** SOLVES COMPATIBILITY ISSUES WITH QARL TEXTURES**
========================================
Parallax cities normal maps
Version 1.1
========================================
by Blade9722

You can modify, redistribute, link, mirror this package without restriction, proivided that you give the right credits to me.

History
========


Version 1.0: July 11, 2006
= Initial Release, with normal_maps pack (33 MB)

version 1.1: July 13, 2006
= New version provides a removal script

Introduction
===============
I noticed that Rulz didn't include most of normal maps in his great mods, providing only the ones he tweaked ( eight textures).

This because the mod is using Vanilla Oblivion normal maps for all the other textures provided in the pack (Rulz confirmed this to me)

Howewer, not including normal maps could cause problems when parallax cities is being installed over other texture replacements (i.e Qarl) in order to combine the two. In this case Rulz parallax mapped textures are combined to the other replacement (Qarl) normal maps, thus resulting in higher video memory usage and/or graphical glitches.

More details
===============

Parallax cities textures are vanilla oblivion ones with added parallax mapping. Parallax mapping info is stored in alpha channel, which normally is void.

As a whole effect, these texture are using both parallax map and normal map (the two effect combines well).

I you're using Parallax cities alone, there's no problem, as Oblivion engine, not finding a normal map replacement, will use bethesda default.

The same happens if you install Parallax cities first, and then overwrite with Qarl pack (by the way, is quite useless, as almost all parallax cities textures will be overwritten by Qarl ones), as Qarl provided normal maps replacement in his package.

The problem arises if you plan to install Qarl first, and then overwrite with Parallax Cities (this makes more sense, as Qarl covers also landscape and rocks textures, which Rulz don't). In this case Oblivion engine will found Qarl normal map replacement, combining it with Rulz parallax mapped texture.

In most cases Qarl texture is simply a higher resolution replacement of Vanilla one, so you shouldn't notice any graphical glitch. The only counterpart is higher video memory usage, as using a 1024x1024 normal map for a 512x512 texure is a waste of memory resources.

Howewer, in some cases Qarl substituted vanilla Oblivion textures with completely different ones. In this case you should notice some graphical oddities, being texture pattern completely different from normal map one.

In order to fix, IMHO there are two effective strategies:

1) Overwrite Qarl normal maps with vanilla Oblivion only for the textures being replaced by parallax cities .The first version of this mod used this strategy

2) remove Qarl normal maps for texture being replaced by parallax cities. A removal (i.e. a .bat file with lots of "del" commands) script should be suitable in this case.


Description
===========
This package contains:

A script (remove.bat) which removes normal maps for texture being replaced by parallax cities.
A parallax map missing texture (anvilconcrete01_a.dds).

How to install
==============
IMPORTANT, YOU MUST FOLLOW THIS SEQUENCE!

1) Install third party (i.e. Qarl) texture replacement
2) Install Parallax Cities
3) Unpack this package into Your "Oblivion\Data" directory, using folder names
4) Double click on remove.bat files. Be sure it is placed into "Oblivion\data" directory.

IMPORTANT: this will remove the textures DIRECTLY WITHOUT PROMPTING "ARE YOU SURE?"

5) Use OBMM BSA patcher to validate the textures

If you are using parallax cities alone, double clicking remove.bat will have no effect (i.e. it will try to remove not existing files)