Retexture request: Reich Parkeep Symbols

[Razorwing]

I would like to ask if someone would be willing to design an emblem for our fair town? The emblem would be synonymous with Baron Remo's heraldry sign (I think) and used in applicable circumstances - the castle, city guard locations, on Citydoors, and on local guard armor. That way we could solely use the existing banner, the one with the dragon emblem, for the Dragon Legion stationed in town (being modded by sandor atm).

I think it would make more sense to distinguish between the two symbols, because the Legion aren't tied to the city in the sense that a shared symbol would imply. They follow orders from their superior officers along the chain of command all the way up to the Emperor / Elder Council, and Baron Remo can't exactly order them around like he can with town guards.

Baron Remo is like a mayor, judge and chief of police all bundled into one; he controls city affairs, decides all legal matters, and directs the city guards. If a murder is committed, it's ultimately Baron Remo's responsibility to make sure it gets solved through the hands of the guards and guard officers under his employ. But if the Nords of Skyrim decides Reich Parkeep should be under their control and starts a war, it's the Legion's responsibility to make sure the city stays in the Empire's control.

If you pick up the job you have creative freedom over designing the symbol, though I think it would be awesome if it allured to the modded city in some way. Perhaps two hills in the motif, or a bridge? In either case pleeeease also create a normal map for the symbol; it doesn't just makes it look pretty, it is required in order to make the model react properly to light shone on it. An added bonus would be a specular map, tucked in the alpha channel of the normal map, although that is not required. It just makes it look even better, but the model will behave properly without it (I think).

Please save your textures with any filename you want in a new folder in "Oblivion\Data\textures\". Please name the folder "ST-xxx" where xxx is your name or anything else you like to use. Don't use a folder name that's too long, please. 1-12 characters maybe. And save the NIF in a similarly named folder but in "Oblivion\Data\Meshes\".

For the love of God, NEVER use underscores for ANYTHING!
I did that initially, and it's caused me a helluva lot of problems. See, Oblivion uses several methods of using supplementary files automatically, and that gets messed up if you use underscores in filenames. If you create a color texture, the game searches for a file named the same but with an '_n' appendage. If it finds it, it uses it, presumably with the same uvw map settings as the color map.

If you model a house, I imagine the game looks for a NIF with the appendage '_far' to render it from long distances, if such a supplementary model exists. This isn't the same as "lod" by the way. You would need to make a separate "lod" version of your model to take advantage of that effect. Or so I assume, since there are Bethesda houses with both "lod" and "_far" appendages.

So, to sum up, there would be 4 symbol-related texture jobs.
1) The city symbol on a tapestry, to be hung on walls both outdoors and indoors
2) The city symbol on Citydoors
3) The city symbol on guard armor
4) The dragon symbol on legion armor

[title]Tapestry[/title]
There's several NIFs in the game that could be used, and since no such model is used in the mod yet it doesn't matter much which you use as base, as long as it can be hung from a wall. Maybe:
Oblivion\Data\Meshes\architecture\castle\castlebanner01.nif (mesh)
Oblivion\Data\textures\architecture\castle\castlechorrolbanner01.dds (skin texture)

[title]Citydoor[/title]
A citydoor is used in gatehouses in walls. The one the city uses is the Cheydinal citydoor. The model mostly uses a skin map apart from some metal border texture that can stay the same. The skin map would essentially just need the symbol pasted onto it.

Assuming you've unpacked your .bsa's, the texture for the Cheydinhal Citydoor is here:
Oblivion\Data\textures\architecture\castle\cheydinhal\cheydinhalcitydoor01.dds

The NIF on which you can try out your retexture is here:
Oblivion\Data\Meshes\architecture\castle\cheydinhal\cheydinhalcitydoor01.nif
Don't overwrite it ; )

[title]Guard armor[/title]
This would be a more involved job, but on the other hand it also has the potential of being more fun and looking extremely cool. You also have a substantial amount of freedom over it, as long as it comes out looking like an armor one can believe is used by (Imperial) city guards. Perhaps you find a custom modelled armor set in another mod you'd like to use, or just a custom retexture you think looks cool and which you want to use as a base? Either way is fine. If you don't find one, or want to use Oblivion assets, then I would humbly suggest the armor pieces from this category:
Oblivion\Data\Meshes\armor\townguardche\

[title]Dragon Legion armor[/title]
Again, also a very involved job - perhaps even more so than the city guard armor job since you would need to lift the dragon symbol off of the existing banner and since the creative freedom isn't as great. Unlike the city guard armor, legion armor is legion armor wherever you go, and this set would need to look very similar to the legion armor from the game. Although that could also mean you'd only need to edit the Dragon symbol, make it look good as a worn insignia, and copy-paste it onto the original textures. The legion armor NIFs are here:
Oblivion\Data\Meshes\armor\legion\

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Opinions and suggestions are always welcome =)

Good luck, and thanks in advance to the artist(s) who would take it on!

[SciMuse]

might it be useful to do the unique designs as layers in the program formats of psp or ps? that way they can be used as an 'overlay' for any fabric or material? there might be a few variations, like fabric/metal/wood because the maps would not be the same. however you wouldn't have to worry about cutting them out of other textures to reuse them. just an idea.