whatever, whenever.

BAIN'll do that for ya. :rock:

:) Yes, I am a fanatical convert. Mostly, I'm just so grateful it exists. I remember well, not so long ago, muddling through with OBMM. Eek. :ahhh:

I've not seen anything that tells me which ones replace the hands and feet, and whether they keep the wrist and ankle joint unchanged for compatibility. I know there's at least one HGEC variant that makes the wrists and ankles relatively thinner, and anything uses that is incompatible with the rest. IIRC there's really only one replacement head, and the neck seam doesn't change, so that's not an issue.

UFF is a bit more shapely than HGEC is. One of the reasons that I use UFF is that I feel like the stock clothing/armor replacer is better done and fits the bodies better than the HGEC ones do. A lot of the HGEC conversions feel frumpy or have overly large upper arms. It's not as popular as HGEC is, but that helps it, I feel. I switched away from HGEC because I got tired or sorting though all the crap that's been made for it, looking for those few gems worth downloading.

@halo112358: Where might I find some of the conversions you've done?

BAB was my favorite. More natural yet hot body too. But the conversions for clothes and armors are not complete and clipping is very common in conversions.

Robert Female is good, but the focus is to not modify much the reference of the default body, same thing for clothes and armors.

HGEC have the goal to be hot. I don't like the great number of sub-variations, but the EVE group help with a full, complete and very well done conversions of clothing and armors. Making this the best combination for a feminine look for Oblivion.

I do not tried the UFF, I don't find a download to a complete set of conversions of clothing and armors of the game for this body.

TGND is good to, the ideia of small hands is good, but I think it need a bit of continuation.

The whole body theme in Oblivion is very limited because of the way it is implemented in the game. I really hope that for TES5 there will be several body types in game and an option to include more.
I'd love to see some hot female characters with jiggly boobies, but I'd also like to see fat imperial officials, hunched and skinny beggars, old women... etc. etc.

I haven't done any personally, but I've found TFF replacers for most of the things I use on the nexus. Have a look these file ids over there:

12073
12910
12207
12108
25130
26477

That should get you going for a vanilla install with a full tff/uff replacement pack. I'd link direct, but some of them show skin and OH LORD WE MIGHT SEE nipbleS WHILE WE'RE HACKING THINGS TO BITS WITH AN AXE. Ahem.

Ah yes, TGND, the girl next door, is one of the latest (and one for the girls, by the girls) releases
As its Luchaire baby it means that, 1) it's going to be VEY well done, but 2) slow to cover everything cos its ONLY Luchaire who doing it
However, a quick Nexus search provides 4 pages of hits!

So is TGND less curvaceous than, say, UFF and HGEC--or even Exnem? Is it more fighter like than the fighter configuration for HGEC?

And how does BAB compare to HGEC?

Well as its based on 'the girl next door', it is much less curvey/ani/hentia like that HGEC and UFF. Very realistic/normal everyday girl, which is the point. Probably quite similar to robert's femail.

See, that's the thing. A person might be looking for a female body type in the game and wonder, "What's the difference between TGND and Robert's Female?" I'm hoping we can gather enough material so that at least we have a clear compendium of what each body type's goals are, and how each differs from the rest, in sufficient detail to answer questions like the one, above.

I'm sort of novice at using and managing mods. I use OBMM and have installed WB - but am just beginning to look into what WB and Bain can do. So here are my simple observations comparing the wonderful body mods of HGEC and BAB:

I play a young wood elf and it seemed appropriate for her to be rather petite and slender rather than looking like a buxom Nord.

I started with HGEC using B cup and slender hips. Naked, she looked fine. My problem was that all the HGEC outfits seemed to all default to D+ cups. My girl got tired of putting an HGEC outfit on over her slender HGEC body, then looking down and seeing boobs instead of toes. Lol. Also, she had kind of big hands and feet.

So, I changed her to BAB. She looks almost as good naked (less hourglass shape and less detail to her 'girly bits'), but has delightfully petite hands and feet. Importantly, when she dons a BAB outfit, she still looks slender and petite like a wood elf should.

EVE HGEC comes with armor/clothing replacers for C, E and EBE E-Cups.

You must be a guy B cups are smaller than all of those, so Acadian's PC still wouldn't be able to see her feet As far as the game is concerned, A cup is the smallest and H cup is the largest. In a practical sense, anything larger than a C cup would actually require back support - boobs are heavy, guys!

Yes, I'm a guy. I mainly wanted to point out that it doesn't come with D cups conversions only, but rather with several options.

This is what I should have really mentioned in my 1st reply to the OP (and the reason Arkngt is God and I'm a pleb)
The EVE project has varieties of clothing and armour to match the differing body types. Plus it has these for Frans, FCOM, OOO and Warcry :dancing banana: