Elven Longsword Remesh 4.0

Description

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This mod is a remesh of the original elven longsword from the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Rather than a “high poly” remake this is a reworking of the mesh with a small amount of added geometry to better fit the original Bethesda textures whilst also making the overall shape of the weapon more graceful. For the fourth version I also used the original concept art to get better proportions for the guard.

Details

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If you’ve read this far there’s a good chance that you, like me, think that the original elven longsword was far too… chunky. The original version is almost comically large in all dimensions, except for having a relatively short blade. There have been a couple of other attempts to improve on it over the years, from simply just sliming it down, to complete remakes.

My version is something between a rework and a remake. The original version doesn’t really follow the texture map very well at all, and it’s very spiky and blocky, which is different to the way it looks in pre-release footage from 2006, almost as though it went through a poly-reduce script and nobody checked the result. My version follows the texture map much more closely, it’s generally more curved and less angular, especially in the wings that form the cross guard, and more in proportion with both real-life weapons and the other swords in-game. Fundamentally, this is still the same design, but I’ve cleaned it up, recalculated the face normals, and added a tiny bit of new geometry (the nif is actually smaller due to the mesh being better optimised).

So, hope you like it!

Install

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Manual:

 1. Extract the files to a temporary location.

 2. Copy files inside the “Elven Longsword Remesh” folder into your “Oblivion\data folder”.

 3. Perform archive invalidation

BAIN:

1.     Drop the archive into your “Bash Installers” folder, start Wrye Bash and go to the “Installers” tab.

2.     Select the package “Elven Longsword Remesh” and install.

Other Mod managers:

You should just be able to drop the archive into your installs folder and run the installer, then either perform your preferred method of archive invalidation, or use the SkyBSA plugin if you prefer (requires OBSE).

Incompatibility

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This mod is incompatible with any mod that replaces the elven longsword mesh. It should work with any alternate texture or hi-res replacer designed to work with the original mesh, though.

Known Issues or Bugs

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The cross-guard clips into the hand slightly, and the blade can clip through the scabbard when unsheathing. These are both vanilla bugs that I have done my best to mitigate but couldn’t eliminate without redesigning the sword.

History

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1.0  Initial release

2.0  Re-did the texture map and the normals on the blade and scabbard as I wasn’t entirely happy with the first version.

3.0  More work fiddling with the guard, also corrected a UV error that caused the mesh to split on export – saved 1Kb.

4.0  Messed around with the proportions of the ricasso after looking again at the original concept art for Oblivion, changed the way face normals are calculated for the blade to make the texture display more clearly. 

Contact

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 You can find me on Discord as “SigurdStormhand”, on NexusMods.com as “Sigurd Stormhand” or on AFKMods.com as “Sigurð Stormhand” – using an “Eth” seemed like a good idea at the time, sorry. 

Credits

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 A Thank you to the following:

To Bethesda for creating Oblivion.

To everyone at AFKMods and in the Elederscrolls Modding community, past and present.

To everyone who helped with the development of GIMP, Blender, and the Blender Niftools Plugin.

Tools Used

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NIFSkope - https://github.com/niftools/nifskope/releases

Blender – www.blender.org

 Licensing/Legal

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This mod is provided “as is” without guarantee or warranty, I take no responsibility for any damage to your Oblivion game install, your computer, your other electrical equipment etc. To the best of my knowledge this mod is free from errors and fit for use.

This mod is provided as a resource, you may use the included mesh freely in mods for TES 4: Oblivion provided you credit me. The included mesh derives ultimately from Bethesda assets, therefore you may NOT convert it for use in another game. You may NOT derive any profit from using this resource, nor may it be included in any mod which is behind a paywall of any kind. You MAY include this resource in a mod which solicits voluntary donations, provided donating is not a condition for accessing the mod or any of its component parts.

I can be reached via private message at afkmods.com or nexusmods.com, if I am unreachable by either method for more than two months you may seek permission to upload this mod to another site from the staff at afkmods.com, at their discretion. If afkmods.com is down for two months or more you may freely upload this mod to an alternative hosting site, provided that site does not operate a paywall.