Better Bodies & Playable Children Question/Concern

[keving]

Hello, everyone.  I just recently discovered this web resource and it is fantastic!  I have played Morrowind since it came out, but I just started to try mods this week for the first time.  I was very wary of mods, but they seem awesome.

I like the Playable Children mod very much.  I have incorporated quite a few mods now, but I keep debating over the Better Bodies mod and associated clothes/armor changes.  My primary concern is that using BB will negatively impact the Playable Children mod.

On the Playable Children page, I think Emma wrote that BB clothes can change female child bodies into adult bodies.  I usually play a male character, so that wouldn't affect my character usually, unless it also applies to male children.

Should I assume that ALL BB related clothes/armor/wearable stuff will change the child bodies into adult bodies?

Can I also safely assume that the BB option of nudity does NOT apply to the child characters?  Can I assume that the child characters always have their underwear on?

If BB doesn't affect the child characters at all, unless you put BB stuff on them, then I am less concerned.  Although I thought I saw that some BB mods replace vanilla stuff with BB stuff.  That would seem bad if you need to dress your child character in vanilla stuff to keep their bodies from becoming distorted or disproportioned.

I am really just hoping that someone who has used the Playable Children mod and BB mods can tell me what negative impacts there are to even see if it is worth having as an option.

But I also don't understand mods that well.  If I download the BB mods and don't like the results, can I just turn them off in the data files and all the clothes/wearable stuff goes back to non-BB stuff?

Thanks for any information or advice!

[jgf]

I have not used Playable Children, but Better Bodies makes such a difference in Morrowind I doubt you would ever want to remove it. BB nudity would not affect the Children mod.

Playable Children adds its own meshes and its own clothing, I do not think BB would interfere with this unless you tried giving BB clothing to the children (mesh is the 3D model of the basic body, clothing designed for that body is essentially replacement meshes for the clothed parts of the body, for example a shirt would replace the upper torso and arm meshes with ones having clothing but sculpted to fit that body; so giving adult clothing to a child would replace the child body mesh with the adult; but this is not permanent, removing the clothing will revert the body to its default). This is why you will find numerous add-on clothing mods specifying whether they are for default, BB, or Seamless bodies; you cannot "mix-and-match".

I also assume you have read this page- lovkullen.net/Emma/kids.htm - there are extra clothing mods for the children.

[keving]

Thank you so much for your reply! I did see the page you refer to above, but it looked like I didn't need to download anything else because the additional clothing mods appeared to indicate that the newest version of the base mod (Children of Morrowind) already contained them.

I guess one thing that confuses me is that I have only used the Playable Children mod for a few days, only reaching Balmora, but it seems like all the default clothes and armor that I put on my Nord male child looked normal. I haven't found any new children's clothes yet to try. I was concerned that maybe a child race couldn't wear everything in the default game, but maybe the only problems exist with the added BB clothes and armor.

I finally decided to download the various BB mods to give it a try. Still trying to figure out if I got everything set up correctly. The Better Heads mod gave me an error at download so I still need to keep looking for that.

I am also getting a bunch of warning texts when loading the game, I think all associated with the Ebonheart Orphanage mod. It is all about missing or can't find dialog or something being empty. I had managed to get rid of all those warnings once, but then I added a bunch of new mods and they came back.

I am trying to use Wyrm Mash and Mlox to try and keep everything straight. It seems to help. I have a couple of mods that I would like to use, but Mlox warns of something called a GMST or GSMT and dirty stuff. I haven't figure out how to fix that yet.

Thanks again for your reply. I appreciate the help.

Also, I noticed that Emma has a bunch of head mods. I am wondering if I should download those if I can't get the Better Heads to work. Or maybe it is good to download them anyway?

Thanks!

[jgf]

There are numerous head/hair replacement mods available, so you may want to try several to see which you like best (Emma's are very nice); in general (always read the docs, lol) you can mix-and-match these, if two or more replace features on the same npc the last loaded will take precedence.

Here is a good article on GMSTs - www.mwmythicmods.com/argent/tech/gmst.html

Wrye Mash can repair some of these, proper load order can render some a "non-issue", and in a few cases they seem to have no effect in the game.

[keving]

Thanks again! I was able to use another mod to clean all but 1 of the .esp files. For some reason, one is being stubborn. I am trying to figure out the last issue from my other post before testing out the mods in total. I am curious to see what the BB mods look like.

Thanks again!

[ghastley]

While most head/hair replacers are interchangeable, the McKom heads have the ears included, so don't work well with hair that includes ears, and the opposite is also true. If the hair was intended for mcKom heads, it won't have any ears.

Many head mods are just texture replacers, and work with vanilla meshes, or require another mod to replace those.

I could only find rigged hair (i.e. longer styles using bones other than just head) for McKom's, so I made a few of my own, but haven't published those yet. If you like long hair, that may be an issue.

It's possible to run with different races using different bodies, so if you want BB on Dunmer, but Roberts on Orcs, that can be done, but you'll be making changes in the CK to get there. E.g.



This was done for female Orc only. All other females were regular wimpy.

[blockhead]

Aug 4, 2017 20:41:49 GMT ghastley said:

While most head/hair replacers are interchangeable, the McKom heads have the ears included, so don't work well with hair that includes ears, and the opposite is also true. If the hair was intended for mcKom heads, it won't have any ears.

Many head mods are just texture replacers, and work with vanilla meshes, or require another mod to replace those.

I could only find rigged hair (i.e. longer styles using bones other than just head) for McKom's, so I made a few of my own, but haven't published those yet. If you like long hair, that may be an issue.

It's possible to run with different races using different bodies, so if you want BB on Dunmer, but Roberts on Orcs, that can be done, but you'll be making changes in the CK to get there. E.g.



This was done for female Orc only. All other females were regular wimpy.

Gulp, I wonder if perhaps too much is showing there?

[keving]

Looks a little disproportioned to me. 😜

Thanks for the replies. I have experimented a little and now I am torn. I now have a bunch of BB related female clothing mods that I would really like to try out. But I also want to play a child race. I have confirmed that BB doesn't change the Playable Children bodies so that is good.

I am struggling between a male Nord child or a female Nord adult.

And I do like the BB changes. I wish I hadn't waited so long to try mods. It took multiple days and I still can't use the orphanage mod, but everything else is awesome!

Thanks!

[jgf]

Aug 4, 2017 22:32:47 GMT keving said:

...
I am struggling between a male Nord child or a female Nord adult....

Morrowind has so much depth you can play over and over as different characters. Eventually I further extended gameplay by limiting my characters to joining just two or three factions, so I didn't do everything, or even the same things, each game. Also adding character quirks spices up the game; play as a "good" person - you cannot steal anything or kill anything that isn't absolutely required by the game (of course this negates joining the assassins' guild); or have your character be an obsessive collector of one item - blue lanterns or silver spoons or exquisite belts, anything at all - but they must have every one they find, buy it at any price, steal it, leave better loot in a cave in order to carry their collectible home (they can always return for the other stuff, of course).

(My Redoran Orc built a tower of blue lanterns in the Balmora plaza, level by level from an original ring of about a dozen, soon he had to levitate to add more levels, soon the frame rate hit from this wondrous site brought my old computer to its knees. ...interesting bit of Morrowind physics - stack numerous items, remove those at the bottom, and the rest remain suspended in mid-air.)