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Slof's Horses v2.0 by AlienSlof 
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INDEX:

*Requirements
*About this mod
*Installation
*Known Bugs & Issues
*Incompatibilities & Save game warnings
*Credits & Usage
*Special Notes

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REQUIREMENTS:
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Oblivion (of course!)

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ABOUT THIS MOD:
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Being a total horse freak, I was delighted when Oblvion had horses in it, but then was disappointed when some of them were a bit on the purple side! After a steep, and often frustrating learning curve, and getting my head around a different way of working, I made a start on dealing with the purple issue. At first it was just going to be a simple replacer, just simply replacing textures without needing an esp. This would have been a lot of effort and faff unpacking bsa's or editing invalidation txts, so I decided to go down the esp road instead. Cue more frustrations and a temporary shelving of the project (again) until I could figure it out. Doing it this way means I can provide lots of different options. Firstly, I've made the player-owned horses unique, with their own markings and colours. Where the same type of horse is sold in different places, where you purchase the horse from will have a bearing on its colour.

For example: Bruma and Leyawiin both sell paint horses. With this mod, Leywiin's horses are brown and white, from Bruma they are black and white. This only happens for the player.

I've also removed the saddles from the pastured horses, since a horse doesn't wear a saddle 24/7. They are only saddled up for the player and other riders. Unicorn and Shadowmere are unique. Player-owned horses are now marked essential (god mode!) since I hate losing them to the local wildlife!

This is the base version, playable and can be used as a modders' resource.

New in v.1.2: Meshes should now all have the correct texture paths - no more invisible horses with pink heads! Ambient lighting settings on heads now match the bodies. Horses are now gendered appropriately: Blossom, Shadowmere and Prior Maborel's horse are now mares as they are referred to in-game. Player-bought horses are now mare, stallion or gelding depending on colour.

New in v.1.3: Reins! All saddled horses now also have reins. How Bethesda left out such an important horse steering device, I don't know!

There are more files than the esp's use in this release, as each horse colour now has mare, stallion and gelding models. This is so modders can make use of them and to allow players to change the models in the CS if they want something different. Three sets of reins are also included, black, brown (to match horse armour bridles) and daedric.

New in v.1.4: Stallion models neck hole problem fixed. Saddlebag models added to player horses. Bay horse bought from Skingrad Stables is now a dun for variety. New 'extras' folder with base and essential esps with armour on the Imperial horses. Bethesda's Official Horse Armour mod is required for these to work, with the files installed. I have not supplied horse armour files to keep it all legit.

New in v.2.0:
Stallion models, unicorn models, new manes and tails, new bridle and optimised saddlebags meshes complete with new textures. Unicorn horn now has a proper point.
Imperial guard horses all have docked tails and come in different colours.
Eyes are now shiny.
Several new horse colours added and existing ones tweaked. Palomino is now a lighter shade. I've added examples of these in some of the stables.
Just one .esp now - all player-owned horses marked essential.
Meshes and textures reordered for easier install/uninstall, also set up to share one normal map for all textures of one type, reducing file size.
All horse colours and types, including the unicorn, come in mare, stallion and gelding.
Removed the extras folder as I no longer wish to support Bethesda's horse armour at this time. I have plans to make my own.

This was my first Oblivion mod, started almost before I had the game out of the box. I've learned a lot since then and this has been through several revisions, and may well go through many more, especially now I'm making meshes as well. I have plans for extra horse resource packs with new models and textures. I may also have a go at making foals for wild herds.

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CHANGING HORSE COLOUR & NAME:
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If you want the horse you buy to be a different colour/sex/long mane, short mane, etc - open the esp intro the CS, double-click on the horse you want to change and check the preview box. Now select the model tab - in here you can change things around as much as you wish. Be sure to uncheck any previous models otherwise things will be horribly doubled!

The horse's name can be changed in-game by using the console (~), clicking on the horse so its id comes up at the top of the screen and typing: setactorfullname horsename - if you want a name of more than one word, then type: setactorfullname "horse name" with the quotemarks. I could change the names in the editor, but this way allows players to choose their own names.

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INSTALLATION:
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This mod should consist of:
SlofsHorsesReadme.txt
Slof's Horses Base.esp
meshes folder (with subfolders)
textures folder (with subfolders)

Just drag all these (minus the readme) onto the data folder in your Oblivion directory and they will go where they are meant to. All the files are nested inside sub-folders marked 'horse' - KEEP THESE INTACT - the game knows to look there for them. Only use ONE esp file.

Paths for the folders are as follows:
Meshes: data/meshes/creatures/horse
Textures: data/textures/creatures/horse

READ THIS! I will not answer questions that are covered here.

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KNOWN ISSUES OR BUGS:
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If there are any bugs, let me know so I can fix them.

One issue with self shadows setting - when this is on, the horse heads glow. Why, I don't know - as far as I can tell it's something to do with the head mesh, not the game. Any horse head glows, including vanilla horses.

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INCOMPATIBILITIES & SAVED GAME WARNINGS:
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Will conflict with any mod that alters the horses. Always make sure that you back up your existing savegame file before use. Any horse mods using this resource will likely need to be updated to use these files as I have changed the folder arrangement.

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CREDITS & USAGE:
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Thanks to everyone for testing this out for me.
HappyHannah and Phoenixamon for helping me to figure some things out
The clever folks of NifTools for the amazingly versatile NifSkope which I can't manage without!
The equally clever folks who created Blender which I am now coming to grips with
Bethesda for some of their textures which I have tweaked and used as a base for many of these - and Oblvion of course!
The folks on the ES forums for providing me with reference pics for the more unusual horse types.
Thanks to Arty for spotting the problems with lighting on the horse heads in HDR. These are now hopefully corrected.
Big thanks to jcarl904 for the mare meshes.
Big thanks also to XMarksTheSpot for making me the reins and tweaking meshes!
Zira for the little pyramid mesh I used on the bridle headband - and the idea of doing new bridles!
Thanks also to MysticHybrid for the saddlebag meshes and textures, and odin_ml for optimising the meshes and making them work a bit better in-game.

New stallion, unicorn, mane, tail and bridle meshes by me. All textures by me.

Consider this as much a modders' resource as a playable mod. I don't really mind if any of this is used for or in other mods, but it's nice to be asked (I rarely say no!), and please give credit to the relevant people for the meshes where it is due. Make sure to change any filenames and ID's to avoid accidental overwrites. Please do not upload this file anywhere else.

I'm fine with this being made compatible with other popular horse mods, such as Saddle Bags or Call Steed. Indeed, I realise I can't cater to every possible combination, which is why I don't mind it being used in this way. All I ask is that I'm credited with the texturing and meshes, as I've spent many hours creating them.

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SPECIAL NOTES:
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Contact me from www.slofshive.co.uk if there are any problems.