[REL] Night Song Armour

[Westly]

This started as a request by Craigor to make an armour that caught his eye off of a
PES/Gamespy advert. I answered his request, and after a good-long-while, the armour
is finally released!

The armour is a Better Body light armour, with an overall rating of 7 (whereas glass has a rating of 8 )

The Armour consists of:

-Hood
-Cuirass
-Pauldrons
-Gauntlets/Leather Gloves
-Greaves/Armoured skirt
-Boots
-Shield

Additionally there is also a matching robe and cloak.
A note on the cloak: the cloak takes ip the shirt slot
so do not be surprised that when you put on a shirt
that the cloak disappears. Just F.Y.I.

PICS:
SpellForce 2 Inspiration Pic
Night Song Armour Female
Night Song Armour Male
Night Song Archers (bow and quiver by Phijama from Death's Doorstep Add-on)
Night Song Shield Detail
Night Song Robe Detail


The README:
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The Elder Scrolls III
  MORROWIND:
Westly Presents-Night Song Armour

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Index:
1. Installation
2. Playing the Plugin
3. Save Games
4. Known Issues or bugs
5. Credits & Usage

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INSTALLING THE PLUGIN

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Manual Installation:

Just drag and drop these onto the data files folder in your
Morrowind directory and they will go where they are meant to go
(except the readme). All the files are placed inside folders as marked


(become familiar with manual installations, your game will thank you for it)
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PLAYING THE PLUGIN

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From the Morrowind Launcher, select Data Files and check the box
next to the Westly Presents-Night Song Armour.esp file.

This plugin adds armour inspired by Spellforce 2 to TES III: Morrowind.
The armour can be found in a special chest in the Guild of Fighters in Vivec.
(The Armour is Light Armour, with an overall armour rating of 7, whereas
Glass armour has a rating of 8)  

The chest is found just on the right after one enters the Guild from the
Foreign Quarter Plaza entrance.  The Chest has a glowing green jewel atop
it so you can not miss it.

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Save Games

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This plugin will not invalidate your old saved games. If you save
your game while this plugin is loaded, you may encounter error messages
when you reload the saved game without the plugin. But you will be
able to continue on with the original game.


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 Known Issues or Bugs

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-The female greaves that come with this mod are meant to work with
the armour in this mod, but issues may arrise in using them by
themselves (as they make they make the groin slot dissappear when
used alone). Just F.Y.I. there.

-The gauntlet/gloves made for this armour clip with the Robe mesh
slightly. This is the case with most standard Morrowind gloves when
used with a Better Body style clothing mesh.  Mine is not the first
mod to use these meshes, so this "issue" is not a new one, but I
thought I would mention it to acknowledge my awareness of the clipping.  
Just take the gloves off if it is a bother (when wearing the robe :)).

-The shield mesh clips through the male body during the walk animation,
though not the female. The running animation works fine with the shield,
so no worries on all accounts there.

-The Hood mesh has the hair attached, so whatever character you play as,
that character will have blonde Night Song Hair, male or female.  
The style is a unisex style to balance this out.  When you take the
Hood off your hair will go back to what it was before.  I would like to
make multiple hair textures to compliment all tastes, but this would
lead to an infinite amount of choices (and so the mod would never be released).  
I kept with one style as to better emulate the inspiration character
(who has blonde hair).

-This is a Better Bodies armour, so if you use original bodies or smoother
bodies, the armour will clip horribly.


-All of my textures are High Resolution .TGA.  This means larger file sizes,
but they maintain clarity and true colour far better than .DDS files.  This is
why I use them.  Older machines may have minor difficulty with
these textures (such as the textures may blink out temporarily/occasionally).
(Just F.Y.I)
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 Credits & Usage

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Models:
Cloak and Hood by Gorg, altered by Westly
Hair Mesh by Ren, altered by Westly
Armour and Robe Meshes by Nioliv
Male Pant and Boot Meshes by Junkmail, altered by Westly
Pauldron Mesh by Joel Braddock aka Mantodea

Armour Textures by Westly
Hair Texture by Ren, further altered by Westly


-This mod and its content is not to be redistributed, sold,
or reused in other mods. Since it is inspired by another game
(though uses nothing from that game), I still want to keep this mod
contained so as to prevent any issues arrising for any other mod maker
that would want to use this mod as apart of their own.
(I am looking out for your best interest here).

For permissions and usage (for textures and altered meshes) contact:


[e-mail]


Thank you Craigor for initially requesting for the making if this armour.
Thank You! to Dave Humphrey for creating NifTexture
Thank you NifTools for NifSkope.
Thank you to the community for the continuing support.
Thank you to AlienSlof for initally pointing me down the
right paths when I first began making mods.



Questions? Comment?  

I hang around Planetelderscrolls and The Elder Scrolls Forums with my given id "Westly".  
Seek me out at these forums. Please PM if you have any questions.


DL at ElricM

Enjoy!

[Westly]

The problem, sometimes, with a release thread is, they are seldom checked for updates by everyone who
checked in on the thread the first time (though there are those that know better and do check in).

I say this because I indeed will release an update of sorts for this mod.
I received a few messages saying how they did not like the green texture of the
armour. While understanding that the original armour was, in fact, green, I still wanted
to make this armour appeal to all the players that might use the mod. So I made a quick
retex that changes the armour from Lincoln Green to Ashlands Grey. Also, with this retex, I changed
the hood hairstyle to a sleeker black version.

Here is the resulting retexture:

Night Song Armour: Alternate Ashland Grey Texture

The DL will just be textures, so you will of course need the original mod to make use of the alternate colouration.

The retex is of course also applied to the robe, cloak, and shield.

Alternate Textures Temporary Download (until I can update the original DL at ElricM)

[OldeCow69]

westly said:

The problem, sometimes, with a release thread is, they are seldom checked for updates by everyone who
checked in on the thread the first time (though there are those that know better and do check in).

Thanks Westly, I may well have missed your update following so close on the heels of the initial release.

[VagabondAngel]

Extremely well done textures, mate. Good to see you still beavering away on Morrowind content unlike some of the traitors (ahem)

[Westly]

I would not say traitor (that's a bit harsh on ya).
How about prodigal? It has a more redeeming quality
to it, no?

Well, I can never leave well enough alone, so I decided to
expand this armour further with a new
separate armour, the Dawn Song Armour set. It is a
lighter colour armour (creams and browns), that would be
perfect for Cleric or Holy Ranger types, though of course any
character could wear them. The Female cuirass in this version is
far more demure (as it covers most of the body). It seems pointless to
start a new WIP thread for this, seeing as this is somewhat related to the
Night Song Armour.

Dawn Song Armour Female
Dawn Song Armour Male

There will also be a weapon set for this armour, and I was
hoping to use some retextures of your weapons, VA. Of course I
would let you approve of any changes I make. The alterations
would be subtle, so as to better tie into the Dawn Song Armour's
colouration.


It should all be finished by Wednesday (if permission be granted).
Cheers!

[Gayla]

Looks very good Westly. I really like the addition of the hood.

[Westly]

Thanks, Gayla!
I really liked making the hood. I took Gorg's hood mesh, resized and tugged on it a bit, and then added Ren's hair mesh (also slightly altered), et voila! An update on a classic.

As for the new Dawn Song Armour:

I had thought about placing the Dawn Song
armour in a tomb and have it guarded by a
coven of sorcerers. That way, at least the
player would have to hack their way through
the summonings, spells, and NPCs to get
the armour (rather than just going to the
Fighter's Guild to retrieve it). Or I could go with
the same old deal and place the new gold chest
next to the emerald chest in the FG in Vivec.
Though, it might be better to face a challenge to
obtain the Dawnsong Armour.

What say you about how the Dawn Song armour should
be obtained?

Thoughts and reflections are welcome.

[Gayla]

Definitely in a well protected cave, possibly hinted at by finding a scroll with info somewhere.

[Westly]

Thanks for the encouragement and idea motivator, Gayla!

I think I have settled on a somewhat simple 4 tiered dungeon,
then when you get to the lower level, there is a surprise waiting (and I am not talking about the armour ;D).

This should be quick to do, as I just plan on filling the dungeon/cave with assorted enemies who increase in difficulty as one goes deeper and deeper. I hope the armour is worth this kind of dungeon, but hopefully the weapons will balance out the importance of being so heavily guarded (a full set, though not a complete set:, long sword, claymore, short sword, axe, bow and quiver, and a staff). I chose those weapons as those are the weapons that I use most frequently. I may add more, but those are the most set in stone at the moment.

[Gayla]

Sounds very interesting, I'll keep my eyes out for this!

[ibis]

Oh I can't wait for the Dawn Song Armor, I was hoping there was going to be a download further downpage.