This mod adds a lot of variety to the horses of the game. It pays special attention to the player horse textures.
Description
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. A version with player-owned horses marked essential (god mode!) is also available.
This is the base version, playable and can be used as a modders' resource.
Change log
This is just the base file - I'll be making other variants from this one, including a horse armour compatible version, and also one with Shadowmere as a nightmare.
Base file now has fixed meshes, so the invisible horse thing should be a thing of the past now.
1.1 - fixed an ambient lighting issue on the horse head and mane meshes and updated some textures. Also reduced shininess on the horses.
1.2 - 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. 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.
1.3 - Saddled horses now have REINS! Why Bethesda left out such an important horse-steering device, I don't know! Stallion meshes and textures tweaked to remove seams.
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.
READ THE README!