Foreword:

Screw it: this is my 50th mod and I released it on the 15th anniversary of Oblivion's release.  I do what I want and I want to throw myself a self-congratulatory fireworks display.  Just skip this next paragraph if you don't want to read my self-indulgent rambling.  It's been a little over five years since I first released Worship in Cyrodiil, and my Oblivion Immersion series is still going!  2014-era me certainly had no idea what an endeavor this would morph into.  Redressing Cyrodiil as a project, though, has been a germ of an idea since the beginning, even before I released Worship in Cyrodiil.  This was a lore-mod that I always wanted for Cyrodiil, and now after over five years of low-key dreams, false-starts, and aggressive retools, it's finally here!  We've finally reached it, folks!  Peak lore-nerd! 

Announcement:

From this point on, I will no longer be adhering to my previous schedule of a mod per month during the school year that I tried to follow in previous years.  This is not to say that the Oblivion Immersion series is over, far from it!  That level of output has just stopped being fun as a working adult.  I don't know yet what my release schedule will be from now on, but I am leaning toward a few releases a year.  Redressing Cyrodiil will of course be completed before I release any other projects.

Anyway, on with the show...



Welcome to part one of the 50th installment of my Oblivion Immersion Series. 

The Colovians today still possess much of the frontier spirit of their ancestors. They are uncomplicated, self-sufficient, hearty, and extremely loyal to one another... They prefer immaculate uniforms and stark standards hanging from the ceiling of their austere cliff-fortresses; to this day, they become a little perplexed when they must visit the grandly decorated assault of color that is the Emperor's Palace.

By contrast, the Eastern people of Cyrodiil relish in garish costumes, bizarre tapestries, tattoos, brandings, and elaborate ceremony. Closer to the wellspring of civilization, they are more given to philosophy and the evolution of ancient traditions. The Nibenese find the numinous in everything around them, and their different cults are too numerous to mention.

- Pocket Guide to the Empire, First Edition

With these words were the dual cultures of Cyrodiil described back when The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard was first released in 1998 (feel old yet?).  Yet when Oblivion was released on March 20, 2006, finally showcasing the exotic and strange wellspring of the Empire, what we got was a stock medieval-Renaissance fantasy-land.  Lore nerds like me have since spent the last 15 years politely ignoring, air-brushing away, or simply being angry about how Cyrodiil was stripped of its character in favor of a design choice (which way back in 2006 probably seemed like a good one) intended to chase that Lord of the Rings money. 

But now, on the 15th anniversary of Oblivion's release, Cyrodiil gets redressed with a change of wardrobe.  This mod restores some of the cultural distinctiveness between Colovia and Nibenay, as outlined by the First Pocket Guide to the Empire, by adding clothing and assigning it to NPCs based on culture, geography, climate, and social status.  Nibenay consists of Bruma, Bravil, Leyawiin, and Cheydinhal.  Colovia consists of Chorrol, Skingrad, Kvatch, and Anvil.  The Imperial City is predominantly Nibenese but draws from across Tamriel, being the cultural and political capital of the entire Empire.  Clothing will be purchasable from in-game merchants based on region (ex. if you want Redguard clothing go to Anvil, sarong/kameez/sari in Leyawiin or Bravil, or Nordic clothing in Bruma, etc.).   

Here is a breakdown of the clothing added:

- Jewelry - earrings, necklaces, rings, bracelets, belly rings; which variously use the necklace, wrist, and ring slots
- Headgear - rice hats, face masks, hoods/cowls, Colovian fur helms, chaplets, crowns/tiaras etc.; which variably use the hair, necklace, or ring slots
- Scarves and capes - hooded and non-hooded scarves, hooded and non-hooded capes; use hair or necklace slot
- Shoes - sandals, Akaviri footwear, buskins
- Women's clothing - skirts, shirts, dresses, Akaviri clothing, sari, etc.
- Men's clothing - shirts, sashes, sarongs, pallium cloaks, etc.
- Robes - Nibenese and Colovian variants on both vanilla and modded robes, other robe types added
- Unisex clothing - Nibenese pants, sarongs, kameez, Nibenese shirts, Colovian outfits, Nordic clothing, Redguard clothing, Akaviri clothing, toga/stola,
  etc.

The mod is/will be split into several pieces:

- The Countryside, which covers Daedric shrines, farms, inns, and villages
- Colovia, which covers Anvil, Skingrad, Kvatch, and Chorrol
- Nibenay, which covers Cheydinhal, Bruma, Bravil, and Leyawiin
- The Imperial City

I have plans for women's wigs, but I am having texturing problems with them right now and I wanted to meet the 15th anniversary deadline. 
So here we are, releasing anyway, with no wigs.  Once I (hopefully) have those issues resolved, I will update the master file and the subsequent releases will need the newer master.   

I could never get the wigs to work properly like I'd hoped, so I decided to add them in as hairstyles in an optional Redressing Cyrodiil - Colovia plugin.   Most of the styles are for women, but one is unisex and one is male-only.  Gloves have also been added in v1.1.  Version 1.2 adds some new accessories and makes a few minor corrections.

Once every portion of the mod is released, they will be compiled into a single file.  Now, on with the FAQ:

The FAQ

1. But whut about muh body modz??!!!11??!!

Short answer: no.  Slightly longer, snider answer: I don't give a damn about your titty mods.  Real answer:  I made use of assets from many different sources, many of which used different body mods.  So instead of catering to one body mod in particular, and thus alienate all body mod users instead of just some of them, I decided to fit this mod around the vanilla body and use bits of body mods only as needed.  This project is already massive and I have neither the time nor the desire to refit all of the clothing to fit any other bodies.   

2. Why do some of the items clip?

Some items clip with each other due to coming from different sources.  Some minor clipping also occurs in a few items that I mashed together in Nifskope, which I reduced as much as possible.  I try my best to ensure that no NPCs wear clothes that clip excessively, at least.    

3. Are all outfits cross-sex compatible?

Unfortunately not all the clothes are.  I added the term "men's" or "women's" to the names of clothing that will only work on one gender to make it as clear as possible.

4. Why is the aesthetic so skimpy/so Asian/so scattered?

That's what happens when you rely on other peoples assets to make your mods - you work with what's available.  

5. Why didn't you use clothing from _________?  

Probably because I either didn't know of it, couldn't find a use for it/couldn't get it to work, or found the user permissions unclear/prohibitive.

Requirements
===========

Oblivion Version 1.2.0416
Coronerras Maximum Compatibility Skeletons

Installation Instructions
===================

Copy contents into your Oblivion data folder.  Be sure to be located away from any NPCs while first installing the mod, otherwise the NPC may not display the new clothing upon loading.  This should self-correct when the cell resets.

Uninstallation Instructions
=====================

Delete the added esp, meshes, and textures

Change Log
=========

V1.3:
 - adds new gloves
 - adds new shoes
 - adds new nibenese pants
 - adds nibenese style Mythic Dawn robe
 - adds crimson cowl
 - removed patterned blue cowl
 - added/changed menu icons to men's chasubles, Akaviri sandals, Redguard Crowns attire, toga and stola
 - corrected name of brown silk robe

V1.2:
 - adds new scarves
 - edits the men's belted sarongs to match clothing slot assignment
 - corrects wrist/hand clipping issues for women's colovian shirts
 - corrects spelling on the women's grey floral top
 - corrects price of nibenese green robe
 - corrects mesh assignment of Nibenese Violet Silk Robes
 - corrects alignment issues for belts on men's belted tops
 - adds new circlets
 - adds wizard hats

V1.1:
 - added gloves
 - added new hair styles
 - increased prices for colovian vests

V1.0:
 - vanilla release

Optional Files
===========

The new hair styles are added in an optional, alternative version due to the compatibility problems that adding hairstyles causes.  

By popular demand, an optional download OCO Seamless Neck Patch is available, using assets from junkacc11's Seamless - OCO v2 mod in order to reduce/eliminate the neck seams in most of the added clothing.  This is a mesh replacer only, and must overwrite the meshes from the original master file (if you are using the BSA version you may need to perform some archive invalidation).  This patch also requires two things to work: some version of Oblivion Character Overhaul (while intended for OCO v2, I could get it to work on OCO v1, but couldn't for vanilla), and junkacc11's Seamless - OCO v2.  Last, note that this not a perfect fix: neck seams are still sometimes visible and clipping issues meant some pieces of clothing couldn't be corrected, but I fixed the majority.

Not by popular demand, an optional patch for Vanilla Gear Redux - Reasonable Flavor is available.  With it, all the non-unique vanilla robes (no Archmage/Mannimarco robes) and the vanilla-style Colovian robes added by Redressing Cyrodiil now use new models.  Because these robes all cover the neck, this will work fine alongside the Seamless Neck Patch.

Incompatibility
============

This mod uses invisible quests and scripting to add clothing to the NPCs, this should ensure that this mod will be compatible with mods that also alter NPCs.  Things like Oblivion Character Overhaul and the Unofficial Patch should work just fine.  Is mostly compatible with Hemingway's Capes and Cloaks.  At worst, some of the cloaks may get covered up by clothing from Redressing Cyrodiil.

Again, this mod was not built with body mod compatibility in mind.  Redressing Cyrodiil contains assets from many different clothing mods fitted for many different body mods, so for simplicity I decided to refit the clothing onto the vanilla body, or more rarely left their body mod skins intact when vanilla wouldn't fit.  This mod is already huge and I can't be bothered to make separate versions for them.

This mod will not work with other mods that change the clothing of NPCs.  Mods like Countess by monkeyangie Skyrimesque Counts and Countesses by spaceinvader91 will in all likelihood not work with this mod, regardless of load-order.  Children of Cyrodiil has a minor incompatibility due to its pregnancy clothes overriding clothing assignments made by Redressing Cyrodiil.  

This mod will not work with mods that alter the prices for vanilla clothing, including Actually Valuable Valuables (which I made a patch for).

Known Issues
===========

BSA VERSIONS OF THE MASTER ARE NOT WORKING AT THIS TIME.  PLEASE SEE BUG REPORTS TAB FOR DETAILS.

Some items of clothing, especially those made by me in Nifskope, have minor clipping issues.  I minimized clipping wherever possible, but some item combinations simply will not play nicely together.

Not all items had their own menu icons, so I had to make use of vanilla ones in some cases.

Sometimes I had to get creative when assigning item slots to get some items to work well (ex. hats might use the necklace, hair, or ring slot) and may not be consistent across similar items.

Many of the head-pieces (hats, earrings, circlets, etc.) may cause clipping issues with certain head shapes or hair styles.  

Assets from Kafei have several problems.  The circlets are purchasable, but I was unable to eliminate the crashing issues upon the player equipping them (but NPCs wear them without issue).  The earrings are incorporated into the master file in case any mod-maker wants to experiment with them, but I could not get them to work in game and so are unavailable to the player.

The gloves added in v1.1 work when equipped by the player, but NPCs won't equip them and I'm not sure why.

Troubleshooting
=============

Feel free to come to me with questions or issues and I will help as best as I can.  That said, please bear in mind that I am a novice modder and may not be able to offer much in the way of assistance.

Credits and Thanks
===============

Thanks to:

Bethesda Softworks
TES Nexus
Nifskope
GIMP
LHammonds - Readme Generator
The Imperial Library
UESP
The makers of these wonderful resources
TES Alliance - for its texture editing tutorials
Apachii - whose mods provided a goal to aspire to, whose meticulous asset tracking proved invaluable for finding resources, whose assistance I am grateful for; and also for the guidance on wig making (even though it didn't work out)
LadyN - for her concept art, both on her Tumblr and on behalf of mods like Project Tamriel
The lore-nerds of the Teslore subreddit - who wrote of Cyrodiil as the old lore tells us it should have been
Project Tamriel and Beyond Skyrim - whose concept art and lore discussion provided tremendous inspiration
Hesinde - for recommending David Brasher's Recolored Dresses mod as a model for structuring this mod
David Brasher - for making Recolored Dresses in the first place, providing me with scripting to copy
Naihaan - for being so helpful when inquiring about their modding assets
The many, many fashion blogs that I followed for ideas

And last but certainly not least, to the many other modders, authors and fans alike, who have supported me over the years with endorsements, downloads, comments, questions, and sometimes assistance on the Nexus forums.  I never would have made it this far without you all.

Meshes and textures provided from:

alimal - Ubanga
apachii - Apachii Goddess Store
Chakaru11 - Amulets by Chakaru, TWC Dresses
chinesefire - Boa Hancock outfit
Coloma - Nibenese Clothing
Coronerra - Coronerra's Max Compatibility Skeletons
Corthian - Akaviri Japanese Clothing, Corthian Akaviri Japanese Clothing 6
demonizzer - Extravagant Masks
Exnem, CuChullain - Little Items for Roberts Female/Female Eye Candy Wardrobe
Exnem  - Eye Candy Body
ElAlquimista - Vanilla Gear Redux Reasonable Flavor
Exnem - Shadow Silk/Sorceress Outfit
Eyren - Sorceress Armors
ghogiel - Ghogiel's Armor V1.2
Gizmodian - Featherwynd - Amazon Priestess, Cruentus Veneficum
GSBmodders - rosesims hair conversions
Half-Off (GriLka) - Half-Off Circlet Set v1.1
Hepsy - Kuroco, School Days
Hidemaro - Miko Outfits C-Cup v2.3
hifoo and HISSSSA - Akaviri Samura Shop
hifoo - Vampire Stone Mask
idkrrr - sulhwa, saram, Corean mod
Jannix Quinn - Wizard Hats and Eyeglasses v1
Jimaho al Mabin/Vahiriae - Vahis Wardrobe
junkacc11 - Seamless - OCO v2
Kafeid - Kafeis Armored Circlets, Kafeis MultiPierced Ears
ken1945 - Thunderbird and Dawn Armor
Kernins_x86 - Kerns Jewelry
KURESE - R18PN 07 - Mina and Romaje Armor
Loth DeBonneville - Loth's Armory of the First Empire
Lunasprite - Lunas Quilted Outfits, Lunas Lorefriendly Elegance, Lunas Lorefriendly Middle Class Clothes, Sweater Outfits
Marcos Armengol - Samurai V4
McMuffin - Colovian Fur Helms v1.1
micalov - More Revealing Stock Clothes - UC Green Silk and Countess
Mixxa77 - Colorful Clothing-Gloves
Nailflan - Folk Dress Collection, Neck Ornament, Witch Long Dress, Faded Dress, JP Dress
Naihaan - Flower Crowns, Aqua Silk and Tattered Robes Replacer (+HGEC conversion by Asteriasennall), Elven Lord, Orcish Armor Replacer, Archmage Robe Replacer, King of Worms Robe Replacer
Najaknevrec - Robe Mesh Replacer V2
Nexxon - Nexon's Armory
nivea, RAIAR - Robert Adelina Armor
pale_rider - pale_riders Hat Collection
RAIAR, Madcat221 - HGEC Body
RGMage2 - Bamboo Barbie
Robert2 - Roberts Female Body
Ryu Doppler - RD Cape and Cloth Resource, RD - Felt Hat Style 01
soifon, CuChullain - Little Items for Roberts Female
Someone1074 - Capes and Cloaks
titipoko - Nun wimple - modders resource
Trollf, AlienSlof, XMarksTheSpot, Kikaimegami, Loth DeBonneville, Robert - Lich Gear v2
wintermuteai1 - Samurai Gasa with Ronin Class
Xiamara - New Amulets
yuravica - Hammerfell Outfits, FLY_Female_robe_remodel_replacers_compilation, UC02_03_remodel_fixed, FLY_Winterclothes, Ruin Armor

Textures only from:

Aisis - AST Royal Set, Golden Oak Villa
Argoniano, Kalikut, Zimnel - Tablecloths
Cridow - Cridow's Retextures for Clothes and Armors
Dall - Dalls_Rings_n_Amulets
David Brasher - Recolored Dresses 1.0
DavidWhiteFang - David Whitefang Table Settings - Furniture- and Random Clutter
jbvw - Vaernlor Manor
Kafeid - Elegant Vests
kevnage and Gartenzwerg - Echoes of Tamriel - CCCR - Package A
Krimsyn Kane, Kikaimegami - Scarves!
Lunasprite - Lunas Healers Robes
ORTeam - Divine Elegance, Tiber Septim Hotel, Vaernlor Manor, Gilded Carafe, Red Diamond
RileyMarks (with jbvw, stroti, Trollf, Argoniano, Zimnel, Kalikut, Side777, Laura Croft, Css0101, Grond, Xiamara, Kaizit, Exilehunter, and David Whitefang) - Static Sofas, Static Furniture
Ronin - Snow Dragon Temple v1.1
stroti - Ravenheart
Trollf - Artifacts
Wydra - Teal Robe and Hood
Xiamara - Silk Dragon Imports
Yami Elisa, Ryph - Missing Wardrobe

If I forgot to credit anyone or have misused any assets, please let me know. 
 
Licensing and Legal
================

My usual creative commons approach to permissions is still mostly in place, with some stipulations.  Translations, patches, posting to other sites, etc. of the Redressing Cyrodiil esp files are welcome and do not require permission so long as full credit is given, but I do not extend this permission to the master file.  The master file may not be altered or re-posted by anyone except me.  This is for two reasons: (1) some of the assets do not allow release to other modding sites, and (2) I don't want lots of different versions of it floating around and confusing mod users.

If you want to use this mod in part of in whole within another project (ex. add new assets to it or incorporate assets into another mod, etc.), then make your mod dependent on the Redressing Cyrodiil master file and provide a link back to its mod page.  For translators, please provide a link to the original mod page for the master file and if necessary provide extra instructions for non-English speakers.

This mod and its contents may not be distributed commercially.