TES III - Morrowind

Improved Weapon Meshes: Steel

Version: 1.3

by Pherim

Short Description:
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This is a replacer for the steel weapon meshes, which will replace the mostly quite crude and undetailed original meshes with new and more detailed versions with improved texture mapping.

Detailed Description:
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After I finished my texture Mod "Real Reflective Weapons - Iron" using Psymoniser's improved meshes for the iron weapons as a basis, I realized that if I wanted to continue with retxturing other weapon styles I would need to make new meshes for them myself, since the original meshes are mostly quite crude and have a bad texture mapping, so that even the best textures would only be so much of an improvement. So I decided that I would first create new meshes which would still use the original textures, before I would go on to create new textures for them. I wanted to stay as close to the original design as possible with them, while improving upon the vanilla versions with additional details and better texture mapping, with the ultimate goal of creating a replacer which would fit equally well into a highly modded game as well as one which is meant to stay as close to vanilla as possible.

The first weapon style which I cover with this mod, is the steel category of weapons. Apart from the steel crossbow and the oriental weapons, it contains new meshes for all steel weapons as well as the imperial swords. There are 22 different meshes in total for the following weapons and their variants:

Short Bow
Steel Arrow
Steel (War) Axe
Steel Battle Axe
Steel Bolt
Steel Broadsword (Imperial Broadsword)
Steel Claymore
Steel Club
Steel Dagger
Steel Dart
Steel Halberd
Steel Longbow
Steel Longsword
Steel Mace
Steel Saber
Steel Shortsword
Steel Spear
Steel Staff
Steel Throwing Knife (.esp needed)
Steel Throwing Star
Steel Warhammer
Imperial Shortsword

There is no new mesh for the steel crossbow since WH-Reaper's Crossbows mod already contains a very good mesh, even though it is quite different from the original design. Maybe I will provide a new crossbow mesh in the future, which is closer to the original, but until then I recommend using the one from the Crossbows mod, it goes very well with this mod's meshes in my opinion and can be used as a replacer without the plugin file.

Download Crossbows Mod: http://download.fliggerty.com/download-98-1010

The oriental weapons are not included as these are already covered by Psymoniser's Oriental Mesh Improvements Mod, which I recommend to use together with this mod.

Download Psymonisers Oriental Mesh Improvements: http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/29906/?

There are no textures included in the main part of this mod since all meshes use the texture paths of the vanilla meshes, which means they are replacer-friendly. To get the best look I recommend using Darknut's Little Weapons Mod together with these new meshes. Darknut's Mod needs to be installed before this one, since it also contains some meshes which need to be overwritten by those from this mod!
Also, as Darknut's mod does not cover this texture, I have included an optional improved texture for the steel arrow which I tried to get similar in style to the Darknut's textures. I recommend using it together with Darknut's textures.

Download Darknut's Little Weapons Mod complete: http://download.fliggerty.com/download--63

Because of a bug in the original master file, Morrowind does not use the correct mesh and icon for the steel throwing knife, but instead those from the steel dagger. Therefore I have included a plugin file which corrects this by assigning the correct mesh and icon to the steel throwing knife. It is not required for the rest of the meshes to work, but without it you won't see the knew mesh for the throwing knife ingame, so I recommend using it. If you use the Morrowind Patch Project you don't need the plugin, since this is already corrected in the MPP.

In the "alternative" folder there are additional alternative meshes and icons for the steel longsword and the steel dagger which are similar in style to the steel shortsword. These are for those people who want a little more consistence in style within the steel category or who find the original dagger design to be to extravagant for such a common weapon.

Apart from the mesh of the steel throwing star, which is a slightly modified version of the original mesh these are all created from scratch. I tried to achieve the best look possible while still preserving a rather low polycount.

Installation:
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Just exract the content of the "Data Files" folder into the "Data Files" folder of your Morrowind installation and overwrite existing files. I recommend using the BAIN installer of Wrye mash for an easier installation of the optional and alternative components as well as for an easier uninstallation of the mod or parts of it. To see the new steel throwing knife mesh ingame, you need to activate the "Steel Throwing Knife_fix.esp" in your Mod manager (corrects a bug in the original game that causes the throwing knife to use the mesh and icon of the steel dagger - not needed if you are using the Morrowind Patch Project!).

To install the optional steel arrow texture, extract the content of the "01 Darknut Style Arrow Texture" folder into the "Data Files" folder of your Morrowind installation. Do the same with the "02 - Alternative" folder to install the alternative longsword and dagger meshes. You can also choose to install only one of them by manually copying the desired file to .../Data Files/meshes/w.

Conflicts:
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This mod is incompatible with all mods that change the meshes of the steel weapons! Texture replacers work with these new meshes as long as they have the same layout as the original textures, as these meshes use the original texture paths. They are compatible with Darknut's Little Weapons mod, and I highly recommend using them together. Remember to install Darknut's Mods first!

The "Steel Throwing Knife_fix.esp" is incompatible with all plugins that change the Steel Throwing knife in any way. I recommend putting it as low as possible in your loading list and creating a Merged-objects.esp with TESTool, if necessary.

Caution if you are using my "Real Reflective Weapons - Iron" mod: If you are using the steel mace mesh from the bonus folder of the RRW mod, it will be overwritten by the one from this mod, which uses the original textures again! To prevent this, either do not install the w_mace.nif from this mod or re-extract the w_mace.nif from the RRW-Iron mod to .../Data Files/meshes/w.

Known bugs:
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None.

Version history:
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- v1.0: Original release

- v1.1: Improved bow meshes and animations, fixed mesh error on battle axe

- v1.2: Small update to fix glitch that would cause the reflection to disappear on some meshes when they were dropped.

- v1.3: Correction of wrong texture path on some reflections, new alternative mesh (wavy steel dagger)

Tools used:
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- Sketchup
- Blender
- NifSkope
- GIMP

Credits
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- Thanks to Psymoniser for inspiring me to do this mod with his own improved iron meshes
- Thanks to Darknut for his improved weapon textures, which really make these new meshes shine
- Thanks to all in the official Bethesda Forums and the World of Elder Scrolls Forums for their invaluable feedback in the WIP thread for this mod
- To the entire Morrowind Modding community for their continued efforts to further improve this fantastic game. It will never die.

License/Permissions:
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This mod may only be distributed free of charge.
Morrowind, the official Plugins and the Construction Set belong to Bethesda Softworks.
The contents of this mod are not to be redistributed without the author's permission.
When using this mod or parts of it in an other mod, the author should be credited.

Contact
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If you have any questions or Problems concerning the mod, you may contact me via the Bethesda Forums:
http://forums.bethsoft.com/user/914644-pherim/