Difficult to Understand

[ray0071]

If I could make a suggestion it would be to make the guide easier to understand.  

Example:  2.B Clean the Update ESM - I got stuck on it because what the instruction were stating was not what I was encountering with Mod Organizer.  

 

When someone knowledgeable creates a guide, they can tend to skip over details which they assume others know.  For those who rely heavily on the guide, this is a huge problem.  

 

To be clear - I appreciate the work everyone has put into this project.  Huge respect to all of you.  My comments are just my own personal views/feedback.

 

RayT

 

[ray0071]

Before I did anything that might ruin all the work I put into getting through the STEP guide, I wanted to run a few things by you guys.

 

I like to have more eye candy in the game.  Better shaped females, better texture etc than what there is now.  To be clear though, not looking to have naked women running around in high heels.  (that is totally immersion breaking).  

 

From my understanding this requires adding new models and textures.

Some have suggested I remove XCE, but I read that one could install body and texture mods (i.e. CBBE) after XCE - as long as the face textures were excluded.

 

At this moment, I am considering these mods: CBBE, Mature Skin Textures, and Women of Skyrim.

 

Any advice/insights is appreciated. 

Thanks!

 

Just discovered this thread:

https://forum.step-project.com/topic/4772-nsfw-step-female-body-replacer/page-2

Edited September 11, 2015 by ray0071

[n0mad23]

@ray0071 - I went UNP but don't ask me why, as it was fairly arbitrary.  Our aesthetics seem to be fairly parallel, and skimpy armor just isn't going to work for me.  

 

Good news - in my experience so far, I've had no issue with my UNP NPCs using regular armor (however, we're in STEP so my armors are amedianborn variants) at all.  I've really been quite delighted with Maevan2's Mature Skins as the pores/blemishes, etc. tease out that "realism" that I'm really digging.

 

BTW - FNIS Sexy Moves is configurable with MCM to prevent NPCs from swinging hips unreasonably while wearing armor which is good to note if you include something like this.  I use it to add some variety to the walking animations, but have the 3 "sexiest" walks disabled and have the MCM menu set to use the moves as sparingly as possible.  Honestly I still find some of them to be a bit over the top, but am enjoying seeing a bit of diversity in movement.

 

I'm still scratching my head over XCE as well.  Currently I've got it disabled all together as every file was being overwritten anyway by one of the UNP files coming after it.  Several mods DO SAY that there will be texture conflicts when using XCE in conjunction with CBBE or UNPs but I personally haven't experienced this.  This is not to say it's not an issue, rather I haven't experienced it.

 

Definitely play close attention to the recommended load order in the descriptions of whatever you use.  I found this to be extremely important for avoiding neck seams, gray face bug, etc.

 

Hope some of this helps.   Cheers.

[ray0071]

Thanks for the tips.  Curious, does UNP comes with a vanilla model and if so is that the one you used?

Edited September 11, 2015 by ray0071

[TechAngel85]

True, but the chance to rename is still there - when you create the folder. Since the Mod name on MO is taken from the Folder name, viola. Mod Named. It's more a matter of keeping track of which installation goes in which folder than anything else.

I thought about that when replying, but came to the conclusion that it would muddy the instructions and create more steps so I went with the archive approach instead.

[n0mad23]

@ray0071 - I think the dimonized unp female body is what's going for "vanilla" if I'm understanding things.  That actually was the one I started with but replaced it with Mature Skins as the same meshes and textures are done.  I just really prefer the textures with Maeven2's work.  

[Greg]

Before I did anything that might ruin all the work I put into getting through the STEP guide, I wanted to run a few things by you guys.

 

I like to have more eye candy in the game.  Better shaped females, better texture etc than what there is now.  To be clear though, not looking to have naked women running around in high heels.  (that is totally immersion breaking).

Since you seem to have your STEP profile all configured and working now, do this from within Mod Organizer:

1. Click Configure Profiles to open the Profiles dialog
2. Click your STEP profile
3. Click the Copy button
4. Enter a name like STEP Customized or STEP Extended Customized

This creates an exact copy of your current STEP profile. Now in the Profile dropdown just above the left pane, select the custom profile you just created. You can now feel free to add and remove any mods you want without worrying about clobbering your STEP profile.

 

If you get to a point where you want to pull your hair out and start over, go back into Configure Profiles, select your custom profile, and click Remove to delete it. Now you can copy your clean STEP profile back to a new custom profile and start fresh.

 

This is a really nice feature in Mod Organizer and the profiles use very little disk space. Just make sure you do all your customizing in the new profile instead of the STEP profile.

[n0mad23]

Best advice ever - make alternative MO profiles before experimentation/testing.  Something I always do but somehow forget to mention when giving advice.  (face palm moment).

[ray0071]

Ran into a funny problem.

 

Started new game.  Wagon got stuck at the gate.  Turned right up on its side.  

Dialogue continued, but when calling the prisoners nobody could get into the fort.  

We just stood outside it.  Thief was looking at me, and I thought - you are lucky, you actually made an escape. lol

Nothing happened beyond that.  Had to restart.  

 

Loot is showing an error however:

• An error occurred while parsing the masterlist: More than one entry exists for "BetterBreezehome.esp". This probably happened because an update to LOOT changed its metadata syntax support. Try updating your masterlist to resolve the error.

 

Any ideas?

Edited September 11, 2015 by ray0071

[TechAngel85]

Carts flipping is usually a havok issue which is caused by vsync not running or not capping your framerate if you choose not to run vsync.

[ray0071]

Okay, so the improvements seem to have worked.  Big thanks Nomad.  

The Mature Skins Mod comes with an ESP file, so I did the following:

 

1. Ran Loot.  That caused the Dual Sheath Redux ESP to go before the bashed patch.  I moved it so it came after.

2. Rearranged the files after bashed patch to the following order:

• Bashed Patch
• Dual Sheath Redux
• Dual Sheath Patch
• DynDOLOD

3. I then rebuilt the bashed patch (just clicked rebuild - in Wrye Bash. Nothing else).

4. Ran Dual Sheath Redux Patch in MO.  Moved contents from the override folder to the DSR output folder.

5. Ran FNIS in MO.  Moved contents from the override folder to the FNIS output folder.

6. Regarding DynDOLOD - do I have to do anything with it again?

 

A few other details:

When running the game, I start it in MO via SKSE.

 

Also I did not delete XCE.  I just let installed UNP over it.  Then Mature textures which is compatible with UNP over that. 

Edited September 12, 2015 by ray0071

[TechAngel85]

No need to rerun DynDOLOD unless you've installed things that require new LODs. Character replacements do not fall into that category.

[echo451]

I find that FNIS Sexy move is a bit too dainty. Still better then males and females having the same animation.

 

Mature Skins looks better then the plastic that comes with some skin textures. UNP, CBBE, pick one. 

Unless you're using a custom skelly, they appear to be about the same. 

I can't comment on fit. So far in my very limited testing things look ok.

 

The custom profile is always a good idea. What I do is copy my working profile when it reaches some state. Core or Extended for example. When I remember to.

My current problem is managing my different skyrim{perf}.ini settings. I have been playing with the different setting.

 

I managed to create a DynDOLOD setup that had textures in places where textures should not be. A High elf commander in the opening scene flying into the air and not being at his post. I know it was DyndOLOD or the mess I made that caused the problem. Removing DynDOLOD fixed the problem. I copied the Profile with the intent if tracking down what I had done wrong. 

After making a profile copy, everything worked correctly. I was using a High setting when I created the DynDOLOD LOD.

 

I dislike problems. What I hate even more is when a problem disappears and you appear to have done nothing.

Something changed. I was using the intro sequence so each run was a new game.

 

The new DynDOLOD guide is precise. I think I can now do the procedure in my sleep.  

Given some of my strange results perhaps I have.

 

Good work on the guide.  Great tool.

[Shadriss]

I thought about that when replying, but came to the conclusion that it would muddy the instructions and create more steps so I went with the archive approach instead.

Fair enough - TBH I figured mine out as a shortcut after I realized how the mods were stored. At the same time, the archive method DOES require a person to know HOW to archive, and while that's almost a given piece of knowledge, it's not a certain thing. Although, if you don't know how to, you prob shouldn't be in this guide at all anyways... :)

 

EDIT: Just realized how much like a jerk I sounded in that last bit... sorry, but I'll take the hit for it this time.

Edited September 12, 2015 by Shadriss

[TechAngel85]

Fair enough - TBH I figured mine out as a shortcut after I realized how the mods were stored. At the same time, the archive method DOES require a person to know HOW to archive, and while that's almost a given piece of knowledge, it's not a certain thing. Although, if you don't know how to, you prob shouldn't be in this guide at all anyways... :)

 

EDIT: Just realized how much like a jerk I sounded in that last bit... sorry, but I'll take the hit for it this time.

Nah, that's the truth. 7zip or another archive tool is basically required for proper modding.

[Shadriss]

Truth != Not A Jerk For Saying It That Way.