Ships Made Simple 1.1

                 Ships Made Simple
                              A Modder Resource Package

One of my favorite things to mod in Oblivion have been the ships, especially since
there wasn't much to start with. The lack of diversity in the vanilla game really left
a blank canvas for me to experiment with. As with other things in this game, there
are challenges that need to be dealt with.

The biggest being how many individual pieces one has to manipulate into place in
order to assemble even one ship. This resource pack was an attempt to simplify the
process somewhat while working on a personal shipping mod project.

While it took some time to assemble unified meshes, the time it saved over the long
run was well worth the effort. I thought for others who wish to make custom ships,
this may help alleviate some of the hassles I experienced.

**NOTE: This is one of my older files which is due for an update. It all works but had
                some elements needing improvement. I made a unified collision model for
                all of the vanilla ships. Then got sidetracked, misplaced the files, and never
                got back to it. Will finish updates after moving all my stuff over here.

Details

To give a better example of what this does, lets take a look at a basic ship assembly in
the construction set. The Serpent's Wake for example is a basic ship design. It consists
of these pieces:

1. BloatedFloat01.nif (hull)
2. MainDeck01.nif (main flooring, stairs, door frame, etc.)
3. ShipCabin01.nif (rear upper deck, windows, some trim work)
4. MainMast01.nif (masts, sails, rope, rigging)
5. BoatSideRivets01.nif (these are the side planks with the big rivets) optional decoration

So for even a basic ship there are five separate pieces that have to be properly aligned
when placing them in the CS. Not horribly difficult mind you, but tedious to assemble and
not have unsightly gaps. Ship interiors are even more demanding. The basic ship interior
consists of potentially as many as 20 pieces.

Consider the time to retexture all these pieces for a custom ship, place them individually,
align them to eliminate gaps...you get the picture. What I have done is assemble the bits
into a single mesh. Making them much easier for the modder to deal with. Now you need
only drag one item into the CS window.

Some of Mr Siikas ship models have also been simplified and in a few cases bug fixed.

Contents

1. Full meshes for basic vanilla ship, vanilla pirate ship, and Bloated Float. Also interior
    cabin meshes for each.

2. Full mesh for Mr Siika's Cog ship which includes an integrated door frame and helm.

3. Full mesh for Mr Siika's Corvette ship with the misaligned pieces fixed. Nephenee13
    was kind enough to fix the problems for me, she gets full credit for the fixes. 

4. Full mesh for both versions of Mr Siika's Nordic Longship.

5. Full mesh for four versions of Mr Siika's Elven Galley Hull 02 which includes a cabin
    door frame on the rear deck and a separate door mesh which previously didn't exist.
    Most modders were using an ayleid ruin door for this ship. I borrowed the idea and
    retextured it to match the elven ship wood. Added a door handle, and small window.
    There is also a retextured floor hatch and ladder for the interior.

6. Improved Elven Galley interior 01. The original had no steps or door frame leading to
    the rear deck of the ship. I've added those elements in so one could place a door and
    have it not look ridiculous.

7. Full meshes for several versions of Mr Siika's Imperial Galley. For those who haven't
    seen it, this is a BIG ship. 

Install

These are resources only. It is assumed that the end user knows how to use them.

Credits

Bethesda                     - for Oblivion and the CS
Nifskope and GIMP     - for the tools that made this possible.
LHammonds               - for the read-me generator this file was based on
mr_siika                      - for the Better Ports resources some of these are based on
Nephenee13               - for the fixed and optimized Corvette mesh
stroti                            - for the blackout texture used on the door frames
me                               - for various fixes, textures, and time it took to assemble this stuff

Legal Stuff

These materials are being distributed as a free to use Modder Resource package. Use in
your own projects requires no additional permissions, so long as appropriate credits are
given, to all parties listed. Please do not upload to other sites without my consent.