Oblivion Question

[AlienSlof]

I went back to the old Oblivion as I had an idea for a mod to honour one of my cats. However, I must be going gaga as no mods show up in game at all. I started by adding Robert's bodies and my texture replacer, but nothing shows up. I enabled them in data files on startup but still nothing shows.

Am I losing my mind in my frail dotage or something?

[AndalayBay]

Don't forget about BSA redirection. If you use Wrye Bash, it will set it up automatically for you. These days, a lot of people prefer to use SkyBSA.

I think some other mod managers handle this too, but I prefer to use Wrye Bash.

When I went back to Oblivion after being away for a while, I forgot that stuff is invisible in the distance unless you install mods for it and rebuild the LOD!

[AlienSlof]

I'm sure I didn't have to do that before. Pretty sure I just plopped them into data and checked them off in data files on start up then they worked. I will try it though before I just write off the thing altogether.

[Vorians]

OBMM (awful program) had its own method too, if you were using any mod manager, it probably dealt with it without you even realising.

[AndalayBay]

Yeah, that's a good point. I remember many years ago when I first started using WB, I had read about BSA redirection and was going to set it up, only to find that WB had done it already.

[AlienSlof]

Wrye Bash it is then! You're right, I did use OBMM for load order and it was probably doing that in the background even though I was installing mods manually.

[Vorians]

I think OBMM called it Archive Invalidation. I hope you won't return to OBMM again today, there's still new guides pushing new players of Oblivion to use it for mod management.

[AlienSlof]

Archive Invalidation! Now I remember!  

I've just downloaded WB so I'll give that a go.

[AndalayBay]

Sorry, yes, that's what it's called. Honestly I was really hoping Vorians would jump in because I had a nagging feeling it was called something else. I think WB calls it Archive Invalidation too. It certainly creates a dummy BSA of that name.

I think it's just SkyBSA that calls it BSA redirection, which is ironic because I don't use SkyBSA.

[AndalayBay]

And while we're kinda sorta on the topic, LOOT is used to sort your load order now. They've ported the Oblivion master list from BOSS so it works with old mods too now.

[AlienSlof]

Well, put WB on but none of the mods show up still. I haven't used it before, so I have no idea what I'm doing. I should be seeing Robert's bodies withi my textures on, but I'm only seeing defaults. I can't find any reference to archive invalidation or anything else.

It's been a long time since I played this plus I've no experience of WB.

[AndalayBay]

You need to install your mods with WB. Open WB and click on the Installers tab. Drag your archives into the Installers tab. It will ask you if you want to copy or move them. Select copy and tell it to do that every time. I create archives of my WIP mods and drag them into the Installers tab as well. You can drag the packages around to install them in the correct order. So you would have Roberts higher in the list than your mod. Right click on the archive and select Install...

It will do the archive invalidation automatically. You'll know it has done it if there's ArchiveInvalidationInvalidated!.bsa in your Data folder.

Have a look at the General Readme in Mopy\Docs. Their documentation is actually quite good.

This is the Roberts I use. It has been packaged as a BAIN. When you install it, a wizard will run that will configure it to your liking.

Here's my Installers tab showing Robert's and a few other mods. If you're going to be playing, you'll want the Unofficial Patches and the various engine bug fixes mods too.

The most popular mod manager at the moment is MO2. You might want to check it out instead. I can't use it because I have several Oblivion installations set up already. Vorians can help you with that if you want to check it out.

[AlienSlof]

Thank you! I will try this! Do I need to do this every time I add a mod to keep it current? Also, how does this work with simple texture replacers that have no esp?

I'll likely just have the one WIP which is the Ragdoll Khajiit race I'm working on, but who knows how far the modding urge will take me...

I'm using the same Robert's mod with my textures on, as well as Rob's female, also with my textures on.

Edited June 8 by AlienSlof

[AndalayBay]

Just install your mods with WB and it will manage everything. That includes texture replacers and anything else. If you uninstall a mod that overrides files from another, it will automatically reinstall the files from the mod that got overridden. If you install a new version of a mod, it will detect the change and highlight the archive. It will tell you to Anneal the mod. That updates the installation to reflect the changes.

Have a look at the readme. They explain it better than I can.