DROPPED Better Beast Races (by Xenius)

[Neovalen]

Well, Dimon99 declared UNP finished as of 1.51 so not entirely sure what needs to be supported once a body is finished. Any changes as of this point would just cause issues with already built armor and cause confusion.

[Kelmych]

I used Dimon99's body replacer in Fallout 3 and Fallout NV, so it already has a lot of history and development. In the mods for both Fallout versions these were finalized fairly early, which allowed a lot of clothing/armor development to be developed that used it.

[skwareballz]

I mostly meant that dimon99 clean up the way the files are packaged so it's easier for it to be used. Plus, there is a calf muscle clipping issue with some armors that support UNP (and CBBE I think, haven't used it since pre-v3) because body mods are missing the BSDismember data for the lower part of the leg. Use Black Sacrament Armor if you want to know what I mean.

[Hyareil]

Better Beast Races has been hidden on Nexus. The author is retiring from modding.

[TechAngel85]

Some of his other mods are still up, so there might be more too it surrounding this mod and a couple other's of his. He hasn't really modded in years, though.

[Arparr]

I was following STEP for the first time and came to the point where the link pointed to a hidden mod. After reading this topic I ended up finding XCE - Xenius Compilation Pack on the Nexus and it looks like it has both Better Beast Races v2 and XCE and XCE Dawnguard in it. Will this work in place of those?

 

Since it is still up on the Nexus I'm assuming it is ok to post a link:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40305/?tab=2&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D40305&pUp=1

[Shadriss]

I was following STEP for the first time and came to the point where the link pointed to a hidden mod. After reading this topic I ended up finding XCE - Xenius Compilation Pack on the Nexus and it looks like it has both Better Beast Races v2 and XCE and XCE Dawnguard in it. Will this work in place of those?

 

Since it is still up on the Nexus I'm assuming it is ok to post a link:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40305/?tab=2&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D40305&pUp=1

This would be great - if the poster of the Mod was Xenius. It isn't. Given that Xenius just hid all of his mods, it can be fair to say he doesn't want his work out there anymore, and I imagine that mod you linked will be pulled down shortly unless he gets Xenius' permission, which he doesn't have since that was posted in 2013 and the pull down of the other mods was only in the last few days.

 

Apart from that, because all the assets are combined, the way that STEP combined them originally can't be done, as XCE was way down on the list and BBR was at the top. Maybe there isn't any direct effect in this case because they alter differing things, but then again, I'm not as technically familiar as someone like Tech.

 

Regardless, I don't think this will fly in the long run, which makes this a short term solution at best.

[Nebulous112]

This would be great - if the poster of the Mod was Xenius. It isn't. Given that Xenius just hid all of his mods, it can be fair to say he doesn't want his work out there anymore, and I imagine that mod you linked will be pulled down shortly unless he gets Xenius' permission, which he doesn't have since that was posted in 2013 and the pull down of the other mods was only in the last few days.

 

Actually, I believe Xenius' mods had open permissions as long as he was credited. I can't be certain as the pages are removed, but I have heard a few people claim that on different forums. As well, there are listed credits and distribution permissions on the compilation page. Might be worth investigating if there is an archived copy of the original Nexus pages somewhere to verify permissions.

 

I heard Xenius took all his mods down because he was tired of modding and didn't want to deal with people. Regardless, this should be a legal download unless I am totally off-base. I really find it hard to believe that the compilation has stayed up so long with so many endorsements if it was illegal.

 

How it will work with STEP is another story...I haven't looked at the compilation myself, so I can't comment on that.

[TechAngel85]

This is really getting into grey territory here. I, like Neb, think that Xenius's mods were open source as long as you gave him credit AND you notified him. Here's the two issues...

1. Xenius has removed his mods from Nexus. From this, regardless of reason, we should assume he no longer wishes to share his work. Else he could have easily just left the mods up, adjust the permissions, and turned off all the notifications for his mods and inbox so that he wouldn't be bothered. But he didn't do that....instead he removed the content altogether.
2. The second is the highlighted part above which is a stipulation of his permissions...he must be notified. If he ever leaves modding completely, there would be no way of notification. Currently Xenius is still active so this is still possible as long as his inbox isn't full.

 

With all this said, I'm sure all we'd have to do it contact him and he'd allow us to include the content in the STEP compilation. However, I'm of the opinion we should look for better replacements. XCE is years old at this point and other mods have come out.

[Arparr]

I'm wondering if I could install it multiple times in MO each time hiding the stuff that isn't part of the sequence. Like first install hide everything except BBR, then down where XCE should be hide BBR and anything else not applicable to XCE. I've never modded Skyrim before but I do have a good general understanding of this kind of stuff so maybe that would be possible if I dug into it a bit. I was concerned about substituting on my own as my first experience modding Skyrim since I wanted to get the whole Core done before I experimented myself. The loss of BBR didn't concern me as much since it only affects Argonians but XCE seems like it affects a lot so I would for sure need to replace it with something else. Please let me know if I'm wrong but I was thinking it pretty much changes most of the NPCs so that they aren't so terribly ugly (they were even ugly by 2011's standards when it came out!)

 

I've tested at each debug point and the only problem I had so far was ENBoost which I finally fixed when I realized GeForce Experience had a streaming component. I never use that stuff so never really paid attention to it. After switching that off I've had no problems. Ok I also had problems with SKUI at 2560x1080 but the only fixes I could find for that was to go back down to 2.2 which I didn't want to do so I just decided to use the old 1080p monitor for Skyrim. I guess it also clinched my decision on whether to go ultra wide 1440 or 4k on the next monitor I get - ultra wide has been to annoying to support so 4k it will be!

 

Anyway, if someone knows a good replacement for XCE that will work well as part of Core it would be much appreciated! I'll defer to someone else's experience and save my troubleshooting for whatever I decide to do once everything is up and running well through the instructions. Thanks to everyone for this STEP guide. I'm super impressed with how comprehensive it is. With the complexity and number of mods I thought it would be a lot harder.

[TechAngel85]

I'm wondering if I could install it multiple times in MO each time hiding the stuff that isn't part of the sequence. Like first install hide everything except BBR, then down where XCE should be hide BBR and anything else not applicable to XCE. I've never modded Skyrim before but I do have a good general understanding of this kind of stuff so maybe that would be possible if I dug into it a bit. I was concerned about substituting on my own as my first experience modding Skyrim since I wanted to get the whole Core done before I experimented myself. The loss of BBR didn't concern me as much since it only affects Argonians but XCE seems like it affects a lot so I would for sure need to replace it with something else. Please let me know if I'm wrong but I was thinking it pretty much changes most of the NPCs so that they aren't so terribly ugly (they were even ugly by 2011's standards when it came out!)

 

...

 

Anyway, if someone knows a good replacement for XCE that will work well as part of Core it would be much appreciated! I'll defer to someone else's experience and save my troubleshooting for whatever I decide to do once everything is up and running well through the instructions. Thanks to everyone for this STEP guide. I'm super impressed with how comprehensive it is. With the complexity and number of mods I thought it would be a lot harder.

Personally, I like Windsong's stuff. The last time I looked into it, the plugin was a freaking mess that needed to be cleaned up, but his texture work is pretty good and close to vanilla. Unlike many of the body mods out there, Windsong's actually works on vanilla assets.

[Tykune]

I am not sure how you guys feel about this, but he seems to have left his mod up on the Curse website, if you want to download and install it in an alternative way.

 

https://mods.curse.com/mods/skyrim/bbr

[Tykune]

And incase you guys wanted the link for his XCE - Xenius Character Enhancement downed mod, you can also acquire it here.

https://mods.curse.com/mods/skyrim/xce#t1:other-downloads

Click Other Downloads and XCE v1.13 is listed right there.

[EssArrBee]

Dropped for STEP v2.10.0.

 

Replaced by FAR - Forgotten Argonian Roots.