Happy New Year!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy new year, and new decade. My resolutions are to finish Guild Benefits: Mages' Guild (and continue the rest of the guilds) and overcome technical difficulties with Oblivion Beverage Replacer so it can finally be released.

Sicky Christmas this year.

I've got a nasty cold. Feels like someone beat my face in. Yuck! Before getting sick I was working on a central Laboratory for the Mages' Guild. Its about 80% done, need clutter. Maybe minor decor tweaks. It has a static alchemy set, small alchemy garden, spell/enchant altars (once you gain access to the Arcane University), and other goodies. Once I start feeling better I'll get working on it again.

Scripting, icons, and cleanup.

I'm at the tedious part of Guild Benefits-MagesGuild. Scripting for the fires in the Bruma room is now done. Icons for all the numerous miscellanious items are done and believe me there were way too many. Talk about tedious! Cleaned out stuff from the esp and the data folders that was not being used. Now I'm on to pricing the room upgrades. Prices can't be too high, while not just giving them away for a pittance. Pricing will likely be complete tonight, then one final conflict check against UOP.

Once all the above is complete, it will be time to do the patch for Bruma Mages Guild Restored. And finally the Arch Mages Quarters, I've already started obtaining resources for this.

Oh, and there is now a webpage with current information on WIPz Guild Benefits, minus my inane ramblings.

Vampiric computer wants my blood!

So I better explain the title of this post. My computer's power supply fried Sunday night just after I posted at ORE Forums. It shut down as though we had a power outage, but sadly it was just the computer. I bought a new power supply and installed it last night. Darn computer bites me everytime I open the case, serious! Well, the computer works fine once again and no data was lost.

Progress on Guild Benefits continues. I have the doors to the room at Bruma Mages' Guild working properly. Set up a quest and a script to switch out the doors between the pre-destruction guild and the destroyed guild. Thanks go to Darkrider for the script, which I slightly modified. It now triggers upon completion of the quest to check the guild and also if you have already completed the quest before loading Guild Benefits. A similar quest/script combo will be done to provide compatibility for users of Bruma Mages Guild Rebuilt by SSJHero.

The Mages' Guild rooms are mostly complete. Need to do Archmage's Quarters and put the finishing touches on Bruma. Next will implement room upgrade purchases for those who don't like freebees.

Funny thing, my fiance who doesn't play Oblivion has been helping me mod. And even suggested he should get a copy of the game just for modding purposes. How awesome is that? So far he has been helping with lighting and decorating advice.

[WIPz] Guild Benefits is progressing nicely.

Mages' Guild rooms are nearing completion. Done so far are Anvil, Bravil, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Leyawiin, Skingrad, and the IC: Arcane University: Mages' Quarters. Still to do are Bruma and the Archmage's Quarters. Bruma will function before and after destruction, a compatibility esp will be provided for Bruma Mages' Guild Restored. The Archmage's Quarters will be a separate esp file incase people want to use one of the many revamp mods instead.

Here is a picture of your room in Leyawiin.

The entire screenshot gallery can be viewed here.

Website Migration Complete!

Finally, the website is running and fully updated. Everything looks great.

I currently working on Flowers Resource Pack 2. Got lots of beautiful pictures from free websites. The flower side projects came about because while I was decorating in Guild Benefits, I got real tired of the same clutter over and over. What better way to decorate than with pretty flowers? But with one boquet and only 3 middle class planters, a new resource needed to be made. That's where I'm at now. Flower Power!

Flowers, a patch and a resource

Double release for Oblivion tonight. The first is a simple fix removing the green stuff from the flower petals (soon to be included in UOP Hotfix by Arthmoor.) The second is a modder's resource containing 58 new flower boquets and planters.

See the release thread here for screenshots and download links.

My Website is Borked

My site was recently migrated from Google Pages to Google Sites. I was trying to fix it up, but somehow broke it. Oops! I have a query on Google's help forum, so hopefully I can get it back. Sorry for the inconvenience.

New WIPz for Oblivion, Guild Benefits

What benefit is there to joining a guild? Besides quests and besides free loot in the guild halls that some of us roleplay not to take. Not that most of the free loot is worth anything. Being a member of a guild does not guarantee a place to sleep. Sure you can sleep in just about any unoccupied bed, but if someone is already sleeping in it you are out of luck. Nor does it guarantee access to useful goods. Guild Chests by Jagnot tries to address this, also where I got inspiration for my mod.

Guild Benefits is not going to be a cheat mod. It will do two things. 1) Provide a room with a bed and storage. 2) Adds a guild supply chest to the room with basic supplies determined useful for that particular guild.

I will be doing a regular version and a COBL version. The COBL version will have support for hunger and thirst mods. COBL version may or may not include an ingredient sorter, I haven't decided yet whether to include this feature in the public release of this mod.

For more information or to leave comments see my WIPz topic at ORE Forums.

New mod: Espless Slof's Horse Replacer

An espless replacer, meant to be used along side Slof's. Basically it takes care of any mod added horses that use Oblivion's default meshes and textures. Now they won't look out of place.

For more information and screenshots see my RELz topics at BGS Forums and ORE Forums.

Edit:
This mod has been linked in BGS Forums topic: Let's Talk Horses, Lap 2, a horse mod list maintained by Blade of Mercy.

New Tutorial Added

This morning I have added a new tutorial to my website, Guide to Backing Up Your Mods.

Words fly by like clouds in the sky...

Funny things happen when I get a migraine. As in my thoughts become more abstract, which usually means they are so uncohesive as to not be useful at all. However, today is different. My abstract thoughts actually led somewhere. A bunch of little tidbits read recently on various forums got the old gears moving, which go me thinking about my old COBLize Your Home project. See what I was thinking in my Esp Mastering topic at the ORE Forums.

Another tidbit found while purusing the forums, the Reflective Metal Tutorial which may have some clues to help me solve some problems with my Oblivion Beverage Replacer. It would be nice to get this mod moving along.

Updating My Data Files... Again

Uhg! I've been adding/removing/updating my list of mods and utilities. So much stuff has come out or changed since I last played. I also need to get modding again. Got to finish my beverage replacer and get started on my potion replacer. Got gun textures to finish. And an idea in my head forever, which involves clothing. Not sure whether to only support vanilla and Robert's Male/Female, or if I should bother with others.

An Abundance of Modding Tutorials!

I have a new pet project at the ORE Forums. I am collecting together a listing of Oblivion modding tutorials. Here is the WIPZ topic.

New Mod Diary

My old mod diary was too cumbersome so I have switched to blog. You can still view my archives here: 2006, 2007, 2008, & 2009. Blogging will be easier to update and maintain.

Lets see... I'm continuing to unpack at my new apartment, but the computer is online. Will continue to work on Smith & Wesson textures for Fallout 3 and my Oblivion beverage replacer when I get some freetime.

ORE is having a new challenge, Water Homes. Home must be on the water, no part can touch land. For rules and sign up go here. I'm getting excited for this one, we have more challengers than ever.

Also, if you haven't already check out the Bethesda Blog. For Elderscrolls 15th anniversary, you can download Daggerfall for free. There is also a new interview with Todd Howard.