As an old boomer of a gamer, and one who has a career in medieval history, LOVE to see mods like this, and i'd love to see you tackle other armors. Taking in the waist on more sets like you did with the steel armor. Thanks a ton for the stellar mod.
Any plans to shorten the Ebony skirt are a tad too big, IMO. I know what you're going for, and if you combine it with that old closed Ebony Helmet mod, you'd get basically the Skyblivion Ebony armor. Problem is that I'd suggest either streamlining the skirt a bit or making it smaller since right now, it makes me think of a ballerina.
I like the idea, but it'd be great to upload pictures of Iron and Ebony as well. Also, what's wrong with the Steel barbute that you made a replacement? Or is it just a matter of personal preference? If I were to edit the barbute, I'd make the opening narrower, because it's too open to be protective (barbutes already have the protection problem, but in Oblivion it's kind of ridiculous). Also, speaking of Ebony, maybe modify it somewhat to resemble the whole "Roman" aesthetic? The armour design is supposed to be Imperial, after all, but aside from the leather "skirt", there's literally nothing "Roman" about it. At least the Steel armour is inspired by real-life Italian armour.
It was the matter of preference - got nothing against barbutes personally, but I guess it just didn't go well enough with the Milanese armor style in my opinion - hence why it's just a replacer. Albeit, I will make it into a separate item when I figure out merchant lists, so you could have both options. Regarding Ebony, it never really stuck me as an Imperial design, and the leather "skirt" it has - cingulum, I think - is only present on female mesh. Male armor mesh makes me think of Anima cuirass instead. Very much a segmented piece of armor.
Here's an example - and it does appear like what Ebony would look like ideally.
Now, if we talk Imperial designs, I think that Legion armor can be improved as well, but I don't think I will be outright changing it entirely. It is a mesh adjustment mod, after all.
You are great that you make mods for Oblivion. But please, make normal chainmail already! Hundreds of armor mods, but not a single one with good chainmail armor! You can take the ready-made and transfer the armor from the "New Legion" mod to Oblivion. At least the legate's armor! The author of the mod gave permission. https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/30468
I don't have a huge gripe with Oblivion's vanilla chainmail armor as it is, bar the female variant. On its own it's pretty serviceable.
Maybe, in the future, I will try my hand on complete mesh replacers (most likely ports at first), but the scope of this mod will be just fixing vanilla shapes and pieces, where possible, to a more functional appearance.
Thanks for the suggestion, though, it will be interesting to try porting mods sometime.
Chainmail armor in the vanilla version looks pathetic. And if for Skyrim there are mods that add beautiful armor with detailed chainmail, then in Oblivion such armor looks like plasticine! In general, there is not a single mod for Oblivion that adds high-quality chainmail armor. You have every chance to become the first modder for Oblivion, who will add armor no worse than NordwarUA.
Not sure what you mean by saying that it "looks pathetic". It's a fairly plain hauberk with metal plates. Not fancy or flashy, it's just there.
Chainmail armor isn't particularly great on its own even in reality, so if I wanted to make it less pathetic and more respectable/intimidating, I'd be adding more metal plates to it, akin to the actual Ottoman plated mail, or giving it a placard, but both approaches would take the direction of this mod away.
If it's the visual clarity that you mean, I'm afraid my texturing skills aren't yet up to the task of making it look, well, beautiful.
Ah, I see. I mean, HD texture replacers could fix this issue, but in my opinion chainmail is comparatively better than mithril in this regard. The way mithril armor (which is also a chainmail) is wowen in Oblivion just... Irks me. Albeit I can't say when I'm ready to fix the texture aspects of both sets.
But you did remind me of an issue Oblivion armor has with chainmail, and that's gauntlets. Most gauntlets in the game (even plate ones, like Legion, Ebony, Daedric) have chainmail on the inner side, which never really was a thing historically. So, thanks for making me remember this issue, I'll have to fix it sometime later.
Maybe make the model a bit bulkier and add some padding sticking out from below the armour's "skirt"? That'd make it a bit more reasonable, since otherwise it's pretty obvious that characters are wearing it on their naked body (or their plain clothes, in the best case).
Actually, that's a good idea, George. I thought of making the chainmail kind of pool down a little above the belt, and maybe widen the sleeves around the wrist a little - it looks a bit too form-fitting. As in regards to the underlayer, I suppose one could've worn maille over plain clothes instead of padding, but perhaps I'll add something of the like.
The weird thing about chainmail helmet is that it's not actually a fantasy-like helmet. On the contrary, it's a functional design, except clearly made for halflings — terribly undersized for full-size wearers.
My only gripe about the reshape is how warped it looks on Khajiits and Argonians. Moreso for Khajiit. I might need to redo the egm files for their heads.
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Is this mod also compatible with HGEC C-Cup and Robert Male bodies, or is it only compatible with the vanilla body?
Also, speaking of Ebony, maybe modify it somewhat to resemble the whole "Roman" aesthetic? The armour design is supposed to be Imperial, after all, but aside from the leather "skirt", there's literally nothing "Roman" about it. At least the Steel armour is inspired by real-life Italian armour.
Regarding Ebony, it never really stuck me as an Imperial design, and the leather "skirt" it has - cingulum, I think - is only present on female mesh. Male armor mesh makes me think of Anima cuirass instead. Very much a segmented piece of armor.
Here's an example - and it does appear like what Ebony would look like ideally.
Now, if we talk Imperial designs, I think that Legion armor can be improved as well, but I don't think I will be outright changing it entirely. It is a mesh adjustment mod, after all.
You can take the ready-made and transfer the armor from the "New Legion" mod to Oblivion. At least the legate's armor! The author of the mod gave permission.
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/30468
Maybe, in the future, I will try my hand on complete mesh replacers (most likely ports at first), but the scope of this mod will be just fixing vanilla shapes and pieces, where possible, to a more functional appearance.
Thanks for the suggestion, though, it will be interesting to try porting mods sometime.
Chainmail armor isn't particularly great on its own even in reality, so if I wanted to make it less pathetic and more respectable/intimidating, I'd be adding more metal plates to it, akin to the actual Ottoman plated mail, or giving it a placard, but both approaches would take the direction of this mod away.
If it's the visual clarity that you mean, I'm afraid my texturing skills aren't yet up to the task of making it look, well, beautiful.
But you did remind me of an issue Oblivion armor has with chainmail, and that's gauntlets. Most gauntlets in the game (even plate ones, like Legion, Ebony, Daedric) have chainmail on the inner side, which never really was a thing historically. So, thanks for making me remember this issue, I'll have to fix it sometime later.
As in regards to the underlayer, I suppose one could've worn maille over plain clothes instead of padding, but perhaps I'll add something of the like.
i HATED how the f*#@ing helmet for the chain mail armor looked.
Stupid fantasy looking unprotective helmet.
Now THIS helmet looks like something I actuallt WANT to wear.
I love the chain mail set but hated the helmet, now i FINALLY can wear it all OvO
My only gripe about the reshape is how warped it looks on Khajiits and Argonians. Moreso for Khajiit. I might need to redo the egm files for their heads.